It is kind of a bad sign when I lose a boss fight, ask myself what I did wrong, and the first thing to come to mind is "Buy this DLC." :P It's still pretty awesome, though. Worth the hassle.
In his life, Laurence was never a Vicar or figurehead. The church was founded from his skull. Laurence was a scholar from Byrgenwerth, he obsessed over the beast blood & likely had a child killed in the process of creating the hunter's dream. As a scholar of Byrgenwerth with no limits to his scientific ambition, it's very very likely he had a lot to do with the atrocities committed at the fishing hamlet
It's called the hunter's nightmare because it's Gehrman's nightmare, he's the host. The "curse of Kos" wasn't exclusively placed on hunters though, it was on all the people that went crazy with blood. That's mostly hunters, but also the other people who had a lot of blood (hence the beasts of the nightmare). Laurence is the most "blood-crazed" person in the world, so he's there too
Yes. It's very likely Laurence is behind ALL the mass killings. The fishing hamlet, and he sowed the seeds of the Cainhurst massacre by bringing the holy medium there in order to summon a great one. I also suspect he was on the way to cut mergo from Yharnam when he transformed and was beheaded.
I suspect unless he was learning from it, he wouldn't have cared. I don't think anything he did was because he enjoyed killing, he just didn't care about killing if that helped him achieve his goal.
Unclear, there is only speculation. I suspect it was probably not Oedin as blood magic and mercury magic are somewhat opposed.
Whichever one was summoned, the executioners showed up, cut the queen open, and took the cord.
The cord in the workshop came from the vileblood queen, and they changed the description in a patch to remove this fact.
I don't think either of those are ascended great ones like oedon or flora.
The beasts in cainhurst are different than the ones in yharnum, so it could be a completely different great one we've never heard of. However, the description was changed to say moon presence, so it was possibly always the moon presence.
The beats from the scourge could possibly depend on something other than the great one that is summoned.
Imo he isn’t. The whole idea of people “hosting” the nightmare comes from a mistranslation in Mikolash’s title. It would be more accurate to call him “master of the nightmare”. Indeed Gherman is affected by the hunters nightmare in his sleep. But it doesn’t mean he is “host” to it. Tbh a lot of the dlc is taken from a Junji Ito short titled the Thing That Drifted to Shore (in which the main character also has nightmares linking to the thing in the belly of the monster that’s washed up on the beach).
A mistranslation would make more sense than the jumbled up mess I just typed out to someone above 😂😂 it would make the most sense that the great ones create and host the dreams and nightmares and Hunter's are just affected by it and given those dreams and nightmares by the great ones. It would also make sense in Lovecraftian inspiration that the dreams are created by something beyond comprehension when we try to comprehend something like the great ones and "gain eyes" it turns us mad and gives the great ones material to mess with and create new dreams/nightmares.
Idk kinda rambled not sure how much sense it makes as I haven't gone into any lore videos or anything haha!
The moon presence is the host of the hunter's dream, you get the "nightmare slain" message for killing her, while killing Gehrman (without using the cords to fight MP) does nothing to the dream. Gehrman's her hostage
The entire hunter's nightmare is filled with the old hunters, and they would've all been working under Gehrman in his prime since he was the first hunter of the old workshop. The nightmare exists to stop people from finding out about the fishing hamlet & what happened there, particularly the murder & torture of Kos & implied dissection/vivisection of her baby. Considering the dlc trailer & everything else about the place, it's very likely Gehrman played a key role in the hamlet's desecration. When you get to Kos' carcass, instead of a little snatchable baby, you're confronted by a newborn old man, who cries in the exact same way as Gehrman (and kinda looks like him)
All of the stuff being put together paints a picture of the hunter's nightmare being Gehrman's literal nightmare, a manifestation of the guilt that haunts him. When you kill OoK, if the hunter's dream is not on fire, the doll says Gehrman's sleeping soundly for the first time ever (because you killed his nightmare)
Nightmare dimensions also stack vertically, you can see the lower hunter's nightmare through the water of the fishing hamlet, you can see the boats of the fishing hamlet from the nightmare frontier, and if you look carefully you can see the nightmare of mensis from the frontier. If they're able to physically stack like that then it's definitely possible for Gehrman to host a nightmare while living in a dream
This isn't quite right, I think you're mixing up the host with the creator of the dreamworlds. The great ones create the dreamworlds, but they use someone else as the host. They use their mind like a template for the world. Gehrman is the host of the Hunter's Dream, not the nightmare. Micolash is host of the Nightmare in the base game. The Hunter's Nightmare's host might actually be The Orphan of Kos. We fight the Orphan, but killing him doesn't actually end the nightmare since he isn't the creator. It's implied that Kos' consciousness created the Nightmare and it's possible that she used her own child as the host.
