West Indies Rite of the Templar Order

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Edward: "So it's you lot them Templars have been chasing, then?"

Mary: "Until you came along and mucked things up, it was us chasing them. We had them running scared. But they have the upper hand now."

—Edward Kenway and Mary Read discuss the Caribbean Templars, 1716.

The West Indies Rite of the Templar Order, sometimes known simply as the Caribbean Rite, was the rite of the Templar Order that presided over the West Indies region.

Founded by Laureano de Torres y Ayala, the two-time governor of Cuba, in the midst of the Golden Age of Piracy, the branch was tasked to locate the Observatory, an ancient Precursor site that served as a surveillance center for the Isu. Accordingly, one of their primary objectives was the acquisition of the Sage Bartholomew Roberts, from whom they hoped to learn the location of the Observatory.

From 1715, their efforts were complicated by the meddlings of the pirate Edward Kenway, who learned of their secret goals after they accidentally inducted him in the mistaken belief he was the Assassin defector Duncan Walpole. Eventually, Edward summarily assassinated almost all the key members of the West Indies Rite and was formally recruited into the West Indies Brotherhood of Assassins. In 1722, after having endeavored for more than twenty years, the West Indies Rite at last located the Observatory, only for Grand Master Laureano Torres to fall to Edward's blade inside the complex before he could put it to meaningful use.

History

The West Indies Rite was established sometime around the end of the 17th century, at least twenty years before 1715 by the Spanish Templar Laureano Torres y Ayala. Torres, having been inducted into the Order in his twenties, was a veteran member who simultaneously served as Governor of La Florida for the Spanish Empire from 1693 to 1699. In this capacity, Torres became well acquainted with the West Indies, enough to effectively found a new branch for the Templar Order in the region.

The primary goal for the West Indies Rite from its inception was the search for the Observatory, a surveillance center of the First Civilization. By 1715, at least two decades since the mission had been assigned, the site had still not been located, though Grand Master Torres captured the Sage Bartholomew Roberts, who he correctly believed knew its whereabouts.

In 1715, the Order inducted Woodes Rogers, Julien du Casse and Edward Kenway - operating under the guise of Duncan Walpole, an Assassin turncoat - into their ranks and, using the information unwittingly sold to them by Edward, began to strike hard at their Assassin counterparts, led by Ah Tabai.

Shortly after his induction, du Casse was killed by Kenway, who had previously been exposed as a fraud and was believed dead following the loss of the Spanish Treasure Fleet. As well as this, Edward killed Templar agents Kenneth Abraham, Lucia Márquez, Hilary Flint and Jing Lang, who had been sent by Torres to kill the leaders of the Assassin bureaus across the West Indies. Despite these setbacks however, the Templars continued to grow in power.

By 1716, the Templars came into the possession of the Fragment of Eden, a Piece of Eden with special capabilities. The Fragment of Eden was also sought by the Assassin, Samuel Bellamy. The Assassin took up the guise of a pirate and appointed a significant crew after overthrowing the pirate leader, Benjamin Hornigold. Grand Master Torres assigned Christopher Condent, Francis Hume, Benjamin Hornigold and Barnes to protect the Piece of Eden from the Assassin.

Believing that the piece of Eden was transported in the Spanish Treasure Fleet, Bellamy attacked the fleet, with the assistance of pirates Alonzo Batilla and Olivier Levasseur. Finding out that the artifact was not in the Treasure Fleet, Batilla tailed Barnes and Hume and overheard a Templar meeting, where they plotted to kill Bellamy. Meanwhile, Bellamy found the location of the artifact, which was with the Templar ally, Laurens Prins. The pirates soon managed to attack and steal the Piece of Eden, capturing Prins' ship, the Whydah and killing Hume in the process.

Believing Bellamy to hold the artifact, the Templars sank the Whydah off the coast of Massachusetts, killing him. In the meantime, Condent had infiltrate the Pirate Republic in Nassau to steal the artifact. However, Levasseur sensed Condent was a Templar and left the island, leaving clues for Batilla to find him. The Templars ambushed and sunk his ship while he was attempting to flee, but the pirate used the powers of the Piece of Eden and escaped on another ship. Barnes was later killed by Condent, after he failed to give away the location of Olivier Levasseur.

Making full use of both the Spanish and Royal Navy, the Templars would strike the Assassins based in Tulum, and elsewhere, whenever they could. Eventually the Assassins, working in partnership with Edward, who would go on to become a member of their order, managed to turn the tides. After Torres was killed in 1722, and Rogers was forced to return to Great Britain, in great debt, the group lost power in the Caribbean.

In 1741, Lawrence Washington arrived in Jamaica and was part of the expeditions against Cartagena, New Granada, Cuba and Panama in what became known as the War of Jenkins' Ear. As part of the infantry regiment created by the British Parliament created in 1739.

During the Seven Years' War, the Templar Shay Cormac sent emissaries to Francisco Cajigal de la Vega in order to maintain the Order's relation with him.

As of 2014, there was a Grand Masters operating in Cuba. That year, Alan Rikkin sent a memo to Gramática informing him that, if they proceeded with his plan to excavate the Observatory located in Long Bay, Jamaica and retrieve the missing blood vials, which Gramática considered to be of critical importance to the Phoenix Project, he would contact the Grand Masters in Cuba, Mexico, and the United States to get a read on the situation.

Members

• Laureano de Torres y Ayala (Grand Master; 1673-1722)
• Woodes Rogers
• Julien du Casse
• Benjamin Hornigold
• John Cockram
• Josiah Burgess
• Hilary Flint
• Jing Lang
• Kenneth Abraham
• Mancomb Seepgood
• Christopher Condent
• Barnes
• Francis Hume
• Lucia Márquez
• Alejandro Ortega de Márquez
• Alphonse de Marigot
• Charlie Oliver
• Cuali
• Felicia Moreno
• Renardo Aguilar
• Sylvia Seabrooke
• Vargas
• Caribbean Grand Master (Grand Master; c. 2014)

Allies and puppets

Golden Age of Piracy

• Antonio Rueda
• Arispe
• Duncan Walpole
• El Tiburón
• Laurens Prins
• Francisco Cajigal de la Vega

Seven Years' War

• Shay Cormac (Colonial Rite)
• Lawrence Washington (British Rite)