Healing Church

The Origins

In 2961, a group of young scholars from the Howard Phillips College of Byrgenwurt discovered an ancient network of catacombs under the nearby city of Yharnam. They were lead by Karl Willem.

The scholars believed that they had been built by a humanoid civilization that predated the Ancient Elves and Dwarves. After months of digging, gradual exploring and several casualties among hired laborers, in the deeps of these ruins, the scholars claimed to have found secrets from that civilization that expanded their perception and cognitive abilities. They were very reluctant to show what their discovery was. The few artifacts they did present to the curious authorities were certainly ancient, of an unknown style, worthy of academic study but certainly not magical or mystical. Furthermore, the scholars would sometime go on about higher beings that the Pthumerians, as they would call the ancient civilization, worshiped; beings greater and more powerful than any of the gods of the churches of old. Finally, the scholars were unable to find the entrance to the ruins again to show the ruins to more people, even under supernatural compulsion. The authorities eventually concluded that the whole thing was a hoax. The scholars were kicked out of Yharnam and told never to speak again of Pthumerians and higher beings.
Even in Byrgenwurt, the Pthumerian scholars, as they became known, were treated with a good measure of derision by their colleagues. Willem and three other survivors of the Yharnam dig, George Lawrence, Lorene Caryll, and Sergey Micolash, decided to create their own college. They pooled their personal fortune to convert Willem's family mansion, on the outskirt of town. The Willem College provided general classical education with a focus on philosophy but its true vocation was the Pthumerian civilization and the Great Ones they worshiped. The College was careful to advise that the Great Ones were to be discussed, studied but never worshiped as the later would undoubtedly attract the wrath of the authorities.
The College kept a low profile and could only accept two dozen students at any given time. Many of the young students would drop out before they dove too deep into the topic of the Great Ones and Pthumeru. Those who kept going became more guarded about the teachings they were receiving. Finally, it became clear to careful outside observers that the College was slowly acquiring additional Pthumerian artifacts.

The Healing Church of Yharnam

Three years later, a schism occurred at the college following a dramatic discovery in a nearby fishing hamlet by two of the college's adventurous pupils: Maria and Gerhman. After examining what the pupils brought back, Willem concluded that Insight would allow humanity to transcend its condition while Lawrence and Micolash believed that the accumulation of power through the exploitation of the Great Ones was the correct path forward. Lawrence, Micolash, and Gerhman left the college for Yharnam where they would begin selling a treatment using blood transfusion which could heal any physical ailment or disease. The group incorporated their business as the Healing Church, a name they claim was a joke at the expense of the religions of centuries past. Vampire Lord Lux, who remembered the wars against the various churches actually appreciated the humor and dismissed the group as greedy scholars. Furthermore, Lux was busy preparing his sedition from the Empire as had become apparent that it was about to break apart.
Word of the miracle effects of "blood ministration" spread across Acarn: chronic pain, paralysis, blindness, deafness, terminal diseases, all were cured thanks to the blood. Health tourism brought in large amounts of revenue to the Healing Church, the city of Yharnam and, through taxes, the Kingdom of Sanguis. Lux was quite glad for the influx of money. It helped him cement Sanguis as a powerful province of the Thamassan Empire. The city expanded and great works of architectures and infrastructure were publicly funded.

Side Effects and Branching Church

Blood ministration turned out to have spectacular long term side effects. First and foremost, repeated use led to the user's blood turning toxic to vampires. Also, users of the blood developed a psychological disposition of group-thinking and a susceptibility to the preaching of the Healing Church which was steadily transforming into a cult. Finally, a small percentage of the user population would turn into murderous ravenous beasts, initially figuratively, and later literally.
Lawrence and the leadership of the Church gradually became aware of the side effects of "blood ministration" during its third year. Determined that their work could change the course of humanity for the better, the Church sought to leverage the side effects and their connection to a Great One to undermine Lux while pretending to support him and his clan. The Church thus created three internal, secret Branches.
First, the Church needed to cover up, as long as possible, the connection between blood ministration and its long term side effects, both from the public at large but also Lux and his clan. The Hunters of the Workshop was a secret order of warriors dedicated to discretely dispose of those who were turning or had turned into beasts. The Hunters were led by Tobias Gerhman, an allumni of the Willem College.
The Choir was tasked with protecting the secrets of the Healing Church, hide the source of the blood under the Great Cathedral being built in the center of Yharnam and commune with their Great One. The Choir was also the public face of the Healing Church performing the blood ministrations and holding weekly sessions to steer public opinions on various topics. It also had a group of Hunters which targeted vampires and their Ghouls. Most of these Hunters were from an unknown humanoid species and were not spoken of or to by the regular rank and file.
Finally, the School of Mensis was established in the Unseen village of Yhar'gul. Their initial goal was to conduct experiments on the nature of the Great Ones. They were led by Sergey Micolash, one of the founders of the Healing Church. They too had Hunters, though they were mostly thugs charged with kidnapping subjects for experiments.