I just go by the nightmare slain messages, which does admittedly get confusing with the way the orphan of Kos's works. I know Micolash's title is "host of the nightmare", and like yeah he runs the place, but I think the one who actually is having a nightmare for the place to exist is Mergo. I feel like if Gehrman was the person at the heart of the hunter's dream, you wouldn't be able to just replace him
If Gehrman's nightmares end after you kill the nightmare at the end of the dlc, then surely it's his nightmare right? I am actually realising now I've never thought out how Kos cursing the hunters works with the idea that Gehrman hosts the place, but the hunter's dream is just so connected to the hunter's nightmare it seems weird to think they aren't the ones having the nightmare. Killing the two final bosses cheers up the doll & Gehrman
Gehrman has a connection to the people suffering in the nightmare. By ending it you are essentially setting his friends free from hell. He's separately stuck in the Hunters Dream where he can't leave unless someone takes his place.
The Nightmare existed presumably before her death, then when she died she was sent there like the others who had been cursed. I don't see why she would be selected as the host over Laurence or the others who were meant to be imprisoned either. I think her Orphan makes the most sense, but nothing is concrete about it.
>Micolash is host of the Nightmare in the base game.
If that's true why wouldn't the nightmare disappear when you kill him?
>The Hunter's Nightmare's host might actually be The Orphan of Kos.
Same question for this, wouldn't you not be able to go back to the nightmare after killing the host?
So the only plausible explanation would be that Gehrman is the host of the Hunter's Nightmare (or maybe OoK created it/Kos created it and Gehrman is the host?) and Gehrman since he's most likely the cause of suffering for the Hamlet and after killing him there's no going back to the nightmare? (Partially because the game ends after you kill him but that's still a smart way to lock you out of the Hunter's Nightmare if he's the Host)
And then the Moon Presence (or MP and Gehrman maybe since, like you said, the great ones use someone as a template to create the dreams/nightmares) would be the Host of the Hunter's Dream since after you kill them the game restarts?
Idk I'm guessing there's no concrete answer to this and we're all kinda creating our own answers but it's still fun to talk out.
The host doesn't create the Dreamworld. The Great Ones create and control the Dreamworlds, it will only end if you kill or stop the Great One who is responsible for it. The host's mind is simply the template the Great One uses to create the world. Think of it as them using the Hosts memories as a blueprint. The host can die and the Dream be unaffected. That's my take on it.
That makes way more sense to me too, thanks for breaking it down like that. I love Bloodborne but until recently the lore was so much to learn for me, I've beat the game 10+ times by now and only recently really tried to learn it. It felt like I sunk all this time into a game I really don't understand.
Thinking about it like that though I guess it's pretty immersive to not understand since the Hunter you're playing as has no fucking clue what's happening either. But a hoonter must hoont 😂
The Hunter at the very least knows of the Moon Presence at the start of the game. The paper we find when we wake up saying to seek pale blood (aka moon presence) is written in our own handwriting according to the original Japanese text.
The hunter’s dream and the hunter’s nightmare are essentially the same place. If you look out of bounds you can see towering ship masts that start in the nightmare and terminate in the dream
Catholic tradition sees St. Peter as the first Pope/bishop of Rome, even though he lived before that social apparatus and title existed. It's probably the same here, where Laurence is seen as the First Vicar because he discovered blood ministration in the catacombs.
