Bloodborne Lore | The Pthumerians and Labyrinth

[Music] everything in the surface world of bloodborne can be traced back to the lands which lie beneath the surface the winding Labyrinth known to some as the Tomb of the Gods indeed it is Within These hallowed corridors that the story truly begins with the great ones with the tumerians and with the bergenworth scholars who pierced its Dusty innards hoping to uncover the truth of their world's greatest Mysteries this intriguing and mysterious maze is home to numerous civilizations but most fascinating of all are The Haunting tumerians Servants of the Gods Bound by Blood pact a race almost as alien to humanity as the great ones themselves this is the story of a civilization growing from Humble Origins to Regal monarchy before collapsing into primitive warbands represented by the Watchers pale Shadows of their Royal temerian ancestors and now within the empty core corridors of the labyrinth we just get glimpses of the greatness that was once the temerian kingdom for me my great love for bloodborne is so deeply tied to those dusty walls and winding corridors and so I ask you to join me this week as we Dive Into the Heart of the labyrinth and of bloodborne itself but before we get started I want to acknowledge some creators whose work has been very influential on this video and that is Bob the hollow and last protagonist and as always I'm going to give a shout out to Loki author of Abyssal archive for their insights and translations that I will reference throughout and before we get started guys remember that if you like bloodborne lore then consider liking this video and subscribing to the channel this video was originally going to be about all three distinct cultures within the Labyrinth ease Lauren and tamiru however as you can no doubt see by the size of this video the temerians alone warranted their own video and I will eventually cover loran and ease in another video but before we start looking at the temerian culture I think it behooves us to look at the nature and structure of the labyrinth itself the first thing to note is that while we experience the Labyrinth through the nebulous chalice dungeons it is a real physical place that exists below yharnam itself and we learn of this via Alfred who says the following and the Tomb of the Gods carved out below yarnum should be familiar to every Hunter we discussed this in my choir lore video but it seems like the Labyrinth was essentially discovered at bergenworth in Loki's lore article on bergenworth he points out the fact that birkenworth is Germanic for worth of the burial please which is obviously relevant when we consider the Labyrinth is also called Tomb of the Gods and Loki believes that bergenworth is established where it is because of the graves that we find in the area surrounding the Forbidden Forest including some found right outside bargainworth where we fight the shadows of yharnam there are a lot of hints that these graves are connected to the Labyrinth itself and a point well made by charred thermos who has unfortunately now deleted their channel is that the Labyrinth is referred to as a tomb of the Gods by Alfred suggesting that it is a burial ground for Gods thus the presence of these massive Graves as the sort of outer or upper level of the labyrinth makes a lot of sense this becomes even more apparent when you consider the Visual Evidence as well as we see slugs more slightly Pearl slugs writhing on the surface of some of these Graves suggesting they have slipped out from the Labyrinth and aside from these interesting observations Common Sense would dictate that a skill founded to study the Labyrinth bergenworth would be situated close to the subject of said study indeed one of willem's attendants dores further hammers home the idea that the entrance to the Labyrinth is found among these graves in the Forbidden Forest surrounding bergenworth Doris is the prior owner of the Grave guard attire one of the coolest outfits in the game incidentally now the appearance of the outfit kind of speaks for itself is clearly modeled after a temerian itself heavily implying that Doris in their gitties as a grave guard came into contact with tumerians this is more or less confirmed by The graveguard Mask item description which reads the following mask of Doris graveguard of the Forbidden Woods his pale countenance mimics the Labyrinth Watchers Willem kept two loyal servants back at bergenworth when they were sent into the Labyrinth they encountered the Eldritch truth and went mad one became the password gatekeeper while Doris became a grave guard of the forest so this gives us a lot of information first light does tell us that dores and willem's other servant was indeed sent into the Labyrinth once again reinforcing the idea that the Labyrinth is located around these Graves or at least around bergenworth secondly it mentions Watchers and while the Watchers are something separate from the temerians I do believe as I will explain that they are descendants of the tumerians after the civilization collapsed and I do think this is quite clear given their visual identity is very close in nature to those temerians but yes long story short the entrance to the Labyrinth I believe is around these Graves and the forest and in Loki's bergenworth article they even point out a hatch on the lowest floor of the bergenworth school itself suggesting that this too could be an entrance into the Labyrinth that students and Willem used whenever they needed to do a field trip and I go over all of this information just to reinforce the idea that the Labyrinth is a real physical place in the waking world of bloodborne it's just that we don't experience it that way now before we go any further and dive into Labyrinth ourselves it is time for us to fuel up with today's sponsor today's video is brought to you by hellofresh who are once again feeding the lore and I couldn't be more delighted as it is a product I personally use in my day-to-day life as 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free shipping click the link in the description or scan the QR code with your phone thanks again to hellofresh for sponsoring the lore and now back to the temerians Bob the hollow has an excellent video on the tumerians and the Labyrinth and I will link Bob's original video below firstly Bob points out something I had overlooked in that it is actually the tumerians who carved out the Labyrinth originally not ease or Lauren but tomorrow as they lower to Maru chalice reads the old Labyrinth was carved out by the tumerians Superhuman beings that are said to have unlocked the wisdom of the Eldritch truth I would suggest that the tumerian civilization is therefore the oldest of all Labyrinthian civilizations Bob then correctly identifies that while we can visualize Tamara a hill as one of the lowest and probably most Central points of the labyrinth something reflected in this super handy Labyrinth diagram that Loki provided to me parts of the labyrinth like the hinter tomb are the parts that extend outwards rather than deeper the peripheral edges of the labyrinth as a whole hence they are called Hunter tombs meaning outlying tombs and we know from the hunter termite chalice description that they are continued to be expanded outwards by the Watchers and we'll talk about the Watchers and their relation to temerian culture in the last part of this