Vacuous Spiderposting
Jun. 22nd, 2025 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingRom is one of the more mysterious characters in Bloodborne, so I want to try to summarize what we actually know about her. Content warning for body horror.
When we encounter Rom, she’s an elephant-sized spider whose back has been overtaken by a forest of pale mushrooms. Rom doesn’t speak, and all the eye sockets on her lotus root of a face are empty. Although she casts offensive magic, Rom cannot move quickly, and her only means of defending herself is to summon smaller, dog-sized spiders. We know almost nothing of who she was before her transformation.
One thing it’s probably safe to say is that Rom was associated with Byrgenwerth, a lakeside mansion separated from the city of Yharnam by the Forbidden Woods. It’s also probably fair to say that Byrgenwerth was formerly a college overseen by Master Willem, an academic provost (a title that designates an administrative position) at a larger university located elsewhere. Master Willem was the leader of “the Byrgenwerth scholars,” a group of key characters in the game’s plot who have died or been scattered by the time the Hunter arrives.
The Byrgenwerth scholars seem to have been studying the outer limits of human perception and knowledge. Their ultimate goal was to transcend human limitations and gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of the universe. When a labyrinth housing the remains of an ancient civilization was discovered under Yharnam, Willem sent armed prospectors to chart and investigate the ruins. There they made a major discovery: a substance called “the Old Blood” that confers superhuman abilities.
One of the Byrgenwerth scholars, a woman named Caryll, gained the ability to hear the words of the extradimensional and godlike “Great Ones,” entities that are presumably the source of the Old Blood. Caryll transcribed these words into runes that represent highly abstract metaphorical concepts. The act of “memorizing” these runes can grant superhuman abilities. What this act entails is unclear, but it’s strongly suggested that a Caryll Rune is carved or branded directly onto (or inside) the skull.
Although this is never directly stated, it’s probably fair to assume that Rom was one of the Byrgenwerth scholars. In some fashion, presumably by consuming Old Blood and/or being inscribed with Caryll Runes, Rom was “granted eyes” to see the true nature of the universe, ie, as the Great Ones would see it. She thus transcended her humanity but lost her human form and mind in the process.
The expression that Rom was “granted eyes” comes from another Byrgenwerth scholar, Micolash. Instead of using Old Blood or Caryll Runes, Micolash created a bizarre piece of headgear called a “Mensis Cage” that supposedly functions as something like an antenna. In theory, a Mensis Cage allows a human to see the world as Rom sees it without undergoing a similar transformation. In practice, the device traps the consciousness of its wearer in an extradimensional dreamlike state.
Micolash is not the only one of Master Willem’s students who went on to create trouble, and the current sorry state of Yharnam is a direct result of their various branches of research. The aging Master Willem, fearing the effects of the Old Blood on human society, stayed behind at Byrgenwerth. When the player encounters him, he sits on a balcony overlooking the lake. He can no longer speak, and pale mushrooms grow from the back of his head and neck.
The timeline of the scholars’ research is a matter of pure speculation, but Willem’s branch of experimentation seems to be connected to what Caryll was doing. Instead of carving runes into people’s skulls, Willem took the concept of “insight” literally and seems to have been transplanting actual eyes into people’s heads so that they surround the brain. Rom may have been involved in this research, either as an early experiment or as a culmination. Whatever happened to her, she is now sealed (like Micolash) within a hazy dreamlike pocket dimension under the surface of the lake that Willem watches.
Anyway, TLDR, this is my theory:
Through a combination of Old Blood and Caryll Runes, Rom managed to achieve the “insight” into the true nature of the universe that Willem had long been trying to foster through the crude methods of skull trepanning and eyeball transplants. In her attempt to perceive the world through the eyes of a superhuman Great One, however, Rom became akin to a Great One herself. This transformation was unintended, and Willem considered it to be a tragedy.
This is my deeper theory:
The Great Ones aren’t (and were probably never) sapient in the way that humans would understand the concept of “sapient.” Rather, the Great Ones are just another type of animal, albeit unique animals with long lives and magical powers. This isn’t to suggest that animals don’t have their own type of intelligence. You wouldn’t say, for example, that a whale “isn’t intelligent.” Rather, the superhuman perception of animals is precisely due to the fact that they aren’t human. In order to see the world as an animal, you would have to fully become that type of animal.
