Dark Jack

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

I actually went back and played Bloodborne some the other day for various reasons, and found various quite interesting things in the game I hadn't noticed or seen mentioned before, especially in Castle Cainhurst. Like, did you realize that every single one of the multitude of statues of mounted knights there are missing their right leg, just like Gehrman does? Despite these statues presumably predating Gehrman and the Healing Church?
I spent quite a while studying the different statues and paintings at the castle, and noticed one particular carving that seemed really interesting: (found pictures online, because taking screenshots on PS4 is annoying) upper and lower part. Been wondering what it means. The way that carving seems to levitate just over the ground reminds me of when Lady Maria enters her final phase. I have no idea what the doughnut-looking thing in her right hand is supposed to be, but the thing on her left arm looks faintly feather- or fin-like. It also may just be my imagination, but doesn't it look a little as though it's wrapped around her wrist rather than held in her hand?

Also, @Th3King0fChaos? Are you still with us?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Update? @Ashgan @Bartimaeus @Habibi359 @Th3King0fChaos @King Cosmos?

I mostly just want to confirm that you're all still with us and how the next posts in line are coming along. I don't expect them to be dropping just now, of course - we are in the busy holiday season now, after all - and I don't want you to guilt you or have you explain yourselves; I just want to hear from you, if for no other reason then just to remind you that the RP is here.

I figure it's Ashgan next in Adelicia's scene, since I kind of posted for Bartimaeus. If you don't feel like there's anything worth posting yet, I can post again and skip to the elevator actually reaching the bottom.

Who is next in the clinic? Not Habibi, obviously. @Th3King0fChaos? @King Cosmos? Or do the characters need a little push from the GM?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eh, it's actually pretty all right for me. Decent amount of free time (though occasionally earmarked for certain things) and more-or-less continuous access to my PC.

Now, regardless of whether you celebrate it on the 24th or 25th I'll just say it now: merry Christmas!

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Eastern Yharnam, relatively near the Hunter's clinic, bottom of the elevator

Adelicia seemed petrified by the sight of the dead servant, much to Victor's annoyance. It did not affect him the same way as it did her, obviously; even before becoming a Hunter he had been more-or-less accustomed to blood and corpses from his work as a mercenary, and giving up his humanity had only made him all the more indifferent to things like this. It was disconcerting to find the church servant dead like this, of course, but only because of the insinuations of his death and the fact that it had been supposed to be an ally, not because of the violence involved in its demise. Whether it had been softly suffocated with a pillow or torn to bloody ribbons made no difference to Victor; if anything the gore was mildly invigorating to him.
Somewhere in a deeply buried, nearly erased and almost forgotten part of his mind, Victor also felt regret that Adelicia was being subjected to something like this. A flicker of his eye caught her shocked, staring eyes, and he felt a heavy, dark remorse within himself that those pretty, innocent eyes were being subjected to something like this. Yet... a larger, fresher part of him, much closer to the surface, felt elation at her defilement. He wanted to laugh, to scare her more.

Raine, a veteran Hunter, seemed predictably no more affected by the scene than Victor was, and together the they approached, cautiously and ready for a fight, to examine it more closely, and only took a single glance to confirm that the servant was indeed dead; his skull was visibly caved in, deforming the top of his head. Though his first thought had been that the servant must have been attacked and killed by beasts, a closer look made Victor reconsider this assumption. The bloody servant was covered in singular cuts that did not run parallel, deep stabs and blunt force trauma that seemed severe more because of repeated impacts rather than the force of single strikes.
The cuts were clearly not made by claws, and the stab-wounds made it all the more clear that they were dealing with bladed weapons of some kind, at least for some of them. Some stabs were narrower and arranged up to three at a time, evenly distributed in a straight line; the telltale wounds of someone stabbed with a pitchfork. And the blunt blows... they were not delivered with the power of a beast or a Hunter, but something closer to the strength of a human. However, there were bitemarks on his neck, left by clearly inhuman teeth.

“Yharnamites did this,” he said after a moment, trying not to sound too relieved; for a moment he had been afraid that they might be dealing with something too dangerous for just the two of them, like a Vileblood or a Hunter of the Harrow.
He looked at the elevator. “They've gone mad with the scourge and started to turn, but probably have enough wits about them to know that the giant would have slain them all. They rode the elevator...” He shook his head. “Who knows why? Safety from beasts? From Hunters? Who knows what goes on in their heads. They probably thought the plateau was safer, and the servant was just in the way.”
Victor quickly walked over to the giant, stepped over its ridiculously oversized axe to get past the massive creature and unceremoniously pulled the lever next to it. Soon the sound of grinding gears and rattling chains could be heard, and high above the elevator started descending the shaft down to their level.
“Hopefully they don't know about the clinic,” he mused, stepping past the sleeping giant to rejoin his companions.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

It's quite all right, Bartimaeus; as long as we know what's going on, you don't drop off the face of the Earth entirely and the delay isn't outrageously long. But if you feel like you aren't going to be posting in, let's say, the next week, maybe you could just briefly summarize what Raine is going to say and do here or in a PM, and I will just incorporate it in my post to spare you the effort.