video but I just wanted to give you some idea of the probable structure of this Labyrinth with the center of the temerian Kingdom lately being the most Central and deepest part of the labyrinth but the hinter tombs and outer tumerian layers being the levels that the bergenworth scholars most likely first entered by and so when it comes to ease and Lauren given that they are connected to the Labyrinth which we have just established must have been carved out by the temerians in the first instance we could possibly speculate that these are either contemporary civilizations to the temerians or offshoots who develop their own culture and identity over time I think the latter is quite likely given the actual corridors found even within these parts of the labyrinth share the same symbology found in The temerian Labyrinth they're just some cosmetic differences with different enemy types that represent each culture's different way of trying to connect to the cosmos and the great ones but let me know your thoughts on the actual structure of the labyrinth in the comments below one final specific about the Labyrinth we need to discuss before moving on to the early history of the temerians is the Chalice dungeons a subject we have touched on before in my great ones video but we will do so again here for the sake of completeness I believe that the Chalice dungeons are pocket Dimensions or dreams that reflect a segment of the labyrinth as a specific instance or moment in time in my choir video I highlighted the fact that every time we open the ease chalice dungeon we fight ebratars despite the fact that ebratast now exists in the waking world in the orphanage even if we have killed ebratas in the waking world we are able to use this chalice and face them again and should we cancel the Chalice dungeon and redo the ritual we can face ebitas for another time showing that every time you use this chalice it is just a singular pocket or moment in time that is being recreated no matter how many times you do the ritual indeed Bob made an amazing observation which I had never noticed before and I feel so silly for missing it this observation is that the yarnam we meet in the nightmare of Menses the current consciousness of Queen yardum is postnatal as we can see from her figure and the very fact that mergle now exists and she is here weeping for her Lost Child and yet the Queen yarnam We face in the Chalice dungeons is still pregnant as a game we can see this from her figure and I'd actually never noticed this before and so once again this reinforces the fact that the Chalice Dungeons and the Chalice rituals are just creating a pocket Dimension that reflects a certain instance of time and in the case of Tamir a heal it is recreating the moment when Queen yarnum was still pregnant with the nature and physicality of the labyrinth somewhat outlined let us now explore the origins of the tumerian civilization thank you I think one of the best places to start when discussing the tumerian people is probably worth the to mirror a heal chalice which reads the following tamero ahil was the title of both the temerian Monarch and its capital this reveals that while early temerians were mere humble Guardians of the slumbering great ones their descendants felt entitled to name themselves a leader so this has a lot of interesting starting points for us as we begin to unpack the story of this great civilization what this chalice is seeing is pretty straightforward but really interesting it is saying that while later tumerians had a monarching where their own Nation essentially those that came before them their ancestors were only humble Guardians they had no nation of their own or even any leadership they just existed to serve the great ones and if we combine this with the lore found in the lore to mirror chalice then the implication is is that the temerians carve without the Labyrinth firstly for the great ones not for their own nation and that it was only later converted as the location of their civilization and so right to the onset I think it Paints the picture of a society of a people that has a close intimate relationship with the great ones the very origins of these people is rooted in that connection this is where I think it's worth looking at the actual design of the temerians and it is so distinctive and it really conveys a certain feeling to the player because it's done so well and so let's try and unpack it because it goes a long way in selling the otherness of the temerians despite them being humanist in appearance where the beasts of yarnum give us a sort of werewolf aspect to the gothic horror the temerians and the vilebloods provide the vampiric aspect to it but specifically their faces are of course a reference to the famous painting by Edvard Munch called the scream and much like the tumerians ourselves the visual design of this painting gives off very powerful feelings the painting of course means different things to different people but in general it shows a human emitting a primal scream to me it speaks of existential horror facing some truth or realization that triggers almost animalistic despair that existential fear or angst is best described from the words of the artist himself who described the events that led up to him painting this incredible piece the following quote comes from his diary in 1892. I was walking along the road with two friends the sun went down I felt a gust of melancholy suddenly this guy turned a bloody red I stopped leaning against the railing tired to death as the Flaming Skies hung like blood and sword over the blue Black Fjord and the city my friends went on I stood there trembling with anxiety and I felt a vast infinite scream through nature I think what Munch describes here of someone being so overcome with what they have witnessed and felt that you almost cannot bear it it is very similar to the depictions in bloodborne of people who are exposed to the Eldritch truth indeed even Munch's description here of him feeling a vast infinite scream through nature really does make me think of a human in the world of bloodborne realizing the true nature of the cosmos the Eldritch truth thus to me I believe the appearance is partly meant to convey this constant exposure to the Eldritch truth a kind of permanent expression of shock that permeates their entire people bear in mind that this is the expression and face that dores the grave guard takes as his own mask After experiencing the Eldritch truth himself however I also think there is another facet that is contributed to their ghoulish appearance and this is blood dregs or corrupted blood no one in the game as vileblood this is a material that I suggest is Central to their blood packs their marriages to the great one a tradition carried on by the vile blood of cainhurst but we will talk about that later but much like blood Administration affects the people of yharnam to the point where they turn into base I believe that the tumerians attempts at using blood dregs to make the perfect host the perfect surrogate for the great ones has contributed to their ghoulish and vampiric appearance if we want once again look at the lore to meru chalice we can see that the temerians are referred to as superhuman by its very definition a superhuman or beings that are Beyond human and in the case of the temerians whether this is a result of their nature or if it's due to their