User:Arcemz/Sandbox

He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. This article contains spoilers, meaning it has information and facts concerning recent or upcoming releases from the Assassin's Creed series. If you do not want to know about these events, it is recommended to read on with caution, or not at all. This template should be removed from the article three months after release.

"I stand with those who stand with me. I lure my prey through the guise of lady. I escape unnoticed through the veil of a slave. And though I may conceal my identity, one thing is certain: commit injustice in this world, and I'll send you to the next. I am Aveline de Grandpré, I am an Assassin and I fight for liberation."

―Aveline.

Aveline de Grandpré (1747 - unknown) was an Assassin of French and African heritage, who lived in the area of New Orleans towards the end of the French and Indian War. She was mentored by an Assassin named Agaté, with whom she had a conflicted relationship.

Biography

Early life

Aveline was born in 1747 to a wealthy French merchant, Philippe Olivier de Grandpré, and an African placée bride by the name of Jeanne. Granted freedom along with her mother at birth, Aveline grew up in a caring and privileged environment, protected by her father's wealth and influence within the city. Although her father married Madeleine de L'Isle in 1752, Aveline and her mother Jeanne were allowed to stay at the de Grandpré's mansion.

In 1759, whilst Aveline was accompanying her mother through the city, Jeanne mysteriously vanished after Aveline had let go of her hand in pursuit of a loose chicken. After failing to catch the animal despite chasing it for quite a distance, Aveline realized that she had stumbled across a slave auction. Shortly after observing the slave trader, Aveline used the alleyways to evade the sight of the slavers surrounding the stage and seek out her mother, only to reach out and touch the wrong woman, who had been carrying the same parasol and identical dress to her mother's.

This mistake caught the attention of the city guards, and despite her cries for her mother, Aveline was pushed to the ground by the slavers, who had mistaken her for a slave child. Shortly afterwards, an escaped slave by the name of Agaté freed her from their possession, and recruited her into the Assassin Order, becoming her Mentor.

Investigating the Slave Trade

In 1765, Aveline discovered that the Templar Rafael Joaquín de Ferrer was working with Louisiana's French governor, Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie, in slave trading enterprises. Both were under the influence of an individual by name of the "Company Man", Louisiana's head Templar. Aveline infiltrated the governor's mansion and assassinated him, though she found no trace of the Company Man or de Ferrer.

The False Mackandal

The following year, Aveline investigated the Louisiana Bayou for a man impersonating François Mackandal, who she later learned to be named Baptiste.

Aveline facing Baptiste in the bayou.

Aveline uncovered Baptiste's plot to poison the nobles of New Orleans, take control of the Bayou and force her mentor, Agaté, out of hiding. With this in mind, Aveline killed his followers and assassinated the false Mackandal, subsequently learning of his allegiance to de Ferrer, but also that Baptiste knew both her mother, Jeanne, and Agaté.

Upon returning to her mentor, however, she did not mention what she had discovered to him, as she did not fully trust Agaté, given that he had kept this information hidden from her.

Louisiana Rebellion

During the Louisiana Rebellion in 1768, Aveline discovered vagrants and slaves disappearing. She forced the Templar governor, Antonio de Ulloa, to travel to New Orleans, where she ambushed him. Upon interrogating the governor, Aveline learned that slaves taken from New Orleans were being transferred south, to Mexico.

Against Agaté's orders, however, Aveline chose not to kill de Ulloa, allowing him to flee the city in return for a lens used to decipher encoded Templar documents and a map leading to the worksite at Chichen Itza. This merciful act continued to harm her already damaged relationship with her Mentor.

The Prophecy Disk

Aveline traveled to Chichen Itza, once again disobeying Agaté's explicit wishes, to unravel the mysteries of the slave trafficking operation. While there, she freed a rebellious slave who informed Aveline that a woman named Jeanne was stationed in Chichen Itza.

Aveline inside First Civilization ruins.

Convinced it was her mother, Aveline investigated and found evidence that indeed her mother was there. Among pages found from Jeanne's diary, Aveline discovered a map detailing the location of an ancient artifact deep within a cenote. Aveline navigated the underground cave system and uncovered ruins from the First Civilization, unearthing a fragment of a Prophecy Disk, a First Civilization artifact.

After obtaining the fragment, Aveline was met by de Ferrer, who she managed to kill before escaping through the mines he had entered through. At the end of the tunnels, she found her mother, Jeanne. However, this reunion was short-lived, as Jeanne, realizing that Aveline was an Assassin, refused to disclose any information to her, before fleeing the mines.