The War Period and the First Scourge

The war seriously impeded the health tourism that made Yharnam's fortune. No citizen of the Tasnican Republic could travel to Imperial territory and even within the Empire, movement was hindered. The blood ministration was not exportable, a fact that Imperial leadership seemed to accept. Its miraculous effects, however, were important enough that it sent vast numbers of its wounded, undead troops excluded, to Yharnam for treatement, creating an entire new section to the city, called the Hospital Ward. In addition to military personnel, large numbers of displaced people, many carrying diseases from outbreaks across the Empire, flocked to the city.
The Healing Church managed to meet demand. Interestingly, troops which were quickly rotated out back to the front lines, never developed the side effects of the blood ministration. However, the tens of thousands of displaced people did. Despite the Hunters of the Workshop's best efforts, it was clear that something was turning people into beasts, a phenomenon dubbed the Beastly Scourge.
The Church managed to convince the population and Vampire Lord Lux, that the Beastly Scourge was some sort of arcane plague deployed by the Tasnican Republic. The Church Hunters, led by Albert Ludwig, Lawrence's trusted protegé, were stood up, distinct and separate from the still secret Hunters of the Workshop. The Church Hunters would often lead mobs of volunteers on hunts. Meanwhile, agents of the Choir stepped up their activities against Lux's clan, always careful to pin the blame on Tasnican spies.
[The war itself came a few times to the city and part of it were destroyed in some of the sieges.]
Not long after the destruction of the Imperial court in 2992, Lux himself and his remaining clan members, were killed during riots discretely orchestrated by the Choir. Despite some appearance of foulplay, the new Imperial leadership accepted the Healing Church as interim rulers of the province of Sanguis and Yharnam itself, until the end of the war. As it turned out, Sanguis' became an independant republic shortly following the The Great Accords.

First crack

For the next several years, things were good and quiet for the humanoid population of Yharnam and Sanguis. Medical tourism, fully restored in peace time, easily funded the reconstruction of the city from the war. The incidence of beastly transformation drastically lowered to the point where the Church Hunters largely reduced their number and operations, concentrating on prevention and detection. The Hunters of the Workshop took care of keeping most of the transformation out of the public eye.

However, beneath the surface, trouble was brewing within the Healing Church. Micolash had significantly expanded the Unseen village and seemed to have achieved a breakthrough regarding the Great Ones that he refused to share. Meanwhile, Gerhman and many of the hunters were having misgivings about cleaning up the mess that the Church was keeping making. Lawrence's promise of "fixing" the side effects appeared to be no more than a line.

Second Beastly Scourge

In 3004, a plague, known as the Ashen Blood, that had been affecting a remote region of Sorengar started appearing in Yharnam and the rest of Sanguis. It spread quickly to large portions of the population who flocked to the Church and its miraculous blood ministration. Just like during the war, the Church managed to meet most of the sharp increase in demand but that nearly all the population took blood ministration at least once within several months. There was a corresponding explosion in beastly transformations, even worse than during the Great War. The Hunters of the Workshop could not possibly keep up. The population was panicked, leading to many riots. Once again, the Church tried to blame outsiders as the root cause of the problem. Non-humans in particular, regardless of how long they had been in the city, were targeted. The Church Hunters were brought back in force, with a furious zeal. Citizens showing the most modest signs of the condition were burned by barely contained mobs.
Lawrence kept pushing for more draconian measures to keep the Scourge under control. In a section of Old Yharnam, the situation became so severe that it was walled off and quarantined. Aware of the plan to burn it down with all its occupants, Gerhman and his own Hunters revolted and tried to prevent the massacre. They failed. Gerhman and a couple of Hunters survived. Using an artifact Gerhman had stolen from the Church a several years prior, turned to the Great Ones for help and one of them answered. Striking from a new Hidden Workshop, Gerhman's last few Hunters kept up the Hunt in their own way.

The Great Nightmare

Behind the riots, the beastly transformations and the crazed citizens, were four factions vying for dominance. After over a year of increasingly bloody night, under a great red moon, a gruesome climax was reached. At dawn, two thirds of the population had been killed at the hands of each other or the various factions. The night became known as the Great Nightmare and the survivors refuse to discuss or even acknowledge it.

New Order Following the Great Nightmare, the Healing Church was reorganized under new management, appointed by the new obscure ruler of Yharnam, and of the Republic of Sanguis. Since them, Vicar Amelia has been the "interim" leader of the Healing Church, for decades. The Healing Church is still in charge of blood ministration but has no role in administrating the city or the Kingdom.
The remnants of the Choir are confined to the Great Cathedral which serves as a de facto prison.
The few remaining Hunters of the Workshop still operate from their hidden Workshop, hunting the rare beasts that stalk the nights of Yharnam.
Yhar'gul still hosts the School of Mensis but its members are in no state to leave it.

Founding Date

2994

Leader

Vicar Amelia

Parent Organization

Sanguis, Republic of

Location

Yharnam

Controlled Territories

• Yharnam