close relationship with the great ones or if it's to do with their experimentation with blood drags as we've just discussed I will leave it up to you to decide before we move on it is worth noting that Loki offers a different more straightforward explanation as to why the temerians appear the way they do simply that it's a result of them living underground for generations to quote Loki now prolonged shared from the Sun turned these humans inhuman with deathly pale skin and sunken black eyes whatever is a contributing factor we can see that they do possess certain superhuman elements to them when we Face true temerians like the tumerian elder or queen yarnum we can see that they possess certain superhuman abilities for example both yharnam and the temerian Elder are able to teleport her well the temerian Elder is able to summon weapons almost at well seemingly and queen yarnam's abilities go far beyond even this being able to project different copies of her that can actually attack and harm enemies if they need to I would say in yarnum's case it is most likely that the cause of her powers is her corrupted blood the buildup of blood drags as a lot of her abilities have to do with manipulating blood forming them into Spears for example but the fact that even her spraying her blood on us actually does damage to us really does Hammer home that her blood is vile and that it is the source of her power however as we discussed earlier the blood monarchy of the temerians is not something that came about until later on and before that they were just superhuman beings that were humble Guardians and thus some of their superhuman elements May must be intrinsic to their race but let me know in the comments below what you believe is the source of their superhuman nature but in what way were the early temerians Guardians of the great ones this brings me back to the original purpose of the labyrinth something I alluded to earlier later it would become a kingdom but it started out as a labyrinth that was carved by the tumerians in service of the great ones taking thee to mirror a hill and lower to Mary chalice together let's talk briefly about the semantics of the word tumero itself and what it could even mean thanks to Loki we do have some idea and I quote Loki now Tamara or tumor is an obvious portmanteau of the English tomb and the ancient civilization of simmer so essentially the tomb civilization which makes sense given this is a civilization born out of tombs that they carved for their gods also consider the design of the labyrinth itself Alfred refers to it as the Tomb of the Gods and indeed the interior of the labyrinth does remind me of a tomb or catacombs or the interior of the pyramids for example for me this does reinforce that the Labyrinth was a tomb first a civilization second does the term Tomb of the Gods literally mean that the gods or the great ones were actually buried in here well that is actually a complex question but again it is one we will attempt to unlock a fascinating scene awaits Us in the altar of Despair in Upper Cathedral Ward we find ebratars staring sadly towards the corpse of a being that very much resembles Rome and yet we later face ROM and we know that the ROM we actually do fight is not a vision or a dream as this ROM is having an effect on the waking World by hiding the ritual of menses the explanation as to how this is possible why there is a corpse of Rome and yet we Face rum is again something we looked at in more detail in my great ones lore video but in short item descriptions like the great ones wisdom and the umbilical cord that talks about Willem suggests that the main difference between the great ones and a regular human is the elevated nature of their mind that they have the ability to think and operate on multiple planes of existence on higher planes essentially having the level of mind that can operate Within These Dreams within the cosmos and we can see that this is quite well Illustrated with the case of ibritas who is referred to in the choir set as the Left Behind great one and my assumption has always been that ibratasa's Ken have ascended to these higher Realms without her leaving only her behind and that in general it is normative for great ones to ascend beyond the physical the very fact that these higher Realms are referred to as dreams or nightmares should tell you the exact nature of these higher Dimensions they are Realms of pure Consciousness much as dreams are in the real world and that is why the more advanced great ones like Urban and wet nurse to some extent exist without a physical form to be a higher life form in this universe is to leave the physical behind to become more mind than matter to leave behind your crude frame of Flesh and Bone and exist in a state of pure thought that we cannot fully comprehend as a human in the case of Rome it seems that when one attains such ascendants they can transcend their mortal form and transform their Consciousness into the dream now there may be no set way of doing this as we cannot tell how beings like Urban actually came about perhaps their mortal form just became pure Consciousness and ceased to exist entirely despite this we do find another similar example to ROM of a being who literally leaves their mortal body behind when they are sent to a higher dream Dimension and I am of course referring to mikalash host of The Nightmare of Menses we find mikalash's corpse in your heart goal and yet we still encounter his Consciousness fully realized in the nightmare albeit he's gone a bit mad no doubt as a result of him forcing this encounter as normally what miklash has achieved would usually be reserved for the great ones but I would likewise assume that ROM's fate is in a similar situation where she hasn't necessarily been killed rather her mind has ascended to the higher planes and as a result her body has been left behind and has died and if that is the case no wonder ebratas is sad here it's just another reminder that she is a left behind great one so a long tangent to be sure and I do apologize but we now have a greater understanding of maybe why this Labyrinth was called a tomb of the Gods while we don't know if there is a uniform way in which great ones can Ascend we do at least have the examples of ROM and miklash to assures that in some cases a body is Left Behind when the Consciousness ascends thus these terms could be named as such because this is where the great one's physical forms would go to their final rest and it is these corpses that were buried and guarded by the temerians as the to mirror ahil chalice calls them the humble guardians of slumbering great ones let's talk about the form that this guardianship would take by discussing three of the labyrinth's most iconic denizens The Keeper of the old lords Watchdog of the old lords and the right keeper I think the right keeper is a good place to start and these are the witch-like enemies that can come in The Crawling or the tall forms while unusual looking their appearance makes it clear that they are temerian their appearance is of course Very occult-like witch-like and their name suggests that they possess some religious or cult knowledge and I have to say I absolutely love the Aesthetics of these guys the bloodborne Wiki run by Community member meth once again was a great source of information on the page for these right Keepers the wiki notes that we