Thomas Kavanagh, Jr.

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Thom Kavanagh (1652 – 1706) was a Boston native and a Sage, a reincarnation of Aita. At an early age, he discovered that he was different from other people, and struggled with his condition for his entire life. This amplified itself once Kavanagh became caught up in the struggle between the Assassins and the Templars.

Biography

Early life

Thomas Kavanagh was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1652, to middle-class parents. From an early age, Thom was distinguished from other children, in both appearance and behavior - by his account, he was often the subject of much wonder and speculation to both his parents and other adults he came in contact with. 

Thom was also afflicted with strange visions of "shining beings" from another time, visions that would never subside throughout his entire life. The most common of these apparitions involved a woman he called "his beloved" and two others, who all spoke of ways to avert a coming crisis. 

He was at one point apprenticed to a Master Carpenter by the name of Jonathan Davenport, a slave owner, who would later provide good reference for Thom during his travels in the Caribbean.

Eventually, Thom felt that he was too different from others to be comfortable living with them, and decided that his best chance was to go out to sea and find his true calling. He left Massachusetts in 1670.

In Jamaica

Thom traveled from Boston south, making his way down the coast and through the Bahamas, experiencing the adventures and hardships of a sailing life. During his travels, his visions increased in number and intensity. 

Carrying a letter from Davenport, Thom was able to secure a job with the famous Peter Beckford the Elder, a plantation owner in Jamaica who had amassed a fortune through his business. Thom worked with him for an unknown amount of time, until the arrival of the Templar Laureano de Torres y Ayala to Beckford's estate in 1673. In his first meeting with Torres, Thom immediately sensed something amiss. When Torres asked to meet with him over dinner, claiming that he "looked like a man his colleagues had been seeking for a long time," Thom declined the offer and locked himself in his room. He then fell into another reverie, one that was more intense than most that had come before. 

When he awoke, it was to the sounds of battle outside his window. The Assassin Bahlam made his way to Thom's room, shot him with a potent sleeping dart, and took him to the Assassin stronghold at Tulum, where he awoke days later.

The Observatory

Thom spent some time living with the Assassins in Tulum, learning that he was one in a long line of men known as Sages, a select few who had the power to locate and open a hidden complex known as the Observatory. This explained the Templar's eagerness to find Kavanagh, as well as his multiple visions and memories. When he asked if Bahlam would "steal away his memories as well," Bahlam told him that the memories were Thom's alone, and the choice to share them was his. After several days, Thom informed Bahlam that he planned to leave Tulum and search for the Observatory; Bahlam and his son Ah Tabai helped him gather supplies for the journey before they parted ways.

Within days, Thom had located the Observatory in Long Bay, Jamaica, and spent the rest of his life there living with the compound's guardians. He died late in 1706 and was buried a short distance away.

He wrote messages detailing parts of his life and sent them via bottles to the sea. Between 1715 and 1722, those messages were eventually recovered by the pirate and eventual Assassin Edward Kenway. The last of these bottles was placed over Kavanagh's grave near the Observatory after his death.

Trivia

• Kavanagh was mentioned in a conversation between Kenway, Torres, Woodes Rogers, and Julien du Casse, when du Casse commented that "It has been forty-five years since anyone has seen a true Sage," meaning that Torres met Kavanagh in the year 1670. This would also mean that Thom could not have been working for Beckford for very long before leaving with the Assassins.

Reference

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag