Institute for Fictional Civilizations · Est. MMXXVI
The study of civilizations that never existed.
Games, novels, films and myths are our field sites. Their societies, faiths, ecologies and collapses are our subject.
07Departments
29Excavations
published
published
26Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0029
Excavation Nº 0029 · Religions
The Church That Healed Its City With the Blood of Gods
Bloodborne’s Healing Church built a city on a sacrament of ancient blood and hid what it did to the faithful. An excavation of Yharnam and its holy cure.
- World
- Yharnam, Bloodborne
- Period
- The night of the Hunt (in-world)
- Status
- Active
The Departments
Seven ways of reading an imagined world.
Every Excavation is filed in one of the Institute's departments. Open a drawer to see what it holds.
The Register
Recent excavations
0029The Church That Healed Its City With the Blood of GodsReligionsBloodborne● Active0028The Kingdom That Tried to Forget Its GodExtinct WorldsHollow Knight○ Extinct0027The City That Lived Around a Single FireAnthropologyFrostpunk● Active0026The Civilization That Died TwiceExtinct WorldsThe Matrix Online○ Extinct0025The Tribe That Worshipped a Machine’s DoorReligionsHorizon● Active0024The City That Lost the War and Kept Its PoliticsAnthropologyDisco Elysium◐ Contested
The Institute's thesis
Fiction is not escapism.
Humanity keeps imagining other civilizations. The Institute studies what they reveal about power, belief, survival and ourselves.
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