Hunters Dream

Bad Dream

Upon returning to the Hunter's Dream, you find the workshop ablaze, and the doll tells you to seek out Gehrman, in the gardens. You do so, and he offers you a choice. "Good hunter, you've done well. The night is near its end. Now, I will show you mercy. You will die, forget the dream, and awake under the morning sun. You will be free… from this terrible hunter's dream."

Should you submit to Gehrman, he says farewell with pride, as he tells you to "fear the blood." You kneel, and Gehrman takes your head.

You awaken to the sunrise, upon the streets of an empty Yharnam— not a sign of life to be seen. As you stagger off, a cut back to the Hunter's Dream shows the doll kneeling before a grave, saying "Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world." If you refuse to submit your life to Gehrman, however, he chuckles at you. "Dear oh dear, what was it? The hunt, the blood, or the horrible dream?"

Gehrman rises from his chair, clearly not needing it, and wielding a terrible scythe, fights you. Should you fall to him, he encourages you to accept your death.

When you finally fell him, your eyes are brought to the moon. A Great One appears from it, a mass of flesh and tentacles, with a form not unlike the beasts you have fought on your journey. You are mesmerized by the being, and it approaches you, taking you in its tendrils, and clutching you tightly. Now, a cut shows the doll pushing Gehrman's wheelchair, though no longer holding the old man in it. You have taken his place, doubtless to lure more men to the hunt, as the doll comments "and so, the hunt begins again."

However, there is a third option.

The third of the umbilical cord which you received for felling Mergo's Wet Nurse is not the only one out there. Hidden in a destroyed passageway in the Cathedral Ward lies the abandoned workshop. This is where the Healing Church commissioned all of the fantastic trick weapons collected over the course of your journey, to be made. Geniuses like the eccentric Archibald, or the rebellious Powder Kegs, or the first hunter Gehrman, crafted wondrous things here. Now, though, it lies empty, and as you walk through it, you can't help but notice a remarkable resemblance to the Hunter's Dream. This location is what the Hunter's Dream is based off of, and you can find a lifeless doll lying in the corner, along with a hair ornament, and some clothes which match the doll's which seem to have been taken care of, almost to the point of madness or compulsion. the altar here lies something else of note, though, another One Third of the Umbilical Cord.

The final third can be found one of two places, as two women in the game have been chosen to give birth, selected by the Great Ones. The first is Arianna, should she be saved. After slaying Mergo's Wet Nurse, she can be found in the Tomb of Oedon, having given birth to an infant Great One.

The other is Iosefka, a worshipper of the Great Ones who has performed grotesque experiments on any humans you were foolish enough to send to her, along with what seems to be a dissection of the otherworldly creatures belonging to the Celestial Emissary. She is with child after you've slain Rom. "Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The Third Umbilical Cord precipitated the encounter with the pale moon, which beckoned the hunters and conceived the hunter's dream."

"Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate, and Oedon, the formless Great One, is no different. To think, it was corrupted blood that began this eldritch liaison." "Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. This Cord granted Mensis audience with Mergo, but resulted in the stillbirth of their brains."

The Great Ones are beings of immense power, but one thing it would seem they are incapable of doing is creating more Great Ones. They cannot have children. It seems they've found a way around that, though, as they can use humanity to have their children for them. Some of the Great Ones, like formless Oedon, use women like Arianna to have a child when their influence is strongest. Some, like Mergo's Wet Nurse, however, it seems either appropriate children for themselves, or transform humans into their children.

It seems even the Moon Presence behind the hunt may have attempted to have a surrogate child, before the hunt began, or even is one of these surrogate children. It's not too far of a stretch to imagine that Gehrman may have had a daughter, on whom the doll is based, which died with the Moon Presence child, leading Gehrman to raise the child, and become the first hunter. That is getting into pure theory, though. If all three thirds (yes, there are actually four, you only need three) are found and consumed before refusing Gehrman's offer, you become too powerful for even the Moon Presence, the Great One who appears to be behind the hunt, to control, and it will be unable to absorb you into its own will. You fight it, and when you emerge victorious, are treated with the "true" ending.

A new infant great one lies in the Hunter's Dream, and the doll approaches it, and picks it up. "Are you cold…? Oh, good Hunter." It would seem the Doll is to become a motherly figure to the latest Great One— You.