François-Thomas Germain

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François-Thomas Germain (unknown – 28 July 1794) was a French silversmith, Sage and a Grand Master of the Templar Order during the French Revolution. He was killed by Assassin Arno Dorian and buried in the Parisian catacombs.

Templar Civil War

Born with the memory of the First Civilization in his mind, Germain determined to shape the destiny of human race in his way. But due to conflicting ideals, he was cast out of the templar order by Grand Master François de la Serre. Germain deemed the templar order "corrupt and having forgotten its orignal purpose". Thus begins his war on the ruling faction in the order.

Murder of François de la Serre

Though further involvement of Germain is unknown, he was the plotter behind the murder of de la Serre, as well as the maker of the weapon used for the murder.

Death of Chrétien Lafrenière

After Arno delt with de la Serre's direct killers, Sivert and Le Roi des Thunes, he was led by an artifact, the blade used to kill de la Serre, to its maker, François-Thomas Germain . Upon Germain's first encounter with Arno (actually, the second, the first being the "wrong carriage" encounter), he craftly downplayed the fact that he once was a templar himself, concealed his conflict with de la Serre, and pretended to be a simple silversmith who unintentionally discovered Chrétien Lafrenière's terrible secrets while working for him. Germain catered to Arno's desperate desire for revenge and falsely accused Lafrenière of having him make the poisoned pin blade as well as plotting something ominous in Halles. Arno infiltrated Lafrenière's meeting with his followers in a graveyard in Halles, just in time to vitness his zealous lecture against the Jacobin Club and the Assassins. Blinded by his rage and misled by Germain's false information, Arno decided against reporting Lafrenière to the Assassins' Concil, and chose to take action immediately instead. But after assassinating Lafrenière and reading his memory, Arno found that despite his disagreement with de la Serre on the truce with Mirabeau, Lafrenière was the man who sent the letter warning de la Serre about the traitor inside the order. Since Lafrenière was really loyal to de la Serre, which was further hinted by Mirabeau's statement, he might not have been the man behind the murder. The attack planned by Lafrenière on a certain location which was not among the Assassins' safehouses became the new lead of Arno's investigation.

Death

After the downfall of Maximilien de Robespierre, knowledge of Germain's garrison, the Temple, was exposed to Arno Dorian and Élise de la Serre, who both infiltrated the Temple on their own and attempted to assassinate Germain; it was during this endeavor that Germain was tracked by Arno to the Temple's rooftop. As Arno tried to kill Germain, Arno soon discovered that he wielded an unnaturally advanced weapon, a Sword of Eden, and had the ability to teleport when attacked, making him a very difficult opponent to pin down and defeat.

Upon their final confrontation, Arno requested that Élise distract Germain, which she successfully did, allowing him to land three crucial hits. Prompted to use the Sword's power, Germain blasted Arno away with the artifact's electrical discharge, pinning the Assassin under a large piece of debris.

Faced with the choice of helping Arno free himself or preventing Germain's escape, Élise initially went to aid Arno, but soon changed her mind, engaging in a sword-on-Sword duel with the Templar Grand Master. In the exchange of blows, Élise managed to damage the Piece of Eden, so much so that when Germain attempted to use the artifact's lighting to prevent himself from coming to harm, the resulting explosion that occured badly injured himself and killed Élise; just prior to the blast, Arno succeeding in breaking free, but arrived too late to stop the event happening.

Mournfully, Arno looked over to the body of his dead love, before turning to assassinate Germain in the latter's disabled state with his Hidden Blade. In a bizarre deviation from gathering the memories of his previous targets, Arno witnessed Germain speaking directly to him in his mind, who then elaborated on the memory of the First Civilization and explained its driving factor in his motivation to purge the Templar Order.

Modern Time Interaction

Being a sage with special physiology, Germain was important to both Templars and Assassins in modern time. Finding information regarding the whereabouts of his body remains through the memory of Arno was the ultimate goal of the modern protagonist of this game, although the Assassins called it not worth any effort to physically retrieve after learning that his remains were sloppily buried in a Parisan catabcomb and would have been badly corrupted by now.

Trivia

• According to Bishop, Germain was the second known Sage who became a Templar Grand Master, following Jacques de Molay, as Abstergo Industries suggested.
• Germain was in the carriage which Arno mistook for François de la Serre's, when he attempted to deliver the message from Chrétien Lafrenière to de la Serre.