A/N: despite its shortness and ambiguity, I am proud of 'You'. Hopefully I will entertain the community with more decent stories. The title is quite original, eh?

Moving on, this is the equivalent of Dark thoughts but in Bloodborne. This is totally a shot in the dark so if this project is deemed unworthy, it is secluded for termination.

Let's get going!

Chapter I

The alternatives

Introduction:

As most of you know, Bloodborne's events will take place in the grim city of Yharnam where some mysterious plague runs amok turning men into beasts. It seems that the fantasy elements of the Souls series will be toned down in favor of more…. realistic approach fitting to the Victorian era. The faithful knights, dragons and damsels in distress will morph into horrid beasts, towering mutated creatures and gruesome monsters straight out of putrid imaginations.

That leaves us with a sore question, how about sorceries? Pyro? Miracles? Hexes? Those are the ABCs of fantasy, right? Magic in general shaped the soul series. You can't say Souls with magic. Other that its important role in lore and what not, Magic is a play style of its own. I mean you have a STR, DEX build AND a caster builds even the melee builds uses magic in one way or another!

The fate of magic is uncertain in Bloodborne. I HIGHLY doubt the existence of magic in the midst of such advancement like guns. It contradicts with the main theme itself. There are a couple of possible theories in regards:

- Magic was obliterated from existence at some point or another waaaay before the current events of Bloodborne. Every parchment of miracle was burnt and so on. Generations later, the word magic became meaningless.

-Magic didn't exist in the first place; after all, we are dealing with a new world.

-Magic is there alright like any soul series (I highly doubt this option).

-Magic was cut down severely but not completely. It is considered a taboo amongst the land. Those who utilizes it are to be hunted down like a witch hunt.

I personally think magic will have little to no existence. Miyazaki is a brilliant man, he is aware of the situation. I know he will put an alternative somehow to compensate this chunk of play style. In this chapter, I will provide some alternatives to Magic, some of them might not be related to magic at all but it might just fill this gap.

Alchemy

Soo what is Alchemy? Why, the art of transmutation! X turns to Y with or without a certain Catalyst. I am thinking of some fancy (and expensive) gauntlet that acts as a mobile chemistry lab mixing certain elements together to. Instead of attune magic, we will have Configure vials. Instead of magical trainers, we will have alchemy trainers.

I will give a couple of examples to illustrate:

-Blood Leaf mist: an alchemy taught by X, creates a red mist that poisons enemies overtime. The blood Leaf weed is rampart along the moist and dark areas of Yharnam – mainly the sewers. This ordinary plant soaked the tainted blood of washed up corpses of beasts morphing it into a poisonous one.

-Sly flame: an alchemy taught by X, spews a black flammable mixture upon enemies that slowly damages them overtime. The mixture will explode violently upon contact with fire dealing massive damage. This sluggish ooze is harmless by its nature. To unleash its full potential, it must went through to phases of ignition; one in the gauntlet itself (hence the slow damage) and the other is the contacted flame.

On another note, since this alchemy is comprised of two elements (ooze and initial igniter) ,It would actually make sense to have two slots for it not because it is 'powerful'.

-Unstable discharge: an alchemy created by X, discharges random coils of sparks. This uncontrolled discharge might backfire so caution is advised. Till this day, alchemist hasn't fully understood this mysterious power of sparks hence the backfiring.

It kind of annoys me when you walk in your poison mist without taking any damage. I know it is a lawful gimmick but at glimpse of logic wouldn't hurt. Also, if this alchemy was too OP, the probability of screwing up might make player consider twice.

Blood Arts (or insert a better name.)

In assumption that some magic lingers in Bloodborne, this Blood Art is the equivalent of the dark arts in Bloodborne. It was a twisted sort of magic which uses blood as a fuel. I guess a sacrificial dagger can act as an offense catalyst.

This sacrificial dagger will have many variants like any other talisman/ catalyst each will have some certain pros and cons. Another interesting thing about the sacrificial dagger is that you can sacrifice your health in a cooling wrist cutting animation to gain more uses on your spells or you can sacrifice some weaker enemies (mostly humanoids?) by a unique slitting throat animation…. It is like a special finisher backstab but with the sacrificial dagger.

Obviously, Blood Arts are taught by some crazed witches. These spells tend to be used within the range of the dagger so it is not like spamming soul spear adding more thrilling encounters and once again fitting to the general theme. Also, Blood Arts are (so far) the only alternative that can actually recharges without resting at a certain point.

The blood arts should include some dark and cruel spells fitting to the general theme. Here are a couple of them:

-Blood rage: A blood art taught by X, puts its caster in a temporary state of rage which increases the overall damage.

-Blood Lust: A blood art taught by X, allows its caster to regain more blood (you know, the regain system?) and to harvest more blood (like a temporary silver serpent ring?).

-Blood Plague: A blood art taught by X, spatters tainted blood on the target clotting his or her blood vials and slowly drains his or her health.

- A bitter end: A blood art taught by X, drains almost all of the caster's blood (leaving him or her with 1 hp) to deal a heavy blow against a certain foe.

Runes

Again, a remnant of magic in which the caster summons a rune via a glove similar to full metal alchemist. Runes mainly focus on AOE effects or it can be used as a trap of sorts. Its animations are similar to miracles in a certain way.

Charms

This is another of mine. The concept is simple:

You beat a certain beast. You take its soul. You go to someone who can morph this soul into a charm in which you can use it to turn yourself to this beast in a certain way. It is like dragon stones but with some Grrreat varieties. Obviously, this won't work on regular humans/humanoids (Smough, dragonrider, ruin sentinels and other knights)….beasts only. Every transformation has cons and pros with something special. I will use Manus to illustrate my idea.

Charm of Manus:

-Transforms the player into a beast similar to Manus, Turns the Bloated people and the humanity phantoms into a docile state until further aggression. Vision in the dark is greatly improved.

-Cannot equip any armour

-Decreased lightning resistance.

-Increased Magic and fire resistance.

-Rings cannot be equipped.

- Left hand cannot be equipped with anything. However, it has a unique light and heavy melee attacks.

-Slower movement.

-Cannot equip any two handed weapons (i.e no bows or any 2h what so ever.)

This will add SOOO much play styles and great builds in general. Since Bloodborne will be brimmed of beasts, this should fit nicely.

Hoof! What a lovely brainstorm! I am digging Blood thoughts. i would like to read your ideas in regards to this pressing issue…what is your Alternative?