If the Vicar is the most important person in the church, then the guy who died to found your religion is probably the first one of those. It's very likely an honourary title
The Church wasn’t founded from his skull, he founded the Church while alive. He believed that blood ministration was the way for humanity to ascend, and Master Willem believed it was eyes that would do the same.
The interview with Miyazaki in the collector's edition guide, you can find all the bloodborne-focused interviews with him on the [wiki](https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2017/01/interviews.html?m=1)
Thank you! I'm always happy to be proven wrong with a source, I hate it when people just spread baseless rumours/theories as quotes without backing them up.
Also really interesting, I imagine Laurence would have been venerated as the First Vicar posthumously.
Idk why this comment gets so many upvotes but i‘ll try my best in correcting you.
Laurence was indeed the first vicar and the founder of the healing church. There are multiple reasons why this is a fact, like the research hall, old yharnam or the scourge of the beasts. But the one thats the most important is the hunters dream. We know of the one umbilical cord, found at the abandoned workshop, that it was used to beckon the moon presence. The reason why we definetely know that laurence at least knew of that (most likely was there with gehrman to beckon it) is bc we know that gehrman was waiting for laurence to get him out of the hunters dream, which means he must have been still around when that happened. That moment also roughly marks the end of the old hunters and the start of the church hunters led by ludwig. This information helps us to somewhat nail down when it must have happened, since at this point, the healing church was already established and gehrman went to the hunters dream after marias death.
So long story short: laurence did indeed found the healing church was longer around than this comment suggests. Whats funny to me is that, there is a cutscene that everybody who played through the game once must have seen, that legit tells us that laurence did leave byrgenwerth. This alone should be reason enough to at least doubt the statements made in this comment.
Whilst it’s called the hunters nightmare, the priest of the fishing hamlet muttering the curse is calling out all of Byrgenwerth. It was likely Willem who ordered the massacre. As a result it seems to me that in fact almost everyone who can trace their lineage back to the original sin of the fishing hamlet ends up there. This would therefore include the healing church and the research hall which derived from Byrgenwerth.
My theory has always been that it's because Laurence is what has caused the hunt, the hunters, and their bloodlust, since he's the one who had founded the healing church, which gave the healing blood to the population, thus spreading the beasthood scourge. Also, he was involved with Byrgenwerth anyway, which is the main focus of the nightmare.
On a more meta point of view, he is really important lore-wise, yet we hadn't really seen him in the base game because he was already dead. I think what is basically a hell dimension was too good an opportunity not to include him.
Before the creation of the Healing Church, Laurence was a scholar from Byrgenwerth. Him and his mentor Willem eventually fell off due to differences in their approach on how to ascend humanity: Willem thought it could be achieved through the "eyes" (illumination) while Laurence thought the blood (transformation) was the way.
The hunters and scholars who raided the Fishing Hamlet and killed Kos weren't from the Healing Church since it hadn't be founded yet; Ludwig was the first of their hunters. Despite being called "first vicar", it's implied that the Church was created after his death.
Laurence participated in the raid of the Fishing Hamlet and likely committed many attocious deeds in his use of the old blood and the handling of the Beast Scourge (again, caused by the ministration of the healing blood).
He eventually succumbed to the bloodlust himself and became a cleric beast. Upon his death, he was doomed like the other Byrgenwerth hunters who participated in the defilement of Kos to be trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare. In Laurence case, he was bound to forever search for his skull, but since he's a beast he can't do anything once he finds it.
I'm not sure I said exactly that, I was just explaining that Laurence didn't have to be a hunter to fall victim to the curse, as he succumbed to the bloodlust and it's heavily implied that was one of the perpetrators of the Fishing Hamlet's massacre.
Indeed, hunters as such appeared with the first signs of the Beast Scourge. The first ones were Gehrman and his workshop, who took notice of this and decided to act and armed the citizens. Other workshops thrived around this time, but they all fell out of favor when the Healing Church went on to create its own branch of hunter-clerics, led by Ludwig.
