Different power system. In dark souls the gods are in decay but in bloodborne you fight great ones on their home turf. The lord of hollows ending does however elevate the ashen one to the same level as the reborn hunter

It's the stuff inside. Like where you hold it.

There are identical hollow spaces in the flat of each arm of the bow when the blade transforms. I think they the form a container when the blade is together, where the bow mechanism folds into in sword mode. I would guess the hilt and cross guard form part of that mechanism when the sword transforms.

"Simon despised firearms, and so the Church workshop had this specially fashioned to his liking. "

Yeah, they "had this fashioned" at Cainurst. Otherwise they would've simply fashioned it themselves.

this is kind of reaching, tbh. the design is pretty reasonably within the standard of other similarly elaborate designs throughout the setting without necessarily being from Cainhurst, and nothing in the game suggests a link whatsoever. "had this fashioned specially to his liking" only implies that the workshop tweaked it painstakingly to measure up to the hunter's standard, and if not, it probably would have specified a location or that the Church itself ordered the design, rather than the workshop whose job it was to forge the weapons in the first place. It scales with bloodtinge when transformed because you're literally using arrows tipped/coated with QS bullets which contain your (tainted) blood. This is probably just a case of the localization team using flowery language, and any lore link would be established in the original Japanese text, which, by nature of the language, would specifically differentiate whether it was forged by the Church or a third party at their request.

"The simplest explanation is usually the correct one." FROM doesn't play 4D chess with its descriptions or designs as much as people like to believe.

Nah, it's not reaching at all. The floral motifs on the weapon are literally the same as on every other Cainhurst piece, and you don't find those elsewhere. Start up the game right now and look at their models. Bloodborne weapon design and worldbuilding is, in fact, very elobarate. It's not even "4D chess." It's a simple visual connection. I don't understand how that's beyond your imagination when things like the Oto Workshop or the Choir's blindfold caps that imitate Master Willem's exist in the lore.

Also, the point wasn't that it specifically stated the Church had it made by someone else. It was that the description is unclear about this.

Actually the design is relatively similar to a shovel type weapon, or the ancient Celtic Falcata though the end of the blade is too thin to cut with thr axe momentum of the celtic sword... anyway, all curved blades are designed for cutting flesh, so which way its facing isn't as important as user skill

Its incredible you talk about weapons practical design in from software game XD