Trident of Eden

The Trident of Eden was a Piece of Eden created by the Isu, said to give the powers of a god to its wielder.

The Trident went missing following the Great Catastrophe that signaled the end of the Isu. One of the cataclysm's few survivors, Minerva, moved to limit Isu technology falling into human hands and was so concerned about the missing Trident's potential for suffering that she engineered the Ascendance Event to destroy the weapon should it ever be re-discovered.

The Piece of Eden eventually resurfaced in the hands of Alexander the Great, who used it in conjunction with his personal Staff of Eden to build his vast empire. While the Staff maintained his rule, Alexander wielded the Trident on the battlefield, allowing his armies go undefeated.

When Alexander died, the Trident's head was split into its three prongs and scattered across the globe. Separated, the Prongs of Eden functioned as Daggers and held their own individual abilities, allowing their wielders to manipulate others' emotions: one caused an intense feeling of fear, another inspired an overwhelming sense of devotion or admiration, while the third induced blind faith.

Two of Alexander's generals, Seleucus and Ptolemy, each took a dagger to Asia and Egypt, respectively, while the final one was sent to Makedonia. Eventually, the Macedonian and Egyptian segments of the Trident ended up in the hands of the Roman Caesars, with one subsequently being inherited by the Papacy.

This segment, the Faith Prong, eventually passed from the Papacy to the Spanish monarchy, and was entrusted to the conquistador Hernán Cortés, who used its powers to subjugate the Aztec Empire. Later, the prong wound up in the possession of the Aztec Club in New York City, where both the Assassins and Templars sought to recover it during the American Civil War. The Assassin Eliza eventually succeeded in securing the artifact and entrusted it to General Ulysses S. Grant, who used it to lead the Union Army to victory.

The second segment, the Fear Prong, was notably wielded by Möngke Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire, during his attempted conquest of the Song dynasty. Following the Khan's death in 1259, the prong was buried with him in Burkhan Khaldun.

The third and final segment, the Devotion Prong, passed from the Papacy to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I and, eventually, King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark. Harald later lost the prong to the Swedish prince Styrbjörn the Strong, whom he had reluctantly allied with to overthrow Styrbjörn's uncle, King Eric the Victorious. Ahead of the Battle of Fýrisvellir, the Hidden One Thorvald Hjaltason recovered the prong from Styrbjörn and later entrusted it to his ally, Östen Jorundsson, who buried it.

In the modern era, Isaiah, a rogue Templar and Instruments of the First Will member, managed to recover all three segments of the Trident, intending to use the artifact's powers to bring about the end of the world and rebuild it in his image. However, his plan was foiled by a group of teenagers who accessed the Ascendance Event, allowing them to depower the Trident and defeat Isaiah.

Owners

Complete

• Isu (until c. 75,000 BCE)
• Alexander the Great (until 323 BCE)
• None, split in three (323 BCE – 2016 CE)
• Isaiah (2016)
• Sebastian Monroe (2016 – present)

Faith Prong

• Ptolemy I Soter (323 BCE – c. 283/282 BCE)
• Roman Caesars
• Roman Popes
• Callixtus III (c. 1455 – c. 1458)
• Alfonso V of Aragon (c. 1458)
• Spanish Kings (c. 1458 – c. 1519)
• Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (c. 1519)
• Hernán Cortés (from c. 1519)
• Aztec Club (1847 – 1863)
• Varius (1863)
• Cudgel Cormac (1863)
• Eliza (1863)
• Ulysses S. Grant (1863 – 1885)
• Isaiah (2016)

Fear Prong

• Greek cultists (c. 5th century BCE)
• Seleucus I Nicator (323 BCE – c. 281 BCE)
• Möngke Khan (until 1259)
• Isaiah (2016)

Devotion Prong

• Macedonian people (from 323 BCE)
• Roman Caesars
• Roman Popes
• Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (until c. 965)
• Bishop Poppa (c. 965)
• Harald Bluetooth (c. 965 – 985)
• Styrbjörn the Strong (985)
• Thorvald Hjaltason (985)
• Östen Jorundsson (from 985)
• Dolkkälla (c. 2014 – 2016)
• Griffin (2016)
• Grace Collins (2016)
• Isaiah (2016)

Powers and abilities

The Trident of Eden is one of the most powerful pieces of technology created by the Isu. Even when separated, the Trident's prongs possess their own individual abilities.

