The Choir: the Healing Church Elite Who Looked to the Cosmos

The Choir are the elite of the Healing Church: its highest-ranking clerics, and scholars who carried on the work begun at Byrgenwerth. They hold the Upper Cathedral Ward, they gained an audience with the Great One Ebrietas, and they came to believe that the cosmos was close enough to touch. (Bloodborne)

Who are the Choir?#

The Choir Garb gives the definition: members of the Choir are both the highest-ranking clerics of the Healing Church and scholars who continue the work that began at Byrgenwerth. The Upper Cathedral Key adds that the Church's upper ranks are the Choir, in the Upper Cathedral Ward, and the School of Mensis, in the Unseen Village. (Bloodborne)

They grew out of the Church's orphanage. The Orphanage Key calls it the birthplace of the Choir, a place of scholarship and experimentation in the shadow of the Grand Cathedral, where young orphans became "potent unseen thinkers" for the Church. It also says the Choir would later split from the Healing Church. (Bloodborne)

The Choir Gloves and Trousers say their eye covering marks a debt to Master Willem's teachings, even though their paths diverged. (Bloodborne)

The Choir and Ebrietas#

Everything the Choir did rests on one find. The Great Isz Chalice was the first great chalice brought back to the surface since the time of Byrgenwerth, and it let the Choir have audience with Ebrietas. Its description calls it the foundation stone of the Choir. The Augur of Ebrietas says the first encounter with that eldritch truth happened at Byrgenwerth, began an inquiry into the cosmos from inside the old tombs below Yharnam, and led to the founding of the Choir. (Bloodborne)

The Choir Garb says that together with "the left behind Great One" they took to the skies, searching for astral signs that might lead to the rediscovery of true greatness. Ebrietas herself is found far below the Grand Cathedral, at the Altar of Despair, beside a dead creature that looks like Rom. She doesn't attack unless the player strikes first. (Bloodborne)

The Choir's epiphany#

The Choir's core belief is on the Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge. The Choir stumbled on an epiphany, very suddenly and quite by accident: here we stand on the earth, but might the cosmos be very near us, just above our heads? A note on the way up to the Upper Cathedral Ward puts it shorter: "The sky and the cosmos are one." (Bloodborne)

Their tools follow from it. The Choir Bell is modelled on a bell that sends an arcane sound across planes of existence. A Call Beyond says the Church once used phantasms to reach a lofty plane of darkness but failed to contact the outer cosmos; the rite produced a small exploding star instead. Rosmarinus, a Choir weapon, sprays a sacred mist, and arias are heard whenever it appears. (Bloodborne)

The Choir in The Old Hunters#

The expansion's Research Hall, part of the Church, shows earlier stages of the same search. Brain Fluid says that in the Church's early days the Great Ones were linked to the ocean, so patients drank water and listened for the sea, the first makings of internal eyes. The Choir aren't named there, but players usually connect the two, since both chase "eyes on the inside" through Church patients. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)

What the game doesn't confirm#

The game never shows the Choir at work. The rest is fan reading.

• The Upper Cathedral Ward and Lumenflower Gardens are home to the Celestial Emissary and small blue-skinned creatures. The most common reading is that these were orphans or patients changed by Choir experiments. The game strongly hints at this but never states it. (Bloodborne)
• The Choir and the School of Mensis are usually seen as rivals, mostly because Edgar, Choir Intelligencer, turns up inside the Nightmare of Mensis. That's a reasonable inference, not a stated fact. (Bloodborne)
• Some players argue the Choir split from the Church because the Church's blood was failing and the Choir's cosmic path looked like the way forward. The Orphanage Key confirms the split but gives no reason. (Bloodborne)