Insight.10: Micolash, Host of the Nightmare - The Madmen of the School of Mensis and the Abyss of Cosmic Horror

The madness and contradictions harbored by the colossal and ignorant organization known as the Healing Church manifest most prominently and gruesomely in the schism of its internal schools. In contrast to the mainstream faction (led by Laurence, the First Vicar and others), who clung to the blood of the Great Ones and brought the symptomatic ruin known as the Scourge of the Beast to the city of Yharnam, there were those who challenged the sacred yet blasphemous proposition of “human evolution” through a fundamentally different approach. This was none other than the secret society known as the School of Mensis, based in Yahar’gul, Unseen Village, who willingly threw themselves into the abyss of Cosmic Horror, and its central figure, the man who became Micolash, Host of the Nightmare.

As a highly classified record reconstructing the madness-filled history of Yharnam, this article seeks to unravel the deep-seated causalities and hidden sins concerning the abnormal psyche of the individual Micolash, the inhumane rituals spearheaded by the School of Mensis, and the philosophy of “eyes (Insight)” they pursued. This narrative, where Gothic literature, the lack of Victorian medical ethics, and Cthulhu Mythos-esque Cosmic Horror intersect, presents us with human insignificance and arrogance, as well as the ultimate ruin brought about by metaphysical inquiry.

1. The Schism of the Healing Church and the Machinations of the School of Mensis: The Embodiment of Victorian Madness

At its core, the Healing Church encompassed two conflicting ideologies: the “pursuit of blood” and the “pursuit of eyes (Insight).” While The Choir abandoned the teachings of Provost Willem to focus on the medical benefits of the “holy blood” and communion with the cosmos, the School of Mensis, led by Micolash, relied on more direct and dark arts: human experimentation, kidnapping, and forbidden rituals.

1.1 Yahar’gul, Unseen Village and the Formation of a “City of Corpses”

The stronghold of the School of Mensis, “Yahar’gul, Unseen Village,” exists deep underground or hidden in the shadows of Yharnam. As explicitly stated in the game, what they conducted in this village were immoral experiments aimed at beckoning the Great Ones. The most terrifying fact regarding the practices of the School of Mensis is that they kidnapped countless citizens of Yharnam to use as test subjects.

Their behavioral principles, inferred from this circumstantial evidence, strikingly parallel the dark history of Edinburgh, Scotland, during the early 19th century Victorian era in the real world. At the time, Edinburgh was the global center for anatomical research, yet simultaneously a city of madness where murder was justified for the advancement of medicine—a “capital of corpses,” as epitomized by “body snatchers (grave robbers)” and the “Burke and Hare murders.” The methods of the School of Mensis perfectly embody this madness of Victorian medical and eugenic ideologies. For the noble purpose of the “ascension of humanity,” they completely disregarded individual lives and ethics.

The notes scattered throughout Yahar’gul (environmental storytelling) fragmentarily record the terror and despair toward this tragedy.

“Madmen toil surreptitiously in rituals to beckon the moon. Uncover their secrets.” “The Mensis ritual must be stopped, lest we all become beasts.”

As a matter of fact, the streets of Yahar’gul are littered with countless corpses fused into the walls, their faces frozen in agony as they tried to escape the ritual. They all fell victim to the maddening academic pursuits of Mensis, their lives and flesh consumed as catalysts (or offerings) for the ritual.

1.2 The Ideological Conflict Structure within the Healing Church

Here, to clarify just how peculiar a group the School of Mensis was, we shall organize the ideological differences and causal relationships of each school originating from Byrgenwerth.

The School of Mensis inherited Willem’s ideology of “seeking eyes” in its most radical form, yet employed Laurence’s “blood sacrifice” as a means for their rituals. They hesitated less than any other faction within the Healing Church to cast aside their humanity. While The Choir sought coexistence and dialogue with a Great One (Ebrietas), the School of Mensis aimed to “use” a Great One (Mergo) to usurp the seat of godhood themselves—that is, to achieve complete ascension. This unfathomable arrogance was precisely their greatest sin.

