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Characters that are from The Old Hunters Expansion. Warning: unmarked spoilers ahead.

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The Hunter's Nightmare

The Old Hunters

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Old Hunter

The earliest generations of Hunters in Yharnam's history as well as the titular residents trapped within The Hunter's Nightmare. Driven mad by the bloodlust, they see everything that they cross as beasts.

Ax-Crazy: If the item description and their general appearance didn't clue you in, them shouting "BLOOD! NOW!" and so on will probably help drive the point home.
Beef Gate: There is a sole Old Hunter at the very beginning of the DLC. How hard he is to kill (and how easily he kills you) serves as a great indicator of whether you are actually ready for the things to come, since you can access The Old Hunters expansion ages before you would be sufficiently leveled for it.
The Berserker: These folk are quite easily among the most violent and brutal Hunters to have ever lived! Charging into battle howling and screaming, they attack anything that moves with a burning hatred, including each other; they use crude and barbaric weapons that were designed to utterly rip and tear beasts or other opponents apart, reveling in all of the blood that they spilt.
Bloodier and Gorier: The Old Hunters' trick weapons tended to care less about the blood that spreads everywhere than later-day weapons, being made to be heavy and brutal in execution. Unfortunately, this led to the Old Hunters' swift descent into madness, and no doubt didn't do Yharnam any favors, considering that the Beast Curse is bloodborne.
Boss in Mook Clothing: There are a number of unique Hunters who differ from the regulars in that they have inflated health pools and distinct weapon loadouts that make them more deadly.
The Dreaded: They are easily equally as terrifying as the beasts that they hunt! As a testament to this, the Beast Patients that dwell within The Hunter's Nightmare will back away and cower when faced with what they believe to be a Hunter. Most Beast Patients here won't even bother fighting back.
Flash Step: The Beasthunter Saif variants are trained in the Art of Quickening.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: They are so drunk on blood, that their eyes are perpetually glowing orange. A few particularly strong Hunters have red-glowing eyes, indicating that they've become infested with vermin.
Heel–Face Door-Slam: Some of these Hunters were trapped in the Nightmare because of unknown sins their predecessors committed. Any chance for redemption was wiped the moment they entered the Nightmare.
He Who Fights Monsters: Their hatred for beasts and bloodlust-fueled madness has made them far more monstrous than the beasts they hunt. This is driven home by the fact that the beasts found in the same areas as they are either try to hide away or flee from the Old Hunters. The beasts are so broken by their brutally violent hunting that they even flee and cower from you.
Lean and Mean: They all are tall and lanky, and DEFINITELY mean.
Lightning Bruiser: They're fast, have a sizeable amount of health, and can hit very hard with weapons that often have lot of range. They are not to be taken lightly. Also, they are considerably harder to stagger compared to NPC Hunters, making stun-locking them generally out of question.
Minor Major Character: The Saif Hunter. While it is never called attention to, the visual storytelling of Bloodborne paints him to be the mysterious first apprentice of Gehrman (making him the Second Hunter). As he wears a copy of Gehrman's hunter's hat, wields a Beasthunter Saif (the weapon most similar to Gehrman's Burial Blade), and is the only Old Hunter enemy to use Quickening like Gehrman and Lady Maria (another of Gehrman's apprentices).
Mirror Boss: Similarly to NPC Hunters from the base game, their attacks and tactics are very similar to your own. It's a subversion however, considering they have unique models and animations, distinguishing them from regular hostile NPC Hunters.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: There are three red-eyed variants of each Old Hunter, which are much tougher than their ordinary versions, and drop Vermin when killed the first time.
Revenge Before Reason: Their hatred for beasts is so strong that a good way to distract an Old Hunter in pursuit of you is to lure the Hunter to some beasts; they will immediately disengage from you, and focus entirely on the beasts they're led to until the last one is dead, not pulling away until you hit them, giving you the opportunity to either net a backstab or flee.
Screaming Warrior: All shout loudly with each attack, but the Beastcutter Variants are especially this, practically howling with downright feral rage as they swing their horrifically violent weapon at everything between it and its target. This is in stark contrast to the quiet beasts in the same areas that usually just flee from them.
Superstition Episode: In a sense. The Old Hunters were a lot more superstitious than modern ones. They thought beast blood crept up the right leg so they constricted their right legs with belts, and some of them wore brass trinkets because they thought brass could ward off the beast blood.
Torches and Pitchforks: Well, replace pitchfork with inelegant Trick Weapons and this sums them up in a nutshell. It's also mentioned in item descriptions that despite their ingenuity in inventing and mastering trick weapons, the first Hunters were essentially mobs of gangster-wannabes that went on rampages during Hunts.
Video Game Caring Potential: It's perfectly possible to solely attack the Hunters themselves and leave the Beast Patients be. Given all that they've been through, it's the least you can do...

Nightmare Executioners

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Former members of the Healing Church who were most likely malformed from the Hunter's Nightmare. Significantly larger than their regular counterparts and clad in Healing Church robes, these Executioners are significantly harder to fight.

Achilles' Heel: In spite of their difficulty, they turn fairly slowly when rising back up to their feet, making it possible to chain charged backstabs into visceral attacks to dispose of them safely.
BFG: There's a single Nightmare Giant near the first boss that wields a malformed Church Cannon instead of the Bell Axe.
Boss in Mook Clothing: Due to their Health and Damage, they're very difficult to neutralize.
Combat Tentacles: One of their attacks is to grab you with a set of tentacles coming from their face.
Cthulhumanoid: Again, they have a mass of tentacles sprouting from their face.
In the Hood: They wear white hooded shawls, much like the Church Giants.
Mighty Glacier: Not the fastest enemies for sure, but definitely one of the beefiest.
Mythical Motifs: With the Hunter's Nightmare being rather heavily based on Naraka/Hell of Japanese Buddhism, the Nightmare Executioners become rather obvious stand-ins for the Oni tasked with torturing the sinners.
Turns Red: If they take enough damage, they'll power up their axes so that every swing results in a shockwave.

Bestial Hunter

A mysterious Hunter found in the distorted area where the Central Yharnam lamp would've been. It's very likely that he's actually Irreverent Izzy.

Achilles' Heel: While he's very powerful and relentless, his Beast Claw has very short range and he doesn't use a firearm, making kiting him and keeping him at bay a safe strategy if one has the proper equipment.
Ambiguous Gender: As a result of the Beast's Embrace rune, which completely hides a character's gender. You'll have to use data mining to get a look at his unaltered model to confirm that he is male.
Lightning Bruiser: Considering what most Hunters are capable of, this guy takes it up a notch.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Uses the Beast Roar Hunter's Tool to knock you away from him.
No Name Given: There's no official name for him. Even the official guide refers to him as a Bestial Hunter.
Partial Transformation: One close to completion at that. This Hunter is equipped with the Beast's Embrace rune and the Beast Claw.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Data mining reveals that he has red eyes.

Gatling Gun Hunter

A Powder Keg Hunter and youngest and strongest of Djura's original three followers. Even in the throes of blood madness, he upholds his vows to defend the transformed beasts, gunning down only other Hunters that enter his cave.

Gatling Good: His primary weapon is his portable Gatling Gun.
Mix-and-Match Weapon: Uses a Sawspear in his main weapon hand.

Yahar'gul Hunter

A Yahar'gul Hunter, abducted by the Healing Church and locked away in the Underground Cells. Implied to be Defector Antal.

Cool Sword: Wields the Church Pick, which transforms from a Longsword to a War Pick.

Simon the Harrowed

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"Ahh, yes, I see... You sense a secret within the Nightmare, and cannot bear to leave it be. As if the spirit of Byrgenwerth lives on within you! Such inquisitive Hunters will relish the Nightmare. But beware, secrets are secrets for a reason. And some do not wish to see them uncovered. Especially when the secrets are particularly unseemly..."

Voiced by: Grant Gillespie (English), Kensuke Tamura (Japanese)

A former member of the Healing Church who is implied to be one of the Harrowed, a division of Church Hunters who disguised themselves as beggars as a means of watching out for early signs of Scourge outbreaks. He follows you around, imploring you to find the real secret behind the Hunter's Nightmare.

Alliterative Name: And title - his name is Simon, Seeker of Secrets. Coincidentally, his voice actor, Grant Gillespie, also has an alliterative name. Averted with his title, "the Harrowed", though.
Bandaged Face: His headgear covers the entire upper half of his head, including his eyes.
Barefoot Poverty: Invoked. The Harrowed Hunter set that he wears doesn't include any footwear, which makes his disguise as a beggar look all the more convincing.
Bow and Sword in Accord: Definitely the most literal iteration of this trope yet. His weapon of choice is a sword that can turn into a bow.
Conspiracy Theorist: Essentially what he is. He suspects that there is something sinister about the Healing Church, and is delving into the Nightmare to figure it out. He's a more positive version of this trope, however, as there is definitely something sinister about the Healing Church.
Creepy Good: While he comes across as shady and deceptive, he is completely forthright with you, expresses pity and remorse for Ludwig, and is determined to unlock the secrets of the Healing Church within the Nightmare. More accurately, he's determined to put an end to the curse placed on Hunters damning them to the Nightmare for eternity.
Defector from Decadence: He used to be a Harrowed Hunter for the Healing Church, but his dialogue in the Research Hall implies that after seeing its inner workings, he feels nothing but contempt for the organization.
"Not a pretty sight, is it? The true face of the blood-worshiping, beast-purging Healing Church."
Doesn't Like Guns: The description of the Bowblade reveals that he looks down on the use of firearms, and that he had his weapon custom-made to give him an option for ranged combat that didn't involve a gun. This preference is a source of mockery from other Church Hunters, who think that only an idiot would fight beasts with a bow. It works alright for him.
Early-Bird Cameo: He's the Bowblade Build in the TGS Demo.
Mercy Kill: If the player does not finish Ludwig's still-living severed head off, then Simon will do the deed off-screen via an arrow to the eye.
No Name Given: He never gives you his name in-game, but the fact that you can get Simon's Bowblade, along with the credits revealing his identity, reveals that he is Simon.
Sacrificial Lion: When Brador's phantom eventually wounds him, he gives you the key to his cell and his Bowblade before he finally passes on.
Seeker Archetype: Why is he here in the Hunter's Nightmare? Simply to uncover the Healing Church's darkest and most well-kept secrets.
Tomato in the Mirror: His bandage is to obfuscate his identity of being a Healing Church Hunter. The Afflicted Beggar wore the very same bandage to obfuscate his identity. It just goes to show, the corner beggar is not always who he seems.
Weapon Specialization: Simon once wielded his signature Bowblade as a Hunter of the Church. It's essentially a scimitar in its normal form, but it transforms into a powerful Greatbow.

Yamamura the Wanderer

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"Shrouded by night, but with a steady stride.
Colored by blood, but always clear of mind.
Proud Hunter of the Church..."

A foreign Hunter from an Eastern land, who sought out honorable vengeance on a beast. He joined the League, but eventually went insane.

Assist Character: Once you kill him, he can be summoned for assistance against The One Reborn and the Living Failures.
Defeat Equals Friendship: Not so much "defeat" since he is not hostile and dies in one hit, but killing him enables him to be summoned for the Living Failures.
Go Mad from the Revelation: He saw something in the impurity that drove him mad. Or rather, if you know about the connotations of kegare, the sheer amount of impurity that he saw drove him mad.
Madness Mantra: Constantly repeats what seems to be part of a Badass Creed for Healing Church Hunters while banging his head against the wall.
Mercy Kill: He's obviously not having a very good time locked up in his cell, and killing him allows you to summon him as an ally, suggesting that he viewed it as a favor.
Production Foreshadowing: Just as Marvelous Chester was an early hint towards Bloodborne, Yamamura seems to foreshadow Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, as his attire strongly resembles that of The Wolf. His name is also a potential reference to Masaru Yamamura, the lead designer of Sekiro.
Recurring Element: Continues the trend of a foreigner in a Western-Inspired land, started by Master Satsuki back in Demon's Souls.
Revenge: He came to Yharnam seeking "honorable" revenge on a beast. He decided to stay and join the League. It didn't end up working out too well for him.
Samurai: His apparel certainly invokes the samurai image.

Brador, Church Assassin

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"Do you hear the toll of the bell?"

Voiced by: Neal Barry (English), Akio Hirose (Japanese)

A former Healing Church assassin, clad in blood-soaked foreign clothing and a Cleric Beast pelt. After being forced to kill a former friend who turned into a Cleric Beast, he went mad and locked himself away in a cell, with the Church giving him a soundless bell to ensure that their secrets were kept.

Ax-Crazy: He invades you several times with the intent of killing you, despite the fact that you're both Hunters (this works out for you, though, as whenever he dies he drops a piece of his armor), and his weapon description notes that he felt the only way to get rid of tainted blood was to literally rip it out of his body.
Death Seeker: Implied. When you finally get to his real body, he asks if you're there to kill him or beg for his forgiveness. If you do decide to kill him, he doesn't fight back.
Despair Event Horizon: Being forced to kill a friend who turned into a Cleric Beast caused him to go mad with grief, and he locked himself away in a cell.
Developer's Foresight: If you go back to the jail cells to kill him after getting the keys to his dungeon, the rest of the armor parts will be on the spots where he would have otherwise invaded you, ensuring they aren't lost forever.
The Dreaded: Simon, one of the few level-headed people in the Nightmare, is left fear-ridden as he lays dying after encountering him.
Evil Counterpart: Of the Foreign Hunter, judging from his garb, Brador is a foreigner with the same origin as you.
Face Death with Dignity: When you finally confront him, he doesn't bother fighting back, but instead calmly waits for the Hunter to kill him.
For Doom the Bell Tolls: You initially can't hear the ringing of his bell, but anyone who does is marked for death and will forever be hunted by him until their dying breath.
Hate Sink: Gameplay-wise at least. He's very difficult to kill and will invade you several times while mocking you every time he kills you. This is subverted lore-wise; while he's unrepentant about his kills, he was driven mad after being forced to kill his transformed friend, and was only kept around by the Church as a way to get rid of anyone who might discover their darkest secrets.
Hero Killer: Sort of. He kills Simon, the NPC who helped you several times throughout the DLC.
Immortal Assassin: Much like a Player Character, killing him as invader doesn't stop him from invading you again. And again. And again. To get the invasions to stop, you have to kill his real body.
Implacable Man: He acted as this to his targets, going by his treatment of Simon the Harrowed. He also will swig some Lead Elixir during his attacks, making it so that your weapon just bounces off of him for a small time.
Knight Templar: In his madness, he continues to kill on behalf of the decadent Healing Church, targeting all those who get too close to uncovering its darkest secrets. Even when you confront him face to face, Brador is unrepentant, mockingly asking if you expect him to forgive you instead of the other way around.
Madwoman in the Attic: Or in this case, Madman in the Basement. After Brador had to kill one of his beast-turned comrades and went a little mad as a result, the Healing Church locked him under of the main cathedrals in a solitary cell, both to keep him in their employ as an assassin and to prevent him from revealing that the clergy were turning into the biggest beasts.
Nemean Skinning: He wears the scalp and hide of his former comrade, who he was forced to kill after they turned into a Cleric Beast. Unsurprisingly, his outfit gives the highest bonus to Beasthood in the game (except for the chestpiece, which loses to Djura's chestpiece by 4 points).
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The NPC he killed above? As he lays dying, he gives you the key to Brador's cell, letting you finally confront and kill Brador's real body.
No-Sell: Will use the Lead Elixer to make sure you can't stun-lock him.
Sole Survivor: He had to kill his comrade who turned into a Cleric Beast, and wears his bloody scalp and hide. That hasn't done wonders for his sanity.
Squishy Wizard: An interesting example because, as a German Spy notes, his invasions seem to not be his actual body, but a shade he conjures. His form in the cell is so fragile that you could cough on him and he'd die.

Ludwig the Accursed

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"An unsightly beast..."

Aah, you were at my side, all along.
My true mentor... My guiding moonlight...

Voiced by: Des McAleer (English), Yuji Ueda (Japanese)

The First Hunter of the Healing Church, founder of the Healing Church Workshop. He was the first to recruit and train Yharnamite citizens as Hunters en-masse, and designed weapons to combat giant beasts. The Old Hunters reveals that he's now a beast like those he once hunted, and is trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare along with other legendary Hunters of old. After you fell him in battle, only his talking head remains.

Almost Dead Guy: He's still alive after you defeat him, albeit only as a severed head, and you can speak to him before finally ending his life.
Ambiguous Situation: As one of the first-generation hunters, it's likely he participated in Byrgenwerth's massacre and defilement of the Fishing Hamlet, which would have contributed to his eventual Karmic Transformation into one of the more grotesque beasts if true. Though given who he is, it's equally likely that even he would have been disgusted by his peers committing such an atrocity.
Animal Motifs: Ludwig's beast form resembles a mutilated horse, oddly enough. He even nickers during the phase transition cutscene in his boss fight.
Animalistic Abomination: Like all the Beasts, though he resembles a horse rather than a wolf.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: His first phase is one of the most aggressive bosses in any Fromsoft game, constantly coming after you with brutal, unpredictable attacks that are both lightning fast and hard hitting. His second phase is actually considered easier, since while he does gain more power and range, you have more of a chance to heal and his attacks are easier to read.
Awful Truth: Though genuine and well-meaning, his actions led to the Scourge spreading due to its bloodborne nature and infested Yharnam with terrible beasts, causing the city to fall apart. One dialogue tree involves keeping this from him so he can die in peace, as he had already suffered enough. Choosing to reveal the truth, however, causes him to go insane with despair, and he later dies at Simon's hands knowing he only contributed to the degeneration of his beloved Yharnam.
Beef Gate: He pretty much prevents you from continuing on to the more difficult parts of the DLC. You can certainly dodge and sneak around most of the enemies in the first area, but you absolutely have to defeat Ludwig to advance.
Body Horror: His cursed form is grotesque, even by the game's standards. Rather than a wolf-like beast like most bosses and enemies, he's been turned into a demonic two-headed horse. The right "head" is naught but an eye-lined "mouth" formed in a severed neck, while his real head is partially transformed into a horse head, with a quarter of it remaining relatively human. This makes the 2nd phase of the battle that much more effective; despite looking like a horrific mockery of nature, Ludwig fights with more dignity and grace than most other bosses in the game- even the humans.
BFS: Wields his unique Holy Blade, which has a distinct design from the other Holy Blades. The golden, distinct hilt is how you indicate who the beast is. However, the blade he wields is actually the Sword of Moonlight, a recurring element in From Software's games since King's Field.
Broken Ace: Several pieces of dialogue and lore that mention him portray him as the Healing Church's first hunter, as well as one of its greatest to ever live. He recruited and trained Yharnamite citizens as hunters, and designed powerful weapons to fight giant beasts. He was also a compassionate Knight in Shining Armor who truly believed in the Healing Church's cause and only wanted to protect the masses. This makes the reveal all the more tragic you finally meet him proper: He succumbed to the Scourge and became a massive, broken, and feral abomination whose entire existence is to serve as a twisted mockery of the idealistic hero he once was; his left 'head' especially has partially mutated into a horrific version of a horse's head, a symbol of the clash between what he was before and what he is now. And if you talk to him after the boss fight and choose certain dialogue options, he'll learn to his utter heartbreak that all he did was for nothing and only doomed himself, his fellow Hunters, and Yharnam itself. After this, he loses his mind for good and dies at Simon's hands completely insane, unmourned, and alone.
Calling Your Attacks: Sort of. His first form has a slew of very aggressive attacks with little, if any, visual cues about which he's going to use. The most powerful of his attacks, though, such as his lunge across the arena, are preceded by specific screams and cries. Being able to identify those cries can make avoiding his attacks that much easier.
Clipped-Wing Angel: His second phase is considered to be easier than his first one, since he's not so insanely aggressive and his attacks are far less unpredictable. Granted, 'easy' is a relative term; he still hits like a battering ram and the sudden change in the fight's tempo can seriously trip up players used to the first phase.
Crazy Sane: Simon's comments regarding his "guiding light" seem to imply the Moonlight Greatsword played a role in causing his insanity. And yet seeing and wielding it during the boss fight helps Ludwig re-assert his humanity, no matter how slightly.
Creepy Asymmetry: Half of his body has progressed more to its beast state, with a large and clawed right hand, multiple horse legs sprouting at different angles, and a second mouth breaking the coherence of his form. His face two has a noticeable split between human and horse, with one eye that looks more emotive and conscious.
Deconstructed Character Archetype:
- Of the Token Good Teammate. He was one of the few benevolent Healing Church members who wasn't an amoral Godhood Seeker and genuinely wanted to protect the people of Yharnam from the beasts. However, the fact remains that he still threw in his lot with them and it's implied he did some pretty shady things to achieve his goals, however well-intentioned they were. Not only did his methods contribute to Yharnam's Crapsack World state, but he ends up twisted literally and figuratively by the monstrosity of his own actions. Even after being left near death, he still clings to his belief that he did the right thing, and being told the truth pushes him into despairing insanity.
- Of The Paragon. Back when he was a Hunter, he presented the image of a Knight in Shining Armor who inspired the people of Yharnam to take up arms in order to provide some measure of protection against the beasts. He was admired by everyone for it, which blinded them to the fact that he was part of a very Corrupt Church and did some questionable things himself to achieve his goals. Likewise, he himself was blind to how morally reprehensible his peers and the rest of the Healing Church had become. When he eventually fell to the Scourge, he transformed into a hideous beast whose appearance reflected the monstrosity of his actions, and he became feared by all for becoming the very thing he tried to prevent. If you choose certain dialogue options after his boss battle, he is horrified by what he did and falls into insanity knowing the sacrifices he made did little good in the end.
- Of the Knight in Shining Armor. He presented the image of one back when he was a Hunter and lived up to it, and everyone treated him as The Paragon. However, though one of its few benevolent members, he was still part of the Healing Church and implied to have done pretty questionable things to protect Yharnam. The monstrosity of his actions factored into his eventual transformation as a beast that serves as a hideous mockery of this image, being a horrific version of a Centaur with a severely malformed face.
The Dreaded: In a sad irony, he went from being a beloved hero to a grotesque monster rightly feared even by the other inhabitants of the Nightmare, due to his bestial nature and personality.
"An unsightly beast... a great terror looms! Ahh... Ludwig the Accursed is coming! Have mercy! Have mercy upon us!"
Dying as Yourself: In the second stage of his boss fight, he reclaims a measure of his sanity, and his name changes from Ludwig, the Accursed to Ludwig, the Holy Blade to further punctuate this. After he is defeated, if the player is wearing Church attire, his severed head asks if the Church Hunters are the honorable spartans he had hoped they would be. If he receives a positive answer, he expresses relief that he didn't suffer "such denigration" for nothing and thanks the Hunter, saying he can rest in peace.
Empathic Weapon: Implied with the Holy Moonlight Sword. Ludwig calls it his "true mentor", and its item description states that Ludwig derived some kind of mysterious insight from it.
Everything Fades: A notable aversion. He's the only boss in the game to leave behind a corpse (specifically, his head).
Expy: To Artorias. Both are the Master Swordsmen of their respective groups and have succumbed to their respective curses by the time you meet them. Also in that both were characters mentioned heavily in the base game, and then encountered in DLC content. They're also both magic users with big swords and crazed fighting styles.
Eyes Do Not Belong There: They especially don't belong in a second lamprey-like mouth, going where teeth are supposed to be.
Fallen Hero: Several pieces of dialogue and lore that mention him explain that he was the Healing Church's first Hunter, a Knight in Shining Armor-like figure who did everything he could to protect Yharnam from the Beast Scourge. Sadly, he succumbed to the Scourge and turned into a hideous mockery of what he was, physically and mentally.
From Bad to Worse: Oh, you thought his first phase was bad? His title changes from The Accursed to The Holy Blade when his Holy Moonlight Sword is drawn out. He then proceeds to reverse parts of the Scourge's effects on his mind to allow him to wield the blade.
Gameplay and Story Integration:
- He stops taking bonus damage from serrated weapons in his 2nd phase, meaning the game no longer classifies him as a beast.
- Ludwig drops the Caryll rune for "Guidance", whose description claims that he saw dancing sprites of light when he closed his eyes and that they would assuage his fear during a hunt. The rune's effect is to increase Rally potential, the amount of health you can recover when you quickly counterattack the enemy that damaged you... which produces a sparkling effect. In other words, Ludwig's faith was that skillful bloodlust was inherently righteous, and that a life of committing swift and brutal violence would never permanently affect him as long as he did it correctly. No wonder less devout hunters cursed him as a monster.
The Ghost: He's only mentioned in passing in the original game, but he's finally met in The Old Hunters, where it's revealed that he's turned into a beast.
Go Mad from the Revelation: If you answer his question regarding the state of his Hunters with a "No", he'll fall into despair as he realizes his actions were all in vain and only invited doom for both the Hunters and Yharnam itself. After this, he loses what little sanity he has left and starts cackling madly.
Good All Along: It can be assumed, based on his horrifically monstrous appearance and background as a Hunter of the Healing Church, that he was involved in his group's many atrocities. While he did throw in his lot with the Healing Church, talking with his severed head reveals he was genuinely invested in the people's well-being (unlike most of the Healing Church, who only wanted to earn godhood through blood. He explains he truly believed that his methods helped in mitigating the spread of the Scourge, and will be glad if he's given a positive answer on the Healing Church and that his sacrifices weren't in vain.
Godzilla Threshold: One may question his methods, as the weapons he made are overkill against the smaller beasts and whipping the townsfolk into a frenzy made the streets even more dangerous in the long run. But when facing the larger beasts, beasts born of members of the Healing Church, his reasoning becomes crystal clear.
Half-Human Hybrid: He seems to have somehow been fused with his horse by his curse, resulting in the malformed, multi-limbed abomination you're forced to fight.
Heel Realization: If the Hunter tells him that his Church Hunters were not the honorable warriors he hoped they would be, he falls into despair, realizing that his actions were all in vain and that they only made things worse.
Iconic Item: The Holy Moonlight Sword, as mentioned in its description: The Holy Moonlight Sword is synonymous with Ludwig, the Holy Blade.
It Can Think: The first phase of his boss fight consists of him shrieking and snarling and screeching like the feral beast he's become... but when the Holy Moonlight Sword falls off his back and shines upon him, he talks to it in perfectly comprehensible sentences, and the rest of his boss fight consists of him grunting and yelling like a human. In addition, he adopts an entirely new moveset using the Moonlight Sword, where he fights more like a swordsman would, rather than the feral beast he acted as before. He even loses his weakness to serrated weapons, as the game itself stops counting him as a beast.
Inexplicably Awesome: Ludwig's Holy Moonlight Blade is a giant Laser Blade with the power to fire Sword Beams, and its light is apparently so radiant that seeing it is enough to restore Ludwig's sanity. Nowhere in the game is it ever really explained how this is the case.
Karmic Transformation: As noted above, Healing Church members tend to transform into the larger beasts that stalk Yharnam. Ludwig, though one of the few benevolent Churchmen, was no exception - it's implied he's an example of what happens when a genuinely good person threw in their lot with a corrupt group and/or used (or condoned) questionable methods to achieve a greater good. When he succumbed to the Beast Scourge, the monstrosity of his actions overshadowed his inner goodness, literally and figuratively. But because he was still a decent person, he manages to reclaim some of his humanity (unlike everyone else who irrevocably went mad upon their transformation) and dies as himself.
Knight in Shining Armor: Everything we know about him pre-transformation points to him being this. And post-transformation, once he takes up his sword to become the Holy Blade again.
The Last Dance: When he takes out his sword again, it seems he's decided to die fighting as a true knight rather than a mindlessly feral beast.
Laughing Mad: If you talk to his severed head while not wearing Church Hunter gear or say "no" to his final question, he begins cackling madly, indicating that the last traces of his mind are gone.
Leitmotif: "Ludwig The Accursed/Holy Blade"
Let Them Die Happy: Telling Ludwig that his Church Hunters are indeed the honorable warriors he wanted them to be, he breathes a last sigh of relief that his efforts and denigration weren't for nothing even as his spartans succumb to raving bloodlust.
Lunacy: Ludwig had a fascination with the moon, claiming that its whispers to him were what kept him sane amidst the carnage of the Hunt, and Simon calls the Holy Moonlight Sword the "thread of light" that lead and mislead him. This could possibly indicate that he was an Unwitting Pawn of the Moon Presence.
Master Swordsman: He was the Church's greatest Hunter, and wielded the Sword of Moonlight in battle as well as creating Ludwig's Holy Blade for use by his subordinates.
Meaningful Name: He was named after Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer of the Moonlight Sonata.
Meaningful Rename: His Boss Subtitles change from The Accursed to The Holy Blade, the title he held as a famous Hunter, to symbolise the return of his sanity.
Meta Twist: After three games straight of fighting legendary heroes reduced to beasts, it's quite the shock when Ludwig, easily the most physically monstrous of the lot, actually regains his humanity partway through the boss fight, and begins fighting you as a man instead.
Monster Knight: He's as monstrous as ever when he takes up his sword, but thanks to his restored sanity (or what little remained of it), he fights like a master swordsman at that point.
Mysterious Past: Not so much Ludwig himself, but the Holy Moonlight Sword. No one knows who made it or how, all we do know is that it was found deep in the Chalice Dungeons. It's a completely unique weapon that is explicitly magic, so whatever made it must've been very powerful. Whether or not it's related to the Moon Presence is left unaddressed.
Mythical Motifs: His design and role as a beef gate preventing people from leaving the Hunter's Nightmare is evocative of Mezu, the horse-faced oni standing guard at the gates of Hell in Japanese Buddhism.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He did try to clear the beasts and was apparently open with the public, but he was still working for the Healing Church and the hunting mobs that he motivated and trained just made the Scourge of the Beast spread even faster.
Nightmare Face: His face is grotesquely mutilated and elongated to resemble a horse.
Off with His Head!: Once you kill him, all that's left is his severed head, which is still alive.
Orphaned Etymology: He calls his Church Hunters "noble Spartans" if you speak with his... head.
Our Centaurs Are Different: A very twisted and horrific example. It's not immediately obvious, but he has arms and a relatively humanoid torso on top of an equine body. Becomes a lot more obvious when he stands upright and fights with his sword.
Primal Stance: He starts off as a hunched over, shambling, crawling abomination, as one would expect from his design. Averted big time once he becomes lucid again, standing fully upright and walking normally with no problem.
Regenerating Health: He has the Guidance Rune with him, which boosts the Rally Potential of all weapons.
Restoration of Sanity: In contrast to other bosses in the game (such as Father Gascoigne) who get more monstrous and insane as the fight wears on, Ludwig recovers his sanity thanks to the light of the Holy Moonlight Sword. Sadly, he'll completely and permanently lose his sanity if you tell him the truth of what his Hunters became, causing him to fall into maddening despair by the time he dies.
Shout-Out: His remark about the "thread of light" that he clung to, steeped as he was in the stench of blood and beasts, is a major one to The Spider's Thread by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa.
Sword Beam: He can fire waves of light from his sword during his second phase.
Take Up My Sword: If you talk to his head while wearing any Church Hunter garb and say "yes" to his question about his Holy Blades, then he leaves you his Holy Moonlight Sword as his successor.
Token Good Teammate: One of the few people in the Healing Church who actually was as noble as he wanted to be. It's tragically deconstructed as the Healing Church was corrupt, and the methods they used to fight the monsters plaguing Yharnam would ensure that all the hunters would eventually succumb to the Scourge and devolve into maddened beasts to reflect their sins. As the Church's 'First Hunter' and (presumably) the one with the most blood on his hands, Ludwig ended up becoming the most grotesque-looking, with his appearance being a complete mockery of his former sanity, compassion, and ideals.
Torches and Pitchforks: One of his first actions was to make the Hunt public, encouraging anyone who could lift a torch to join the Hunt. These mobs were effective at first but quickly devolved due to the bloodborne nature of the Scourge disease.
Tragic Monster: His final fate is sadly ironic, going from one of the greatest Hunters of the Healing Church to one of the most grotesque and deadliest beasts seen in the whole game.
Turns Red: Inverted. He actually becomes less savage in his second phase, having a more controlled and fluid moveset, though his attacks are more dangerous due to him wielding magic.
Two-Faced: His face is grossly asymmetrical. The left side is more monstrous-looking, with more pronounced deformities, a longer and raggedy mouth, pallid skin, and a milky white eye. The right side is darker and matches the rest of his gnarled flesh, but appears more human overall, and his eye looks normal. Both parts of the fight emphasize a different half of Ludwig's visage and obscure the other through camera angles and the way he tilts his head, showing the struggle between his bestial and human sides.
Video Game Caring Potential: Choosing to tell Ludwig that his sacrifices weren't in vain not only allows him to die at peace, but allows the player to acquire one of the games best weapons.
Vocal Dissonance: Once he recovers himself, he speaks with a very silky and eloquent voice that in no way matches his bestial appearance.
Wake-Up Call Boss: If you have only fought every boss up to Vicar Amelia, started the DLC, and reached Ludwig for combat, you're in for an extremely rude awakening.
Was Once a Man: By the time the player meets him, he's succumbed to the Scourge of the Beast.
Weapon Specialization: His signature weapon was Ludwig's Holy Blade, a silver longsword with a scabbard so big and heavy it can be used as a BFS. He also made Ludwig's Rifle, a very powerful shotgun with surprisingly good range and narrow spread. However, the Holy Blade was actually an imitation of the Holy Moonlight Sword, which he wields in the second half of the boss fight. Like the Holy Blade, it has a larger form, but instead of being a physical sheath, it's a huge magical Laser Blade that can launch Sword Beams.
Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: He gives the Holy Moonlight Sword this sort of longing, entranced stare with the human half (well, quarter) of his face.
Your Size May Vary: His talking severed head after the boss fight is substantially smaller then in his combat model.

