Talk:Persian Brotherhood of Assassins

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Iltani founder?

Per dialogue in Mirage should we put Iltani as the founder in the infobox? I also thought about suggesting a merge with the Babylonian Brotherhood but it is possible that Iltani was established her own branch separate from them rather than that group directly transitioning into this one. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 06:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I remember encountering that mention in Mirage somewhere but don't remember exactly where. Can you please quote it and tell us exactly where it is found? And if I remember correctly, we still haven't finished figuring out whether these articles on Assassin sub-"brotherhoods" should be about the guilds or any branch of the Assassins that operated in the region. I believe we may have settled on the latter since the names are also used for cells, but we need to double-check on the past discussions. I don't see any basis for a merge with the Babylonian Brotherhood. Both the names Persian Brotherhood and Babylonian Brotherhood originated in The Essential Guide (1st ed.) where they are mentioned separately. In fact, it's not even clear if we should be treating this as the same as the branch based in Alamut in Mirage (although I would hope that this could be verified). A lot of editors seem to have a working assumption that branches of the Assassins and Templars would be co-extensive with country borders, which not only is not necessarily the case but also isn't very realistic. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 07:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe it to be dialogue (possibly ambient or talking to random NPCs) in either A New Beginning or Taking Flight but transcriptions are not yet complete and the line is currently missing. I just put this on this talk page since we don't have a Hidden Ones of Alamut or whatever and didn't want to forget this later. You bring up a good point about the Persian and Babylonian Brotherhoods both being featured in the Guide as separate. I agree that rites and guild territorial coverage should, given actually good worldbuilding, be divorced from state borders (sidenote: this is a pet peeve of mine regarding the Harry Potter universe, if the Wizarding World withdrew from mundane society by the late 1600s why do the Ministries of Magic map to current polities for the most part). Lacrossedeamon (talk) 08:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The was spoken by Tabid to Basim in Taking Flight. I have included the said quote on Iltani's page. Lady Kyashira (talk) 15:27, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Supposing that we do treat the Alamut branch as being founded by Iltani, do you think it'd be too weird to merge it with Babylonian Brotherhood but not the two with Persian Brotherhood? And what about the Levantine Brotherhood? Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Paraphrasing from Discord and to clear up my position. I am actually against merging the branches at this time because it is unclear if Iltani being a founder of the branch in Mirage (if Tabid is meaning the branch specifically rather than the Hidden Ones in general) means she was the founder of her original branch. She could be like the Polo brothers who started out at Masyaf but then established branches elsewhere. As for the Levantine issue that is complicated due to both how earlier entries depict their relationship and the fact that the establishment of the branch at Alamut has been retconned. We have a note from Rayhan alluding to the future establishment of the Levantine branch but since there is a couple intervening centuries it's basically useless. Any attempt to reconcile the difference would veer too much into headcanon/speculation. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 02:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

My concern at this time though is that we are inconsistently referring to Alamut as belonging to either the Levantine or Persian Brotherhood. If both choices constitute speculation, what is the proper course of action? Treating Alamut as "Levantine" had owed to two things:

1. The Essential Guide happening to call Hassan-i Sabbah a Levantine Assassin.
2. The belief that Alamut and Masyaf (and their respective proximal citadels if any) had to have de jure been the same branch as they were still seen as following a new iteration of the Assassins as a public state and preceding this state's dissolution by Altaïr. With Assassins and Hidden Ones being more and more synonymous and continuous and Alamut having already existed as a Hidden One stronghold in Mirage... maybe this is no longer a strong reason.

As we all know, The Essential Guide is not a very reliable source, and it is a one-off mention, but I didn't wish to cherry-pick either. Personally, I think it is far less confusing if we were to treat Alamut and Masyaf as separate branches on the basis that the AC1 guide describes Al Mualim splintering from Hassan the Younger and creating his own autonomous base. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Your final suggestion is one I am fond of. My idea for if we want to treat them as part of the same entity is that at the beginning the Alamut sect dominated the relationship between the two but as Al Mualim gained more power he was able to become the controlling voice with Alamut nominally the head but Masyaf the de facto leader which influenced what the branch was called. Basically the Nizari state being called the Persian Branch early on but later people coming to call it the Levantine Branch as the power dynamic shifted. I think until (if ever) we get an expanded look at Hassan-i Sabbah's life we just have to consider the Guide in error calling him a Levantine Assassin except in the loosest retrospective. I think the Secret Crusade might also have a bit dealing with the relationship between the two. I mean we can't just make a page for the Nizari state and at least call it a day on the branch post 1090 can we? Lacrossedeamon (talk) 08:26, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Merge