Tracking Vázquez

After unearthing the fragment of the Prophecy Disk in Chichen Itza, Aveline returned to New Orleans and continued her search for the identity of the Company Man. She spoke to Gérald Blanc, fellow Assassin and trusted friend, who told her that someone was bribing Spanish soldiers.

Upon investigating, Aveline discovered that a man by the name of Vázquez was using Spanish soldiers to seize control of the bayou. After uncovering Vázquez's plan to take control of smuggling operations within the bayou, Aveline feared he would eventually learn the location of Agaté's hideout. She hurried to her mentor's hut and warned him of the danger. Under Agaté's instruction, Aveline silently poisoned enough of Vázquez's soldiers so that the rest believed they had fallen under a voodoo curse and fled the bayou.

Second Expedition to Chichen Itza

Aveline returned to Chichen Itza to locate the second half of the Prophecy Disk. Upon arriving there, she made peace with her mother, who gave Aveline a map leading to a canoe left inside another cenote. Aveline navigated through the caves and came upon another chamber constructed by the First Civilization, where she acquired the final piece of the Prophecy Disk. Aveline offered to take her mother back to New Orleans, but Jeanne decided it was best to stay behind and take care of the community, which was now free of Templar influence.

The Company Man

Aveline's father fell sick in 1776, but she continued her quest to uncover the identity of the Company Man. At the request of Madeleine, her stepmother, Aveline helped a slave named George escape north. While doing so, she was able to assist her allies in the Bayou supply resources to American patriots fighting in the revolution in the north, eventually learning of Vázquez's location.

Aveline then made her way back to New Orleans, and attended a soirée, where she found Vázquez. Charming and luring him to a quiet corner, Aveline assassinated Vázquez. However, to Aveline's surprise, Vázquez was not the Company Man. That same night, her father passed away.

Meeting Connor

In the winter of 1777, Aveline traveled to New York to locate a Templar named Officer Davidson, who was working for the Company Man. Upon arriving there, she encountered the Native American Assassin, Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known by his adopted name of Connor.

File:AC3L SC Aveline and Connor LR.png

Aveline and Connor in New York.

Whilst Connor distracted Davidson's guards, Aveline infiltrated the fort where he was located and confronted the Templar. To her shock, Aveline discovered that his true identity was George, the slave she had helped flee north. From him, Aveline finally uncovered the true identity of the Company Man: Madeleine de L'Isle, her stepmother.

Return to New Orleans

Aveline returned to New Orleans and confronted Madeleine, who did not deny her accusations and admitted that she had known all along that Aveline was an Assassin. Aveline refused her order to stay and ran outside, only to face her guards. After a brief skirmish, Madeleine told Aveline that she'd be sacrificing herself for nothing.

Following this, Madeleine insisted that she genuinely loved her and that Aveline had been kept alive so far in order to eliminate the unethical elements of her Templar circle, an obvious ploy to persuade Aveline to join the Templars. After this, Aveline made her way to the Bayou and told Agaté of her situation.

However, her Mentor could not accept his failure to protect his student, and, believing that Aveline had aligned herself with the Templars, attacked her. Even so, Aveline defeated him and chose to spare his life, but Agaté, unable to live with the humiliation, dove from the very top of his treehouse to his death.

Reconciliation

Aveline made her way back to New Orleans and gave Agaté's necklace to Madeleine, as proof of his death. She then inducted Aveline into the Templar Order and took the two halves of the Prophecy Disk from her. However, upon the artifact failing to work as Madeleine had expected it to, she grew frustrated, allowing Aveline to strike, as her induction was merely a ruse to destroy the Templars from within.

Aveline assassinated all of the Templars present, leaving Madeleine for last. As she lay wounded, Madeleine asked Aveline why she would betray her as she had. Aveline coldly retorted that she had two parents whom she truly loved, and that Madeleine was not one of them. She then blamed Madeleine for killing her father with her "care" and her tonic, secretly foxglove, for enslaving her mother, and for her intention of making Aveline a slave to the Templar cause.

To this, Madeleine insisted that it was for the greater good of humanity, as work had always been the "divine purpose" for which they had been created. In response, Aveline defiantly claimed that she would never be forced to serve another and assassinated Madeleine afterwards. Following this, she recovered the Prophecy Disk and used the necklace her mother had entrusted her with to activate it, which projected a hologram of beings from the First Civilization, who spoke about Eve briefly in a conversation before it ended.