Faith Prong

The Faith Prong possessed powerful mind-altering abilities, being able to completely change an individual's mentality and make them obedient to the prong's wielder. It exchanged hands many times over the millennia, being wielded by Alexander the Great, his general Ptolemy I Soter, who founded the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, and various Roman Caesars and Popes. During the mid-15th century, it was in possession of Pope Callixtus III before he gave it to King Alfonso V of Aragon, who passed it on to his descendants. Emperor Charles V eventually offered the artifact to Hernán Cortés, who used it to conquer the Aztec Empire.

In 1519, during his campaign against the Aztecs, Cortés displayed the power of the dagger: his men were reinvigorated by his mere presence on the battlefield despite facing overwhelming odds. The conquistador also used the artifact to bring hostile natives under his banner, such as when he convinced Chimalpopoca to help him in an instant, despite the old Tlaxcaltec commander stating that he was ready to die before helping the Spaniards in any way.

Following the Mexican-American War, the Piece of Eden was brought to the Aztec Club in New York City until they lost possession of it during the 1863 draft riots. During his fight with Varius, the Templar Cudgel Cormac inadvertently used the dagger on the Assassin while ranting about the Order's ideals, putting the Assassin in a state of confusion between his own faith in the Creed and the words of Cormac backed by the power of the prong. Varius was saved by Eliza and the pair gave the Piece of Eden to Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union Army to victory during the American Civil War.

Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States, but his inner circle was infiltrated by the Templars, who corrupted his administration and gave him a Precursor box and pages of the Voynich manuscript to help him master the prong's powers. Before his death, Grant hid the artifact under the floor of his home in Mount McGregor, where it lay undisturbed until 2016.

Fear Prong

The Fear Prong held the power to materialize the worst fears of its targets into vivid and terrifying hallucinations. Prior to all the prongs being wielded by Alexander the Great, this prong was possessed by Greek cultists during the 5th century BCE, who used it in dark rituals dedicated to the sons of Ares, Deimos and Phobos.

After the death of Alexander, the prong fell under the ownership of his general Seleucus I Nicator, who founded the Seleucid Empire. Over a millennium later, having wound up in the hands of the early Yuan dynasty, the artifact was buried in Mongolia within the tomb of Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, who was killed by the Assassin Zhang Zhi in 1259 while invading southern China.

Devotion Prong

The Devotion Prong held persuasive abilities, allowing the wielder to easily sway others to their whims and demands. After Alexander the Great's death, this prong remained with the Macedonian people, and later wound up in Northern Europe, in the possession of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. Circa 965, he gave the prong to Bishop Poppa, who baptized King Harald Bluetooth, the Viking ruler of Denmark and Norway, before gifting him the dagger.

Harald, secretly a Templar, discovered the Piece of Eden's powers and never left it out of his sight. Modern Templars would later speculate that the prong's abilities had helped Harald unify Denmark. Circa 985, Harald reluctantly allied with the exiled Swedish prince Styrbjörn the Strong, who forcefully recruited his army for his campaign to overthrow his uncle, King Eric of Sweden. Harald tried using the prong to influence Styrbjörn, but the latter was unaffected by the artifact's powers, and eventually seized it as a token of loyalty after seeing how much Harald prized the prong.

Unaware of the artifact's true potential, Styrbjörn believed it to be a simple ornate dagger and kept it as a trophy after Harald eventually betrayed him and retreated with his army. On the night of his wedding to Harald's daughter Thyra, Styrbjörn used the dagger as a gift to the gods and had one of his men hide it inside a boulder. The Hidden One Thorvald Hjaltason, tasked to assassinate Styrbjörn, found and recovered the prong, later entrusting it to the warrior Östen Jorundsson, who had killed Styrbjörn during the Battle of Fýrisvellir. Östen went on to bury the artifact on his farm, where it remained hidden for centuries.

History

In 2016, the mysterious Sebastian Monroe and a group of teenagers he had recruited accidentally discovered the existence of the Trident through the exploration of their ancestors' memories in the Animus, specifically by witnessing Hernán Cortés using the Faith Prong on Javier Mondragón's ancestor Chimalpopoca in 1519.