To my memory, I do not believe Ubisoft has said anything about this group's connections—if any—to other organizations. As I said in my edit summary, having 4 Assassin groups—the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Protectors of Persia, the Alamut Hidden Ones, and the Levantine Brotherhood—operate in the Middle East in such close geographical proximity to each other is an absolute mess. Sol said above that "we still haven't finished figuring out whether these articles on Assassin sub-"brotherhoods" should be about the guilds or any branch of the Assassins that operated in the region" (I freely admit that I am confused by the distinction between a guild and a branch). But I also am unsure if there is enough of us for the...authority(?) to move pages of groups that were once named in the apparently-unreliable Essential Guide 1st ed. if Ubisoft remains mum on this. Can we try to resolve this mess, and if so, how? – Darman (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

First, I am of the opinion that creating a separate article for "Hidden Ones of Alamut" was premature.

Second, the distinction between guild and branch is that a guild is a specific administrative unit of the Assassin Brotherhood whereas branch is a general word. A guild is to the Assassins as a prefecture or province is to the Tang dynasty or a county or state is to the United States. But the administrative unit called a guild was created by Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad when he disbanded the Assassin Order in the face of the Mongol invasions. A guild is therefore the first-tier unit of the guild system, the administrative system established by Altaïr. The guild system was eventually superceded by the cell system, especially after the Great Purge in 2000 that drastically reduced the population of Assassins throughout the world. So the main operating unit of the Assassins today are cells, not guilds. Just like the administrative system of the modern People's Republic of China is not the same as the administrative system of the Tang dynasty, so too have organizations like the Assassins and Templar had different administrative systems throughout their history.

The term branch is broader because it is just a general word for, well, a regional branch of the Assassins, regardless of how it may have been officially organized throughout the centuries. Altaïr tasked Niccolò and Maffeo Polo with establishing the first guilds, and they did so in Constantinople and in Italy. So the Italian Brotherhood, when defined as the guild founded by the Polos is not the same thing as a broad idea of a regional Hidden One/Assassin branch in the Italian peninsula dating back to the time of Amunet.

The question we've never resolved is whether our articles on the Persian Brotherhood, the Egyptian Brotherhood, the Levantine Brotherhood, the Chinese Brotherhood, etc. should be narrowly about the guilds in Altaïr's administrative system or about branches of the Assassins within their respective regions in general. One of the arguments for the latter is that The Essential Guide uses the name Russian Brotherhood for both the Assassin guild of Russia in Nikolai Orelov's time and the lone Assassin cell of Russia in Galina Voronina's time. This suggests that the appellation "Brotherhood" is not exclusive to a guild. (It can be surmised that the name for the regional branch has persisted even after the Russian guild was reduced to the population of only a cell). The argument for limiting the scope of these articles to only being about Altaïr's guilds is greater clarity, with less muddling of the waters. The Italian Brotherhood, as a guild, was established by the Polo brothers in a way that makes it discontinuous from the earlier branch established by Amunet at the end of the Roman Republic. As I recall from my discussions with our retired administrator Master Sima Yi over Discord, we so far seem to have been leaning towards writing these articles as being about broad regional branches rather than guilds however.

But there are also multiple other complications to consider. On the question of whether the Assassins of Alamut are the same as the Levantine Brotherhood, the confusion stems from the two predating Altaïr's guild system. We have a temptation to refer to the Assassins from the time of Hassan-i Sabbah to Altaïr as the "Levantine Brotherhood". This is the practice of The Essential Guide, but it is retrospective. In the game guide of Assassin's Creed, it is explained that Al Mualim left Hassan the Younger in Alamut to establish his own autonomous branch based in Masyaf. It is unclear whether this was a schism or if Al Mualim was merely helping Hassan the Younger to expand the order as the Polo brothers did. It is unclear if the two became de jure separate branches, but we at least know that they were de facto independent of one another. It thus makes things confusing to treat them as the same unit, with even the Alamut Assassins being called the "Levantine Brotherhood" when Alamut is not geographically situated in the Levant. We even have extended the usage of the name "Levantine Brotherhood" to encompassing the activities of the Assassins in that region in Revelations, as part of the Mediterranean Defense game feature, but this practice of ours has not been canonically verified.

