You’ve seen the skull. You’ve touched the altar in the Grand Cathedral after dealing with Amelia, and you watched that grainy, sepia-toned memory of two old men arguing about blood. One of them is Master Willem, looking like he’s about to have a heart attack from pure disappointment. The other is a younger man, Laurence, walking away to start a revolution that would eventually burn an entire city to the ground.
Most people think they know Laurence. They think he’s just a "fire version" of the Cleric Beast you fought at the start of the game. Honestly? That’s doing a massive disservice to one of the most tragic and complicated figures in Bloodborne. Laurence the First Vicar isn't just a boss; he’s the reason the game even exists. Without his ambition—or his arrogance, depending on how you look at it—there is no Healing Church, no Hunter’s Dream, and no blood ministration.
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He’s basically the "Patient Zero" of the Yharnam disaster.
The Scholar Who Thought He Knew Better
Laurence started as a student at Byrgenwerth. This was the Ivy League of eldritch research, where scholars dug into the Pthumerian labyrinths (those lovely Chalice Dungeons) and found things that human minds weren't meant to handle. They found the "Old Blood."
Master Willem, the head of the college, was terrified of it. He had this famous mantra: "Fear the old blood." He wanted to evolve humanity through "eyes on the inside"—basically pure, cosmic insight. Laurence? He wasn't about that life. He saw the healing properties of the blood and thought Willem was just a stuck-in-the-mud academic holding back human progress.
So he left.
It wasn't a quiet exit, either. The cutscene makes it clear this was a fundamental "schism." Laurence took his followers, moved to Yharnam, and founded the Healing Church. He turned the discovery of the blood into a religion. People came from all over the world to be "cured" by Yharnam’s blood, and for a while, it worked. The city became a miracle.
But blood has a price.
What Really Happened with the First Vicar
There's a common misconception that Laurence was just some evil guy who wanted to turn people into monsters. It's more nuanced. He was likely trying to find a way to ascend humanity, to make us like the Great Ones. He even partnered with Gehrman, the First Hunter, to manage the "beast" problem that started popping up as a side effect of the blood.
A note in the Lecture Building tells us that "Laurence and his associates beckoned the nameless moon presence." This is a huge detail. It means Laurence was directly involved in creating the Hunter's Dream. He basically made a deal with a cosmic god to keep the hunt going, likely promising Gehrman he’d come back for him.
He never did.
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Instead, Laurence became the very thing he was trying to cure. Because he was the head of the Church and consumed the most potent "holy" blood, his transformation was more horrific than anyone else's. He didn't just turn into a werewolf; he became the first Cleric Beast.
Why is he on fire?
When you find him in The Old Hunters DLC, he’s a screaming, flaming mess. This isn't just for gameplay difficulty. It’s symbolic. In the real world, the Healing Church eventually burned Old Yharnam to the ground to "purify" the beast scourge. Laurence, as the source of that scourge, is eternally burning in the Nightmare as a reflection of the fire he brought upon his own people.
He’s also missing the top of his skull in the Nightmare. You actually have to find "Laurence's Skull" in the DLC and bring it back to his body to trigger the fight. It’s a human skull, but it’s "a symbol of Laurence's past, and what he failed to protect."
Surviving the Worst Boss Run in Bloodborne
Look, we have to talk about the fight. Laurence is notorious. Many players consider him harder than the Orphan of Kos or Lady Maria, mostly because his hitboxes are, frankly, kind of nonsense.
He has a massive health pool. He deals fire damage on every swing. And then there’s Phase 3.
- Phase One: He moves like the Cleric Beast but with bigger AOEs. Don't get greedy. If you stay behind him, he does a 360-degree ground-swipe that will one-shot you on higher New Game cycles.
- Phase Two: He gets more aggressive. He starts doing a face-plant slam that creates a massive explosion.
- Phase Three (The Crawl): His legs literally fall off. This should make the fight easier, right? Wrong. He starts leaking lava from his lower half, turning the floor into a "the floor is lava" nightmare while he crawls after you like a possessed toddler.
The trick is staying to his side—specifically his smaller arm’s side. If you stay directly behind him in the final phase, the lava will chew through your health before you can even swing your weapon. Use Lead Elixir if you’re struggling with being staggered, and for the love of Kos, use the Impurity rune to summon Valtr. He’s a tank and can distract Laurence while you chip away at that ridiculous health bar.
The Actionable Insight: What to Do Next
If you’re stuck on Laurence or just trying to piecing together the lore, here is how you should actually handle this:
- Check the Altars: Go back to the Grand Cathedral in the waking world. The skull on the altar is Laurence’s. Look at the cracks. It matches the human skull you find in the Nightmare. This confirms that even in death, his physical remains are being worshipped by a Church that doesn't realize its "saint" was the monster that started the plague.
- Listen to the Soundtrack: If you have the OST, listen to "Laurence, the First Vicar." The lyrics are in Latin and they basically tell his life story—his betrayal of Willem, his use of the blood, and his ultimate regret. It’s one of the few times FromSoftware gives us a direct narrative through music.
- The Valtr Strategy: If you want to beat him on NG+ and beyond, don't try to solo it unless you’re a parry god (and you can't really parry him anyway). Equip the Whirligig Saw, buff with Bolt Paper, and let Valtr take the aggro.
Laurence is the ultimate cautionary tale. He wanted to save the world, or at least evolve it, but he forgot that the higher you climb, the harder you fall. In Yharnam, when you fall, you don't just die—you become a burning beast trapped in a loop of your own failures.
Take a breath. Repair your weapons. Go back into the Cathedral. He’s waiting.