I think the post was fine, Habibi; seems natural for Marcus to reply when someone calls out and asks a question. Ishin can wake up whenever he's ready.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Th3King0fChaos' character is a Paleblood Hunter, just not a false one, and has been turned along with the others; his character, Ishin, would be there too.

I just want to be sure that there is an actual plan of action so that we don't sit around waiting for each other while everyone thinks someone else is going first.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

So... who is next to post in the clinic-scene?

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Visitor… Moon-scented hunter… I am Annalise, Queen of Castle Cainhurst. Ruler of the Vilebloods, and sworn enemy of the church. Yet, our people are murdered, and we are prisoner to this wretched mask. What is it thou’rt in search of?

Queen Annalise

She does comment on the mask (very briefly), but I'd say that even that one sentence is enough to conclude that someone put the mask on her against her will, and that she's incapable of removing it. As for what it hides, there is actually official (actually official official) concept art for the game that portrays her without her mask, as well as a couple of in-game paintings that could reasonably be of her.
I have my own theories on her immortality and the Vilebloods, obviously, though maybe that's better left to be touched on IC since I don't think there's anything that would change how I want to depict them at this point. You are definitely right, though: it would be naive to think the Vilebloods were/are entirely innocent, even before the Healing Church branded them as abominations for extermination. I might question why they are different, though.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

Hm. Interesting. I hadn't actually even noticed that about the Blood Saints (Adel, incidentally, also means "nobility" in Danish). And yeah, a tangent indeed. It's good, though; the best way to develop theories like this is to have them challenged, and marriage is undeniably a pretty impactful part of culture. I guess I need to come up with a verdict on how it's included in the RP, though. Hmm...
I'm going to say that marriage is probably a thing reserved for ritual purposes in the country Yharnam is located in, most notably for women (specifically blood saints, maybe?) being "married" to the gods.

As for Queen Annalise and the Vilebloods, they fascinate me to no end as well, particularly since - despite the best efforts of the game to depict them as ugly, unnatural, bloodthirsty and evil - I never really subscribed to the idea that the Vilebloods were the villains. If anything I'd say they were victims. I mean, the Vilebloods were nobles, and Annalise was queen, no doubt of more than just Cainhurst. The way I see it, Yharnam and the lands that now belong to it, were once Annalise's kingdom (queendom?) and that of her family, at least since the time of Queen Yharnam. Then the Healing Church rolled in and decided that they were the new government, and suddenly (and conveniently) every single person that might have contested their rule is a "Vileblood" that need to be executed. Annalise might have gone a bit off the deep end in having her servants hunt for blood dregs, but really, I'm amazed she's as sane as she is with what she's gone through. How many of those dead nobles were her family? How long has she been trapped there, stuck with her mask?
Eh. But yeah, it's probably no surprise nor a secret that the RP will almost certainly take a closer look at both Annalise and the Vilebloods.

Night of the Hunt - a Bloodborne RP

I had the thought that the ring might actually be for "marriage" between a woman and a Great One after writing the post, too, which would explain why only one ring is necessary. That might even be why Arianna and fake Iosefka both fail to bear children for the Great One impregnating them (most likely Oedon); because the children were conceived "out of wedlock" (arguably Arianna did complete her pregnancy, though I'd still argue that the child was a failure since it, even after its birth, apparently remained directly linked to her lifeforce).

About Annalise (Annalise, Arianna, Amelia, Adella, Adeline... Bloodborne really likes its feminine names starting with "A"), it still seems significant to me that the player can use the ring to propose to her (regardless of the player character's sex), regardless of how special the player is, simply because they know that it is a thing. Whatever the player was when encountering Annalise they were originally a relatively mundane foreigner, so the only way they would know about the concept of marriage (barring magical knowledge gained from the ether upon picking up the item) to propose to her would be if it was something most people know about. Of course, knowing about something and being allowed to do it is two very different things...
The angle about eugenics does sound very interesting, though.

Extra: Digging some more, I discovered the existence of "official" Bloodborne comics that, as the only IC source, has a woman - a commoner, no less - referencing her "husband", strongly suggesting that they were married. I can't find any reliable source that these comics are official official to the extent that they would be a suitable basis of lore speculation, but it's something.