2. The Mensis Ritual: One Third of Umbilical Cord and “Paleblood”

The purpose of the large-scale ritual conducted by the School of Mensis in Yahar’gul was “communion with the Great Ones,” and by extension, “their own ascension (evolution into Great Ones).” The core of this ritual was borne by the existence of the divine infant “Mergo” and the catalyst for communion, the “One Third of Umbilical Cord.”

2.1 The Principle of “Loss of a Child,” the Root of All Evil

At the foundation of the world’s lore exists an absolute philosophical law imposed upon the Cosmic Horror entities known as the Great Ones. Namely, the truth that “Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate.” Because the Great Ones are beings that transcend biological dimensions, they cannot leave their lineage in the physical waking world in a normal form. Therefore, when the Blood Moon hangs low, they attempt to impregnate a surrogate mother (a human woman) with a child, or steal an existing infant.

The Mensis ritual is an extremely malicious system that exploits this “yearning of the Great Ones.” Micolash and the scholars of Mensis attempted to make contact with “Mergo,” the infant Great One once stolen from Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen. Although Mergo is an invisible entity without a physical body, whose cries alone echo throughout, they intended to use this infant as bait to beckon a more powerful Great One (the moon, or the Moon Presence).

The text of the One Third of Umbilical Cord states that it is a catalyst to “grant eyes on the inside” and commune with the Great Ones. The School of Mensis, originally human, attempted to pierce the dimensional veil through a blasphemous ritual using this umbilical cord, seeking to elevate themselves to the realm of gods.

2.2 The Ruinous Impact of the Ritual and the Blood Moon

The ritual had a fatal impact on the entire city of Yharnam. As noted in Yahar’gul, “The Mensis ritual must be stopped, lest we all become beasts,” the drawing of the moon by the ritual caused the Scourge of the Beast to progress explosively. The Blood Moon blurred the boundary between reality and nightmare, forcibly dragging out the “Beasthood” lurking within the people.

In fact, as the ritual progressed, the figures of colossal Great Ones (Amygdala) became visible in the skies of Yharnam. This was the result of the School of Mensis’s ritual collapsing the laws of physics and forcibly dragging higher-dimensional beings down into the three-dimensional waking world.

They proceeded knowing full well that an entire city would be annihilated; nay, there are indications that they even utilized that very tragedy as the “massive blood offering” required for the ritual. To them, the ignorant common citizens descending into beasts was nothing more than a trivial sacrifice on the path to reaching cosmic truth. This ruthless eugenic ideology vividly illustrates the mental structure of the madman Micolash.

3. Mensis Cage: Objective Madness and Subjective Truth

The most prominent feature of the scholars of the School of Mensis, including Micolash, is the bizarre iron grate worn on their heads: the “Mensis Cage.” This piece of equipment was not merely a symbol of madness, but a highly functional device (at least in their subjective view) that embodied their philosophy.

3.1 An Antenna for Communion and the Confinement of the Ego

The text for the “Mensis Cage” notes that this cage functions as an “antenna” that restrains the will of the self, allowing one to commune with the Great Ones. If a minuscule existence such as a human were to directly touch the vast and abyssal will of the cosmos (the will of the Great Ones), their mind would instantly collapse. To prevent this and receive the voices of the Great Ones, it was necessary to confine their petty human egos within a physical and mental “cage.”

However, if we clearly separate fact from speculation, a crucial fact gleaned from the text is that “the cage merely explains its purpose; it is never explicitly stated that they ‘succeeded’ in communing with the Great Ones.” The scholars of the School of Mensis that the player witnesses in Yahar’gul in the real world (the Waking World) are all dried up like mummies, dead in their chairs. Stating the facts objectively, they are nothing more than a “cult that suffered collective brain death as a result of being struck by unknown madness and letting their self-consciousness run rampant.”