Furthermore, we have the complex case of the Chinese Brotherhood. From the Q&A with Dynasty's author, we know that the name "Assassin" was applied more broadly among the Chinese. It became an underground mantle by which newer generations of xiake could repeatedly readopt even after a previous group of Assassins had been purged. The Chinese name for the Assassin, Cike, predates the Hidden Ones' presence in China. To reconcile this with the mainstream canon, I surmise that the original Cike in the Warring States period would have been a different and indigenous group. At some point, the Hidden Ones arrived in China, and the Cike became subsumed into the Hidden Ones of China, and in the Chinese language, the names Cike and Assassin (i.e. the name from Persian) became identical. But being the frequent target of purges, in Li E's time, there was another lull in their presence in China. The Hidden Ones of the Great Desert were a separate group of Assassins who operated in China's periphery. By chance, Li E became one of them then later adopted the legacy of the earlier generations of Hidden Ones/Assassins in China as well under Pei Min's guidance. He founded the Hidden Ones of the Great Tang, another group of Chinese Assassins. Thus, with this complicated history, it can be suggested that the article on the Chinese Brotherhood is actually about the history of multiple different groups of Assassins in China across the ages.

Turning back now to the Egyptian Brotherhood and Persian Brotherhoods, one of the problems is first that both names are retrospective (i.e. The Essential Guide (1st ed.) used them to refer to Amunet and Darius' groups respectively). Another is that we have been inferring that we can extend their scope to cover Assassins in Egypt and Persia in later history. This practice of ours is technically speculative. We do not know for sure that Salah Bey, though he was a Persian Assassin, was a member of a "Persian Brotherhood". Nor do we even know that Numa Al'Khamsin was a member of an "Egyptian Brotherhood"; we know he was an Egyptian Assassin, but the name Egyptian Brotherhood hasn't been explicitly linked to him.

Therefore, the primary problem is that we do not know the appropriate scope of these regional "Brotherhoods". Our practice has been to haphazardly make inferences based on geography despite the fact that the territorial jurisdiction of Assassin administrative units need not be coextensive with the borders of modern sovereign states. (My headcanon for a long time was that the "Spanish Assassins" of Aguilar was different branch from the Assassins of Granada and the Assassins of Aragon, at least until the Reconquista was completed). We don't know if the Hidden Ones of Alamut in Mirage should be considered the same branch as the Persian Brotherhood, but if we follow the same logic of why we included Salah Bey to the list, that should mean erring on the side of caution means to also include them just because Alamut is in Persia.

Finally, I need to remind you that although The Essential Guide is unreliable (though officially authoritative), even more-so the first edition, our understanding of Assassin branches comes predominantly from this text. The very names Babylonian Brotherhood, Egyptian Brotherhood, Levantine Brotherhood, Persian Brotherhood, etc. originated in this book (to be reinforced by scattered mentions in a few other games released around its time). What this means is that our empirical evidence for these administrative units, their names, and how they are used are linked to The Essential Guide. That is why I said that it would be awkward to exclude all mentions of Darius from "Persian Brotherhood", when official sources have only ever used this name for him, while including Salah Bey under the "Persian Brotherhood", when his link to it is based on our own inference. So no matter how unreliable we think The Essential Guide is, as long as we are using the very concepts it has given us, it would be disingenuous to use them in our own alternative ways, like treating the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Levantine Brotherhood, and the Persian Brotherhood as all the same as you so suggest. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

My own proposal is as follows, but I certainly welcome you all to suggest alternatives since this is such a sticky problem:

