Yharnam as a Domain of Dread

 As recent blog posts have reinforced, I adore Bloodborne, FromSoft's Gothic/Cosmic Horror reimagining of their Demon's Souls/Dark Souls gameplay formula, which released in 2015 and is considered, I think to be one of their masterpieces (I'm personally of the opinion that, when combining gameplay and story, Elden Ring is their current crowning achievement, but it is obviously standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak).

The Ravenloft setting for D&D is very different than others. While Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance are all worlds with fantastical histories, they're still basically "real" worlds, which are bound by the logic and order of a realistic world that happens to also have magic.

The Domains of Dread, which is where Ravenloft takes place, are not.

While Ravenloft pre-dates the Shadowfell as a concept in D&D, it's never been in the Prime Material Plane (which is basically "reality a mortal is typically familiar with,") and was sort of afloat in the Ethereal Plane. Even under current lore, the Domains of Dread are a part of the Shadowfell that is separate from the main version of that plane (though as the most popular part of the Shadowfell, you don't often hear much about the rest of the Shadowfell in 5E materials). This is not our baseline reality, but it's also not the realm of the gods like the Outer Planes or the elements like the, well, elemental planes.

The Shadowfell is sort of a dark mirror of the Feywild. Both are realms that have their potential for horror - a spooky, gnarled wood that is home to curse-crafting hags could very well be part of the Feywild - but the way I see it is that the Feywild is full of supercharged emotion, while the Shadowfell is cold and drained, where motivation is sapped to become more compulsive and numb.

The Domains of Dread are specifically created by the Dark Powers - mysterious entities that could be some sinister cabal or might be unknowable eldritch beings from beyond - who pluck particularly evil people from the multiverse and create ironic prisons that are a reflection of their primary prisoners. Each domain has a Darklord, who is both the ruler of the domain and its primary prisoner, and is endlessly tormented as they seek to get their heart's desire but find those attempts thwarted. But it's not only the wicked who are tormented in these realms - the living people who inhabit the Domains, either born there or brought there through the Mists, which can reach into other planes and snatch you up, are forced to contend with these nightmare realms.

 In its initial form in the early '90s, Ravenloft actually had something of a "world"-like landmass - a continent called The Core that placed all the domains of dread in geographical relation to one another. 5E's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft gets rid of this idea, instead putting the individual domains adrift in the Mists as separate little nightmare realms. This, incidentally, is something I really prefer, and whenever I hear people complaining that the book somehow "ruined" Ravenloft, I cannot take them seriously, because I hate the idea of The Core with a passion. /End Rant.

Now, each domain is stuck in an endless cycle. The domains won't let the Darklords die, perpetuating their torment. Sometimes, a group of adventurers will have to kill a Darklord in order to escape the domain, because each Darklord has a way to "close" the Mists surrounding their domain (something I interpret as not even necessarily being a conscious choice on their part). But they will always reappear after time, and continue to perpetuate the horror within their realm.

So let's look at Yharnam.

The notion of a cycle in Yharnam is certainly right there in the story: Hunters are sent to slay Beasts in the city, but those hunters then become infected with the Curse of the Beast, becoming the next threat that needs to be hunted.

This being FromSoft, you never know all the details completely, but my basic understanding of the "modern" history of the city of Yharnam is as follows:

Scholars at the old College of Byrgenwerth discovered an ancient labyrinth underground, which held the remnants of a pre-human (or proto-human) civilization called the Pthumerians. Within the "Tomb," they found a source of blood that could be used to heal any injury or illness. What that source is remains vague - I think you could possibly imagine that it involves the unborn child of Queen Yharnam, the Pthumerians' leader, who is probably called Mergo, and is likely the child of a Great One - an eldritch being from beyond familiar reality.

Discovery of that tomb led the scholars to try to contact and learn about the Great Ones, attempting to bring about an evolution of humanity - either culturally or even physiologically. Master Willem, the head of Byrgenwerth, wanted to learn more about the cosmos and the Great Ones, but to do so in a cautious and careful way (which still involved, like, adding eyes to the inside of their skulls).

But it was Laurence, one of Willem's students, who saw the potential in the Great Ones for a different path: to use the healing blood to found a religion, worshipping the Great Ones as gods and bringing fabulous prosperity to the city through the business of "blood ministration," healing sicknesses via the blood.

