Old Yharnam, Burned and Forgotten

The Purge

We all know of Old Yharnam - a valley hamlet tucked away below the great bridge, barred by overzealous architectural growth and a terrible massacre. One torrid night the whole town was burned to the ground in a righteous purge, sacrificing all surviving citizens to cut off contact with the rising beast threat. But there is a deeper secret to Old Yharnam, something before the beasts and the fire; a series of events seen from conspicuous happenings and geographical evidence: the Healing Church, and how they rose to power. Firstly, however, we must understand some base ideas about the goings on as a whole, starting with the end.

Time works strangely in Yharnam, with events that seem to have happened only years ago forgotten for generations; the same goes for Old Yharnam and the purge of the beasts within. Was it a decade ago? Was it 50, 60 years before people started to lament? I believe that even plagued by inconsistent time-references the burning of Old Yharnam can be placed to 10-30 years ago. I reference the note:

'When the hunt began, the Healing Church left us, blocking the great bridge to Cathedral Ward, as Old Yharnam burned to the ground that moonlit night.' - Note in the dark residence

It would be strange for a random note presumably written by a Yharnamite to be lying about if it were referencing some ancient city-history. Cathedral Ward was also established at this time, which is a big part of present history within Bloodborne's story. There still lies a great inconsistency with this however, as another note found in Old Yharnam itself talks of the Blood Moon descending, and the beast scourge outbreak that resulted from that:

'The red moon hangs low, and beasts rule the streets. Are we left no other choice, than to burn it all to cinders?' 

This puts the burning of Old Yharnam in tandem with a Blood Moon event, of which we only have one example: Laurence summoning the Moon Presence. This, however, would have definitely taken place ages ago - as Laurence is something of legend in the history of the Healing Church and a new Vicar is in place. Laurence is also seen entrapped in the dream blazing with fiery fury, suggesting that he may have died during the purge. This makes sense as the church and altar seem like a great place to summon MP, and the Jesus imagery with the strung-up beast fits both the sacrificial theme of Laurence and a passage with 'god'. 

All of this culminates in the Church locking away the history of Old Yharnam, leaving the beasts and the blood-drunk power kegs to pass into the dream on their own. But this disaster, while I do not believe was intentional, was a thankful thing for the Church - as I believe they had some secrets to hide.

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The Healing Church and their beginning

It is no doubt that the Healing Church has its roots in Old Yharnam, starting there as less of a religious institution and more of a doctor's practice; the city was suddenly and irrevocably plagued by a great illness called 'ashen blood' and the Healing Church - right on the cusp of blood healing as a medium for medical advancement, swooped in to save them all. This propelled their image into public light, and due to the need for constant treatment and re-application of the healing blood they quickly rose up to almost a leading figure in the societal system. Quite a stroke of luck, right? Well I don't believe it was luck, I believe that Old Yharnam had been deliberately poisoned by the Church.

' A knife slathered poison. This curved knife is as thin and sharp as a surgeon's blade. Often used for self-defence by special doctors in the healing church.' - Poison knife description.

First of all, the Church is well-known for their speciality in poison - not only in this knife but in their general practices. The Research Hall is filled with slow poison and all patients exuding some sort of the ailment, as well as other examples. What is 'ashen blood'? It is a disease that took over all of Old Yharnam and that when the town broke out into beasts all of the beasts were also infected, as their human forms had the ailment. What does this result in? Beasts that vomit slow poison, that smoke with an eery purple glow and attempt to push you over and poison you too. So we can assume that the ashen blood illness was some sort of poison, which low and behold goes on to become a founding example of Church combat/experimentation. Another example is seen in the description of the pills used to treat the ashen blood:

'Small medicinal tablets that counteract poison. Used to treat ashen blood, the baffling sickness that ravaged Old Yharnam long ago.'

Poison, there is no doubt about it. So now we know that the Healing Church is most likely responsible, why would they use these tablets in the first place instead of immediately healing blood? And how did they do it?

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Old Yharnam's geography

To address the first question, I believe that the antidote was either a temporary medicine made by the church to placate the citizens as they perfected and convinced the healing blood, or it was invented and used by the citizens before the Church released their miracle cure. Secondly, Old Yharnam was presumably the seat of the original city as it is called 'Old' Yharnam and seems to be suffocated by the rest of Yharnam that was built after. This makes sense as it provides the one thing every civilisation requires: running water. Wells populate the streets and a giant river flows in low rivulets under the bridges and stone pathways. This is usually a great thing, but it is also manipulatable - as the Church realised. 

I propose that the Healing Church poisoned Old Yharnam by tainting the water supply, and that is how their massive history of power began. Unfortunately for everyone, the healing blood was not all it promised, so not only did many die from the disease and suffer in life, the scourge of beasts overtook them all. 

The Healing Church really do have a history of zealous failure. 

Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed.