Yharnam as a Ravenloft Setting

The Soulsborne games have, of course, managed to be a big influence on me even though I only started playing them a couple years ago. While I understand why people adore Dark Souls, I, myself, prefer Bloodborne (though I wish Bloodborne was as big as Dark Souls III.) Both series' worldbuilding and aesthetics are incredible (and incredibly bleak) but maybe it's just because I've actually managed to beat Bloodborne (in DSIII I still have Nameless King, Darkeater Midir, and Slave Knight Gael, and of course Soul of Cinder evading me) but that one has a special place in my heart.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that Bloodborne could work really well as a Ravenloft setting.

(Similarly, I think Dark Souls could easily take place in the Shadowfell, which I could and probably will dedicate another post to.)

But let's talk specifically about the Ravenloft setting.

Ravenloft is a D&D setting that is built around Gothic Horror. But while gothic horror literature is typically set in our own world, and you can certainly have plenty of gothic horror tropes in the various worlds of the material plane in D&D, the Ravenloft setting places characters in the Demiplanes of Dread - a special, extra-planar region outside of mundane reality.

The Demiplanes of Dread pre-date the Shadowfell (which was introduced in either 3rd or 4th Edition, I think) and so, while they're connected to the Shadowfell in 5th Edition, they're also kind of separate. Essentially, think of the Demiplanes as being bubbles in the border between the Shadowfell and the Material Plane. While the Shadowfell, like the manic-to-its-depressive counterpart the Feywild, is a parallel world with equivalent features and locations, the Demiplanes are pieces of the material plane that have been swallowed by the Mists, and become their own little pocket universes, connected to one another, but also isolated.

There are mysterious figures - godlike but not gods - called the Dark Powers, who choose which people and which lands are taken. Each demiplane has its own Dark Lord, who is simultaneously the most powerful being in that demiplane and sort of its ruler, but also its prisoner, bound to the world and to a cycle of repeating their crimes in a limbo-like state of perpetual self-torment.

Most famous of these, and effectively the namesake of the setting, is Barovia, where the vampire Strahd von Zarovich rules from his home, Castle Ravenloft. The 5th Edition module Curse of Strahd is the updated version of the original adventure that spawned the Ravenloft setting.

While Barovia is by far the best-known part of the setting, the basic premise allows for all sorts of Dark Lords, each generally conforming to a classic horror trope, though these can go into somewhat less gothic territories like Mummy Lords and even infamous pirates. The setting does also sometimes contain some cosmic horror tropes as well - after all, Lovecraft's work was a sort of blending of Edgar Allen Poe's fixation on madness and psychological horror with the fear of alien beings such as from H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.

Bloodborne, of course, is a story that blends the aesthetics of gothic horror - the gothic architecture, the notion of men becoming beasts - with cosmic horror - the alien hidden beneath it all, the notion of knowledge as a dangerous thing that could lead to madness - as well as some of Hidetaka Miyazaki's penchant for disturbing visuals.

But something occurred to me - the actual mechanics of Bloodborne actually bear some resemblance to that of Ravenloft.

Both are about cycles. The Dark Lord, win or lose, will generally find themselves repeating their cycle over and over. It's extremely rare for the Dark Powers to actually permit a Dark Lord to leave Ravenloft (in a questionably canonical episode, the ur-Death Knight, Lord Soth, had no illusions about his own crimes, and so the Dark Powers basically figured "you know what, ironic punishment isn't really working on this guy. He's far too self-aware.")

Who, then, is the Dark Lord of Yharnam?

I'd say it's Gehrman, the First Hunter.

Bloodborne is a little odd, and distinct from the Souls games in that the final boss changes depending on which of the three endings you go for. There is an ending in which you allow Gehrman to behead you within the Hunter's Dream - the sort of peaceful respite that you return to when you die, or when you wish to take refuge from the dangers of the night. Doing so severs your connection to the Dream, and you're allowed to wake up and presumably leave Yharnam, with all the nightmarish memories of what came before forgotten. This leaves the final boss of the game Mergo's Wet Nurse, a very clearly monstrous (though not necessarily evil) thing within a conjured nightmare created by the evil College of Mensis (or, something. You never really know with these Soulsborne games.)

But if you refuse to let him do so, Gehrman fights you. What's interesting is that your refusal to leave the dream could either be a sign of your bloodlust taking over you, or maybe a more altruistic desire to keep the city safe. Either way, Gehrman's motivations seem to be pretty noble - he wants to put you down, either because you've become a blodd-crazed beast or because he's trying to spare you from what he knows will happen if you stay.

Gehrman, it's implied, fought beasts to protect the city of Yharnam, and while he did not succumb to the Curse of Beasts like so many other hunters - who became werewolf-like (or far worse, such as in the case of Ludwig) monsters - he must have committed some terrible crimes (likely involving the being Kos, whose corpse is seen in the final boss arena of the Old Hunters DLC) and made some kind of deal with the Moon Presence - one of the Great Ones - where he'd oversee other hunters.

If Barovia is indicative of other Ravenloft settings, the only way to escape the demiplane is to slay its Dark Lord (or be Vistani.) This does allow for a final triumph, and a happy ending one can earn by surviving up to that fight.

But one could imagine Yharnam as a kind of exception to that rule. Gehrman might need some task performed - the destruction of some horrifying monster that counts as the official final boss of the adventure, and he'll free you by severing your conneciton to that demiplane. But players who see the anguish that he's in, the horror that he's forced to endure, might choose the "good" ending and refuse to leave him - only to trigger this final fight.

And, true to the bleakness of the story of Bloodborne, the reward for defeating him is, yes, saving him from this eternal cycle, but then being forced to take his place.