The biggest question, I think, if you wanted to adapt Bloodborne as a Domain of Dread, is who the Darklord would be. FromSoft sometimes makes some undeniably evil characters, but usually its primary antagonists are misguided more than evil (at least depending on your interpretation). Ravenloft's Darklords are all explicitly irredeemably evil (though as with anything D&D, DMs are free to change those rules as the story demands). I think that, given his central role, an argument could be made for Gehrman, but I think you could also argue that if he is a Darklord, it's of a different, related Domain - the Hunter's Nightmare. The evil he committed was probably the killing of Kos (if she didn't just wash up on the beach dead) or the massacre of the Fishing Hamlet. Kos and the Fishing Hamlet's role in the larger story is also pretty vague - I think the current read on it that I'd consider is that Gehrman's attack on the Fishing Hamlet probably led to Byrgenwerth's discovery of the Pthumerian Tomb - maybe finding out that Kos was a thing spurred forth the research into the Great Ones. (Was Byrgenwerth built on the ruins of the Fishing Hamlet?) Clearly, if Gehrman was the first Hunter, the Hunter's Nightmare was the fish-peoples' curse on them for his deeds. But I think it's likely this is a side-story.

Laurence, thus, to me, feels like the more obvious Darklord. The entire city feels like it's suffering because of his actions, and while he's in the Hunter's Nightmare, obviously From wasn't working step-by-step to make it all fit with Ravenloft's conventions.

We're talking about adaptation here, and so we'll need to be a little more concrete and clear in terms of how Yharnam becomes a Domain of Dread.

Laurence as the Darklord needs an act of unmitigated evil to draw him into the Mists (sometimes this act also draws the character's realm with them, or sometimes it creates a mirror of a real realm, or even a wholly new realm. In fact, the original Darklord's domain, Barovia, might well exist in a non-nightmarish form on some Prime Material World, with the OG Ravenloft setting possibly being a nightmarish facsimile of the real thing).

I think there are two potential moments to draw from here.

If we interpret that the "Holy Medium" the Byrgenwerth scholars discovered in the ancient Labyrinth was, in fact, the unborn child, Mergo, and that the healing blood was harvested from Queen Yharnam's womb (it would make sense that some body fluid nourishing a growing demigod fetus could have extraordinary healing properties). Laurence's decision to do this, robbing Yharnam of her child very much against her will and perhaps prolonging its life via the Nightmare of Mensis to keep drawing the healing blood off of it would be a profoundly evil act. (The fact that the blood also warps those who use it into werewolf-like beasts can also be explained by the fact that it was never meant to heal humans.)

However, it was this blood that allowed the Healing Church to be established in the first place. And while you could imagine the whole church only really coming about in the Domain of Dread, I don't know if I love that version of it.

Another possibility is the burning of Old Yharnam.

So, Old Yharnam - which was probably a small town or village before the big city grew around it - is, currently, filled with Beasts - there's just two humans left who have decided to guard it against other humans, reasoning that the Beasts here are just innocents who were turned and don't deserve to be shredded by Hunters.

But the history here is that a plague ravaged the town, and the Healing Church arrived to intervene, and I believe this was the first place they administered blood healing on a mass scale. No coincidence, then, that this was also where the Curse of the Beast first emerged (something the Church also tried to cover up). The thing is, the "plague" as it was called, was also treatable via Antitdotes - pills that cured poison, not infections. The plague was thus probably an intentional poisoning of the populace. And that poisoning was probably committed by the nascent Healing Church in order to give them an excuse to experiment on the people of Old Yharnam.

When the Beast Plague began to spread, they wound up burning Old Yharnam, killing tons of people, but also conveniently covering up the Church's crimes.

I think Laurence ordered the burning of Old Yharnam. And I think the fact that, in the Hunter's Nightmare, he is now rendered as an ever-burning Cleric Beast. This massacre of the Beasts of Old Yharnam is what started off the endless cycle of Hunts. And I think that this could be Laurence's point of no return. Up until this point, he's maybe done things for the Greater Good, but when confronted with the utter failure of his visions of miraculous healing and respect via piety, when it became clear that there was nothing but madness and horror to come from his Healing Church, he decided to murder hundreds of people so that he could keep going.

What is his torment, then?

Well, I think Laurence, being a Byrgenwerth scholar, wanted to pursue humanity's evolution, and thought the Healing Blood was the way to do this - to kind of hijack the Pthumerians' communion with a Great One (which one I think being open to interpretation - the Moon Presence? Oedon?) - but every effort to move forward and push humanity further has led instead to devolution, with people turning into beasts, not higher forms.