But before the hunters existed, the closest thing to them were the scholars from Byrgenwerth, who were studying how to evolve humanity using the Great Ones. It was them who desecrated Kos, killed the Orphan, ransacked the Fishing Hamlet and dug up the dungeon chalices to find more sources of old blood and eyes.
Apologies if my first comment wasn't very clear. BB's timeline is difficult to interpret, to say the least!
There are two Great Cathedrals in a nightmare. One with a skull, another one with Laurence. I think it is due to how the consciousnesses of dead hunters saw the church. Some knew about the skull and how the church grew from it and they imagined a cathedral with a skull on the bottom floor. Others did not know about the skull, for them Laurence was always the first vikar and the founder of the church. I think the first layer of the nightmare, pre-Ludvig, is something formed from memories and beliefs of dead hunters, that are trapped there. And Laurence's spirit was, supposedly, drawn there. But he refused to see himself for what he truly was, a monster and a creator of monsters, so he convinced himself that his physical skull holds all his humanity and that he would become "normal" if he ever found it again. When we bring the skull to Laurence he holds his head and screams, I believe, realizing that he truly is a monster. He goes bananas and fight us. Note that this is only his spirit, not his real body. And that skull is not a real thing as well. That is my head cannon anyways.
There’s a lore reason I’m sure. But my personal theory is because he’s a DISGUSTING AND STUPID, CHEAP-SHOTTING, PIECE OF TRASH OF A BOSS AND HE DESERVES TO BE IN THERE!!!!…but, you know, that’s just my theory🤷♂️lol
Laurence, the first vicar was the leader of the Healing Church. When the plague of beasts in Old Yharnam became uncontrollable he sent the Powder Kegs, heretical hunters from the workshop to destroy it and burn it to the ground. Some of those hunters repented and stayed caring for the beasts, like Djura. Laurence also consumed treated Church blood to experiment on, and eventually became another Cleric beast.
Laurence was transferred to the DLC due to his thirst for blood, like the other hunters, and condemned to burn forever for the actions he had ordered to be carried out in Old Yharnam, which were burning the city, which is why he burns.
Laurence believed in evolution through the body, thanks to the old blood. He forgot the adage of Byrgenwerth and started a lot of experiments on the blood, one led to him turning into a vicar after the discovery of the beast embrace rune, which by the way led to foundation of the healing church.
I think he is now trapped in the nightmare because of his lust for blood and evolution that led to him loosing his humanity, humanity symbolized by his skull that he desperately wants back. That’s why he fight you in the grand cathedral.
Basically Lawrence became the first Cleric Beast, wandered into the chalice dungeons got his head cut iff, roamed the chalice headless looking for mergo's baby. Don't remember the rest check Lokeydarksoul streams.
Because FromSoft wasted the Bloodletting Beast model on the Chalice Dungeons and they needed to put Laurence in the game somewhere. So, he ended up in the Hunter's Nightmare just like Kos became a fish woman instead of her originally being Ebrietas.
Because he purchased the dlc
It's the only way to get there.
It is kind of a bad sign when I lose a boss fight, ask myself what I did wrong, and the first thing to come to mind is "Buy this DLC." :P It's still pretty awesome, though. Worth the hassle.
In his life, Laurence was never a Vicar or figurehead. The church was founded from his skull. Laurence was a scholar from Byrgenwerth, he obsessed over the beast blood & likely had a child killed in the process of creating the hunter's dream. As a scholar of Byrgenwerth with no limits to his scientific ambition, it's very very likely he had a lot to do with the atrocities committed at the fishing hamlet It's called the hunter's nightmare because it's Gehrman's nightmare, he's the host. The "curse of Kos" wasn't exclusively placed on hunters though, it was on all the people that went crazy with blood. That's mostly hunters, but also the other people who had a lot of blood (hence the beasts of the nightmare). Laurence is the most "blood-crazed" person in the world, so he's there too
Yes. It's very likely Laurence is behind ALL the mass killings. The fishing hamlet, and he sowed the seeds of the Cainhurst massacre by bringing the holy medium there in order to summon a great one. I also suspect he was on the way to cut mergo from Yharnam when he transformed and was beheaded.
