Tips and Brainstorming for a Bloodborne-esque 5e Game

I'm about to DM a game with a Bloodborne setting in 5e. I have a couple of the monsters and NPCs done, and was wondering if anyone else has run a similar game or has any cool ideas for story. I am beginning my players in Yharnam before it all went to shit so the hunts only happen at night. The factions will all be active and I will probably have the Hunter's Dream be a legendary thing that only Gehrman knows about. Does anyone have any cool suggestions for story, monster stats, or where to start my players? Also, I saw that Dagda was crafting a TTRPG that is similar to what I am doing. Does anyone know if that was finished with a link? I checked the archive and didn't see much.

You should take a look at the Shadow of the Demon Lord rulebook for inspiration.

I had some ideas for a whole set of fish monsters for a game, based on the idea of "what if the fishing hamlet didn't get turbowrecked immediately" if OP wants.

As for where to start your players, I would go personally with the "a bunch of travelers enter Yharnam for various reasons, but then shortly after their arrival disaster strikes and they become trapped in the city". It means they can have lots of interesting sub plots related to why they were they in the first place.

OP Here.

I would love to hear your ideas on the fishing hamlet stuff and namely how I should make the nightmare areas work.

As for story ideas, so far I think I will have the players either needing the blood healing or being conscripted. I was playing around with the Church being corrupt, going so far as to say that they are the purposely spreading the scourge and dispatching of those that disagree with their methods. Maybe that's why the Powder Kegs are held up in Old Yharnam?

Do you have any ideas on how I can incorporate the factions of Bloodborne such as Mensis, Byrgenwerth, Powder Kegs, etc. to give my players access to tasks and ways to play with them?

I know this is a lot questions, and I apologize. I am not confident in my DMing skills lol. Thanks in advance!

In terms of factions, introducing them primarily as NPC's that interact with the party would be best. You don't know about the School of Mensis, you just meet one Mensis Scholar who asks you to do things. Especially with factions like the Vilebloods and Executioners, its important to save the true nature of what they are until later, for the reveal (See Alfred's questline). Have them meet characters who are connected to the factions, and have the players decide who they actually end up following and working with given choices.

A corrupt Healing Church is an interesting idea, but I would think considering the ideals of the Choir, it would be about more than just killing rivals. Maybe harvesting beasts for experimentation as well? Snatching up yharnamites during the confusion? I'd definitely keep the game reason for the mess in Old Yharnam (Oh god too many beasts we fucked up shiiiiiiiit) the same, but feel free to modify it as much as you desire. It is your game after all.

For the Nightmare, save it. Hint at it through insight, through NPC's, through strange encounters, but save the Nightmare for what it is in the source material; the finale. When shit gets cosmic, it should be past the point of no return. That said, I would put stuff like the fishing village as the natural result of the players looking into the Church's actions, or more specifically Byrgenwyrths' history. Maybe a Mensis Scholar has asked their help in researching the history of their founders, maybe a Church Vicar sends them to find a relic they think is the ruins of the fishing village in the real world, the possibilities are endless.
In terms of monsters, I figured the Fishing Hamlet would get more abyssal in design the longer it survived. Instead of regular fishmen as you go deeper, you get things like translucent jellyfish men with visible skeletons, gulper eel people that dart out of the walls, and at least one big enemy based on pic related, the Vampire Squid.

Your input is awesome and I will be implementing all of it. Thanks so much! Now to get to creating monsters in roll20.

No problem, just let me know if you want any other kind of feedback or ideas, I've got a ton of them. Bloodborne is something I have spent far too much time theorizing and thinking about.

If you feel like taking the time to type it all out I would love to hear all of them. Up until this game, I have just relied on making quests based on PC backstory and classic tropes so this is way out of my comfort zone and I need all the help I can get.

In fact, do you have any interest in joining my discord server?

I'd love to honestly, but am currently at work and wouldn't be able to get onto my discord until much later tonight.