Practically speaking, I think Laurence is constantly losing his grasp on his lofty ambitions, but in being transformed into a beast, he's dangerous because of his raw, physical strength.

And if we look at the rest of the setting, we can see the way that the other dangers are reflections of Laurence. The Hunters are the embodiment of his violent sins, the Scholars embodiments of his unrestrained ambitions, the Clerics embodiments of his need for control.

While I think you could even spin it such that the Great Ones were actually the Dark Powers all along, I actually like that in Bloodborne, the Great Ones are actually benevolent in spirit - they're just so alien that their mere presence warps things in horrific ways (perhaps even when they "try to help.")

I don't think you'd have to do much to run a Ravenloft campaign in Yharnam - much as Barovia has a lot of different elements that aren't obviously tied to Strahd, but ultimately are, you can do likewise with Yharnam.

The timeline of Bloodborne is a little vague - you could certainly interpret the existence of Cainhurst Castle as pre-dating the Healing Church, for example, which is thought to be less than a century old, while Cainhurst is supposed to be a few hundred years. But time is also very weird in the Domains of Dread, and so I could imagine that people in Yharnam proper treat Laurence as a current ruling figure, but that the stolen blood that created the Cainhurst Vilebloods was stolen from the Church (and I don't know if that's even directly contradicted by the game).

In Ravenloft, you don't need to make your Darklord the "final boss" of your campaign - indeed, a lot of them have very unimpressive stat blocks that a low-level party would have an easy time defeating. Laurence would probably be tough in his beast form - I'd probably homebrew some changes to the Loup-Garou to give it fire abilities - but you could easily have a campaign focusing on taking down the School of Mensis or the Choir or dealing with some eldritch monstrosity (like Ebrietas).

The key would be to hit the notes of Gothic Horror (werewolves, ghosts, maybe vampires from Cainhurst if you want to retcon the massacre by the Executioners, witches in Hemwick, and grim inquisitors) as well as cosmic horror (all the alien monsters in the later parts of the game, the transformed scholars, and the weird shifting realities).

One thing I'd really encourage as a sort of "special system" to use in this domain is Insight. Obviously, you might not want to call it that specifically, given that that has a very specific and different meaning in D&D, but something like "Sight" or "Truth" or "Eldritch Truth" or "Awareness." I think there would be a positive and a negative associated with Insight, and probably have it be something players are gaining at different rates. Something like a successful Intelligence check could give you a point of "Awareness."

The main way I'd want it to work is that, as you gain Awareness, you can hit points where you'll see things others can't - starting with small things like hidden runes or clues - maybe you need 3 Awareness to see a button that can be used to open a treasure chest. And then, at higher levels, you start to see the sources of certain enemy's powers - like the runic items on some of the new Giants out of Bigby's. But then, for each point of Awareness (or maybe every few points,) you get penalties as well - say, to Wisdom saving throws (maybe all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws?)

Ooh, and maybe there are magic items that you can't use (or don't work at full power) if you don't have enough Awareness. So, for example, your Arcane Saw Cleaver, which could be a re-skinned Battleaxe, does an extra 1d8 force damage if you have at least 5 Awareness. But maybe at 5 you'd also be taking a -2 to Wisdom saving throws.

I like the idea that delving deeper into the Eldritch Truth makes you more vulnerable but also more powerful. I can tell you my Great Old One Warlock would be happy to amass as much as possible!

Anyway, I think this could be a lot of fun, and almost want to run a limited campaign in it.

Baldur's Gate 3 Finally Truly Available on Mac

 After buying the game the day of its release, I was disappointed to discover that Baldur's Gate 3 was still in Early Access for Mac users, and so I had to wait over a month to get the full version.

Well, I've got it now!

Naturally, the biggest change is that there's more content beyond what I encountered in the early version, but there are also some other distinctions. For example, the relationship between you and the, well, other character you create during... er... character creation, is pretty different. In the early version, it was very clearly supposed to be a sort of romantically seductive character (even clad in skimpy dress, at least for those of you who are attracted to women) but in the release version, this individual is armored and portrayed as much more of a protector. I still have no idea who she is (or he, or they, depending on how you build them).

I've made a Half-Orc Vengeance Paladin, and when I realized there was some jewelry that was called something like "Barovian Fangs," I decided that his backstory would involve having escaped the Mists of Ravenloft. He's named after an important NPC in my homebrew world, and could conceivably be a version of him in the Forgotten Realms - the characters is a legendary hero who, despite taking the side of the Church in its war against the Empire (these have more specific names, but in my world there's a monotheistic church that wants to break away from a colonialist empire - hooray! - but also want to form a theocratic republic in its place - boo! Both sides have people across the alignment spectrum, and the Church's top paladin is decidedly good-aligned, and fights ferociously, even if, privately, he thinks the whole rebellion is a mistake.)

So far the only additional party member I've gotten is Karlach, who is a ton of fun. I'm given to understand Halsin can also join, though I don't have him in the party just yet.

Most of the early access content remains pretty much unchanged, so I am kind of going through a lot of familiar stuff. I'm trying in most cases to just let the rolls land as they will. I've really only done save-scumming when I'm in a fight where a TPK is pretty much inevitable. Unfortunately, I also hit a glitch where when Lae'zel died on a stairway during the Dror Ragzlin or whatever his name is fight, I couldn't use my Revivify scrolls on her even when standing right next to her, and so had to pay Withers (I sure hope that price doesn't increase each time you do it).

Anyway, I've got my main guy, Rokthar, going for a classic sword-and-board tank build (though man is the game stingy with basic heavy armor). I've got Lae'zel going with a Great Weapon Master build and the Battle Master subclass (using Precision attack - which is a little riskier than it is in the Tabletop version, as you get to see what you roll before you choose whether to spend a superiority die, so you know not to waste it if you roll, like, a natural 2). Wyll I've got going with Pact of the Blade, though still focusing on Eldritch Blast when he can. I've got to say Dark One's Blessing is a hell (pun unintended) of a good feature, as it goes off pretty frequently. Gale I went boring and picked Evocation because, well, I want to be able to drop Fireballs on my party without worrying about friendly fire. Astarion I went Arcane Trickster because it just feels right. Shadowheart, of course, is still a Trickster Cleric (I haven't re-specced anyone yet, but I could imagine giving her a new domain, possibly).

I was tempted to make an Eldritch Knight (either Lae'zel or my main character) but without the SCAG cantrips, it's a little half-baked (though Shield and Heavy Armor is amazing).

I'm intending to really stick to this run of the game and not play any alts until I've either gotten very far in it or beaten it. I'm curious but also a little nervous to play the Dark Urge origin.

Happily, the game runs very smoothly on my Mac, though I think the graphic settings are turned way down. The only problem I've run into is that you hold the Command key to highlight loot to pick up, and you use the Q key to rotate the camera counterclockwise, and at least twice, I've been searching for loot and moving the camera and have abruptly quit the game thanks to the universal "Command Q" for Quit. I think there's a way to change this, but I haven't gotten around to it (most tragically, I had an extremely clean fight against Minthara and then lost it thanks to this blunder, and while I was able to take her out again, it was a much messier fight (the first time I managed to make something of a tank wall with my main and Lae'zel and had Shadowheart's Invoke Duplicity nearby, so I was getting advantage on all my attacks with the front-liners, who were taking less damage thanks to all the disadvantage being handed out).

There are, of course, lots of nuances that you lose in a digital version of the game with no human DM. Thaumaturgy is reduced to just advantage on certain social encounter checks, for instance.

One bit of advice I'd give to players who are finding the game difficult (and not that it isn't) is to think about how many combat encounters you tend to go through between long rests in an actual D&D game. BG3 is pretty generous about letting you go back to your camp and rest (or just instantly popping a bunch of health and resources back with a short rest). In a big dungeon environment like the Goblin camp, I really don't think you're intended to do it all in a single "day."

Not Counting Chalice Dungeons and Final Bosses, I've Just Got the DLC

 So, I screwed up, I think: I beat Rom before I gave Alfred the invitation to Cainhurst Castle, and as such I don't think I can send him there and get the Executioner's Badge - while my Bloodtinge/Skill build is hardly going to be able to make use of Logarius' Wheel, I'm a little sad that this will prevent the acquisition of the silly cone hat, though I should double-check to ensure there's no chance I can continue this quest.

Currently the ranking "most deaths" enemy has got to be the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, the NPC-fight in the Grand Cathedral at the end of Eileen the Crow's quest. After struggling a lot on that (and having to farm blood vials - something I really hope any Bloodborne II would drop as a mechanic) I continued on through the game a little farther and leveled up some and came back and took him down.