actually got an official description of these enemies pre-release and this was available on the Japanese bloodborne website which would read the following about the right Keepers among the hunters survives the knowledge of individuals who pray for resting a unique ritualist people who do not know of the retchless will be terrified by their appearance and demeanor labeling them as disgusting and repulsive whereas that may be just pure Prejudice perhaps be especially mindful of the ritual Masters who perform a dark and ancient ceremony that few have lived to talk about now of course we have to treat these descriptions with a massive degree of skepticism as having looked at the others and as you can see from this description they are quite generic and don't quite fit in with the lore of the release game that being said I still think it's a good source when trying to understand the design intention behind each enemy however the last line is the most interesting to me that refers to them as performing dark and ancient ceremonies they are right Keepers after all and so I do think this is in line with these beings as we see them in the game this in tandem with their name as a right keeper leads me to speculate that these beings are a ritualist who perform certain rituals in order to to protect the Labyrinth perhaps even with a religious element mixed in to honor their Patron Gods the term right is also used elsewhere in regards to the labyrinths in relation to the Chalice rituals of the Chalice dungeons for example in the description of bloodshot eyeball which specifically uses the term right so to go even more into speculation territory perhaps these right Keepers were also involved in the creation of these chalice dungeon raids as if to preserve a part of the Holy Labyrinth indefinitely in a pocket Dimension after all Garmin does describe the chalice and performing a chalice dungeon ritual as a Holy Communion and it is described any similar religious fashion in the tumeru Chalice description there is another ritual mentioned in regards to the Labyrinth and I refer to the mysterious process mentioned in the bone Ash set the set of the keepers of the old lords the bone Ash mask reads the following a mask made of born Ash worn by the oldest keepers the keepers who mind the slumbering great ones gained eternal life preserved in Ashen form and a ceremony that cremated Body and Soul the long pointed hat is a symbol of the old Keepers and is considered evidence of their companionship forged in a certain sin the keepers are very mysterious and this item description describes a burning ceremony or ritual which reduces them to Ash but somehow keeps them moving and Immortal so that they can serve as Guardians to the great ones the old lords given their appearance and affinity for fire as well as a similar naming convention I would assume that the Watchdogs of the old lords are created via a similar purpose to these keepers of the old Lord both are very fiery creatures meant to safeguard the old lords and presumably they were developed as part of the tumerians guardianship over the great ones as to how they actually work and how they came to be is of course impossible for us to get the exact right answer but in this universe of bloodborne any magic quote-unquote is essentially Arcane the manipulation of the cosmic elements of this world and perhaps they are essentially powered by some sort of Arcane manipulation however I have always wondered if there's something else at work with these Keepers and Watchdogs we have already spoken about how people who are sent to higher planes be it great ones or humans sometimes leave their physical shells behind we only face these beings and the Chalice dungeons which again we've already discussed I believe to be pocket Dimensions or dreams is it possible then that these Keepers and Watchdogs are actually people that were burned in their corporeal form burned to death in the real world in a specific ritual so that their Consciousness could be Shackled and exist as a guardian in these sacred dungeons I leave it to you to decide ultimately regardless of the specifics of how they work I see them as the creations of the tumerians however something else is Lost in Translation here the bone Ash mask talks about how this is forged in some kind of sin and this language is a little confusing however thanks to Loki we have a translation which makes the truth far clearer and far easier to understand Loki's translation reads the large hat tapered to a point is a symbol of the old Watchmen and considered to be proof that they were some kind of Sinners so this makes sense that these Watchmen are essentially punished for a crime or for some other perceived slight against their culture burned alive in these fire rituals and repurposed into something more useful so to conclude I believe the Labyrinth was first constructed as a tomb a place where great ones could go to ascend and their bodies Left Behind would be guarded by their servants the temerians spend time these Guardians would become their own nation and it is to the tamerian monarchy and their culture that we turn to next my assumption has always been that the temerian monarchy is matriarchal because of the importance that women would have had and their ongoing relationship with the great ones and credit to Loki for pointing out the importance of an item description that basically outright confirms that this is the case the tamero ahil root chalice which reads the following the temerian Monarch was traditionally a woman who assumed a name with classical Roots so yes their Monarch was mainly a woman and this will make sense as to why when we go over this in the following chapter but it also makes an interesting remark about her name that they would assume a name with classical roots and to me this is referring to the practice of a rain name which is a name used by monarchs when they take up their new position that might not be necessarily their original birth name for example the last queen of the United Kingdom was Queen Elizabeth II but she wasn't born Queen Elizabeth II she was just called Elizabeth and her Reign name was Elizabeth II because she was the second Queen of England to have that title but there are examples of monarchs actually taking a different rain name than their actual first name for example Elizabeth's father was called Albert Frederick Arthur George and called Albert by his family but instead when he acceded to the throne he chose King George as his title and so in short it may be that Queen yardum is a traditional name amongst the temerian monarchy and she might be Queen yarnum the third or fourth and a lot of my evidence for such comes from the vile Bloods of cainhurst who I see as the inheritors of the two married monarchy and analogous to their structure they are too led by a queen called annalize and so let's start by connecting Annelise and yarnum and why I believe them to be analogous to one another even in a video I did seven years ago on cainhurst I already made this connection but thanks to the great work of last protagonist I am able to refine my understanding of why I see these two as analogous for one another and this is thanks to the last protagonist's seminal video on the vilebloods which I highly recommend you watch and I will link below firstly last protagonist points out that in the original Japanese annalize is referred to as cainhurst blood Queen and Queen yharnam in her PlayStation achievement is called the blood Queen of the old Labyrinth so they are both blood queens and what this means will become more apparent as we continue to explore them last protagonist believes that this was meant to be an explicit connection between the two but it was something that was Lost in Translation to reinforce this intent he points out that the full description of queenly Flesh the flesh left over by annalize when she is murdered by Alfred does describe her as the blood Queen despite the quick description not doing so to understand the function that a blood Queen plays and why it's important to both the vile Bloods and to meru we need to examine the function of the vile Bloods and as we move forward I just want to make it explicit that credit for this goes to last protagonist as I am drawing directly on his work to explain this last protagonist starts by pointing out the fact that when you join the vile blood you get the Rune corruption or kegare in the original Japanese telling you at the onset that this class one is concerned with unfiltered and potent blood indeed when we give Annelise a blood drag she rewards the player by giving us some of her own blood at which point she says feel the spreading corruption burn suggesting that her blood is indeed impure as I've said already in earlier chapters Queen yarnum's blood is also actually weaponized against us not just in spear form but she actually just sprays us with her blood which does damage to us once again suggesting that both of these Queens have similar vile blood another connection between the two groups is the Rune blood Rapture what is interesting is that the wording here is ambiguous enough that it could be describing the Servants of Queen Annelise or the Servants of Queen yarnum and it is dropped by the shadows of yarnum suggesting it could be referring to Queen yarnum and yet it is also dropped by the bloody Crow of cainhurst the hunter found in the grand Cathedral that appears to kill alien Hunter of hunters and while I am unsure about which Queen this Rune is referring to specifically I do think that it aptly describes the role of each Queen in their respective societies and the fact that it's dropped by a servant of Queen Jordan and then later a servant of Queen Annelise is an illustration of that connection and could suggest that these Shadows of yharnam who I believe to be the personal guard of Queen yharnam herself may have once played a similar role that the veil blood Hunters now play for annalize they were both responsible for searching for blood dregs for their Queen so that they could be surrogates for a great one Additionally the blood drag item description gives us an insight into what we are actually trying to achieve by providing Annelise with blood drags as it reads Queen Annelise partakes in these blood drag offerings so that she may one day bear the child of blood the next vile blood Heir and as we are continuing to compare the two queens the concept of a blood child should resonate when we consider the importance of children to the great ones and the fact that Queen yarnam herself bore a special child Margot one of the most basic facts of bloodborne lore is that great ones yearn to have their own children as the umbilical chord description reads every great one loses its child and then yearns for a surrogate yet we can learn in game that some surrogates are more suitable than others and there is a specific reason that they can hearse and tumerians seek out this corrupted blood as is highlighted by last protagonist we can get into the situation where there are actually two sources of blood for us in erden Chapel two people willing to give us their blood Adele are the nun and Ariana women of the night Adela is very insecure about the quality of her own blood she gave me a I should have known better I would a brave Hunter do with lowly blood like mine please forget I even asked and seems jealous if you choose Ariana's blood over hers even looking directly at you when you're talking to Ariana and should this continue Without You intervening Adela will eventually kill Ariana out of jealousy you can even find blood on her gloves and eventually when the red moon is hanging law Adela will try and kill you thinking that your blood is Tainted given that you have received so many transfusions from Ariana the reason Adela is so jealous of Ariana and why she thinks your blood will be tainted is because Ariana has ties to the vile Bloods meaning her blood is actually more potent than someone like adela's and the reason we know this is because Ariana is wearing the noble dress a dress associated with thickenhursts perhaps she is a descendant or someone who escaped the massacre by the executioners at the castle Adela indirectly calling her blood tinted as well as the use of the word forbidden and in the item description of Ariana's blood helps cement her connection to the bio blogs and while the church might dim their blood forbidden or vile it is indeed Ariana who has chosen to be a surrogate for the great ones at the end of Ariana's Quest we find her with a cosmic child and we find the source of this child via the umbilical cord that it drops when killed it reads the following every great one loses its child and then yearns for a surrogate and erden the formless great one is no different to think it was corrupted blood that began this Eldritch liaison this plainly says that it was Ariana's corrupted or Veil blood that was the reason she was chosen by erden to be at surrogate Ariana not Adela Adela herself as a young woman and you think would be a suitable surrogate however even if Ariana is killed an Adela is the only one in urban Church she will not be chosen as a surrogate it is corrupted blood that is the key last protagonist does go into the nature of corrupted blood of the blood dregs and why it's so important but I will leave it to them as they do a far better job than I ever could and again I highly recommend their vile blood video in case you want to learn more but in short these blood dregs and corrupted or vile blood in general is just blood any more potent and concentrated form and the process by which you obtain a blood Drake is far more visceral in nature as they need to be sought from the actual blood of hunters whereas blood ministration is a more kind of medical or scientific procedure despite it being quite ghastly as well and the reason they might be found in Hunters makes a lot of sense Hunters are beings who imbibe a lot of blood indeed the blood drag refers to them as Echo fiends as they consume a lot of blood Echoes and thus it makes sense that hunters and their bodies would be the source of the most concentrated of blood indeed even in regular blood Echoes when you look at the more concentrated versions you see almost embryos in the center of it as if it is close to being able to produce in infant great one and in blood drags if you look closely it looks like they're male reproductive cell as if this is also playing a role in being able to produce an infant great one and while it's difficult to see how this process exactly works it is clear that having this concentrated blood within your body would make you a suitable host for creating an infant great one but again the very fact that these blood dregs there's concentrated form of blood is found