Based on community theories and circumstantial evidence, their minds left their bodies and transferred to the nightmare realm. However, it is hard to say that they achieved true “ascension” there. If Mergo continuing to cry there is meaningless, then their very act of making contact also becomes meaningless. If so, they are merely being forced to endlessly continue a meaningless night, without even truly understanding what kind of magnificent being they are in contact with.

3.2 Cosmic Horror, Cognitive Dissonance, and the “Brain of Mensis”

Herein lies the essence of Cosmic Horror. Humans are far too small a vessel to comprehend the truth of the Great Ones. The School of Mensis attempted to receive cosmic truth using the cage as an antenna, but the result was the complete death of their physical bodies in reality, and the creation of a colossal stillbirth known as the “Brain of Mensis,” which continues to rot at the bottom of the nightmare.

The Brain of Mensis is lined with countless eyeballs (eyes) growing madly, but rather than a symbol of intellect, they resemble an uncontrollable tumor. They may have believed themselves to have “ascended,” but in reality, they confined their minds within a massive nightmare, creating a labyrinth of madness from which they would never wake. The cage did not function as an antenna; instead, it functioned as a “true prison” that stitched their minds to the nightmare.

4. Micolash’s Prayer and the Revelation of “Kos”

In the deepest reaches of the nightmare, Micolash, confronted after a madness-filled chase, offers ecstatic prayers not to the Hunter, but to an unseen Great One. The fragmented dialogue he leaves behind during the battle holds immense significance in unraveling the game’s esoteric lore and proving the hidden causalities within his own psyche.

4.1 “Ah, Kos, or some say Kosm”

“Ah, Kos, or some say Kosm… Do you hear our prayers?”

The fact derived from this line is that Micolash clearly recognized the Great One known as “Kos,” treating it as an object of faith and supplication. Kos is the Great One that once washed up on the Fishing Hamlet, whose corpse and infant were violated by the scholars of Byrgenwerth (including Gehrman and Maria).

What is noteworthy here is Micolash’s abnormal demeanor, going out of his way to mention differences in pronunciation and nomenclature with “Kos, or some say Kosm.” This depiction ironically demonstrates that no matter how deeply he fell into madness or wandered within the nightmare, he was originally a “scholar” who valued literature and sought knowledge. As if striving for academic accuracy, he dutifully voices that there are multiple interpretations of the god’s name. For him, madness was not the abandonment of intellect, but the runaway of excessive intellect.

4.2 Envy of Rom and “Eyes on the inside”

Furthermore, Micolash offers the following agonizing yet joyous prayer:

“As you once did for the vacuous Rom, grant us eyes, grant us eyes.”

This line reveals a crucial fact pertaining to the core of the game. “Rom, the Vacuous Spider” in Byrgenwerth was originally human (a scholar of Byrgenwerth), but through the interference of the Great One Kos, she was granted eyes and underwent a metamorphosis into a being akin to a Great One.

What is particularly noteworthy here from the perspective of philosophical and mythological background is the interpretation of the concept of “Touch” when Kos interfered with Rom. According to linguistic analysis in the Japanese community, the difference between the words “sawaru” (physical, active contact) and “fureru” (conceptual, passive, or divine contact) is deeply involved in this evolutionary process. Rom did not seize the power of Kos by her own will; rather, by being “touched” by the vast cosmic will of Kos, she lost her human intellect as a price and became vacuous.

To Micolash, the existence of Rom was the sole successful example of “humanity reaching the next stage of evolution,” and a beacon of hope. From the perspective of general human ethics, losing human intellect and transforming into a massive, hideous caterpillar-like spider is nothing short of the ultimate tragedy of falling into a “Vacuous” state, or devolution. However, in the twisted eugenic ideology of the School of Mensis, humanity’s minuscule intellect is tantamount to “nothing” compared to the cosmic abyss gazed upon by the Great Ones. They blindly believed that “to overcome the latent Beasthood (foolishness) within humans, one must implant eyes in the brain.”

Micolash deeply envies Rom. Even if it means becoming vacuous, he wishes to shed the mud-caked fleshy shell of humanity and attain cosmic truth (eyes). This prayer is the pinnacle of Victorian Gothic horror, where the thirst for knowledge has become entirely synonymous with the desire for self-destruction. He believed without a doubt that going mad was the correct path of evolution.

5. The Nightmare as a Multi-layered World: Death of the Flesh and Eternity of the Mind

Indispensable in discussing Micolash is the multi-layered concept of “death” and “dreams” in the lore of Bloodborne. Micolash himself already sits as a desiccated corpse in the real Yahar’gul. Who, then, is the figure the player confronts in the deepest reaches of the nightmare?

5.1 The Survival of the Mind Detached from the Flesh and the Sorrow of the “Host of the Nightmare”

In this game, there is a clear rule that “death is not the end for the Great Ones.” This phenomenon applies to some extent not only to the Great Ones but also to humans possessing strong Insight (will). Even after losing their physical bodies, the minds and wills of Great Ones like Mergo and the Orphan of Kos form a plane known as a “nightmare” and incarnate there. Micolash, too, after his physical body perished in the real world, had his mind transferred to the multi-layered world of the “Nightmare of Mensis,” where he continued his eternal studies as the “Host of the Nightmare.”

However, upon layering fact-based analysis, it is evident that he did not truly become an entity equal to the Great Ones. He is ultimately nothing more than a “host,” or rather a lodger, in the nightmare world created by the infant Great One Mergo (or maintained by the Moon Presence or other grand wills). It would be more accurate to say that he did not create the world himself, but rather “bound” his mind to that world through a maddening ritual. He did not reach the lofty realm of the Great Ones; he was merely a rat scurrying about in the corner of a Great One’s dream.

5.2 The Greatest Terror Known as “Waking Up”

Micolash’s final words highlight the absolute terror nesting within him and the essence of Cosmic Horror.

“Now I’m waking up, I’ll forget everything!”

Defeated by the Hunter (the player), Micolash senses his “waking up” at the moment of death and screams. To him, the infinite exploration within the nightmare, the abominable rituals, and the communion with the Great Ones were his “true life,” while the real world (the Waking World) was merely a “meaningless illusion” where ignorant beasts writhed.

Upon returning to reality, his body is already a corpse. To wake up means to return to complete nothingness, signifying the loss of all the “fragments of cosmic truth (Insight)” he obtained at great cost (the lives of the residents of Yahar’gul and his own life in reality).

The despair of one who has known the truth being dragged back into an ignorant daily life. This perfectly aligns with the traditional conclusion of Cosmic Horror depicted by H.P. Lovecraft: “expulsion from the merciful sanctuary of madness.” Micolash, unaware even of his own madness, simply vanishes while screaming in fear of “oblivion.” His tragic end can be said to be a ruthless punishment from the cosmos against the arrogance of a human who sought metaphysical truth.

6. Mergo’s Wet Nurse: The Stolen Infant and the Metaphor of Motherhood

In the deepest reaches of the nightmare beckoned by the School of Mensis, “Mergo’s Wet Nurse,” who guards the divine infant Mergo, lies in wait. This entity harbors an extremely important “metaphor of blood and motherhood” that cannot be ignored when examining the sins of Micolash and the School of Mensis.

6.1 Stolen Motherhood and the Legend of the Ubume

The “One Third of Umbilical Cord” used by Micolash in his ritual is obtained by defeating Mergo’s Wet Nurse. What does this signify? The conclusion drawn from deep community analysis and circumstantial evidence is that Mergo’s Wet Nurse is a Great One (or a conceptual entity akin to a Great One) that stole the infant (Mergo) from Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen, attempting to raise it as its own.

