Thomas de Carneillon

"Anyway, did you enjoy the Renaissance? You can thank Thomas de Carneillon and his associates for paving the way for it."

―Shaun Hastings, 2014.

Thomas de Carneillon (1276 – 1323) was a banker and a Master Assassin, then the Mentor of the French Brotherhood of Assassins during the late Middle Ages. Alongside his allies, he engineered the downfall of the Templar Order, driving the Templars underground and forcing them to operate in secrecy after having existed as a public organization for nearly two centuries.

Biography

Attack on the Temple

"Dante and Domenico assure me that this is a great victory, that we will annihilate them root and branch... but I wonder. In breaking the Templars' public façade, are we merely driving them into the shadows?"

―Thomas' thoughts on the Persecution of the Templars, 1307.

A banker from the Republic of Metz, Thomas at some point joined the French Brotherhood of Assassins and eventually rose to the rank of Master Assassin. While fighting against Templar influence in France and other parts of Europe, he befriended several fellow Assassins from the Italian Brotherhood, including Marco Polo, Dante Alighieri and his pupil Domenico.

At the dawn of the 14th century, Thomas participated in the plot to destroy the Knights Templar, the public incarnation of the Templar Order. He was present during the preparations for this act, during which the Mentor Guillaume de Nogaret succeeded in convincing King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V to brand the Templars as heretics and arrest their Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. Thomas did not share his brothers' enthusiasm, fearing that de Nogaret's plan would not lead to the destruction of the Templars, but would only push them into clandestinity, similar to what the Mongol Empire had done to the Assassins, strengthening them in the end.

Thomas attempting to assassinate the Templar

Nevertheless, Thomas provided King Philip with a contingent of Assassins disguised as Flemish mercenaries, in order to attack the Parisian Temple in October 1307. During the attack, Thomas attempted to steal de Molay's Sword of Eden and the Codex Pater Intellectus, but his efforts were halted by a Templar Knight serving as the Grand Master's advisor.

During their duel, the advisor managed to fight off Thomas and reclaim the Sword of Eden; Thomas attempted to retaliate but was blasted away by the power of the artifact. The advisor then managed to hide the manuscript and the Sword in a secret vault, but was killed by Thomas once the Assassin had regained consciousness.

Later life

"After Jacques de Molay and his cronies were rounded up, Thomas and his Assassin brothers and sisters spent a decade crisscrossing Europe."

―Shaun Hastings, 2014.

Despite his failure to retrieve de Molay's codex and Sword of Eden, Thomas' campaign successfully destroyed the Templars' public image and drove their Order underground. Along with other Assassins, he subsequently spent a decade traveling throughout Europe, eradicating any remnants of the Templar Order which operated openly.

At some point, Thomas became the new Mentor of the French Assassins, though he would eventually die from an illness while in Venice in the spring of 1323, after decades spent in service of the Brotherhood.

Legacy

"He led the raid that captured Jacques de Molay. Broke the Templars' power in Europe for over a century. It used to be that an Assassin who did a great service for the Brotherhood and for France would be given his armor in thanks."

―Hervé Quemar telling Arno Dorian about Thomas, 1789.

Hervé Quemar and Arno Dorian looking at Thomas' armor

In the centuries following his death, Thomas rose to a legendary status among the French Assassins. During the 16th century, a vault commemorating his accomplishments was constructed in the Parisian underground. The vault housed his Assassin robes, an heirloom which was protected by puzzles and enigmas invented by Nostradamus.

According to legend, Thomas' armor was destined to an Assassin who would perform a great service for France and the Brotherhood, but the three keys required to open the vault were lost two centuries prior to Arno Dorian's discovery of the vault during the French Revolution.

In November 2014, a Helix initiate relived the genetic memories of Jacques the Molay's advisor, experiencing his encounter with Thomas during the raid on the Parisian Temple in 1307. Thomas' database entry created by Abstergo Industries described him and his associates as simple bankers, but after the initiate joined the Assassins, the Brotherhood's historian Shaun Hastings modified the database entry to reveal the truth of Thomas' Assassin affiliations.

In October 2016, during a conversation between Alan Rikkin and Victoria Bibeau, Rikkin noted that Abstergo had no knowledge of any French Assassin Mentors during the 14th century besides Thomas. He then cleared Bibeau, who was working with Simon Hathaway to explore the memories of his ancestor Gabriel Laxart, to search for any mentions of Mentors in Laxart's memories, without losing sight of their main objective.

Trivia

• Thomas de Carnellion's robes bear similarities to the ones worn by the Master Assassins of the Levantine Brotherhood near the end of the 12th century.
  • However, the robes' representation is inconsistent in Assassin's Creed: Unity. The ones worn by Thomas in 1307 appeared to be dark brown with lighter stripes, the ones in the Helix database are dark red with ornate patterns while those recovered by Arno are dark blue with square patterns.
• Thomas assassinated Jacques de Molay's advisor with his right hand, despite not possessing a visible second Hidden Blade.
• Thomas was missing his left ring finger despite Altaïr Ibn-La'had's reform abolition of this practice having taken place a century prior.

Gallery

• 
  Thomas stealing Jacques de Molay's Codex
• 
  The Templar using the Sword of Eden against Thomas

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Unity (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Heresy (mentioned only)