filtered within the bodies of hunters the hunters need to be ripped apart to essentially get at this viscera again returns us to the image of vile Bloods and temerians themselves being closer to vampires than the werewolves that are born of the medical procedures of the healing Church the blood drag describes these Hunters these vile blood Hunters as blood lusting and blood Rapture describes the fact that they find almost joy in being splashed with blood the corruption Rune suggests that only vile blood Hunters with this Rune can see blood drags within the blood and indeed we will only get this drop if we are using the corruption Rune and so I would suggest that it is this Rune that has an influence on the senses of vile blood Hunters not only that they can see these blood dregs but they sort of develop a lust for blood again vampires and it is also also hinted that by having enough of this concentrated blood these blood dregs you gain immortality much like a vampire and I believe this thanks to the description of the yharnam stone dropped by queen yarnum and the queenly flesh dropped by annalize both of these items suggest that yarnum and Annelise continue to live despite the fact their bodies have been destroyed I would doubt this is the case for temerians in general or even other members of the cainhurst royal family rather Queen Annelise and queen yarnum are at the top of their respective hierarchies they are the vessels that receive the most corrupted blood and thus are so saturated by this form of life that they are unable to die truly and this brings us to the Ring of betrothal an item that is found in the Chalice dungeons which reads the following the inhuman beings known as the great ones imbued this ring of betrothal with some spatial meaning in the age of the great ones wedlock was a blood contract only permitted to those slated to Bear a special child while this ring is not explicitly mentioned to be connected to the temerians all this talk of blood contracts and special children of course makes me think of Queen yardum and Margo and again last protagonist makes a great observation in his vile blood video that Queen yarnum does appear to be wearing a ring of betrothal on her finger and queen Annelise while rejecting your proposal if you propose with it to her at least seems to recognize what the purpose of the ring is which tracks with what we have said about the vile blood being the inheritors of the temerians and aside from this the Ring of Patrol mentions an age of the great ones where these wedding contracts took place and to me the age of the great ones can only only be the age of the temerians aside from the fact that this ring is only found within the Labyrinth we also know that the tumerians had a much closer relationship to the great ones than humans do and thus it would make sense that their era was called the age of the great ones in my great ones lore video I suggested that Margo's white nurse was perhaps the great one that was quote unquote married to queen yharnam as the other half of her blood pact that whiteners used yarnum as a surrogate for Margo and as such the wet nurse will have had a great influence on late Sumerian culture Margo's Loft in the nightmare of Menses is an interesting building firstly it is called Margo's Loft suggesting it is associated with the temerian air rather than with the school of Menses in Margo's Loft the basic enemy types are known as mergo's attendance and while initially it might be unclear as to what these beings are if they're human or other if you look under their armor it quickly becomes clear that they are to Marion if the denizens of Margo's Loft are temerian I would therefore speculate that the building itself is either a reflection of the temerian palace that murga was located in or is literally the original Palace that has been drawn into the Nightmare and Margo's servants attendants were brought with it if this is the case then we can finally get some sort of insight into Royal tumerian culture Beyond The Labyrinth itself inside margot's Loft in the main Atrium you can find bird cages hanging in large numbers and this had always been a mystery to me until I'd considered this building as a reflection of an original to Marion one perhaps the palace that mergle lived in if this was true and as I say wet nurse was the other side of yharnam's blood pact and interacted with tumeru in some capacity perhaps they're in these cages are a sort of homage to the crew like great one bear in mind the great ones are no doubt perceived as Gods by the temerian people and perhaps these bird cages were filled with crows to honor their God though I accept this is very much my own speculation however what is more difficult to ignore is the similarity that the shadows of yharnam have to the wet nurse of Margo underneath their cloaks you can see that these are essentially regular tumerians they are just wearing a sort of black cloak as I have said given their name and analogous tie to the vile blood Hunters via the blood Rapture Rune I've always assumed that these are the royal guard or Servants of Queen yardum her Shadows indeed their presence surrounding Queen yardum's position in the nightmare of Menses could be taken as further evidence of this and yet I would argue that their appearance is meant to honor and emulate the appearance of mergo's white nurse the god to which their Queen was symbolically married to indeed if there are analogous to vile blood hunters and they were meant to Source blood drags and sources of corrupted blood to give to Queen yarnam so that she may become the perfect surrogate for a special child perhaps their outfits are a reflection of their oath to fulfill the agreement between queen yardum and the weight nurse of Margo it may be a stretch but within the Labyrinth itself we find statues that are comparable to Victorian era photos of mothers and their children known as hidden mother photography and again shout out to Sinclair lore for making me aware of this phenomena and their wet nurse video and I agree with Sinclair law that this is what the visual design of the wet nurse is meant to evoke a sort of hidden mother figure the hidden unseen mother to Margo and perhaps to meru as a whole and again returning to the statues found within the Labyrinth perhaps these are designed artistic representations of this wet nurse unseen by the majority of the temerian population but aside from the blood pact between their queen and the great ones what else can we tell about this Society at the height of their power well we don't get much but there are some other things we can learn if we dig deep we can surmise that aside from the queen they had some sort of Elder hierarchy due to the tumerian elders who clearly have the title Elder to signify their Authority perhaps that is also represented by the staffs that they have and aside from anything else the power of these tumerian Elders is very impressive compared to the other humanoid enemies that we face within the Labyrinth we can also tell that tumeru had some kind of military equatable to a Medieval Era Army as we see Knight's armor and cannons lettered throughout the Labyrinth further to this there are enemies known as Labyrinth Warriors and while these are clearly far from nates I do think they are evidence of a ruined culture's military as the worn and falling apart armor could be evidence that