• I think the regional "Brotherhood" pages should by default be a broader article about a regional branch that encompasses a history of other earlier groups that played a role in its history. This parallels how the Wikipedia articles on China, Iran, and Egypt are not just about the modern countries but also earlier states and regimes that are part of their histories, even though there are many debates about to what extent some of those past regimes were proper representatives of these nations.
• But where we know of a more specific and concrete group in these branches' past, like the "Protectors of Persia" or the Hidden Ones of the Great Tang or the Roman Hidden Ones, they merit their own separate articles, just like how in Wikipedia, we have an article on China but also a separate article on the Tang dynasty, an article on Iran but also a separate article on the Achaemenid Empire, an article on Italy but also a separate article on the Roman Empire. The broader "Brotherhood" pages can mention them more briefly in summary as part of their histories. These earlier groups evolved to become the modern branches we know today.
• Sometimes we have a case where a regional "Brotherhood", especially a newer one, is synonymous with a more concrete unit. For example, we know that the Colonial Brotherhood, later renamed the American Brotherhood, was specifically founded by Achilles as part of Altaïr's guild system. This parallels how the United States of America, as a more recent creation, is a nation without previous regimes that we have to reference (unless we count older colonial governments preceding the founding states). In this case, we can approach the article accordingly.
• Levantine Brotherhood and Persian Brotherhood should remain separate. This is partly our call, but it is much too confusing to treat the Assassins of Alamut as part of the Levantine Brotherhood. Our reasoning should be based principally on the AC1 game guide's description of Al Mualim establishing an independent base in Masyaf from Alamut. So, analytically they are separate branches. I would propose that while the Assassins of Masyaf be called the Levantine Brotherhood, the Assassins of Alamut established by Hassan-i Sabbah should be called the Persian Brotherhood despite this being an inferred application of that name. But I am open to a better idea for the name. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh by the way Darman, saying that the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Protectors of Persia, the Alamut Hidden Ones, the Levantine Brotherhood, and the Persia Brotherhood should be treated all the same just because they all operate in the "Middle East" is... a bit problematic to me. The Middle East is a present-day social, cultural, and political category, and the region has comprised many diverse polities throughout its millennia-long history. They're not all in "such close geographical proximity" to one another, anymore than the French, Spanish, and Italian Brotherhoods are "in such close geographical proximity" to one another. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll try to think on your broader points while out IRL, but I'll first come clean and say that I was wrong to refer to these Brotherhoods as "the same" just because they operated in the Near East. While the cities Babylon and Baghdad may be close together, they were indeed separated by thousands of years, countless demographics, and are actually quite some distance from both Masyaf, which was further west relative to them than I had thought, and Alamut, the remains of which are further north than I thought near the Caspian Sea's southern edge. Applying the same distance scales in Europe would clearly cross into many modern countries and I should not have been so flippant in my history/geography. – Darman (talk) 04:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

To give my thoughts on the matter, I think I agree with Sol Pacificus in that the pages for an Assassin/Templar branch/guild/rite etc. should cover the entire history of the Assassins/Templars' activity in that region. Ofc, I think there are some exceptions; for example, in the case of the Levantine Rite, we shouldn't cover the Templars' expedition in Masyaf in Revelations, because, even though Masyaf is part of the Levant, the game quite clearly establishes that it is the Byzantine Rite that is doing the expedition.

Also, regarding the Persian/Levantine Assassins/Alamut Hidden One situation, I think the current version of the pages is fine the way it is. From my understanding, the Alamut Hidden Ones are a predecessor/very early incarnation of the Persian Assassins, but they are different enough, so they should get their own page. Kind of like how the Hidden Ones of the Great Desert have a different page from the Chinese Assassins. Ofc, the page for the Persian Assassins should still cover the history of the Alamut Hidden Ones (albeit in less detail), because, like I said, it should include the entire history of the Assassins/Hidden Ones' activity in Persia. As for the Levantine Assassins, to avoid confusion and bloating, I believe it should just include information relating to the branch established by Al Mualim and based in Masyaf, as well as the references to early Assassin/Hidden One activity in that general regional (basically just Bayek sending a few Hidden Ones there and Rayhan discussing the possibility of establishing a permanent stronghold near Jerusalem). – Gener4l Cl4ank4 (talk) 19:40, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Sol's proposal sounds good to me. I would counter Grievous over here and say we don't actually know enough about Persian Assassins (post the name change) to say if they are different enough we don't even know how continuous they are post the Mongol expansion. I would like to extend this sort of discussion over to Templar administrative units because I feel splitting the Knights Templar into Levantine and French Rites during the period it was operating openly doesn't make sense to me ie Hugues de Paynes and Robert de Sable being considered leaders of separate Rites doesn't make sense to me. I have brought this up here: Talk:Templar_leader#Parisian_and_Levantine to no avail. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 07:49, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