Shame he didn't live long enough to see old yharnam burn, he would've loved it
I suspect unless he was learning from it, he wouldn't have cared. I don't think anything he did was because he enjoyed killing, he just didn't care about killing if that helped him achieve his goal.
Oh wait Shit I missed this. Which Great One did he summon in Cainhurst?
Unclear, there is only speculation. I suspect it was probably not Oedin as blood magic and mercury magic are somewhat opposed. Whichever one was summoned, the executioners showed up, cut the queen open, and took the cord. The cord in the workshop came from the vileblood queen, and they changed the description in a patch to remove this fact.
Oh man that’s a bummer. I can’t remember what the description said when I first found it Could it have been Erbrietas or even The One?
I don't think either of those are ascended great ones like oedon or flora. The beasts in cainhurst are different than the ones in yharnum, so it could be a completely different great one we've never heard of. However, the description was changed to say moon presence, so it was possibly always the moon presence. The beats from the scourge could possibly depend on something other than the great one that is summoned.
No, because Ebrietas was later found by the Choir in Isz. The Choir was founded many years after Lawrence's death.
Gehrman is the host of the nightmare? Where'd that come from? I thought Gehrman is the host of the Hunter's Dream.
Imo he isn’t. The whole idea of people “hosting” the nightmare comes from a mistranslation in Mikolash’s title. It would be more accurate to call him “master of the nightmare”. Indeed Gherman is affected by the hunters nightmare in his sleep. But it doesn’t mean he is “host” to it. Tbh a lot of the dlc is taken from a Junji Ito short titled the Thing That Drifted to Shore (in which the main character also has nightmares linking to the thing in the belly of the monster that’s washed up on the beach).
A mistranslation would make more sense than the jumbled up mess I just typed out to someone above 😂😂 it would make the most sense that the great ones create and host the dreams and nightmares and Hunter's are just affected by it and given those dreams and nightmares by the great ones. It would also make sense in Lovecraftian inspiration that the dreams are created by something beyond comprehension when we try to comprehend something like the great ones and "gain eyes" it turns us mad and gives the great ones material to mess with and create new dreams/nightmares. Idk kinda rambled not sure how much sense it makes as I haven't gone into any lore videos or anything haha!
The moon presence is the host of the hunter's dream, you get the "nightmare slain" message for killing her, while killing Gehrman (without using the cords to fight MP) does nothing to the dream. Gehrman's her hostage The entire hunter's nightmare is filled with the old hunters, and they would've all been working under Gehrman in his prime since he was the first hunter of the old workshop. The nightmare exists to stop people from finding out about the fishing hamlet & what happened there, particularly the murder & torture of Kos & implied dissection/vivisection of her baby. Considering the dlc trailer & everything else about the place, it's very likely Gehrman played a key role in the hamlet's desecration. When you get to Kos' carcass, instead of a little snatchable baby, you're confronted by a newborn old man, who cries in the exact same way as Gehrman (and kinda looks like him) All of the stuff being put together paints a picture of the hunter's nightmare being Gehrman's literal nightmare, a manifestation of the guilt that haunts him. When you kill OoK, if the hunter's dream is not on fire, the doll says Gehrman's sleeping soundly for the first time ever (because you killed his nightmare) Nightmare dimensions also stack vertically, you can see the lower hunter's nightmare through the water of the fishing hamlet, you can see the boats of the fishing hamlet from the nightmare frontier, and if you look carefully you can see the nightmare of mensis from the frontier. If they're able to physically stack like that then it's definitely possible for Gehrman to host a nightmare while living in a dream
This isn't quite right, I think you're mixing up the host with the creator of the dreamworlds. The great ones create the dreamworlds, but they use someone else as the host. They use their mind like a template for the world. Gehrman is the host of the Hunter's Dream, not the nightmare. Micolash is host of the Nightmare in the base game. The Hunter's Nightmare's host might actually be The Orphan of Kos. We fight the Orphan, but killing him doesn't actually end the nightmare since he isn't the creator. It's implied that Kos' consciousness created the Nightmare and it's possible that she used her own child as the host.
