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 Templars' public downfall in the early 14th century, driving the Assassins' longtime enemies underground and forcing them to operate in secrecy after having existed as a public organization for nearly two centuries.

For his actions, Thomas rose to legendary status among the French Assassins, and a vault commemorating his deeds and storing his Assassin robes was built within the Brotherhood's headquarters in Paris.

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.

A banker from the Republic of Metz, Thomas 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 Dante's pupil Domenico.

At the dawn of the 14th century, Thomas participated in the plot to destroy the Templars. He was present during the preparations for this act, during which the Mentor Guillaume de Nogaret succeeded in convincing King Philip IV 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 Templars' destruction but instead push them into the shadows and strengthen them, similar to how the Mongol Empire had unknowingly bolstered the Levantine Assassins' operations by forcing them to work covertly following the fall of Masyaf in 1257.

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 his personal journal, the Codex Pater Intellectus, but his efforts were halted by a Templar Knight who served 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 artifact's power. The advisor then managed to hide the manuscript and the Sword in a secret vault underneath the Temple, 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. He would spend the next decade traveling around Europe with other Assassins and eradicating any Templar remnants that operated openly.

Thomas eventually succeeded Guillaume de Nogaret as Mentor, though he would later succumb to an unspecified illness and die in Venice in the spring of 1323, after decades spent serving 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, 1791.

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.

Hervé Quemar and Arno Dorian looking at Thomas' armor

According to legend, Thomas' armor was destined to an Assassin who performed 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. Upon being informed of the armor's origins and the tradition surrounding it by Hervé Quemar, Arno resolved to recover the missing keys, which he eventually accomplished, allowing him to claim Thomas' robes.

In November 2014, a Helix user relived the genetic memories of Jacques the Molay's advisor, experiencing his encounter with Thomas during the raid of the Parisian Temple in 1307. Thomas' database entry created by Abstergo Industries described him and his associates as simple bankers, but after the user 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 exploring the memories of Simon's ancestor Gabriel Laxart, to look for any mentions of Assassin Mentors in Laxart's memories for research purposes as long as the pair did not lose sight of their objective.

Behind the scenes

Thomas de Carneillon is a fictional character appearing in the opening sequence of the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed: Unity. His robes bear similarities to the ones worn by the Master Assassins of the Levantine Brotherhood in the late 12th century. However, the robes' representation is inconsistent across 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.

Despite Thomas possessing only one visible Hidden Blade, underneath his left arm, he is shown assassinating Jacques de Molay's advisor with his right hand.

Gallery

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

Appearances

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