It's a little unclear to me which point of Grievous you're countering. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 18:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

"From my understanding, the Alamut Hidden Ones are a predecessor/very early incarnation of the Persian Assassins, but they are different enough, so they should get their own page. Kind of like how the Hidden Ones of the Great Desert have a different page from the Chinese Assassins." I think we have a much greater understanding of the relationship between the Hidden Ones of the Great Desert and the Chinese Assassins than we do the Hidden Ones of Alamut and the Persian Assassins. I don't know if we know enough about them to say they are different enough. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 02:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I actually found Clanker's argument for a separate Hidden Ones of Alamut article convincing because while fans do have a bad habit of assuming the name Assassins began with Hassan-i Sabbah (which has never been confirmed), we do know that Hassan-i Sabbah did come to Alamut to establish a new base that would the capital of the Assassins' iteration as a state. With Mirage unfortunately showing Alamut already being operated by the Assassins (Hidden Ones) prior to Hassan-i Sabbah, it modifies our understanding to Hassan-i Sabbah re-establishing a site that had already been formerly occupied by Assassins in centuries past. Hence, given our current sources, there is a discontinuity between both groups in Alamut that permits the creation of a separate article for the Hidden Ones in Mirage even while our article on the Persian Brotherhood can give them a little coverage as well. But you also make a good point that we have clearer information on the relationship between the Hidden Ones of the Great Desert and the Chinese Assassins.

I was recently reminded also of the case of the West Indies Rite. I always remembered that it was an interesting example of a rite expressly described as having been destroyed. However... I just double-checked The Essential Guide, which I thought was the source for this info, and it does not mention this. I checked my old edit to the page, and I had cited the War Letters in Assassin's Creed: Rogue, specifically the letter "Cuban Salvage" by Rafael Joaquín de Ferrer where he mentions that "no Rite [can] be established here" because Rhona Dinsmore has had uncontested control since the "the loss of Grand Master Torres". His statement indicates that the West Indies Rite didn't exist in his time, and putting two-and-two together, we can conclude that it was effectively destroyed with the death of Torres.

It is not as explicit as I had remembered, but the conclusion may still stand. And if it does, it means that with the West Indies Rite, erring on the side of caution might mean that we shouldn't assume that subsequent Templar action in the Caribbean were necessarily conducted by the West Indies Rite (as opposed to other rites sending their agents to the region), even if we can expect that Templar domination by the 21st century should be enough to have already facilitated its revival. All in all, the approach of treating the pages on Assassin and Templar branches as encompassing all history of their operations in the given region might not apply for a branch like the West Indies Rite that has been described in terms like it was destroyed and with no further information that it was ever re-established.

Given this example by the West Indies Rite, we might have to consider limiting "membership" of a branch to explicit mentions only, but that would bound the "Persian Brotherhood" only to Darius' Protectors of Persia which may be confusing to readers. This also brings into question if, for example, "Shanghai Rite" should be split off from "Chinese Rite" to being only about the Templars during the Warlord Era and likewise the Beijing Brotherhood specifically being about Shao Jun's branch during the Ming dynasty. Or otherwise, we can approach with more flexibility and decide on a case-by-case basis how we should treat each article about a branch.