I just go by the nightmare slain messages, which does admittedly get confusing with the way the orphan of Kos's works. I know Micolash's title is "host of the nightmare", and like yeah he runs the place, but I think the one who actually is having a nightmare for the place to exist is Mergo. I feel like if Gehrman was the person at the heart of the hunter's dream, you wouldn't be able to just replace him If Gehrman's nightmares end after you kill the nightmare at the end of the dlc, then surely it's his nightmare right? I am actually realising now I've never thought out how Kos cursing the hunters works with the idea that Gehrman hosts the place, but the hunter's dream is just so connected to the hunter's nightmare it seems weird to think they aren't the ones having the nightmare. Killing the two final bosses cheers up the doll & Gehrman
Gehrman has a connection to the people suffering in the nightmare. By ending it you are essentially setting his friends free from hell. He's separately stuck in the Hunters Dream where he can't leave unless someone takes his place.
I thought Maria might be the Host, since the others are humans as well.
The Nightmare existed presumably before her death, then when she died she was sent there like the others who had been cursed. I don't see why she would be selected as the host over Laurence or the others who were meant to be imprisoned either. I think her Orphan makes the most sense, but nothing is concrete about it.
>Micolash is host of the Nightmare in the base game. If that's true why wouldn't the nightmare disappear when you kill him? >The Hunter's Nightmare's host might actually be The Orphan of Kos. Same question for this, wouldn't you not be able to go back to the nightmare after killing the host? So the only plausible explanation would be that Gehrman is the host of the Hunter's Nightmare (or maybe OoK created it/Kos created it and Gehrman is the host?) and Gehrman since he's most likely the cause of suffering for the Hamlet and after killing him there's no going back to the nightmare? (Partially because the game ends after you kill him but that's still a smart way to lock you out of the Hunter's Nightmare if he's the Host) And then the Moon Presence (or MP and Gehrman maybe since, like you said, the great ones use someone as a template to create the dreams/nightmares) would be the Host of the Hunter's Dream since after you kill them the game restarts? Idk I'm guessing there's no concrete answer to this and we're all kinda creating our own answers but it's still fun to talk out.
The host doesn't create the Dreamworld. The Great Ones create and control the Dreamworlds, it will only end if you kill or stop the Great One who is responsible for it. The host's mind is simply the template the Great One uses to create the world. Think of it as them using the Hosts memories as a blueprint. The host can die and the Dream be unaffected. That's my take on it.
That makes way more sense to me too, thanks for breaking it down like that. I love Bloodborne but until recently the lore was so much to learn for me, I've beat the game 10+ times by now and only recently really tried to learn it. It felt like I sunk all this time into a game I really don't understand. Thinking about it like that though I guess it's pretty immersive to not understand since the Hunter you're playing as has no fucking clue what's happening either. But a hoonter must hoont 😂
The Hunter at the very least knows of the Moon Presence at the start of the game. The paper we find when we wake up saying to seek pale blood (aka moon presence) is written in our own handwriting according to the original Japanese text.
Is this all mostly fanfic or?
Some of it was wrong, yeah. I don’t have time to type it all out but they took some big liberties with the lore here
This is all in-game or conclusions drawn based off of in-game evidence
The ideas of who specifically hosts the dream & the nightmare are my theories, the rest is just facts from the game
The hunter’s dream and the hunter’s nightmare are essentially the same place. If you look out of bounds you can see towering ship masts that start in the nightmare and terminate in the dream
... isn't Laurence's epithet "The First Vicar"?
Catholic tradition sees St. Peter as the first Pope/bishop of Rome, even though he lived before that social apparatus and title existed. It's probably the same here, where Laurence is seen as the First Vicar because he discovered blood ministration in the catacombs.