So far, in this playthrough, I've one-shot and two-shot most bosses. I believe this is the attempt count:

Cleric Beast: 3

Father Gascoigne: 1

Blood-Starved Beast: 1

Witch of Hemwick: 1

Vicar Amelia: 1

Martyr Logarius: 4 or 5

Amygdala: 1

Shadows of Yharnam: 1

Rom, the Vacuous Spider: 2

The One Reborn: 2

Micolash, Host of the Nightmare: 2

Celestial Emissary: 1

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos: 1

    This last one I was surprised by. In previous playthroughs I'd come to Ebrietas after doing most of the DLC, and so I assumed I was far over-leveled, but while I had gotten well into the Nightmare of Mensis (I think possibly up to Mergo's Wet Nurse, though I haven't fought it yet) I hadn't done any of the DLC this time and had a pretty easy time of it. Granted, I did summon the Mensis allied Hunter, who kind of tanked her for me. Still, with these games I consider any assistance the game is willing to give you as perfectly reasonable - I'm not here to do some "dodge-free" run, and the game's plenty difficult even with help.

    Logarius might not have been so difficult if I wasn't really pushing to get him down as soon as I could, given that my Bloodtinge build is pretty focused 

Anyway, I haven't done a whole lot of farming this run, though when dealing with the Blood Crow I did do my old farming route of the stretch between Micolash's boss room and the top of Mergo's Loft (which I guess is a fitting place to get lots of XP given that it's really the last area of the game - prior to DLC, you'd just fight Mergo's Wet Nurse and then, depending on the ending you're going for, finish the game or fight Gehrman and then possibly the Moon Presence).

I'm not getting utterly annihilated by the Old Hunters at the start of the DLC the way I usually do if I come there earlier in a playthrough, but they're still a challenge. I'm expecting Ludwig will be pretty tough regardless, but perhaps the DLC in general will be easier with pretty much the whole main game under my belt.

I have not touched the Chalice Dungeons. I think on one of my earlier characters (maybe my first Arcane build? Which, incidentally, is probably my favorite playstyle in this game) did a lot of those, but they're just too repetitive for my tastes. If there's ever a Bloodborne II (and 8 years later, I'm skeptical) I think they could probably cut them and I wouldn't miss them.

But yeah, maybe it's Elden Ring's enormous size that is throwing me for a loop, but it does feel like Bloodborne is surprisingly quick. Consider, for example, that if you divide the game into three acts (Evening, Night, and Paleblood Sky) going from Vicar Amelia (who starts Act II) to Rom (who starts Act III) only requires a single boss between them. Yes, you can go off and do side areas like Cainhurst Castle and the Nightmare Frontier (and Hemwick if you're some kind of bizarre freak who fought Vicar Amelia before doing Hemwick) but basically you just need to clear through the Forbidden Woods and Byrgenwerth (the latter of which is hardly an "region" and more just a little circle around a building).

Anyway, still a fantastic game. I guess it just leaves me wanting more.

Bloodborne is Kind of Short for a Soulsborne Game

 Today I took down Amygdala, the Shadows of Yharnam, Rom the Vacuous Spider, and The One Reborn.

The first two, I one-shot (I think they're also bosses that I one-shot on my very first playthrough. While I think, like the Witch of Hemwick, I've never died on the Shadows of Yharnam, the previous times I'd always summoned an ally, and this time I truly solo'd it, which meant having to deal with their snake abilities more). Rom took me two attempts - the first simply because I got greedy and tried to slash at her while her spider minions were still around (I know some people just go right for the kill, but I find the fight is much easier if you're diligent about taking out all the adds). The One Reborn I think I got an honest death from, simply by failing to dodge out of the... er... rain of limbs it summons sometimes.

While I think Elden Ring is the easier game, I do think that enemies telegraph their attacks more in Bloodborne - which makes sense, as your only options are to dodge or shoot them right at the perfect moment to "parry" them. As such, I've had an easier time avoiding damage on most bosses.

I think in previous playthroughs I headed to the Hunter's Nightmare earlier than this point, but I think that it's really tuned to be an endgame area (certainly by the time I've finished it in previous playthroughs, the remaining bosses were trivial). This time, I'm really trying to mostly finish off what's there in the main game before heading into the DLC, which hasn't been too bad, and also will hopefully mean that Ludwig won't utterly annihilate me over and over.