Simple Gratia

A Healing Church Huntress, Gratia was an abnormally large woman who was poor at handling firearms. Instead, she preferred to beat her bestial enemies with her "Fist" — a slab of iron with finger holes in it, used like a perverse set of knuckledusters.

Action Girl: She's a Huntress of the Healing Church, with all the badassery this implies.
The Big Guy: Gender-inverted. She was an abnormally large woman, and in life, she was poor at handling firearms, so she preferred to beat monsters to death with her chosen weapon, a hunk of iron.
Fiery Redhead: Implied. She beat monsters to death with a hunk of iron and, if you look closely at her corpse, you can see that she has bright red hair.
Foil: In a sense, she serves as a posthumous one to Simon, since both of them forgone the usage of firearms for simpler weapons. But whereas Gratia was stated to have lacked experience with them, Simon merely didn't like them. Gratia also preferred the brute force of her "Fist," while Simon used the Bowblade which demanded dexterity and skill.
Non-Standard Character Design: Go through each of the cells and take a wild guess at which one's her.
Posthumous Character: She's passed on sadly long before you arrive.
Red Baron: in life, she was known as "Simple" Gratia because she preferred the simple way of fighting (i.e. beat monsters to death with her fists) over handling firearms, which she was poor at.
Weapon Specialization: In life, she preferred to wield a chunk of iron with finger holes in order to stun enemies with her strength. This small chunk was later named the "Fist of Gratia" after her.

Black and White Nuns

A pair of Healing Church nuns, one in Black Church Hunter garb and the other in White, who stand guard over the exit of the Underground Cells and the entrance to the Research Hall.

Ambiguous Situation: Though it's not clarified explicitly, the White Nun is heavily implied to be Vicar Amelia after the Hunter kills her in the waking world, given that she is dressed in less ragged versions of her white robes, is found in the same location, and is reciting the same mantra (and seems to have the same voice actress). Additionally, the Hunter only gains access to the Nightmare after nightfall, which the Hunter can only trigger after killing Amelia.
BFS: The Black nun wields Ludwig's Holy Blade.
Dual Boss: They both attack at once, with the Black Nun moving in for melee and the White Nun hanging back and firing missiles at you.
Madness Mantra: The White nun repeats the last third of Vicar Amelia's prayer in a low voice and sing-songy tempo over and over, even as she fires at you.
Magic Missile: The White nun uses the Blacksky Eye Hunter Tool in lieu of a conventional ranged weapon.
Nuns Are Spooky: Especially nuns that team up and try to kill you while chanting a single prayer over and over again.
Recurring Boss: The White nun is, in all likelihood, Vicar Amelia herself, given that she recites the same prayer in the same voice in front of the same person's skull (although in this case, the skull is hidden underneath the altar she's praying at instead of sitting on top). She was probably sent to the Nightmare when you killed her in the waking world.
Sword and Sorcerer: The Black nun comes at you with Ludwig's Holy Blade, while the White Nun stays back and casts spells at you.

Superboss

Laurence, the First Vicar

You forgot your adage, didn't you?

The bestial form of Laurence, who turned into a Cleric Beast wreathed in flame and lava. Trapped within the Nightmare, he searches for his metaphorical human skull, a representation of both his past as a human and what he failed to protect, hoping to suppress his beastly idiocy and remember what he once was.