these were once to marry a knight or at the very least they have scavenged to marry a knight armor and now wield them either way in my mind I speculate that tumerian warriors were armed like this just a bit more refined another potential facet of temerian society that we need to consider is Witchcraft and the Occult in the earlier chapters we looked at the Labyrinth right Keepers and the keepers of the oh Lords as aspects of their guardianship over slumbering great ones and a question that crops up in my mind is that these rights continue when the temerians became their own people when they crowned a monarch the fact that we can still encounter both in the Chalice dungeons does seem to suggest that the cult elements from their earlier age did process enter the Royal temerian era an aspect I didn't touch on though were the bell-ringing women who are now used by the school of Menses in their rituals and again as we can see from their features they do appear to be at least to marrying descendants if not to marians themselves they are found in The Labyrinth most numerously aside from the nightmare of Menses reinforcing their connection to that Fallen civilization the bell ringing women seem to be able to pull nightmare Apostles from other dimensions we discussed this in my great ones video but we know that these nightmare Apostles these spiders were once humans thanks to a quote from Miyazaki himself from the original future press guide interview in which he spoke about patches saw the nightmare Parcels as their name suggest are deeply rooted in the Nightmare and dream Realms and as such when I see a bell-ringing woman use their Bells I believe we are witnessing them use Acoustics to manipulate the barriers Between Worlds to draw beings from one side of a dream to theirs this does make a lot of sense as we do hear Margo's cries in the waking World despite the fact he is not present here he is present within the nightmare suggesting that certain noises do penetrate Between Worlds and later we see the bell-ringing women being used by the school of Menses to create the one reborn and as I said in my great ones lore video I believe that the one reborn is a great one's mind trapped inside a physical body and it is the school of mantis's attempt to trap a great one's mind on this side of the dream and the bell-ringing women play a role in this by beckoning the mind or consciousness of a great one into this new physical form and so to surmise these bell ringing women are just another temerian device for them to make contact with their gods the great ones we don't know exactly what led to the collapse of temerian society but given the last queen of yharnam or at least some remnant of her Consciousness can be found in the nightmare of Menses crying for her Lost Child we can Hazard a guess it seems like whatever is left of the temerian kingdom is Frozen at this moment in time we find an instance of Queen yharnam pregnant with Margot and to mirror a hill the capital of their Kingdom and for me these are the last days before the collapse of the Empire before Margo was taken away from Queen yharnam her Consciousness would soon follow seeking away back to mergo we see her after our fight with ROM when we break the seal that hides the ritual as if she has been waiting here waiting for someone who can remove the last barrier to mergo and thus I Thank The Taking of Margot broke yharnam broke the monarchy and thus the kingdom leaderless and directionless over certain Generations they would regress into the forms we now know as the Watchers there is no other Queen after yharnam and so to me she is the last of their monarchy and the kingdom ended with her with that said let us now talk about those Watcher descendants and the legacy of the temerians as a whole foreign Kingdom being a thing of the past we see the signs of the temerians everywhere including on the surface world where they have been put to work by the various factions of the church it is not a revelation to say that the church servants given their stature and facial features and pale skin are off to Marian descent as are the long-limed kidnappers of the school of Menses which can also incidentally be found in The Labyrinth now given all we have discussed it might seem a little odd to accept that these Mighty superhuman beings are now essentially used as menial labor or muscle by the church but it does become clear that the temerians are not quite what they once were the Watchers are quite clearly degenerate descendants of the temerians not only do they have similar features but they are found within the Labyrinth after all the collapsed bones of temerian civilization and just for clarity there are two classes of Watchers the skinny regular enemies of the Labyrinth the enemies that you will fight most commonly within there and then there are the merciless Watchers the bigger fellas who often act as bosses within the Chalice dungeons it is worth noting there is another variant of Watchers the gravediggers and these are the ones with the black cloaks often seen with pickaxes and are presumably the ones that help extend the hunter tombs but the reason I bring them up is because these particular types of Watchers are even more to marrying in appearance with their faces almost matching those of the temerian Elder and descendant and thus it makes the connection between the Watchers and centumarians that much stronger returning to Bob the hollow's video on the tumerians he makes a great observation regarding the Watchers the merciless ones to be specific Bob makes the point that in certain boss fights where you fight multiple versions of the merciless Watchers that some are often referred to as Chieftains suggesting that these Watchers The temerian Descendants have reverted to a very basic Clan structure their attire does seem to reinforce this idea rather than the fine silks of queen yharnam or the temerian elders these Watchers wear sort of Barbarian Furs they'd expect a barbarian or tribal culture to wear likewise the extreme different in weight between the regular Watchers and the merciless Watchers to me is an illustration of a clan structure while we in a modern society have access to plentiful food and will often see obesity as a negative as a sign of excess in certain medieval cultures where food was finite obesity was often seen as an indicator of wealth and possession I think in the case of the Watchers the system is very clear might and physical strength is the only factor that matters when it comes to leadership the merciless Chieftains are the strongest among their Clan and thus are able to dominate their skinny Ken and in turn they get the Prime Cuts of food by virtue of their possession getting stronger and bigger and so the cycle continues alongside these Watchers we have other primitive life forms that also seem to be the descendants of temerians that no doubt help make up these feral tribes for example we have the twitching Labyrinth madman that again have the features of a temerian descendant but as we can see from their behaviors they are a far cry from that high to Marian culture they are little more than feral beasts living in a cave and in fact they kind of remind me of the monsters in the film The Descent which is a great horror film if you're into it but the creatures in this film are heavily hinted to essentially just be humans who have lived underground