A “wet nurse” originally refers to one who raises an infant in place of its biological mother. As a fact within the game, Queen Yharnam stands before the nightmare with her stomach stained in blood and her wrists bound, grieving as she yearns for her crying child. This motif of a “demonic entity that steals infants” closely resembles the legend of the “Ubume” yokai in Japan. The Ubume is said to be a nocturnal bird yokai born from the grudge of a woman who died in childbirth, known to snatch the infants of others. The fact that Mergo’s Wet Nurse possesses multiple invisible arms and is draped in a cloak of black wings resembling crow feathers strongly evokes visual and conceptual similarities to this Ubume legend.

The School of Mensis may have attempted to indirectly touch the power of the Great Ones by interposing this wet nurse, rather than directly manipulating the “infant” Mergo.

6.2 The Chain of Sins of the School of Mensis and the Blasphemy of Motherhood

The root of all evil lies in the “loss of a child.” The School of Mensis thoroughly exploited this tragic law woven into the ecosystem of the Great Ones.

1. The Great Ones lost their children and yearned for surrogates.

2. Mergo’s Wet Nurse stole Mergo from Queen Yharnam.

3. Micolash and the School of Mensis used Mergo (and the wet nurse) as the core of their ritual to commune with a further Great One (the Moon Presence), sacrificing countless people in the process.

Micolash viewed even the personal and universal agony of the tragic separation of mother and child as nothing more than a “mechanical device” for his own ascension. Their ritual was a complete blasphemy against the sacred concepts of the birth of life and motherhood. As a matter of fact, when the Hunter defeats Mergo’s Wet Nurse, the infant’s cries that had long echoed through the nightmare cease, and the words “NIGHTMARE SLAIN” appear on the screen. Afterward, Queen Yharnam, waiting outside, bows and fades away with gratitude. This signifies that the “cycle of the tragedy of mother and child,” spearheaded and continuously exploited by the School of Mensis, has finally been severed.

Conclusion: The Philosophy and Lessons Left by the School of Mensis

The tale of Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, and the School of Mensis cannot be dismissed as merely the “demise of a crazed cult.” At the root of their behavioral principles lie the “thirst for evolution” and the “obsession with self-transcendence” that humanity has harbored since ancient times.

To resist the “devolution by blood” known as the Scourge of the Beast, they chose the “evolution toward the cosmos” through eyes. However, the human brain was not designed to decipher cosmic truth. The result of their endeavor was an utterly tragic conclusion: mountains of despairing corpses fused into the walls of Yahar’gul, and the “Brain of Mensis” rotting eternally at the bottom of the nightmare.

The Ultimate Proof of Human Arrogance and Insignificance

Micolash can be said to be a sort of ultimate culmination of Provost Willem’s warning to “fear the old blood.” As a result of rejecting blood (or limiting its use to a ritualistic catalyst) and seeking purely mental and cosmic evolution (eyes), he completely destroyed his human dignity, ethics, and his very capacity for self-recognition.

The “Mensis Cage” he wore on his head did not protect him from the outside world; it was merely an enclosed space that echoed his own madness inward. His figure—praying to Kos, envying Rom, and dying while fearing the return to reality (waking up)—poignantly illustrates the most cruel lesson in Cosmic Horror: the truth that “a human who touches the unknown cannot even recognize the fact that they have gone mad, and simply perishes in ecstasy.”

The “eyes on the inside” that Micolash pursued were not a light bringing a future to humanity, but a merciless mirror exposing the essential insignificance of humans. Just as his physical body had rotted away long ago, the human evolution they dreamed of was destined to be a “stillbirth” from the very beginning. Their dying wishes were inherited by no one, only to be sunk to the bottom of a dark nightmare by the hands of a blood-drunk Hunter. Micolash’s prayer continues to echo in vain toward the astral void even now.