And I Must Scream: Has it even worse then the rest of the Nightmare's prisoners; Laurence’s pained body-language implies he’s in constant, agonising pain from the fire consuming his Cleric Beast form.
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Though a Cleric Beast, he has heavy draconic elements like a perpetually burning appearance, a horned skull, and the ability to breathe fire (though it's lava in his case). Fittingly, like the Dragon of Saint George's legend, he meets his end at the hands of a human. Ironically, he himself was once a human Vicar who founded the Healing Church, and was named after a real-life saint.
Book Ends: Can be invoked by the player should he fight Laurence last, as the first potential boss they fought was most likely the Cleric Beast, and Laurence is the first Cleric Beast.
Body Horror: He has lava instead of blood. Then he accidentally melts his legs and lower torso with the heat at the start of his second phase after carelessly spewing lava everywhere.
Breath Weapon: He can vomit torrents of lava. It ends up biting him when careless application of this, along with his lack of Required Secondary Powers, ends up melting the lower part of his own body.
Clipped-Wing Angel: His second form is just crawling after you after his legs are destroyed. Subverted, though, since his second form doesn't hit any softer, and in fact provides Laurence with a whole slew of new AOE attacks.
Dead All Along: That's his skull in the Grand Cathedral in the main game.
Early-Bird Cameo: He can be seen in the end of cinematic trailer shown at title screen.
Expy: Since he's the First Cleric Beast, he's more like Manus, Father of the Abyss than the vanilla counterpart. And like Manus, Laurence is desperately seeking something precious to him (in this case, his original human skull) without really understanding why.
Fatal Flaw: Recklessness. In his human life, he stubbornly tried to prove that the "Old Blood" Master Willem feared can be used for beneficial purposes, leading to the founding of the Healing Church. He realizes too late that his actions damned Yharnam with the creation of the Werebeast Scourge, and in a reckless attempt to fix things, he tried scouring Yharnam with fire. This didn’t work, and he likely transformed into the first Cleric Beast before being burned to death by his Healing Church hunters. This is represented by his Cleric Beast form, which has lava powers yet no protection from them, causing him to burn off his body from the waist down after he carelessly spews lava everywhere in his boss fight.
Foil: To Ludwig. Laurence was also part of the Healing Church, being its founder in his case, and both of them eventually transformed into horrific beasts as karma for their monstrous actions. Unlike Ludwig, though, Laurence's beastly form doesn't have anything that physically resembles his former humanity (even if twisted in some fashion) and, despite desperately searching for any traces of humanity he left behind, never regains them, whereas Ludwig has the Moonlight Blade with him the entire time and regains his former sanity upon seeing it again. Ludwig crafted multiple weapons, some of which were used by the Hunter, Laurence studied blood extensively and publicly administered it as a cure. Ludwig was a noble hero dedicated to protecting the people of Yharnam and even in his last moments had faith in his Hunters' ability to do the same, whereas Laurence let his own curiosity and stubbornness make him forget the vows he took regarding the Old Blood, causing the Healing Church to become as bad as it did, and only realized his mistakes when it was far too late to fix things.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Once you reach the second phase of the fight, his body from the waist down breaks off, leaving him to crawl around.
Karmic Death: If his burning form and lava powers are to be taken literally, Laurence most likely died from burning to death after becoming the first Cleric Beast. A rather fitting end considering that Laurence ordered the burning of Old Yharnam to stop his Beast scourge that he brought about, thus revealing the beasts’ weakness to fire. His ultimate fate was to become a victim of the Old Blood he couldn’t leave alone, and be burnt to death by his very own Healing Church hunters; before ending up in the Nightmare twisted into his beastly form and eternally burning, forced to forever chase his human skull without really knowing why, even losing his limbs in his desperation and crawling after you with his entrails all over the floor. Even when he kills you, you go back to the Dream and revive, while defeating him means taking the skull with you thus he can never retrieve it.
Karmic Transformation: As the first Vicar of the Healing Church, he's the one who brought the Beast Scourge to Yharnam. He ended up succumbing to it himself like so many other Cleric Beasts. And unlike his genuinely benevolent compatriot Ludwig, he never regains his sanity despite his search. And if Word of God is to be believed, his use of the Old Blood turned his actual body into the horrifying Bloodletting Beast, representing the horrors he brought to Yharnam, while his consciousness turned into a Cleric Beast to represent his Motive Decay and how his stubbornness in proving he's right ultimately destroyed him.
Kill It with Fire: His attacks are augmented with fire.
Leitmotif: "Laurence, The First Vicar"
Magma Man: Magma Was Once a Man, anyway. He spews and bleeds lava.
Meaningful Name: He is a reference to Saint Lawrence/Laurence, a religious man who was burned alive during the Roman Empire's persecution of Christians. Laurence, the founder of the Healing Church, has turned into a fire-themed boss who spews out and bleeds lava.
Mythical Motifs:
- His boss battle has elements of the legend "Saint George and the Dragon", being a dragon-like monster who meets his end at the hands of a human. Though in this case, he's a wolf beast with heavy dragon motifs.
- The nature of his transformation calls to mind the Norse legend of Fafnir, a greedy dwarf who turns into a dragon in order to guard his treasure. However, whereas Fafnir became a monster by coveting material riches, Laurence became a monster trying to destroy something that he himself was responsible for - in this case, the Beast Scourge plaguing Yharnam.
- He also forms a duality with Ludwig by evoking Gozu, the ox-headed oni said to guard the gates of Hell in Japanese Buddhism together with Mezu and if Laurence had been in the right Cathedral, the one in which his head can be found, then he and Ludwig would've been so close to each other that a Dual Boss fight would've been likely.
Ominous Latin Chanting: His Leitmotif has Latin lyrics designed to emulate Catholic hymns. Notably, fan translations of the song (there are no official lyrics, so interpretations vary a bit) the Latin appears to be telling the story of Laurence's founding of the Healing Church and how he learned too late the cost of the Old Blood.
Palette Swap: Sort of. He's essentially a Flaming Cleric Beast, although he has an expanded moveset.
Personality Powers: He has lava powers, which are extremely destructive for both the player Hunter and ultimately himself. This stems from how in life, he damned Yharnam through his own stubbornness and recklessness — both in trying to prove the Old Blood can be turned into an unqualified good, and in trying to get rid of the Beast Scourge he introduced to Yharnam (which ultimately claimed him itself and led to his death).
Pietà Plagiarism: When you first interact with him before the battle, you'll see that he has rearranged the furniture of the alter of the Nightmare Cathedral into a throne-like nest which he lies across the top of dozing.
Recurring Element:
- Laurence is the closest thematic equivalent to the various "true" dragons from Dark Souls, although he's a werewolf abomination instead; not only is he the one boss not required to beat the DLC (similar to Kalameet and Midir from I and III, he shares a elemental power (fire).
- On a more obvious note, he's also an "upgraded" clone of an earlier boss, similar to the Stray Demon from I and Blue Smelter Demon from II.
Required Secondary Powers: Subverted. Despite being able to spew magma from his mouth, he's not immune from the flames on his body and literally ends up melting off the lower half of his body partway into the fight.
Superboss: Somewhat, as Laurence's power level is only slightly higher than the DLC he inhabits, and triggering the optional fight with him, while tricky, can easily be accomplished without a guide. Even so, Laurence is deliberately overtuned and has a strong claim to being the toughest boss in the game, packing a colossal health pool, obscenely high-damage attacks that can one-shot high HP builds, nonstop AoE attacks, and extremely good tracking that makes dodging him a major pain in the butt. If you want that Beast's Embrace rune, you're earning it.
Villainous Breakdown: After his legs are destroyed, he becomes more desperate to kill you, crawling like a feral beast.

Research Hall

Clocktower Patients

Unfortunate victims of the Healing Church's experiments, clad in straitjacket-like hospital gowns and forced to imbibe water as a means of achieving ascension.

Body Horror: All that water they were forced to imbibe somehow turned their heads into amorphous blobs. The final stages cause them to turn into nothing but a head!
Combat Tentacles: The Crawling and Head variants use this.
Full-Frontal Assault: The feral ones are stark naked.
Improbable Weapon User: There is a variant that wields a transfusion stand as a weapon.
Lightning Bruiser: The feral variants are incredibly unpredictable, the speed they travel doesn't help either.
Madness Mantra: "Plip. Plop. Plip. Plop. Splish. Splash. Splish. Splash."
My Brain Is Big: Their treatments have caused their heads to become blobs, presumably because it also expanded their brains.
Unexpected Gameplay Change: Their destructive movesets and the various Blue Elixirs around the Research Hall indicate that a stealthy approach is advised.
Was Once a Man: Implied to be early test subjects of the Healing Church's search for insight.

Saint Adeline, Research Hall Patient

Saint Adeline

"Please, could you do something for me? I need Brain Fluid. Murky, mushy Brain Fluid."

Voiced by: Lotte Rice (English), Kana Hanazawa (Japanese)

A former Blood Saint, chosen to be experimented on in an attempt to ascend. She requires your help to gather materials, as she has been restrained and tied to her chair.

And I Must Scream: Surprisingly subverted. She barely seems to mind her eventual bodily degeneration, and is still capable of communication and can finally get out of her shackles. She even continues her questline, not to revert the transformation, but to complete it.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Possibly. After achieving the epiphany she sought, the formless blob that her body became deflates and does not revive as it does for all the others. Her last words of "I used to be nothing" indicate that she at least feels she has become something more.
Body Horror: She ends up turning into one of the very lumps of meat you harvest Brain Fluid from for her experiments. In fact, to get the final dose of Brain Fluid you need to finish her quest, you need to harvest it from her, and give it to her once she revives. She handles it with exceptional poise, though.
Dissonant Serenity: She's entirely too calm and well spoken for someone whose head has mutated into a gigantic, featureless sack of fluids.
Hearing Voices: Like the enlarged heads from which brain fluid is harvested, she starts hearing a sticky, dripping whispers, which convey to her the Milkweed Rune. Unlike them, she retains her sanity.
Horror Hunger: She has an unquenchable thirst for brain fluid. Which she somehow ingests to a sound likened to sucking the last of a drink through a straw.
I Just Want to Be Special: Her dialogue hints that she allowed herself to be experimented on in order to become something greater than her previous life, which she refers to as her "former, lesser years."
Nice Girl: Situation aside, she's very polite to the Hunter and will offer them her own blood and a Rune in exchange for helping her get brain fluid.
Was Once a Man: She progresses through the stages of Clocktower Patient transformation as you further her questline. After two doses, she becomes an Enlarged Head. After the third, her head deflates and she apparently becomes a Kin through understanding the Milkweed rune.

The Healing Church Hunter

A Healing Church Hunter who looks after one of the Clocktower Patients who has become an Enlarged Head.

Cane Sword: This Hunter wields a Threaded Cane.
Knight Templar Big Brother: The Flavor Text on the Brain Fluid collected from the Enlarged Head he stands beside tells the story of a young girl and her brother who would always play pretend at being doctor and patient that promised each other to one day take part in the studies and experiments of the Healing Church.
Poisoned Weapon: Can and will throw Poison Knives at you from the stairs.

Living Failures

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The failed results of turning people into Celestial Emissaries, reborn within the Hunter's Nightmare.

Body Horror: They have long twisted limbs attached to bodies that look like lumps of flesh melted together. They also lack any discernible features, like eyes, a nose or a mouth, which begs the question of how they are able to scream at you.
Expy: The fight against them is very similar to the battle with The Four Kings, as a magical respawning Wolf Pack Boss.
Flawed Prototype: Kind of. They're the failed transformations of humans into Celestial Emissaries, but they can still channel the cosmos to some degree.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Beyond their name indicating that they're the "failed" experimented patients, nothing else is known about them, including why they reside in a field of flowers near the top of the clocktower.
Leitmotif: "Living Failures"
Super Prototype: Despite being deemed failures, they're somehow much tougher than their successfully transformed counterparts and can conjure meteors.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of the Celestial Emissaries. Justified, since the Living Failures are heavily implied to be the failed attempts at turning people into them.
Wolfpack Boss: You fight several of whatever they are at the same time, and each one represents a portion of the total life bar.

Astral Clocktower

Penultimate Boss

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ca7af20ca9cfd3f47aab0434dfc34301dce39ce5360a6eb3df198921d0b8d757_large.jpg

"A corpse, should be left well alone. Oh, I know very well how the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now. Liberate you from your wild curiosity."

Voiced by: Evetta Muradasilova (English), Saori Hayami (Japanese)

A Huntress from Cainhurst and distant relative to Queen Annalise. Despite her relation to Cainhurst, she frowned on their use of the Chikage and instead wielded the Rakuyo, a trick weapon that demanded great dexterity to use. She used her beloved Rakuyo until she couldn't stomach it any longer and cast it into a well.