For just some general advice though, in a setting like Yharnam don't be afraid to hide information from your players. Keeping things weird and mysterious adds a lot to the strange horror that makes Yharnam so special. Answers aren't going to come easy, and they aren't going to come without trouble.

You can still actually keep making quests based on PC backstory, just in this case make sure to tie it around why they're in Yharnam in the first place. Needs blood ministration for an incurable disease? The only minister you can find who will treat outsiders is trapped in Old Yharnam while the Powder Kegs and Beats raze in the streets. Enlisted into the Hunters? The Church demands you come forth for a special mission, one you are woefully unprepared for. Just want to steal shit? You get a lead on some kind of fancy treasure in the upper ward, but those pale-faced guards don't look too welcoming. You have a lot of options.

What kind of ideas were you thinking of for the overall kind of plot? Anything you wanted your players to run into?

There's a youtube series done by a guy called VaatiVidya about the lore and plot of Bloodborne that might be helpful.

Also, I have a theory about the events before the game, based on the DLC, but I don't want to share it unless you don't mind spoilers.

I currently have the stats done for Cleric Beast, Father Gascoigne, Eileen the Crow, Old Hunter Henryk, Kos, Blood-starved Beast, the Witches of Hemwick, and the Shadows of Yharnam, but I am not certain how I should stagger out the boss fights. I will probably have the first assignment be to hunt down "a rogue vicar that is close to turning" culminating in the Cleric Beast fight, but that is as far as I have planned.

I have one PC that is playing a homebrewed Hunter class that we found online and he sought the Church to cure an incurable disease and was conscripted to pay off the debt of said treatment. The other PC is a Ranger that is adept at beast hunting. For the Ranger, I will probably have him hired by the Church for beast hunting. We don't have many friends that are into TTRPG's so we normally only have the three of us.

Overall plot will focus on uncovering the secrets of Yharnam, the Church, and the Eldritch Truth. I will probably incorporate a day/night cycle, but I am not sure how the civilians will react to the hunts. I assume there is a strict curfew and anyone outside after said curfew is considered a threat? As the PCs unravel the mysteries of Yharnam, I will have things get more Cosmic and weird, culminating in the Blood Moon and an adventure into the Pthumarian Labyrinth.

As for the discord server, we are on all the time and at all hours so feel free to join whenever you would like. Because I don't want to leave an open link to my server on Veeky Forums, my discord ID is Alias613#8945. Shoot me a message whenever you feel like it and I'll add you.

Again, thanks so much for all the help with this game!

I love Vaati! And as for spoilers, I have played through that game so many times that I am sure it should be considered an obsession. I'd love to hear the theory!

My theory involves Gehrman, Maria, Caryll, and Micolash seeking to uncover the secrets in Fishing Hamlet for the Church, discovering Kos, and killing it in their bloodlust. The people of the Hamlet cursed them and all that follow them, thus creating the Nightmare.

My current working theory is that the story started in the fishing village. Kos washed ashore dead. That drew the attention of the scholars, as well as descendants of the Pthumerians, who had been waiting the whole time for another Great One to appear, since Ebreitas couldn't have been the only one left behind after the ascension.

The Hunter's Dream and the Hunter's Nightmare are two realms created from the thoughts of Great Ones, and the DLC suggest that two of them might have been in direct competition for goals, based on the wishes of certain humans they were sympathetic to. It's highly implied that the Blood Moon is being held back by Rom, the Vacuous Spider.

I think that the scholars came to the village to inspect Kos's corpse, and found the Orphan there just as it emerged from its mother's body. Somehow they managed to subdue it, and bring it back to Bergenwerth, and that the Orphan is the source of the Old Blood, as well as the evidence that Master Willem needed to start his research into a way of achieving communion with the ascended Great Ones.

If the first hunters didn't kill Kos, then why would the people of the Hamlet curse the hunters, since we hear the Ranting Villager talking about Byrgenwerth and their crime?

Disregard my last post. The kidnapping of the Orphan would make since with the dialogue and the curse.