Legacy

Aveline's life was later used as a tool of propaganda by Abstergo Industries, which twisted and mounted her memories in order to show the Templars in a benevolent light, as opposed to the misguided Assassins' Brotherhood. However, Erudito, a hacking collective, managed to bypass the Templars' security systems and hack into the game.

Erudito used the Animus technology to show the truth to some viewers, revealing "unsweetened" memories of Aveline about the cruelty of de Ferrer against the slaves of the Chichen Itza camp or the additional memories of the assassination of Madeleine, after what had been shown by Abstergo as the rallying of Aveline to the Templars.

Personality and characteristics

"I seek liberty and freedom, not for myself, but for those whom such fundamental rights are denied. I am their shield, their sword, their only hope. The roads I travel are dark, but they bring me closer to the light."

―Aveline de Grandpré.

As she grew, Aveline developed into a independent and strong-willed woman, often torn about the values inherited from her parentage, which compelled her to form her own core values. Since a young age, Aveline began to notice the contrasts in society - wealth and poverty, freedom and slavery - and as an Assassin, she firmly believed in freeing slaves and imposing justice.

As a consequence of her being pulled in either direction by the Assassins and Templars, she questioned whether fighting as an Assassin was the right thing to do or not. While in New York, she asked her fellow Assassin, Connor, if he ever questioned their ideals; he responded without taking side with either faction, but rather explained that he trusted in his own abilities to distinguish right from wrong.

Equipment and skills

Aveline was a skilled free-runner, who was able to navigate with ease through the urban cityscape and natural landscape, such as the Louisiana Bayou.

Her fighting style included dual-wielding various weapons, including a whip, firearms, swords, knives, a blowpipe, a sugar-cane machete and Hidden Blades. Aside from her weapons, Aveline possessed three distinct personas that she could make use of, being the Lady, Assassin and Slave personas.

Aveline disguising herself as a slave.

Her Assassin outfit aided in combat and navigation, though it made her notorious; her Slave outfit allowed her to blend into the poorer masses of New Orleans and remain undetected, although was weaker in combat; and finally, her Lady outfit, which allowed Aveline to use her charm and bribery to achieve her goals, although limited her weaponry and prevented her from free-running.

Along with Aveline's Lady outfit was a parasol designed by her friend and ally, Gérald Blanc, that had the ability to shoot small poison darts from its tip, similar to her blowpipe. Accompanying this, Aveline possessed the sixth sense casually referred to as Eagle Vision, allowing her to identify enemies, allies, targets, hiding spots and clues.

Trivia

• Aveline was the first female protagonist in the Assassin's Creed series, and one of two playable characters to have worn a hat instead of the symbolic white hood of the Assassins (the other being Haytham Kenway), though it retained a beak-shaped tip.
  • However, Aveline's Assassin disguise was able to be equipped with an Assassin hood, which was purchased from tailors.
• "Aveline" was a name of French and Latin origin, presumably originating from the Germanic name "Avelina." In Latin, "Aveline" derived from the Latin "avis" or "bird".
• "Grandpré" was a French surname meaning "grand meadow."
• Aveline possessed similar characteristics to Desmond Miles and his ancestors, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze, namely the same scar on their upper lip, and the ability to use Eagle Vision. Despite this, she had no known biological connection with him or his lineage.
• While concept art depicted Aveline as having green eyes, they appeared to be dark brown in Assassin's Creed III: Liberation.
• Unknown until the conclusion of the game, Aveline possessed an amulet identical to the key that the Assassin, Connor, retrieved from Charles Lee and buried in the grave of his Mentor's son in 1783. It was unknown as to its location following the events of Liberation.
• It was implied that Aveline was a close descendant of Eve; after her stepmother, Madeleine de L'Isle, failed to activate a device left behind by the First Civilization. However, Aveline herself was successful in generating a hologram of the First Civilization's representatives through using her mother's necklace, who spoke of Eve in their conversation before the hologram ended.

Gallery

• 
  Early concept art of Aveline.
• 
  Concept art of Aveline.
• 
  Concept art of Aveline's Lady outfit.
• 
  Aveline on a rooftop.
• 
  Aveline in her Lady guise.
• 
  Aveline in her Servant guise.
• 
  Aveline, bribing a guard using her Lady outfit.
• 
  Aveline swimming underwater.
• 
  An image of Aveline fighting Spanish soldiers.
• 
  An image of Aveline in her Lady attire.
• 
  Aveline overlooking the city of New Orleans.
• 
  Aveline and Connor.
• 
  Aveline wrestling an alligator.
• 
  A render of Aveline's Lady outfit.
• 
  A render of Aveline's Servant guise.