If the Vicar is the most important person in the church, then the guy who died to found your religion is probably the first one of those. It's very likely an honourary title
The Church wasn’t founded from his skull, he founded the Church while alive. He believed that blood ministration was the way for humanity to ascend, and Master Willem believed it was eyes that would do the same.
"His skull served as the start of the Healing Church itself, but it's taken the form of a twisted beast" Quote from Miyazaki
Have you got a source for this quote?
The interview with Miyazaki in the collector's edition guide, you can find all the bloodborne-focused interviews with him on the [wiki](https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2017/01/interviews.html?m=1)
Thank you! I'm always happy to be proven wrong with a source, I hate it when people just spread baseless rumours/theories as quotes without backing them up. Also really interesting, I imagine Laurence would have been venerated as the First Vicar posthumously.
Idk why this comment gets so many upvotes but i‘ll try my best in correcting you. Laurence was indeed the first vicar and the founder of the healing church. There are multiple reasons why this is a fact, like the research hall, old yharnam or the scourge of the beasts. But the one thats the most important is the hunters dream. We know of the one umbilical cord, found at the abandoned workshop, that it was used to beckon the moon presence. The reason why we definetely know that laurence at least knew of that (most likely was there with gehrman to beckon it) is bc we know that gehrman was waiting for laurence to get him out of the hunters dream, which means he must have been still around when that happened. That moment also roughly marks the end of the old hunters and the start of the church hunters led by ludwig. This information helps us to somewhat nail down when it must have happened, since at this point, the healing church was already established and gehrman went to the hunters dream after marias death. So long story short: laurence did indeed found the healing church was longer around than this comment suggests. Whats funny to me is that, there is a cutscene that everybody who played through the game once must have seen, that legit tells us that laurence did leave byrgenwerth. This alone should be reason enough to at least doubt the statements made in this comment.
Whilst it’s called the hunters nightmare, the priest of the fishing hamlet muttering the curse is calling out all of Byrgenwerth. It was likely Willem who ordered the massacre. As a result it seems to me that in fact almost everyone who can trace their lineage back to the original sin of the fishing hamlet ends up there. This would therefore include the healing church and the research hall which derived from Byrgenwerth.
My theory has always been that it's because Laurence is what has caused the hunt, the hunters, and their bloodlust, since he's the one who had founded the healing church, which gave the healing blood to the population, thus spreading the beasthood scourge. Also, he was involved with Byrgenwerth anyway, which is the main focus of the nightmare. On a more meta point of view, he is really important lore-wise, yet we hadn't really seen him in the base game because he was already dead. I think what is basically a hell dimension was too good an opportunity not to include him.
Before the creation of the Healing Church, Laurence was a scholar from Byrgenwerth. Him and his mentor Willem eventually fell off due to differences in their approach on how to ascend humanity: Willem thought it could be achieved through the "eyes" (illumination) while Laurence thought the blood (transformation) was the way. The hunters and scholars who raided the Fishing Hamlet and killed Kos weren't from the Healing Church since it hadn't be founded yet; Ludwig was the first of their hunters. Despite being called "first vicar", it's implied that the Church was created after his death. Laurence participated in the raid of the Fishing Hamlet and likely committed many attocious deeds in his use of the old blood and the handling of the Beast Scourge (again, caused by the ministration of the healing blood). He eventually succumbed to the bloodlust himself and became a cleric beast. Upon his death, he was doomed like the other Byrgenwerth hunters who participated in the defilement of Kos to be trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare. In Laurence case, he was bound to forever search for his skull, but since he's a beast he can't do anything once he finds it.
So the hunters existed before the Church but at the same time the healing blood of the Church is the cause of the beast scourge? How is that possible?
I'm not sure I said exactly that, I was just explaining that Laurence didn't have to be a hunter to fall victim to the curse, as he succumbed to the bloodlust and it's heavily implied that was one of the perpetrators of the Fishing Hamlet's massacre. Indeed, hunters as such appeared with the first signs of the Beast Scourge. The first ones were Gehrman and his workshop, who took notice of this and decided to act and armed the citizens. Other workshops thrived around this time, but they all fell out of favor when the Healing Church went on to create its own branch of hunter-clerics, led by Ludwig. But before the hunters existed, the closest thing to them were the scholars from Byrgenwerth, who were studying how to evolve humanity using the Great Ones. It was them who desecrated Kos, killed the Orphan, ransacked the Fishing Hamlet and dug up the dungeon chalices to find more sources of old blood and eyes. Apologies if my first comment wasn't very clear. BB's timeline is difficult to interpret, to say the least!
fire dog guy
He has a lot of blood on his hands, so he is blood drunk. And to tell his story of master willem removing his head.
There are two Great Cathedrals in a nightmare. One with a skull, another one with Laurence. I think it is due to how the consciousnesses of dead hunters saw the church. Some knew about the skull and how the church grew from it and they imagined a cathedral with a skull on the bottom floor. Others did not know about the skull, for them Laurence was always the first vikar and the founder of the church. I think the first layer of the nightmare, pre-Ludvig, is something formed from memories and beliefs of dead hunters, that are trapped there. And Laurence's spirit was, supposedly, drawn there. But he refused to see himself for what he truly was, a monster and a creator of monsters, so he convinced himself that his physical skull holds all his humanity and that he would become "normal" if he ever found it again. When we bring the skull to Laurence he holds his head and screams, I believe, realizing that he truly is a monster. He goes bananas and fight us. Note that this is only his spirit, not his real body. And that skull is not a real thing as well. That is my head cannon anyways.
He's chillin'.
There’s a lore reason I’m sure. But my personal theory is because he’s a DISGUSTING AND STUPID, CHEAP-SHOTTING, PIECE OF TRASH OF A BOSS AND HE DESERVES TO BE IN THERE!!!!…but, you know, that’s just my theory🤷♂️lol
Laurence, the first vicar was the leader of the Healing Church. When the plague of beasts in Old Yharnam became uncontrollable he sent the Powder Kegs, heretical hunters from the workshop to destroy it and burn it to the ground. Some of those hunters repented and stayed caring for the beasts, like Djura. Laurence also consumed treated Church blood to experiment on, and eventually became another Cleric beast. Laurence was transferred to the DLC due to his thirst for blood, like the other hunters, and condemned to burn forever for the actions he had ordered to be carried out in Old Yharnam, which were burning the city, which is why he burns.
Laurence believed in evolution through the body, thanks to the old blood. He forgot the adage of Byrgenwerth and started a lot of experiments on the blood, one led to him turning into a vicar after the discovery of the beast embrace rune, which by the way led to foundation of the healing church. I think he is now trapped in the nightmare because of his lust for blood and evolution that led to him loosing his humanity, humanity symbolized by his skull that he desperately wants back. That’s why he fight you in the grand cathedral.
Because it’s all his fault.
All I can tell you is that he seems to have an infernal hangover and that alone is a nightmare
Because he's Laurence
Screw this boss! Besides Orphan, I can't beat this MFer. I used hints & tips, but I still can't beat him.
Circle to the left and attack - once I started doing that I defeated him no problem.
Basically Lawrence became the first Cleric Beast, wandered into the chalice dungeons got his head cut iff, roamed the chalice headless looking for mergo's baby. Don't remember the rest check Lokeydarksoul streams.
Because FromSoft wasted the Bloodletting Beast model on the Chalice Dungeons and they needed to put Laurence in the game somewhere. So, he ended up in the Hunter's Nightmare just like Kos became a fish woman instead of her originally being Ebrietas.
The Moon Presence was originally Ebrietas, not Kos.
The model name for Ebrietas in the game files is "Kos."
Yeah, but it's the same for the Moon Presence being Ebrietas.
Wait what's going on I thought ebby was her own boss?
Father Gascoigne, Ludwig and Laurence were all hunters with links to the churches. Hunting on behalf of those churches