My mind is swirling with more ideas, but I'm afraid to confuse you guys further at this time. I'm really not comfortable making a decision with just you two and my opinion because of how complex this is, so I'm about to just start cold-calling editors. >:( Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 20:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The Assassin's Creed Mirage team have mentioned a connection between the Levant Brotherhood and the Alamut Branch, this been focused solely in the Hidden Ones' uniform. (MENTION 1, 2:25 / MENTION 2, 4:40) This clarifies that Basim's outfit, just like the rest of the Hidden Ones in Mirage, is based on the uniform of the Assassins in AC1. That's cool, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Alamut branch is part of the Levantine Brotherhood during Mirage's historical period. This could be the same case as in Bayek's outfit; the AC team designed the Medjay uniform based on the outfit of an Assassins but in-universe this is otherwise, the Medjay outfit was the inspiration for the Assassin outfit. In this particular situation, it'd be like this: the Mirage team designed the Alamut Hidden Ones' outfit to look just like the ones from AC1, but in-universe, this was already established as the default designed and Al Mualim just took it and used it as well for his own branch. The issue I have here is the mention of Hassan-I Sabbah as a Levant Brotherhood Assassin in The Essential Guide (1st Edition) because, aside from the obvious geographical facts, the Alamut branch is never mentioned nor is considered to be part of a "Levant Brotherhood" in Mirage. They are mentioned as just that, the "Alamut Branch". Furthermore, the Hidden Ones lacked of a strong presence in the Levant and it actually took them almost 50 years if not more to establish their guilds over there.

If it wasn't for that, I would agree with the merging. But since I ain't the lore-master, much as I wish I was haha, I think this part of the info should stay untouched. After all, while previous Hidden One activities were recorded, the establishment of the Levant Brotherhood began with Hassan-I Sabbah, and the AC team also knows that. (MENTION 1, 4:07 and 10:46). The status of the Alamut branch is not absolute, it was part of the Persian Brotherhood and after the reformation it belonged to the Levant Brotherhood. Merging them would be counter-productive imo. I would keep them apart and divide the Alamut branch page in two sections specifying its periods. That is why I think the wiki did good in describing each of these Brotherhood as separate branches and not as guilds commanded by Altaïr. Each one has their leaders, customs, traditions, etc. The design of each of their crests seen in Monteriggioni's Sanctuary is proof of this. And just like trees, each of these branches had their divisions.

Isudamn, all of this is making me think that my headcanon (the reformation wasn't a peaceful thing) might eventually be correct. Intriguing.Cristophorus35 (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

BLAH. Sorry for the late reply...2wks later?! It's been busy IRL for me to read and actually digest what's been said, Sol. As the one who started this, I should respond. Sol, what I think you're saying is: we keep original 7 guilds from the Encyclopedia/Guide (Persian, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Roman, Mongolian, Italian) mostly as-is, and all these new regional groups outside those 7 like Zurich, Brazil, Peru, etc. are to change to record "Assassin influence in [country]", except in cases where there is a clear group difference like the Great Desert or the Protectors of Persia. Do I have that right?

I am in favor of merging the Alamut group with the Persian guild, not just because I initiated the proposal but because I think Sol's logic with Hassan retroactively re-establishing a presence there makes sense using example of the Colonial/American guild. Regarding the Templar rites, they should follow suit if the Assassins guilds are being changed (And if I may add to what was said about the Caribbean Templars, while it is supposition, I feel that most of the Templar activity in Latin/South America and the Caribbean after Torres' death is by the American rite as part of Operation Condor in the Cold War).

I am also very much in favor of explicit mentions of guild/rite memberships. I have often wondered how to categorize people like Najma Alayza, who is of Libyan descent and of the Libyan guild but also joined the Spanish guild. As Sol pointed out with Numa, just because someone is of one nationality and/or operates in one region does not necessarily mean they are a member of the local guild. Related to both this and to what Lacrosse said about leaders, how do we file some early Templars when Jacques, Hughes, and Robert were clearly Frenchmen like countless crusaders? I would reason they would join the early Parisian Rite, but that's inferring. – Darman (talk) 02:10, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

"Sol, what I think you're saying is: we keep original 7 guilds from the Encyclopedia/Guide (Persian, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Roman, Mongolian, Italian) mostly as-is, and all these new regional groups outside those 7 like Zurich, Brazil, Peru, etc. are to change to record "Assassin influence in [country]", except in cases where there is a clear group difference like the Great Desert or the Protectors of Persia. Do I have that right?"

No, I didn't say anything of that sort at all. o.o I don't know where you got that from. And you missed some guilds named in The Essential Guide, like the Louisiana Brotherhood, the British Brotherhood, the Russian Brotherhood, the French Brotherhood, and the Indian Brotherhood. We already trimmed our navbox of speculative branches years ago after reaching a consensus at that time that we would permit some articles on some branches which can be deduced to have been guilds. For example, we inferred that each of the cities in the Assassin Guilds system of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood represent the base of a guild given the name of this gameplay feature suggesting that it depicts a map of guilds. We had decided against assuming the presence of guilds just because we know an Assassin to have operated there on a mission.

