Cain

"Wherefore Cain was called Master Mahan, and he gloried in his wickedness."

―Glyph #6.

Cain was the legendary forebear of the Templar Order. The oldest son of the Isu-human hybrids Adam and Eve, Cain founded the ideology that came to serve as the fundamental basis of the Templars and infamously killed his younger brother, Abel, to steal the Apple of Eden in his possession.

For these reasons, the cross symbol called the Mark of Cain with which he was branded came to be adopted as the Templar insignia.

Biography

Cain was the firstborn of Adam and Eve; both were hybrids born to the Isu and humans who served as the leaders of the Human-Isu War in 75,010 BCE.

As he matured, Cain came to subscribe to a philosophy that humanity had to be brought under his absolute domination so that he might guide them to enlightenment, spawning a worldview that served as the blueprint to Templar political thought. Craving the Apple of Eden, Cain slew his younger brother Abel and seized it from him. As punishment, he was branded with a cross-shaped mark that from then on came to be known as the Mark of Cain. He later took the title of Master Mahan.

Legacy

Though his life faded away into mythology, notably within Christianity, where he is said to have killed his brother out of pure jealousy, Cain's deeds continued to have profound, even calamitous, effects for the rest of human civilization.

The philosophy of Cain evolved to become the bedrock of Templar ideology and the very engine behind their millennia-long ambition to inaugurate a New World Order under their exclusive rule. The symbol with which he was branded was eventually adopted as the insignia of the Knights Templar. Some Templars of antiquity would call themselves the "Children of Cain".

Through the Templars, Cain's legacy still reverberates across the fold of human history, even seventy-seven millennia after he lived and died, in the form of the shadow war for world domination against the Assassins who strive to prevent it.

In 1717, the Templar and pirate Jing Lang referenced the story of Cain and Abel while talking to Vance Travers about the assassination of his brother, Upton.

His legend as the origin of the Templars remains a striking narrative for the Templars and Assassins alike. In 2012, the late Assassin Clay Kaczmarek shared the story of Cain and Abel in this context to his successor Desmond Miles via the Glyph messages he hid within the Animus data. Desmond later uncovered the messages in September of that year. Desmond solved this puzzle, which was part of a set titled "Brothers" and revealed that Cain had killed his brother to acquire his Apple of Eden. Included within were paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacopo Tintoretto, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and Albrecht Dürer attached to text from Pearl of Great Price adapted by Joseph Smith.

Gallery

• 
  Cain Slaying Abel by Peter Paul Rubens
• 
  The Murder of Abel by Jacopo Tintoretto
• 
  Cain and Abel by Bartolomeo Manfredi
• 
  Cain Killing Abel by Albrecht Dürer

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed II (paintings only)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (mentioned only)
• Who's In Your Blood? (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game (mentioned only)