While I wouldn't want the game to just fully embrace the whole medieval fantasy aesthetic of Dark Souls or Elden Ring, I do think, now, with those games under my belt, I wish there were more build options in Bloodborne. I don't know if it was intentionally made a smaller game than Dark Souls (certainly the development time was remarkably fast - Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls III all came out one year after the other, which is something you expected from contemporary Ubisoft making Assassin's Creed games, but pretty amazing given that Bloodborne is considered by many a masterpiece, and Dark Souls III is also pretty beloved (DSII I think has gotten a critical redemption, though it's still not held up with the same respect as the original).

Elden Ring took three years from announcement to release, and there's a vast wealth of potential builds for your character (I only wish the final boss were not immune to all conditions, as it really takes a fun bleed-focused build and makes it suffer).

If we ever get a Bloodborne II, I'd love to see it given the scope of... well, it might be a lot to ask for it to be as big as Elden Ring (and arguably off-theme - a claustrophobic city is a good setting for a horror game) but I'd love to see the character options fleshed out.

One thing I'd probably do is make a distinction between the more mechanical Hunter's Tools and the more otherworldly ones, and perhaps having some kind of "Ingenuity" stat to govern the former, with Arcane or some similar notion governing the latter. Giving the player an FP-like meter to fuel stuff like special Trick Weapon abilities (similar to the Ashes of War or Weapon Arts) along with Hunter's Tools and... oh, we'll call them "Eldritch Invocations" to borrow a phrase.

It doesn't seem like From likes doing physical-damage ranged damage builds (though I am noticing that my current Bloodtinge-focused character hits pretty decently with his Evelyn pistol).

Naturally, there are tons of quality-of-life improvements that have come in subsequent games, like being able to re-spec, being able to sell "XP items" for their proper value, having the XP you need to level up shown on your Status screen, and being able to warp directly from checkpoint to checkpoint (hell, in Elden Ring, there's no reason to need a Homeward Bone or Bold Hunter's Mark equivalent because you can just warp anyway). Actually, also, just being able to rest at a lantern instead of warping back to the Hunter's Dream would also be great.

Now, I don't know how inclined From would be to revisit Bloodborne's lore and setting. Dark Souls is really the only exception so far, among the Soulsborne games, to have any direct sequels, and you could even read the plot of Dark Souls III in a meta way as a criticism of the very concept of sequels (a world that has been forced to continue on existing past its intended age is collapsing under its own weight).

But while Elden Ring is probably, ultimately, my favorite of FromSoft's games so far, I also liked how Bloodborne took the formula and explored a new genre (even if basically all of them have some Cosmic Horror elements).

Still, given all they've learned in the eight years since Bloodborne came out, I'd love to return to the gothic nightmare and gear up with my trick weapons to fight some beasts again.

My Witch of Hemwick Record is Safe

 Returning several years after I first played it, I've now taken down the Witch(es) of Hemwick, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, as I downed the boss without dying (actually, that makes this playthrough pretty darn good - I've only died to Cleric Beast, having taken down Gascoigne and Blood-Starved Beast in one go each. I'm not counting on that streak continuing, especially as I get ready to take down Amelia).

I had remembered that the route from Hemwick Charnel Lane to the Witch's Abode was one of my best early-game Blood Echo-farming routes, and I now see why: the executioners that patrol near the Witch's house are worth something like 2300 echoes, at a level when I need about 5-6k to level up and everything else is dropping like 2-3 hundred.

I also think I was extremely stingy with using Coldblood Dew and the other "echo items." Sadly, unlike in Elden Ring, where you can sell the equivalent items to the blacksmith (or any vendor) for an equal value, here you get significantly more if you actually use the item, so you can't just dump them en masse in the same way (I think Dark Souls III also let you sell them for their equal value).

So, essentially, I'm still in the game's Act One, but with little to do other than fight Vicar Amelia (I suppose in theory I could let the Snatchers take me to the Hypogean Gaol - and then fight Darkbeast Paarl? I think that might be the way to get Djura to act non-hostile to you, but I may have screwed that up by already going up his tower and fighting with him).

I do find myself really wishing that we could get a Bloodborne II, largely to see how some of the gameplay enhancements that have come in DSIII and Elden Ring could be applied here.