The Essential Guide explicitly refers to Robert de Sablé as belonging to the Levantine Rite. It also appears to use the name synonymously with Knights Templar. By that virtue, it would probably be safer to infer that Bernard de Clairvaux and Hugues de Payens also belonged to the Levantine Rite. It is dubious if we could say that Jacques de Molay belonged to the Levantine Rite when he was based entirely in France, and we run into the same issue as that of the Levantine Brotherhood where the name Levantine Rite appears to be retrospective. I look with concern at speculatively placing characters as members of rites without the backing of sources, but to sideline this problem, we can just move Levantine Rite to "Knights Templar" and write about it as encompassing the period of the Order from Bernaud de Clairvaux to Jacques de Molay, with "Levantine Rite" as an alternative name. That way, we're not expressly making a claim about whether or not Bernard, Hugues, and Jacques were members of the Levantine Rite or the French Rite or if such a division existed in their time, only that they were Knights Templar. Ethnic or national origin is definitely not a basis for assuming membership in a particular branch by the way. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Better late than never, but I promised I would give my two cents on the matter. However, I don't think there is much more I can add that hasn't already been said. I am in agreement with Sol's proposal. Much as The Essential Guide claims the Levantine Brotherhood to encompass Alamut, this doesn't make any practical sense in-universe. To summarise:

• The Alamut Hidden Ones' reach did not properly extend into the area of the later Levantine Assassins. Rayhan writes to a fellow Assassin of the rumour of a great artifact – the Apple – hidden in Jerusalem. He describes how the Brotherhood lacks a firm foothold in the area, and suggests the idea of establishing a fortress to the north – Masyaf.
• By 877, even the Hidden Ones we know were active in parts of the Abbasid Caliphate may not have fallen completely under the jurisdiction of a single Mentor. By that time, Fuladh has been promoted to Mentor of the Hidden Ones in the Justanid region, which. Rayhan is also still a Mentor, and while he may have operated in an area outside of Persia by this time, the specificity of Fuladh being the Mentor of only the Justanid region implies to me that there are other Mentors operating in different areas of the Caliphate. While this doesn't directly relate to the Levantine Assassins or their activities hundreds of years later, it does make it more plausible to me that there also wouldn't be a single Mentor ruling over such a significantly large area of the Abbasid Caliphate by Al Mualim's time.
• As others have mentioned, the AC1 game guide confirms Hassan the Younger sent Al Mualim away from Alamut to establish a new fortress in Masyaf. Something that as of Mirage, the Hidden Ones had been contemplating for a while. Al Mualim would then gain his own autonomy there, clearly defining the two branches as separate from each other. It's unlikely the devs consider the AC1 game guide, which clearly borrows a lot from Rashid ad-Din Sinan's real life history that Ubisoft is shying away from, to still be canon. But without anything else to contradict or override it just yet, we'll still have to treat it as such by default.
• Altaïr fleeing to Alamut to escape from Abbas and being able to safely live there in exile for two decades implies to me that Alamut is not under the same jurisdiction as the Assassins in Masyaf even by 1228. Though it is of course possible that the Assassins there simply pledged loyalty to Altaïr rather than Abbas.
• While the original source is likely gone, Access the Animus posted the character bios for the Brotherhood of Venice characters when they were first released. This confirmed Dariâ as a Persian Assassin, and confirms the existence of a distinct Persian Brotherhood by at least the 16th century. "She wears a prominent diadem showing the symbol of the Persian Brotherhood, a gift from her mentor before she left Shiraz." Even if the Levantine and Persian Brotherhoods were one and the same at Hassan-i Sabbah's time, there was at least a Persian Brotherhood at a later (and in this case perhaps also earlier) point in time, which in my opinion would warrant a separate article anyway.

I do also agree with Lacrosse's point regarding us not knowing enough about the relation between the Persian Brotherhood and the Alamut Brotherhood to treat them as distinct enough entities with their separate articles. I would personally have kept them as one article, as it makes a significant portion of the Persian Brotherhood article largely a repeat of information. But I may not feel as strongly about the matter as others maybe would to go to bat for their merger.