This discovery pulled them into the conflict between the Assassins and Templars, as the two factions began to look for them. The team of young Assassin and Templar descendants went in search of the Trident while reliving the memories of their ancestors during the New York draft riots of 1863, convinced by Monroe that they should hide the artifact from both factions.

Eventually, the group came apart when a Templar strike team assaulted Monroe's warehouse. Owen Meyers and a reluctant Javier Mondragón escaped and joined forces with the Assassin Griffin, while Sean Molloy, Natalya Aliyev, and the siblings Grace and David Collins were taken to the Abstergo Industries facility known as the Aerie and agreed to help the Templars, some more reluctantly than the others. Through the teenagers' memories, both the Assassins and Templars discovered the Faith Prong's location in Mount McGregor, though by the time they arrived there, the prong had already been taken by someone else, speculated by everyone to be Monroe.

During the following weeks, the two factions continued their hunt of the second prong, with Owen and Natalya reliving the memories of their ancestors, the Chinese Assassin Zhang Zhi and the Mongol commander Bayan, who had been involved in the death of Möngke Khan. Natalya was rescued from the Aerie alongside David during a raid conducted by Owen, Javier, and Griffin, but Owen and Monroe—who mounted his own rescue mission—were captured by the Templars. Eventually, both factions discovered that the prong had been buried with Möngke in Mongolia and traveled there to retrieve it.

Although the Assassins and teenagers found the Khan's tomb first, the Templar Isaiah followed them to it and acquired the prong while his guards fought the group. He then used its powers to torment everyone with fear-based hallucinations, and killed the Assassin Yanmei when she tried to attack him. Leaving his enemies to sulk in their defeat, Isaiah announced his defection from the Templar Order and revealed that he had also acquired the Faith Prong, using its powers to make all the Abstergo agents loyal to him. He then left to search for the final prong, having a captive Sean forcefully relive his ancestor Styrbjörn the Strong's memories.

Meanwhile, the Assassins, teenagers, and Templars formed an alliance to stop Isaiah and find the final prong before him. Through the memories of Thorvald Hjaltason and Östen Jorundsson, they discovered the artifact's location in Sweden, but when Griffin, Owen, Grace, and Natalya arrived there, they discovered an excavation site and a museum. Learning that the prong had been found by Dolkkälla, a bottled spring water company, during an excavation and was regarded as a national treasure, the group planned to break into the museum at night and steal it. However, while doing so, Griffin was ambushed by Isaiah's men, who mortally wounded him and later took the prong from Grace.

With all three prongs in his possession, Isaiah assembled the Trident and prepared to use it to bring about the end of humanity, hoping to start his own Ragnarök and take over the world. Regarding the teenagers as a threat to his plans due to them having accessed the Ascendance Event, Isaiah decided to deal with them first and attacked the Aerie, where his forces fought against the Assassins and Templars.

When Sean challenged him to a duel, Isaiah accepted and attacked all the teenagers with the Trident, but the group, using the "shield" given to them by Minerva, were able to resist the artifact's powers. They then defeated Isaiah, allowing Javier to kill him with Griffin's Hidden Blade, and touched the Trident at the same time, seemingly de-powering it. However, Monroe was not convinced that the Trident had lost all its power and, while the teenagers resumed their old lives, he took the artifact to study it and uncover its remaining secrets.

Gallery

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  Owen wielding the Trident

Behind the scenes

The Trident of Eden is a weapon and plot device that appears in and is central to American author Matthew J. Kirby's young adult trilogy Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants. When asked on Twitter about where and how Isaiah got the Triden's shaft and if it was considered a Staff of Eden, Kirby explained that the staff was nothing more than a plain piece of wood, similar to the one that held the Headpiece to the Staff of Ra used to find the Ark of the Covenant's hidden location in the 1981 adventure film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In a follow-up question about whether the staff had specific dimensions like the Staff of Ra did, Kirby elaborated on how he tried to write that detail but ultimately cut it to maintain the books' pacing. In his mind, he felt that Isaiah had come across historical records describing the Trident's shaft and used them to recreate one of appropriate size in the modern day. Kirby was also unsure how crucial the staff's features really were since the prongs were the stories' focus and could act independently of each other.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Locus (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Tomb of the Khan
• Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods
• Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game (indirect mention only)