I will say that I think the way Blood Vials work in this encourage you to be a little more liberal with them than your Crimson Tears/Estus Flask, because so many enemies drop them. It's still easy to run a deficit, especially when you hit a difficult boss, but I think it's meant to keep you going even when you've had a lot of battles and taken some hits. Again, though, I think Elden Ring's (and I think, more rarely, Dark Souls III's) ability to grant you a refreshed charge on your healing item when you defeat some groups of enemies might be more elegant.

Then again, the excess with which you slam alien blood-goo into your leg over and over during the course of the game is kind of thematic (the detail how there was a superstition about how the Curse of the Beast crept up the right leg, and so people would tie a belt around it, is kind of brilliant: obviously, it's really that you're injecting all this alien blood into your right leg, but you could imagine that the Church suppressed that truth to keep people enforcing their status quo).

I do wonder what the Witch of Hemwick fight is like on New Game Plus, if you have a very high Insight. While I still one-shot the encounter, I did get one hairy moment when three Mad Ones surrounded me, and that was when I came into the fight with only 1 Insight (though obviously I got another for seeing the boss).

Reentering the Nightmare: Coming back to Bloodborne

 Perhaps inspired by tomorrow's release of Lies of P (though given that it's also the day that the full Mac version of Baldur's Gate 3 comes out, I'll probably be playing that instead - thoug I do find myself oddly drawn to the "Steampunk Pinnochio game) I found myself drawn back to the Gothic/Cosmic Horror masterpiece that is Bloodborne.

Having now put many full (more or less - the game is enormous) clears of Elden Ring behind me, I thought I'd return to this first Souls game I ever beat.

Despite my experience, the early part of Bloodborne is still crushingly difficult. I died many times exploring Central Yharnam, and while I did eventually come across a couple of Madman's Knowledge items there, I'd already gotten to the Cleric Beast and had two halfway decent attempts at it before I went and got the full Hunter's outfit for better protection and then upgraded my Saw Spear to +2 and put a few levels into Vitality and Endurance, and I was able to take down the Cleric Beast with about half my Blood Vials remaining, which I count as a win.

I actually managed to one-shot Father Gascoigne and the Blood-Starved Beast (the latter taking advantage of Alfred's assistance - I think this playthrough I'm going to be way less precious with things like Insight - I think I never even used any of the Madman's Knowledge or Great One's Wisdom in previous runs. I also played offline before, and I'll be curious to see if I'm able to assist anyone on bosses this go around.

There are a couple things I don't love about the game, to be fair. Farming Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets isn't all that fun (I'm sort of shocked that I seem to perpetually be out of the latter) and sometimes I feel like I should put all my boss Echoes into simply replenishing these stores.

The tuning is also very different from Elden Ring. I think perhaps because Elden Ring, like Dark Souls, allows for more defensive playstyles, in this, the bosses have pretty hefty stores of HP, which requires you constantly whittle away at them, even while their attacks are (at least at this stage of the game) not the hardest to avoid. I also think it was a fantastic idea to have all players start with a huge Stamina bar in Elden Ring, as I really feel energy-starved at this stage of the game.

Also, there's just no support for Arcane or Bloodtinge builds in the early game. My intent is to ultimately go with the latter for this character, but until I can get my hands on a weapon that uses it, I'll be basically playing like a Skill build that focuses a lot on Vitality and Endurance.

But I love this game, and that love remains strong. There are definitely things I've forgotten - like how to make Djura non-hostile (I might have approached him prematurely... maybe I need to beat Darkbeast Paarl first?)

I don't know if we can ever expect to get a Bloodborne II. I'd love to see one. While I adore Elden Ring (and, frankly, prefer its aesthetic and world over that of Dark Souls) and expect that, given its success, that will be the one more likely to get a direct sequel, I'd love for FromSoft to return to this Gothic setting.

Though admittedly, it'd also be really cool to see them make a Souls-like in a new setting with a new aesthetic. I'd love a futuristic sci-fi Souls-like (and no, Armored Core VI is not that).

I'd also love to see a version of Bloodborne with the quality-of-life improvements we got in Elden Ring. You know, like a Jump button.

The Games That Have Stuck With Me In Recent Years

 Now halfway through September, we're getting into spooky season. I'll be honest - I've always had a love of Halloween that makes it feel a little disappointing that we so swiftly move on to Thanksgiving and Christmas (and other winter holidays - while I'm half-Jewish, the fact that we also celebrated Christmas always allowed us to treat Hannukah as the minor holiday that it actually is).

And as often happens, my thoughts turn back to Bloodborne.