Sorry that my contribution is mainly an agreement with things that have previously been said. I think Sol's proposal is pretty much the approach the wiki should be taking. -- Master Sima Yi _Talk 16:02, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Your thoughts on this helps a lot Sima Yi-sifu! So for everyone, what I gather is that this is the consensus:

• Our articles on Assassin branches cover Assassin operational bases in the region throughout history broadly, much like country articles in Wikipedia. There are also separate articles on more specific units in those regions. Thus, "Hidden Ones of the Great Tang" is to the "Chinese Brotherhood" as the "Tang dynasty" is to "China". In some cases, with newer branches like the American Brotherhood, the two levels may be synonymous, as is the case with "United States of America".
  • Side-note: The West Indies Rite was destroyed by Edward Kenway and should be written as such in my opinion, but later operations within the region should still be mentioned. It is unclear to me if those operations necessarily reflect a re-establishment of the rite. There should thus be flexibility for particular cases.
• "Alamut Hidden Ones" remains as a separate article. I believe that Darman was the only strong opposing opinion.
• The Persian Brotherhood and the Levantine Brotherhood are to remain separate. Levantine Brotherhood does not cover Hassan-i Sabbah. Persian Brotherhood does not cover Masyaf. From Cris's comments, I am wondering if the Levantine Brotherhood covers Alamut during Altaïr's Mentorship?

There is one more unsettled question you guys brought up: lists of members. I think with this new, clarified direction for these articles, we need to be more exact about listing members. Instead of dividing by period, we should divided by specific unit, such as the Hidden Ones of the Great Tang, and then we only list members who are verifiably part of that unit.

For example, "Salah Bey" isn't confirmed as a member of the Persian Brotherhood; that is just our inference. We should of course discuss his activity in this page, but should he be listed as a member? My logic is that his exclusion isn't a statement that he wasn't a member of the Persian Brotherhood, just that only those whose membership can be sourced should be in the list. Alternatively, we can list him under a heading titled "Other Persian Assassins". ("Persian Assassin" being a weaker claim than a member of the Persian Brotherhood). Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:23, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I like the "Other Persian Assassins" section for the misc Assassins operating in the area. Also regarding Altair and Alamut given that he was able to take refuge their after Abbas's coup it seems separate by that point but given that Altair is framed as just leading from Alamut once there it also seems separate even during Altair first mentorship. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 07:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I also agree with adding a "Other Persian Assassins" section. The consensus seems good to me, nothing more to say from my part.Cristophorus35 (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

We have a consensus for the Levantine and the Persian Brotherhood but I have a question about the Colonial, the Louisiana, the American and even the Canadian Assassins.

For me the Colonial Brotherhood need a proper page because the American Brotherhood could also revendicate a heritage from the Louisiana Brotherhood. As Louisiana became part of the US in 1803, all the acts they done could be written in the American Brotherhood page. Maybe we could mage a Colonial Brotherhood page with all the event between 1740s to 1804, keep the Louisiana Brotherhood page and the American Brotherhood page with the events post 1804 (Eseosa visit at the Homestead).

Then for the Canadian Brotherhood, do we write the actions done by the Colonial Brotherhood in Rogue and in the Contracts of AC3 ?Francesco75 (talk) 15:32, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh right, you opened this topic in the talk page for "American Brotherhood of Assassins". Let's keep that discussion on that page. Sorry for forgetting to respond to that. I'll get to it later today. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:03, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi everyone, apologies for chiming in so late. I generally agree with the consensus, although I lean a bit towards merging the Alamut Brotherhood into the Persian Brotherhood, but I understand that the overlap with the Levantine Brotherhood muddies the water quite a bit. It would be nice if a new guide gets released to clear things up, perhaps also establishing that the Assassins operating throughout Iraq were a separate brotherhood, albeit still subordinate to Alamut, similar to the Louisiana Rite. The fact that the Alamut Assassins considered Iltani to be one of their founders is a good indicator of how much overlap there was across the region between the bureaus. The Wikia Editor (talk) 02:56, 13 July 2024 (UTC)