I think that the hunters are responsible for the village being in the state you find it. I suspect that the hunters may have tortured the villagers to extract as much information as they could get, and then used them as test subjects. Combined with the likelihood that they were exposed to an undiluted form of the Old Blood from the corpse of Kos, and they would have begun to change. Most likely they blamed everything on the hunters and Bergenwerth, and another Great One, (Mergo, I think) heard them. Since the Great Ones are described as being sympathetic to mankind, it placed the curse.

I think that's the best theory I've heard, as it ties everything together nicely.

Lawrence saw the potential of the Old Blood as a means for humanity to ascend to a higher level, and left Bergenwerth, starting the healing church and either taking with him blood from the Orphan, or possibly using blood from Abandoned Ebreitas, which he found in the catacombs of Yahrnam now that he knew what to look for.

However, you still have (Mergo?)'s curse on the blood and anyone from the school, which carried on. Though the Church was able to gain great power through blood healing, the beastly sickness remained and eventually began to manifest.
It suspect that the initial outbreak of the sickness known as "Ashen Blood" was the result of actions by Lawrence and the Church, since the medicine tablets used to treat the symptoms counteract poison, and the church is located over a source of water feeding into Yahrnam. It was a way to become established and gain political power, to swoop in and save the city from the plague that had cropped up that only the blood could cure.

Based on the DLC, it appears that Gerhman and Maria were hunters, and that Gehrman was very much in love with Maria. However, in some way found out what the hunters had done in the fishing village, which turned her against the order. She stole some of the blood (I think the Orphan's) and took it away to the castle, presenting it to the queen, whom she was distantly related to. That started the second bloodline, and that's why the monsters there are different from Yahrnam. You encounter Maria in the clocktower in the nightmare, guarding the entrance to the fishing villiage. Perhaps some form of eternal guardianship, feeling that she has to make amends for what the hunters did and guard those people from further harm.

Just sent my friend request, and I like some of your ideas so far.

For the first quest, I would recommend hiding the fact that the cleric is going to go beast. Have them being set to check in on a cleric who the Church might think is doing some things outside of jurisdiction, only for the battle to result in them going full beast midway through. A little more buildup for a better reveal, and it can be a good way to show that shit is starting to go crazy.

Just looked it up, Cainhurst Castle and the Vileblood line, of which Annalise is the last. It's heavily implied that she is in the process of building herself up to perform the ritual that will allow her to become mother to a great one, the same way that Queen Yahrnam was impregnated with Mergo.
Gehrman, alone now, left behind as the church no longer needed his hunter talents, desperately prayed for someone to end his loneliness. He was heard by a Great One (sympathy and all that) who made him the host of the Hunter's Dream, so that all hunters who pass through Yahrnam as part of the great hunt would greet him and keep him company. It's worth noting that the doll that lives with him is an almost perfect replica of Maria, the woman that he loved.

I believe that Rom the Spider was acting on behalf of the people of Yahrnam and perhaps of master Willem, holding back the full effect of the Blood Moon and Mergo's curse. When you defeat Mergo's Wet Nurse, you get the message "Nightmare Slain" rather than "Prey Slaughtered" implying that you've in fact killed Mergo, a Great One, lifting the curse on Yahrnam. Evidence to this is the fact that you return to the dream to find the workshop on fire, and Gehrman offers to return you to the waking world, your task fulfilled.
If you reject him and defeat him, you take his place as the host of teh Hunter's Dream when the Moon Presence embraces you.
You can also consume 3 umbilical cords of great ones, suggesting that you are in the process of ascending, and reject the embrace, instead fighting the Moon Presence and becoming an infant Great One yourself.

I am writing all of this down. A tad off-topic but how do you suggest I incorporate the war between Vilebloods and Executioners?

Factions the players can join? Ways of making things worse for the players, as they get caught between them?

The faction idea is definitely a good start. The main issue you could focus on is how the Executioners sealed away Cainhurst.

You may want to check out Mitch L on youtube as well. He's done some good lore videos.