Action Girl: Lady Maria was a skilled and powerful Huntress who faced off against the Hunter to prevent from the Healing Church’s worst secret from being let out to the world.
Badass in a Nice Suit: She wears a very fancy getup that has all the hallmarks of an aristocratic military officer's uniform.
Batman Grabs a Gun: Maria is said to detest blood blades, yet she doesn't hesitate to use Blood Magic to power her blades up when she's lost enough health, as well as herself. However, she truly does detest blood blades, and considering what she's guarding, and the description on the Rakuyo when you get it, she may consider it a necessary evil.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished: One of the few individuals in the Hunter's Nightmare to retain her original form after death. Compared to the corrupted forms of Ludwig and Laurence, it makes Maria's role in the Fishing Hamlet incident all the more questionable.
Beef Gate: She guards the entrance to the Fishing Hamlet, which was drawn into the Nightmare.
Beware the Nice Ones: It's implied that she has a very gentle side to her, as evidenced by the patients in the Research Hall who turn to her for comfort, as well as the fact that Maria was the basis for the Doll's creation. But she's a deadly warrior who will go to extreme lengths to keep the Hunter from going any farther.
Blood Magic: She begins using this in the second phase of the fight, extending the range of her attacks and giving her some intimidating AOE attacks.
Bloody Murder: From the second phase of her fight onward, Maria has spilled her own blood and uses it against you as a Sword Beam. In the third phase of the fight, that blood even combusts after each of her swings.
Classy Cravat: The one she wears might have been classy at some point, but it's now stained with blood.
Curtains Match the Window: The same as the Doll, who was modeled after her.
Dead All Along: For someone who has such a strong connection with Gehrman, she's nowhere to be found in the main game. Then there's the Old Hunter Bone found at the same grave that the DLC is accessed in at the Abandoned Old Workshop, which may or may not belong to her (it is important to note that, while the English version of the game refers to the owner of the bone as a "he", the original Japanese description leaves their gender ambiguous). Then there's also how she is descended from Cainhurst, and seems to have a bloodstained cravat around her neck, while all the women currently at Cainhurst, with the exception of Annalise, have had their throats slit or their heads cut off.
Defector from Decadence: To Cainhurst. Although a relative of the Queen, she is stated to have despised the blood blades that they use. The implication with her use of said blood blades in The Old Hunters is that she's willing to go to any lengths just to make sure no one can uncover Byrgenwerth's darkest secret, such is its threat level.
Distaff Counterpart: She fights like and presents a similar challenge to Sir Artorias and Sir Alonne, not to mention that she has similar musical motifs.
Double Meaning: "A corpse should be left well alone." Referring to herself, since she looked dead, as well as the corpse of a rather significant Great One she and the whole nightmare are concealing.
Don't Wake the Sleeper: When you enter her boss arena, she appears to be sleeping on a chair. Examining her "corpse" begins the boss fight. You will likely die to her. A lot.
The Dreaded: Subverted. She causes The Hunter to recoil and pause in the cutscene preceding the fight. In reality, it was likely more due to her resemblance to the Doll instilling surprise than actual fear.
Driven to Suicide: Implied. You find her sleeping (or dead) in a chair, slumped over with a bloody throat and a spilled chalice of some unknown liquid next to her. Given the guilt she felt for helping Byrgenwerth's scholars defile the Fishing Village, she may have killed herself, apparently via slit throat or a poisoned drink.
Dual Wielding: She splits her double-bladed trick weapon, the Rakuyo, into two swords at the beginning of the fight.
Fights Like a Normal: All the other Hunter boss fights are with Hunters that have some power up to begin with (Logarius has his magic, Gascoigne is transforming as you fight, Micolash has eldritch puppets and tools, etc), but Maria starts the fight with nothing but her own skill and swords despite having the option of using her Cainhurst blood magic. She uses it later in the fight out of desperation.
Flash Step: As one of the first Old Hunters, she uses the Art of Quickening.
Flower Motifs: A fictional version. Lady Maria is associated with lumenflowers (the glowing white flowers growing around the Celestial Emissary and Living Failures boss arenas). She has lumenflowers embroidered on her hunter garb, the Doll's clothes have lumenflower embroidery, and lumenflwer petals are scattered around the Astral Clocktower.
Fragile Speedster: Only compared to the DLC's other bosses, which are scaled for endgame (and more because of the ability to stagger her than her inability to take a punch — she has about 14,000 hit points, while the other four DLC bosses vary between 16,500 and 21,500). Maria is one of the fastest foes you will ever face in Bloodborne, as her close-up attacks are blindingly quick and her long-range attacks can see her cross the room in less than a second.
Godzilla Threshold: Implied. Her use of blood blades during her fight, despite hating them so much, seems to suggest that she's willing to go to any lengths to keep Byrgenwerth's darkest secrets from being revealed.
Hero Antagonist: She's not malicious at all, and in fact her background indicates that she is quite a noble and compassionate character. She just understandably wants to make sure that nobody ever finds the Fishing Hamlet and risks letting the things inside out. This naturally means that she has to kill you.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When you enter the second phase of the fight, she impales herself with her blades to coat them in her blood.
Katanas Are Just Better: The main blade of the Rakuyo that she wields is a Katana/Saber hybrid. Fittingly, the game labels it as a Cainhurst weapon, just like the Chikage, another katana.
Kiss of Death: Kinda. Her frontal visceral attack animation appears to have her hug and kiss you on the cheek near the end of it.
Lady of War: Graceful? Check. Noble Blood? Check. Deadly? All the checks.
Leitmotif: "Lady Maria of The Astral Clocktower."
The Lost Lenore: She's the person Gehrman modeled the Doll after.
Mad Scientist: Maybe. The mutated people (those that won't attack you on sight, that is) seem to be grateful to her, and item descriptions indicate she cares for them and is trying to help them. On the other hand, some of the treatments seem a bit... wrong, not to mention the final state of many of the patients, although that may not be her fault.
Mascot Villain: She serves as this for The Old Hunters.
Master Swordsman: Maria is essentially the Distaff Counterpart to Ludwig, and is to the Katana as he is to the European-Broadsword; she is arguably more formidable a warrior as unlike Ludwig, she retains her humanity, elgegance and skill.
Meaningful Name: "Maria" is the name given by early astronomers to the darker, flat plains on the moon, which were once thought to be oceans. Both the moon and the ocean are two of Bloodborne's major symbols. It also foreshadows her true purpose: Guarding the way to the Fishing Hamlet, whose innocent residents Byrgenwerth massacred and defiled in order to learn how to grant themselves eyes, as well as the corpse of Kos, who died at Byrgenwerth's hands for the same reason.
Mirror Boss: Like Father Gascoigne and Gehrman, she's a Hunter (or at least used to be one) and, as such, fights a lot like the player does.
My Blood Runs Hot: Her third phase has the blood trails made when she slashes spontaneously combust.
My God, What Have I Done?: After the slaughter of the Fishing Village, she grew disgusted with Byrgenwerth and the Healing Church. It's heavily implied that she took part in the massacre.
Mystical White Hair: She sports the silver locks commonly associated with members of Castle Cainhurst. She also happens to be one of the few denizens of the Nightmare to retain her sanity.
Mythical Motifs: Her placement between the waters of the Fishing Hamlet and the towers of the research hall, her status as a Mirror Boss, as well as the fact that she's a reflection of The Plain Doll, and thus a representation of the First Hunter's sins, marks her as a representation of the Yama/Enma's judgement of the dead, which traditionally includes showing them a reflection of past sins in a cleansed crystal mirror.
Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: She shoots what must be several swimming pools' worth of her own blood at you during the fight. Considering that you fight her in a nightmare world and her real self is almost certainly dead, this makes more sense than it seems to.
Protectorate: When she was trapped within the Hunter's Nightmare, she took it upon herself to guard Byrgenwerth's darkest secret: the Fishing Hamlet, drawn into the Nightmare, which Byrgenwerth violated for the sake of research. At some point, she resigned herself to watching over the test subjects of the Healing Church's Research Hall, trying her best to help them despite the horrors that were being performed on them, although whether this before or after arriving in the Nightmare is unknown.
Samus Is a Girl: She is in fact the Old Hunter seen in promotional materials for the DLC, as seen here◊, though at first glance it's almost impossible to tell the gender of the Hunter, since she's bowed down in the image and you can't see her face.
Statuesque Stunner: She's taller than you are by about a head or so. The same as the Doll, meaning that the Doll's height was not a case of artistic liberty.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Gehrman, her mentor. Like him, she is a Lightning Bruiser and uses the Art of Quickening to skip around the battlefield. She's even more like him when you realize that she too was guarding the path to an Eldritch Abomination.
Sword Beam: From her second phase onwards, she gets a very fast one made of her own blood.
Token Good Teammate: Unlike most of the Old Hunters present inside the Nightmare, she was not blood-drunk and did not turn into a beast. In fact, she left Byrgenwerth after the massacre of the Fishing Hamlet and the murder of Kos, seeing that the scholars had gone too far in their quest for insight. She's also adored by the Research Hall patients who look to her for help, implying that she cared for them after the Healing Church abandoned them, and guards the entrance to the Fishing Hamlet, either to protect it against further attacks or to prevent the Orphan of Kos from escaping the Nightmare and lashing out against the world.
Turns Red: Most bosses have 2 or 3 phases. Maria is one of the ones with three phases. Her second phase has her plunge the twin blades into her chest, coating them with blood like the Chikage's transformed mode. Her third phase has her drawing in the blood spilled around the arena to empower herself even further, gaining a blood aura and causing the blood slung from her blades to spontaneously combust.
Unexplained Accent: Despite being from Cainhurst, whose only living resident speaks with the same English accent as the rest of Yharnam, Maria has a distinctly Slavic accent.
Weapon Specialization: Her original trick weapon, the Rakuyo, was a double-bladed sword that could be split into two. She eventually threw it away. Now she wields a souped up version of it that can use Blood Magic. You find the original within the well in the Fishing Hamlet, implying she either had a hand in the horrors that Byrgenwerth brought upon them or grew sickened at what the scholars had done there.
Weak, but Skilled: She's fast and she hits hard, but she has less health than the other bosses in the DLC and can be stunlocked by the majority of weapons in the game.
Wham Line: "A corpse... should be left well alone..." In the same voice as the Doll. Resulting in one of the few times the PC Hunter backs away from something out of fear.
Yin-Yang Bomb: The version of the Rakuyo wielded during her boss fight combines the original's demand for dexterity with the Chikage's Blood Magic.

Fishing Hamlet (Major Spoilers Unmarked)

Fishing Hamlet Priest

"Byrgenwerth... Byrgenwerth... Blasphemous murderers... Blood-crazed fiends...
Atonement for the wretches... By the wrath of Mother Kos..."

A survivor of Byrgenwerth's assault on the Fishing Hamlet. He spends his time wandering the Hamlet entrance, muttering curses about the events that took place there.

Foreshadowing: The "wizened child" he talks about is the Orphan of Kos, the boss of the Fishing Hamlet and Final Boss of the Hunter's Nightmare.
Madness Mantra: The curses towards Byrgenwerth he mutters.
Mr. Exposition: Though he's talking to himself more than you, his dialogue reveals a lot about how the Hunter's Nightmare came to be, and foreshadows the final boss as well.
Non-Malicious Monster: Despite his monstrous appearance and ominous dialogue, he's not hostile to you. The game doesn't even mark him as an enemy, seeing as how you can't target him and he doesn't react when you attack him.