Bloodborne wasn't my first Soulsborne game - I'd gotten Dark Souls for the Xbox 360 prior to playing it, but between getting stuck on Ornstein & Smough and getting frustrated by the fact that you lost both Souls and Humanity (also, getting cursed multiple times when trying to explore the depths of the Great Tree and having to go through the whole pain of getting back to the New Londo Ruins to cleanse it) left me sort of done with that one (given how many Souls games I have under my belt now, especially with like six or seven full clears of Elden Ring, I wonder if I should go back to it). But Bloodborne, which was not really any easier at least in terms of moment-to-moment combat challenges, but there were little things, like the fact that Insight (the rough equivalent to Humanity) could only be lost if a specific kind of enemy landed its insight-draining attack on you, that helped with quality of life (also, the stat system was far simpler, which made it easier to figure out where to spend your levels - though after Elden Ring I really wonder if I'd have been better off investing more in HP in those games).

While Bloodborne is seen these days as among the best, if not the very peak of FromSoft's achievements, there were some complaints when it was new. First, there were the Chalice Dungeons, which I actually agree were too repetitive and dull, and so I've never plumbed their depths and defeated Queen Yharnam herself. Next, there were complaints that the lore and NPCs were not as complex as that of Dark Souls. Truthfully, that also might be fair. I think at this stage Elden Ring has maybe surpassed the sheer volume of lore that was found in the original Dark Souls if only because it has such a larger world in which to present that lore.

To be clear, Elden Ring is probably also going to be one of these games totally sticking in my mind, but I've played it recently enough that it still feels pretty "current," and only came out a year and a half ago.

Another game, this one being one that I came to years after it was first released, but that's utterly stuck with me, is Control.

Control is not as grand in scope, though interestingly it does incorporate some Souls-like mechanics. But I think it really spoke to my aesthetic tastes in a way that few pieces of media had done previously. For example, back in 2015 when I first got into D&D, I came up with my first character, a Warlock with a Great Old One patron, and the look and feel of the patron I came up with was far closer to the bizarre upside-down pyramid in the Astral Plane that is Control's "The Board" (or at least that is The Board's means of communicating with humanity) than any of the squishy, slimy alien beings of Lovecraft's fiction.

I have an obsession with stories that blend science-fiction and fantasy, and Control's portrayal of scientists investigating "paranatural" phenomena that would simply be magic if it were not approached in the rigorous and methodical way the FBC researchers do (invoking the corollary to Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology) is 100% my kind of thing.

It didn't hurt that Control has really satisfying gameplay. I remain, however, utterly infuriated that the game doesn't allow you to simply create a new save file without overwriting the old one, or letting you replay chapters of it without losing the progress you've made (I unlocked a lot of things after beating the primary story, and my understanding is that if I go back to the "Endgame" chapter, it simply puts you back at the point you were when you beat the main story).

Control actually sent me down the rabbit-hole of the Remedy game universe, and I went back to play Alan Wake - a game I'd been intrigued by when it came out in 2010 but didn't get around to until much later. While Alan Wake is also cool, it didn't quite grab me as effectively as Control. There was something refreshing about the fact that Alan Wake had no "progression system," some of which weighed down Control, but it also left the game feeling very on-rails. You went through the story and situation and levels as dictated by the game's designers to see the story as they wanted to tell it. I think it was just a product of its era - today's games tend to really value giving players a more open world, while this was a bit more like Uncharted (the first of which came out three years prior) in that it kept you on rails to guarantee the cinematic moments and set-pieces it wanted to show you.

I guess one thing that Bloodborne and Control have in common is their rewarding of attempts to peel back the layers of lore. Bloodborne, for example, has an option (and somewhat hidden) area called Castle Cainhurst, which ties in its strange version of vampires to the plot. In typical FromSoft fashion, recognizing certain styles of dress and certain weapons will allow you to suss out that two NPCs - one of which is a boss in the DLC - have a hereditary connection to this castle.

Similarly, in Control, if you're diligent about reading the memos found around the Oldest House and listening to the various recordings, you can discover an entire conspiracy by the "Blessed" organization that seems to be waging some kind of secret war against the FBC, while having nothing to do with the current crisis with The Hiss.

I do adore this kind of deep lore-building. Even if I largely come by the lore thanks to the greater online community, mostly via YouTube channels like VattiVidya, it really enhances my enjoyment of the game as a perfect complement to the satisfying combat.