for so long that they have become more feral more bestial and I see the same at play here with these Labyrinth Mad Men we can learn a little bit about Watcher culture from the hinter tomb chalice which reads the following enter Tims are the peripheral catacombs of the old underground Labyrinth to this day the Watchers continue to expand the hinter Timbs unceremonious catacombs felled with Graves and death these hinter tombs are not the original Halls created by the temerians of old rather they are neurotunnels carved out on the peripheries of the labyrinth as we discussed in the first part of this chapter I find the term unceremonious catacombs to be very interesting the impression given to me is that this tribe is the successor culture to those Royal temerians still possessing the knowledge and ability to dig out new tunnels but without the purpose or Artistry of the original tumerians this is a Culture in Decline a culture who continued to do as their ancestors did but without the regard for why they did it that being said there is evidence that these more simple Watchers these degenerate descendants of the temerians are still being led by more pure temerians for lack of a better word to marry in descendants still exist and while these are to marrying descendants we can see that they are features more closely match the tumerian Elders of old as do their apparel the finer red robes that are closer to the temerian elders rather than the Barbarian clothes of the Watcher descendants and indeed we do find a tumerian Elder and the lore entered him chalice dungeon and to me it's not a stretch to believe that these more pure tumerians now hold a lot of sway over their distant Watcher Ken that these are Warlords and leaders of this Culture in Decline with The Descendants and Elders being some of the last of this ancient culture we also have to consider the Giants found in The Labyrinth Bob the hollow in his video suggest that these two are a degenerate form of the once Noble tumerians a comparison that is hard to ignore when you look at the faces of the church Giants and consider the likelihood that they were recruited by the church alongside their to Marian Ken yet while the church Giants are somewhat kept tame and normal and unmutilated the forms of the Giants we find in the dungeons are a far cry from this butchered and augmented and deformed after generations of living in these tunnels like beasts it is difficult not to feel sorry for these Giants especially when you consider what's been done to their bodies they are more or less weapon platforms mutilated in various ways to make them deadlier limbs lobbed off in favor of blades chains and weights nailed into their backs to make deadly sweeping attacks and cannons replacing arms we really are speculating a lot but this speaks of a brittle culture to me constantly involved in combat what's my interpretation of these Giants these are tumerian descendants brutalized by Watcher Clans who are constantly engaging each other in barbaric tribal Warfare this isn't precise surgery some even have the Cannons found in the ruins of tamaru's Glory age grafted onto their bodies as crude firearms I do also wonder if the eye collectors and witches of henwicks are inheritors of the tumerian right keepers while they clearly aren't pure to marians as their faces are quite different it's hard to ignore the long-limed similarity that they have to those Labyrinth right Keepers indeed I would speculate that these witches try and continue the work of the right Keepers they are mainly concerned with collecting eyes as you may find out to your payroll and perhaps the reason they are permitted to exist in yahar ghoul and the village of himwick is because of their knowledge of the Dungeons and their rays and they are allowed to carry out their work under the auspices of the church or the school of menses incidentally the chapel dweller also shares a very similar model to these witches perhaps he too is a descendant of the temerians however destined continuing the worship of his God just know on the surface and if this is true combined with the church Giants the church servants and the witches it seems that the surface and yarnum is one of the greatest concentration of temerian survivors the regression of this culture is why it's easier to believe that to marrying descendants have been enslaved to serve the church either as muscle by the healing church or as kidnappers by the more nefarious School of menses while yharnam the city is built upon the bones of this ancient civilization and is named after the last United to Marian Queen it is not exactly a legacy to be proud of a collapsed Empire either enslaved by a lesser race now or fighting like beasts in the depths of their once great Empire the Barbarian Watcher Chieftains are a far cry from the regality of the temerian monarchy perhaps that regality was once found in the vile Bloods of cainhurst who seemed to have somewhat mimicked their regality and culture after finding the truth of vile blood but now even cainhar's Castle is little more than a mausoleum no different than the remains of tumeru deep below the ground both monuments to slaughter and shattered Ambitions but for all their feelings there is still something captivating and extraordinary about the temerians a kingdom born from Humble Origins to a high culture with deep knowledge of the great ones they are the literal foundations of bloodborne and its lore after all there is no yharnam without the temerians and there is no bloodborne without the Labyrinth so thanks guys that is my take on the Superhuman temerians an interesting and complex race I know there was a lot of speculation in this video but I do believe there's a lot to be mined about the temerians if you look a little closer at the environmental details rather than item descriptions but let me know your thoughts on the temerians in the comment below if you think I missed anything and what you'd like me to cover next again I'd like to give a shout out to Loki for once again providing insights and translations to Bob the hollow for his excellent video on the temerians and the Labyrinth and to last protagonists for their seminal video on the vile Bloods and it would mean a great deal to me if you could go and support these creators they will all be linked below if you'd like to support the channel then please give us a subscribe and a like as I cover soulsborne lore almost exclusively if you'd like to support the channel in other ways I do have a patreon and channel memberships as well as buy me a coffee for those who are looking to do one-off bits of support court but until next time guys I will see you in the dusty corridors of the temerian labyrinth take care and have a wonderful evening foreign

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 214,436

Keywords: bloodborne, blood borne, mensis, bloodborne lore, bloodborne story explained, the choir, ebrietas, yarhargul, yar har gul, yharnam, queen yharnam, byrgenwerth, byrgenworth, bergenworth, master willem, master wilem, moon presence, amygdala, the orphanage, isz, story, explained, bloodborne endings explained, great ones, healing church, blood ministration, gehrman, upper cathedral ward, cathedral ward, ludwig, fishing hamlet, pthumerians, pthumeru, the labyrinth

Id: XJ4W5Fc9Wmw

Length: 63min 54sec (3834 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2023