Fishmen

Strange, Deep One-like creatures of the Fishing Hamlet who worshiped Kos and were transformed by the parasites found within her corpse.

Body Horror: Their already deformed bodies are absolutely encrusted with barnacles.
Early-Bird Cameo: Various places of Yharnam are adorned with odd alien-like statues that resemble the Fishmen.
Expy: Of the Deep Ones, of course.
Fish People: They resemble anthropomorphic fish.
Freudian Excuse: It's implied that they were used as guinea pigs for grotesque experiments by Byrgenwerth, which would give them a pretty valid reason for wanting to slaughter all Hunters on sight.
Improbable Weapon User: Some of them carry hand-rakes which they use like knives.
In the Hood: Many of them wear cowls that obscure their faces.
Shock and Awe: A robed variant carrying a large staff can conjure lightning.
Summon Bigger Fish: Implied to have brought Kos's curse upon Byrgenwerth and the Hunters for the experiments they suffered by their hands.
Tragic Monster: Were once a normal, peaceful village of humans who happened to worship Kos. Then Byrgenwerth mutilated and killed most of them, and now they're nightmarish horrors who attack anyone who dares enter their village.
Was Once a Man: They're humans who were changed by the influence of the parasites in Kos's corpse.

Fishman Mage

Other residents of The Fishing Hamlet who are endowed with the potential for powerful Arcane spells that were presumably granted to them by Kos herself. There are two known variants of them: Staff-Wielding Mages who move about and actively cast spells, and a second variant known as The Whisperers, who behave as sentry turrets, and will consistently conjure arcane faces to hound intruders.

Death from Above: How the Staff-Wielders will typically attack you; they will call down lightning strikes from the sky that are signified by a sudden bright glow on the ground which serves an indication as to where the lightning will strike!
Glass Cannon: The Whisperers are indeed a deadly force and are not easily dealt with, especially if there are other enemies present, but once you get past their spells and support, Whisperers only have an HP amount of 7, and they will go down in just one hit!
Shock and Awe: How the Staff-Wielders attack primarily. They will conjuring lightning either from a distance or by forming a ring of lightning pillars around themselves so as to force opponents to back away

Giant Fishmen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/picsart_06_30_085352.png

Hulking brutes transformed into shark-like creatures.

Anchors Away: The tougher version uses a rusty anchor as a weapon.
Beef Gate: The ones in the well have the original Rakuyo with them.
Boss in Mook Clothing: Far and away some of the most dangerous enemies in the game — in a standard new game, they outright have higher stat-lines than early bosses like the Cleric Beast. An encounter with two of them inside the well is tougher than about 90% of the game's actual boss fights.
Bloodborne Wiki: Strategy: Give up.
Eaten Alive: Their grab attack involves them picking you up and then chewing on your head, which will almost certainly kill you in one hit. If it doesn't they'll simply spit you out, but if it does they'll eat you whole.
Expy: They share a lot of similarities in their design with the ogre from Berserk.
Fish People: They are hulking shark-like monsters.
Kill It with Fire: Their main vulnerability is fire, so Molotovs and Fire Paper are effective.
Lightning Bruiser: They're tough, hit like a freight train and their attacks are surprisingly fast.
Shark Man: Their heads are very shark-like (hence their alternative name, "Shark-Giants,") which indeed should tell you precisely why you should fear them.
Weaksauce Weakness: Despite how dangerous they are, certain regular attacks of theirs leave them very prone, making them the only giant enemy in the game that can be reliably backstabbed during combat.

Deep Sea Hound

A bizarre half-viperfish variant of hunting dogs native to the Fishing Hamlet.

Fragile Speedster: Like their counterparts in the waking world, they run fast and bite hard, but gunshots automatically knock them down, and they can only take a few hits before going down for good.
Make Me Wanna Shout: They can emit a ear-piercing shriek than stuns you.
Mix-and-Match Critter: These have the body of hunting dogs and the head of viperfish.
Right-Hand Attack Dog: They often accompany fishmen in their patrol around the hamlet.

Snail Women

Strange creatures found deep within the parasite farm breeding pits found beyond the Hamlet's lighthouse. Implied to be the women of the Hamlet, who willingly offered themselves to help cultivate and breed the parasites found within Kos. Although some argue that they are the evolved forms of the parasites removed from Kos' corpse.

Foreshadowing: A snail woman falls from the sky early in the Nightmare. Not only will that be the first time you ever see one, but it indicates that the secret you're seeking to uncover is above you and that the Nightmare is more of an Eldritch Location than you think.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: One of the shelled Snail Women simply falls out of the sky near where you pick up the Whirligig Saw.
No-Sell: They are completely unaffected by Bolt-type attacks, which make them incredibly intimidating, especially to the unprepared!
Our Mermaids Are Different: These sea snail-like women can be interpreted as the equivalent to mermaids in the Bloodborne world.
Pose of Supplication: Dozens of them can be found praying right outside of the Orphan's boss door. They don't react to your presence and killing them yields no souls.
Shed Armor, Gain Speed: The ones that drop the shell that they were living in become much faster.
Was Once a Man: If they were the women of the Hamlet.

Final Boss

Orphan of Kos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/orphan_frontal.jpg

"Mercy for the poor, wizened child... Mercy, oh please..."

—Fishing Hamlet Priest

A nightmarish and grotesque entity that emerges out from the remains of the dead Kos. The Orphan is a Great One, the descendant of the late Kos, and is also the final boss of The Old Hunters DLC.