And that’s essentially what happened to Rom.
When we encounter Rom, she’s an elephant-sized spider whose back has been overtaken by a forest of pale mushrooms. Rom doesn’t speak, and all the eye sockets on her lotus root of a face are empty. Although she casts offensive magic, Rom cannot move quickly, and her only means of defending herself is to summon smaller, dog-sized spiders. We know almost nothing of who she was before her transformation.
One thing it’s probably safe to say is that Rom was associated with Byrgenwerth, a lakeside mansion separated from the city of Yharnam by the Forbidden Woods. It’s also probably fair to say that Byrgenwerth was formerly a college overseen by Master Willem, an academic provost (a title that designates an administrative position) at a larger university located elsewhere. Master Willem was the leader of “the Byrgenwerth scholars,” a group of key characters in the game’s plot who have died or been scattered by the time the Hunter arrives.
The Byrgenwerth scholars seem to have been studying the outer limits of human perception and knowledge. Their ultimate goal was to transcend human limitations and gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of the universe. When a labyrinth housing the remains of an ancient civilization was discovered under Yharnam, Willem sent armed prospectors to chart and investigate the ruins. There they made a major discovery: a substance called “the Old Blood” that confers superhuman abilities.
One of the Byrgenwerth scholars, a woman named Caryll, gained the ability to hear the words of the extradimensional and godlike “Great Ones,” entities that are presumably the source of the Old Blood. Caryll transcribed these words into runes that represent highly abstract metaphorical concepts. The act of “memorizing” these runes can grant superhuman abilities. What this act entails is unclear, but it’s strongly suggested that a Caryll Rune is carved or branded directly onto (or inside) the skull.
Although this is never directly stated, it’s probably fair to assume that Rom was one of the Byrgenwerth scholars. In some fashion, presumably by consuming Old Blood and/or being inscribed with Caryll Runes, Rom was “granted eyes” to see the true nature of the universe, ie, as the Great Ones would see it. She thus transcended her humanity but lost her human form and mind in the process.
The expression that Rom was “granted eyes” comes from another Byrgenwerth scholar, Micolash. Instead of using Old Blood or Caryll Runes, Micolash created a bizarre piece of headgear called a “Mensis Cage” that supposedly functions as something like an antenna. In theory, a Mensis Cage allows a human to see the world as Rom sees it without undergoing a similar transformation. In practice, the device traps the consciousness of its wearer in an extradimensional dreamlike state.
Micolash is not the only one of Master Willem’s students who went on to create trouble, and the current sorry state of Yharnam is a direct result of their various branches of research. The aging Master Willem, fearing the effects of the Old Blood on human society, stayed behind at Byrgenwerth. When the player encounters him, he sits on a balcony overlooking the lake. He can no longer speak, and pale mushrooms grow from the back of his head and neck.
The timeline of the scholars’ research is a matter of pure speculation, but Willem’s branch of experimentation seems to be connected to what Caryll was doing. Instead of carving runes into people’s skulls, Willem took the concept of “insight” literally and seems to have been transplanting actual eyes into people’s heads so that they surround the brain. Rom may have been involved in this research, either as an early experiment or as a culmination. Whatever happened to her, she is now sealed (like Micolash) within a hazy dreamlike pocket dimension under the surface of the lake that Willem watches.
Anyway, TLDR, this is my theory:
Through a combination of Old Blood and Caryll Runes, Rom managed to achieve the “insight” into the true nature of the universe that Willem had long been trying to foster through the crude methods of skull trepanning and eyeball transplants. In her attempt to perceive the world through the eyes of a superhuman Great One, however, Rom became akin to a Great One herself. This transformation was unintended, and Willem considered it to be a tragedy.
This is my deeper theory:
The Great Ones aren’t (and were probably never) sapient in the way that humans would understand the concept of “sapient.” Rather, the Great Ones are just another type of animal, albeit unique animals with long lives and magical powers. This isn’t to suggest that animals don’t have their own type of intelligence. You wouldn’t say, for example, that a whale “isn’t intelligent.” Rather, the superhuman perception of animals is precisely due to the fact that they aren’t human. In order to see the world as an animal, you would have to fully become that type of animal.
And that’s essentially what happened to Rom.