Achilles' Heel: Parries, backstabs (either through charged heavy attacks or the Augur of Ebrietas), and follow-up Visceral Attacks. As a result of its bipedal and comparatively small form, the Orphan of Kos is notably easier to stagger than many of the other Great Ones fought by the player, which in turn leaves it vulnerable to a Critical Hit. Granted, pulling these off can be easier said than done (especially in its second phase), but being able to do so consistently can make the fight significantly more bearable.
All Your Powers Combined: He's functionally a Great One molded in the form of the Hunters that his elder kin are all-too familiar with, and thus he is capable of using both the spells granted by the Old Ones in addition to the blinding speed and ferocious fighting power of Hunters, complete with using its own placenta as a makeshift Trick Weapon.
Ambiguous Situation: There are many mysteries surrounding the Orphan that are ultimately left up to the player's interpretation, with the most immediately obvious one being its blatantly humanoid appearance, which could have all sorts of implications about Byrgenwerth's excursion to the Fishing Hamlet and/or the nature of the Great Ones in general. As there's little to no concrete information about this creature in the lore, the true answer will likely remain a mystery.
Anti-Villain: He isn't an infant anymore, but he is still nevertheless the offspring of a Great One that is naive to the rest of the outside world, and is now clearly attempting to defend himself from a place that he doesn't understand. It would seem that The Orphan is both angry as well as fearful during the battle, and prior to that, it would seem perfectly content with just remaining inside of its dead mother's womb.
Barred from the Afterlife: There are indications that it has been stuck in the Nightmare for a long, long time, unable to reunite with its mother in the 'ocean'. Even killing its physical form doesn't free it, as its lingering soul will remain on the beach its fought on if visited again, staring longingly at the sea. The only way to end the Hunter's Nightmare and its torment is by 'exorcising' its soul and allowing it to go back to the ocean.
Battle in the Rain: Rain gloomily falls as you fight it. When you kill the Sweet Child of Kos, it finally stops.
The Berserker: One of the most aggressive bosses in the game, and it hits hard. It basically fights like a wild, cornered animal, attacking you relentlessly with both physical and magical attacks and giving you extremely little room to catch your breath. He takes it up a notch in the second phase, where, on top of everything else, he starts literally flying up in the air and then dive bombing you.
Big Bad: Downplayed. The Orphan of Kos is the core of the Hunter's Nightmare and its curse that dragged down countless of Hunters, and discovering its existance and destroying it is the ultimate goal of the DLC - but the Orphan itself has no actual malice of its own. It's essentially the angry and scared ghost of a child that was never born in the first place, and is only that way due to what the Old Hunters, Byrgenwerth and the Healing Church did. Even defeating is framed more as releasing it from the Nightmare and allowing it to reunite with the 'sea' than it is killing an evil creature.
Born from a Dead Woman: It's not clear if it was technically ever born (or if beings like them can even actually die), but it definitely counts.
Clean, Pretty Childbirth: An aversion worth noting due to its grotesqueness, when the Orphan drags itself, malformed placenta and all, out of Kos' body, with innards being pulled outwards alongside The Orphan as he makes his way out. It also overlaps with Chest Burster, as he rips out most of Kos' insides as he emerges from under her.
Confusion Fu: He constantly leaps and slams repeatedly in unpredictable patterns to confuse his enemies. He also can extend the range of his weapon with some attacks, making it difficult to accurately gauge how far away you need to be.
Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Just like Mergo, the Orphan is the child of a Great One who is the core of a Nightmare, but while Mergo is the child of a Great One father and a human(-ish) mother, is cursed to forever be stillborn, and has no way to defend itself, the Orphan is the result of a Great One mother and unknown (if it even exists) father, is cursed to be born old and wizened, and is is more than capable of defending itself.
The Dreaded: It's treated with a combination of fear, reverence and pity by the inhabitants of the Fishing Hamlet, and the fact that Lady Maria deliberately chose to stay in the Nightmare to keep anyone else from finding it implies that even she feared what it was capable of. And considering what it can do just born and without any concept of thought or judgement...
Enfant Terrible: Though it looks like an old man, it's actually a newborn Great One. Its boss intro cutscene even has it crying like a baby for a few seconds before its voice deepens into that of a sobbing adult. Which is suspiciously the exact same cry as Gehrman.
Evil Counterpart: It's essentially a Great One in the form of a Hunter. It has the same sort of fighting style a Hunter would use, and its arm-blade-slash-ninja-fruit-bomb-inventory is essentially an organic trick weapon that can switch between a large cutlass (that spews bombs) and what can only be described as the eldritch equivalent to a kusarigama.
Evil Knockoff: Of the Hunters. Unlike the other Great Ones, it has a humanoid shape and uses a fighting style in a similar style and aggression to what you use (only much more aggressive), which ends up being far deadlier for you than what the other Great Ones are capable of. It's implied that Kos made it like this specifically to take vengeance on the Hunters and the Church for the crimes they committed against her and her worshipers in the Fishing Hamlet.
Expy: A very twisted one to Guts, the main character of Berserk, a Japanese manga/anime series which Hideteka Miyazaki, the game's director, is a long-time fan of. Both Guts and the Orphan are born out of their dead mother's corpses, are Lightning Bruisers that fight with a gigantic blade, and are damned to live a life of violence and misery through no fault of their own.
Foil: To Mergo, the other Great One the player is tasked to kill in the main plot of the game. Both the Orphan and Mergo are the children of Great Ones and are both extremely powerful in their own right. Where the Orphan differs greatly from Mergo, however, is that the Orphan is perfectly capable of fighting on his own, where Mergo requires its Wet Nurse to defend it. Also, judging from the relative timeline of Bloodborne, given that the Pthumerians lived long before the college of Byrgenwerth was even founded, Mergo is at least many centuries old, although it is perpetually trapped in an infant form due to being stillborn. Contrast to the Orphan of Kos, who likely is at most several decades old, and looks physically aged.
Humanoid Abomination: Naturally, due to being Kos' offspring. Though an infant Great One, it looks like a wizened, emaciated old man wielding its own placenta as its weapon in perverse mockery of the Hunters' trick weapons. Then it sprouts wings during its second boss phase.
Improbable Weapon User: It uses its own placenta as a weapon. It's reinforced by a large hook the size of an anchor lodged into it, which is presumably what was used by the Byrgenwerth hunters to catch and kill Kos and was left lodged in her corpse afterwards until the Orphan dragged it out during its traumatic birth.
Lean and Mean: It's tall, long-limbed, bony, emaciated, and absolutely savage.
Lightning Bruiser: It's fast, has one of the highest health pools of any boss in the game, and hits like a ton of bricks.
Mirror Boss: The reason why The Orphan is so difficult to fight is because it's essentially what happens when a Great One births a child in the form of a Hunter, rather than in its own image, making it what one could only describe as a "Kin-type Hunter". Fast movements, aggressive tactics, and unpredictability are also the traits of a Hunter. It even has a weapon with multiple forms! On the plus side, though, this renders most of the Orphan's attacks parryable (even if some are borderline impossible), as well as make it susceptible to backstabs from charged heavy attacks and the Augur of Ebrietas, since, as it lacks the mass and stability of its fellow Great Ones, its bipedal form leads to it being far more capable of being staggered.
Mythical Motifs: The Orphan is symbolically one of the mizuko, spirits of miscarried and aborted fetuses who stack piles of rocks along the shores of the Sanzu River in the hope of being able to one day climb the rock stacks out of Limbo and into Paradise, only to see the stacks knocked over by passing-through sinners and demons who the mizuko hide from in the robes of the Bodhisattva Jizou.
Natural Weapon: It uses the placenta it was born with as a Trick Weapon, a hybrid Cuirass/Kusarigama that can also spawn organic explosives. If you look carefully, its placenta is reinforced with a giant metal hook, presumably the one that was used to drag its mother up from the depths onto the beach.
Non-Malicious Monster: Subverted in an interesting way. When you first enter the boss fight, the Orphan is just mournfully staring at the big, bright "moon" in the night sky. Even during subsequent returns to the battle, this is what it initially does... until you get close, that is. Before you know it, you're now being pounced upon by a shrieking, emaciated baby-man devoting its very short beginning to beating you to death with its own placenta.
Outside-Context Problem: Even in comparison to the other Great Ones, the Orphan is this. It's humanoid in form, and unlike its brethren, is not sympathetic to or even interested in communicating with humans at all, having just been born and likely incapable of any form of rational thought or reasoning. It also fights using attacks similar to other Great Ones while at the same time rushing around and acrobatically attacking you with a cutlass made of placenta that, like your own Trick Weapons, can shift forms into a kusarigama and smack you from far away. And despite its size, it's easily more dangerous than any of the other Great Ones you fight. And this... thing, is only born when someone gets close to its mother's corpse. It's entirely possible that the reason the Hamlet was sealed away is because of the risk of the Orphan either being discovered by the Church/scholars and being used by them in their own sinister goals, or, more terrifyingly likely, being awoken by either of those two groups, laying waste to whichever one woke it up, escaping from the Dream somehow, and being allowed to grow up, which, considering what it's capable of as a mindless, freshly born child, is enough reason to make sure it never gets out into the world.
Power Gives You Wings: When it enters its second phase, the membranes on its back finally come apart, resembling a pair of tattered wings.
Psychopathic Manchild: It resembles a decrepit old man, but it cries and screams like a baby, and reacts extremely violently to anyone who gets close to it.
Really 700 Years Old: Inverted; it looks like a decrepit and withered old eldritch man-thing, but it is only minutes old at best when you find it crawling out of Kos's corpse.
Recurring Element: He's this game's Guts expy, the trend started by Artorias and continued by the Fume Knight, although different in that it's not visual similarities, and instead has a similar origin story as the character he was based off of (i.e. being born from the corpse of their mothers).
Sad Battle Music: As is traditional for final bosses in this series, the Orphan's first theme has a somber, almost dirge-like feel, emphasizing its status as an Anti-Villain. During its second phase, it changes to a more tense theme, highlighting the more eldritch aspects.
Screaming Warrior: Only the screams sound more like shrieks of terror and sadness. Given the world it's born into and the circumstances of its birth, can you blame the poor thing?
Script Breaking: It's possible to do enough damage to kill the Orphan while it's in its first phase, but no death animation was created in its first one, leaving him standing straight for hilarious effect.
- It's also possible to creep around the edge of the boss arena without aggroing it and killing it by pelting it with oil urns, molotovs, and the Blacksky Eye and A Call Beyond Hunter tools. While doing it this way will cause it to enter its second phase, it won't move from its starting position, and will also die standing in place, even remaining motionless after you kill the "sweet child".
Sealed Evil in a Can: It's the horrible secret that the Nightmare hides. Or rather, from piecing together the lore, what was done to it in reality is the secret.
Shock and Awe: Its most powerful attack has it scream in sorrow for a few seconds, which causes bolts of lightning to erupt from its mother's corpse. They deal obscene damage and cover an enormous portion of the stage, easily one-shotting any unprepared player.
Super Mode: In the second phase of its boss fight, the membranes come apart and resemble wings, and it becomes much faster and more aggressive in its attacks.
Tragic Monster: It's not attacking you out of malice, and before you actually get close it'll just stand there and stare at the Nightmare's sun while sobbing. It just doesn't know what's going on and thinks anything that gets too close is a threat — and given you're there to kill it, it's not exactly wrong. The Nightmare is also not its doing, though you need to kill the Orphan to end it; it's a response to the curse laid on the Byrgenwerth Hunters for their atrocities against the Orphan (along with Kos and the Fishing Hamlet), and it's implied that the nightmare ends because Kos is grateful for you finally saving her child from being trapped in a state of half-birth.
Turns Red: After getting it down to about half health, it grows wings and boasts an array of new, extremely destructive attacks.
Uncanny Valley: The Orphan is unnerving not because of how alien it looks, but how closely it resembles a human.
Unskilled, but Strong: It fights with little finesse, and is little more than a raging berserker. It's also a massive Lightning Bruiser who hits like a ton of bricks, is durable as a wall, and is nearly Flash Step levels of fast.
Vocal Dissonance: It looks like a decrepit old man but it communicates entirely in high-pitched, animalistic, ear-piercing shrieks.
Walking Spoiler: The fact that it exists, as well as what had became of its mother, and why it was birthed, are massive plot twists in both the main game and the DLC.
Winged Humanoid: It grows a pair of wings in the second phase, after which it gets even faster.

The Last Enemy

Sweet Child of Kos

A black phantom of the Orphan found clinging to Kos' remains after the Orphan dies. This is what needs to be killed to truly put an end to the Hunter's Nightmare.

Burial at Sea: It can be see drifting back to the ocean upon being attacked - and as the ocean is connected to the Dream, which in itself is associated with a sort of afterlife, it can be seen as the child passing on to the afterlife it was previously barred from. The Befuddled Villager describes it as such:
Ah... sweet child of Kos, returned to the ocean. A bottomless curse. A bottomless sea. Accepting of all that there is, and can be.
Mercy Kill: It's possible that the Sweet Child is the Orphan of Kos' soul, still clinging to its mother's corpse. Killing both provides release from the world it was born into and allows it to reunite with Kos.
Post-Final Boss: It is the last "enemy" that needs to be killed to end the Expansion Pack, but the fight with the Orphan before it is the actual final battle.
Zero-Effort Boss: Actually getting its appearance to trigger is infinitely more frustrating than finally putting it down.

Characters / Bloodborne Characters From The Old Hunters

The Hunter's Nightmare

The Old Hunters

Nightmare Executioners

Bestial Hunter

Gatling Gun Hunter

Yahar'gul Hunter

Simon the Harrowed

Yamamura the Wanderer

Brador, Church Assassin

Ludwig the Accursed

Simple Gratia

Black and White Nuns

Laurence, the First Vicar

Research Hall

Clocktower Patients

Saint Adeline

The Healing Church Hunter

Living Failures

Astral Clocktower

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

Fishing Hamlet (Major Spoilers Unmarked)

Fishing Hamlet Priest

Fishmen

Fishman Mage

Giant Fishmen

Deep Sea Hound

Snail Women

Orphan of Kos

Sweet Child of Kos

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Index

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Characters / Bloodborne Characters From The Old Hunters

Edit Locked

The Hunter's Nightmare

The Old Hunters

Nightmare Executioners

Bestial Hunter

Gatling Gun Hunter

Yahar'gul Hunter

Simon the Harrowed

Yamamura the Wanderer

Brador, Church Assassin

Ludwig the Accursed

Simple Gratia

Black and White Nuns

Laurence, the First Vicar

Research Hall

Clocktower Patients

Saint Adeline

The Healing Church Hunter

Living Failures

Astral Clocktower

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

Fishing Hamlet (Major Spoilers Unmarked)

Fishing Hamlet Priest

Fishmen

Fishman Mage

Giant Fishmen

Deep Sea Hound

Snail Women

Orphan of Kos

Sweet Child of Kos

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Index

Next