Nikolai Orelov

"My father wanted this life, Anna, not I."

- Nikolai Orelov to his wife.

Nikolai Andreievich Orelov (Russian: Николай Орлов) was a Russian Assassin who lived during the late 19th and early 20th century. A member of the Russian sect of the Assassin Order, the Narodnaya Volya, he was the great-grandfather of Daniel Cross, who would cause the fall of the Assassin Order generations later.

Early life
Orelov was born in the later half of the 19th century. His father immigrated to Russia and became a member of the Narodnaya Volya, the Russian sect of the Assassin Order. He decided for Nikolai to become an Assassin as well, and thus had him start his training at a young age. In the Assassin Order, he befriended Aleksandr Ulyanov and his younger brother, who would later go by the name Vladimir Lenin.

On May 20, 1887, Nikolai witnessed the execution of Aleksandr after the latter was captured after a failed assassination attempt of Tsar Alexander III. As the rope was put around Aleksandr's neck, he pointed his finger towards Nikolai, meaning that he found Nikolai guilty for not rescuing him. This event caused Nikolai to have nightmares for the next year.

Borki train disaster
Sometime in 1888, Nikolai woke in bed after having another nightmare about the death of his close friend, Aleksandr Ulyanov. He confided in his partner, Anna, that he felt deeply responsible for his death. She told him that Alek knew the risks when he joined the Brotherhood. Nikolai then told her that he had been tasked with assassinating Tsar Alexander III in order to loosen the Templar grip on the region. Anna wished him safety in his mission, for she needed him to help raise their child, with whom she was pregnant.

Nikolai rode on horseback for Crimea the next morning, chasing the Imperial train. After infiltrating the train Nikolai killed several patrolling guards and extorted information from another. Making his way to the royal carriage, Orelov burst through a door with his gun raised and was shocked to find the entire Royal family traveling, when he had been told only the Tsar was aboard. Alexander III attacked him from behind for threatening his family and the two fought. However, Nikolai managed to stab Alexander in the right abdomen, though the Tsar was barely injured. During the fight between the two men, the train careened off the tracks and crashed.

Whilst Nikolai was recovering from the crash, Alexander III started beating Orelov down while taunting him about killing his loved ones. Alexander III then pulled out the Staff from a box among the remains of the dining cart and challenged the Assassin to kill him with it, throwing the Staff to him. Despite wielding the Staff and relying upon his Assassin training, Nikolai was defeated by the physically superior Alexander, but was spared death when the Tsar's children came into view. Nikolai fled to report his failure to the Order.

At some point within the next twenty years, Nikolai and Anna's child was somehow "lost", before or after it was born, causing Nikolai to become bitter and filled with anger, which caught the attention of his Brothers.

Tunguska event


In 1908, the Assassins captured a Templar named Dolinsky and Orelov tortured the man in order to reveal where the Staff had gone following his failure. Two other Assassins were present and one noted that his methods were extremely harsh, while the other replied that it was because Orelov had previously lost a child. Under threats to his family, Dolinsky revealed that the facility that housed the Staff was located in Siberia and Orelov set off for Tunguska.

The Mentor requested that Nikolai and his fellow Assassins would destroy the Staff, which was being tested with electrical machines stolen from their ally, Nikola Tesla. While approaching the facility, which had a Tesla coil built above it, Orelov explained to the others that Tesla stood ready with his teleforce weapon, in America, ready to destroy it.

Nikolai and his comrades stormed the facility, killing all of the Templar guards within. When Orelov reached the top, the Staff had been activated by the electrical current. He heard voices coming from it, saying things like "Always the fighter," "Adam, I have it," "Just like your father," and "Eve." At that moment, Tesla activated his weapon with the words "Rot in hell, Thomas," and the tower was destroyed. Orelov was the only survivor, laying with his clothes in tatters, on the edge of the explosion mumbling that the Staff had been destroyed. Nikolai returned home to Anna, "bleached and broken," who welcomed him with a look of horror and grief.

Nikolai and Anna had another child, a daughter, a few years afterwards.

Search for the shard
"I no longer consider myself a crusader for change, but I must find the splinter of the artifact. First, however, I need to learn more about it."

- Nikolai's personal thoughts on the Shard, 1917

That same year, Vladimir Lenin was leading a revolution against the Tsarist royal house. Lenin had personally sent a letter to Nikolai, asking for him to dispose of Tsar Nicholas II and thus eliminate the last symbol of Imperialism. Nikolai did infiltrate Nicholas II's residence, asking him for the location of the Staff, which he had spotted on a picture of the Tsar. Nicholas II, threatened, brought Nikolai to the Staff, though Nikolai was quickly able to conclude that it was a fake. He said that the real Staff had a light shining from within and that when looked into it, one could see "the turn of the world and a glimpse of what lies beyond."

He broke the fake Staff, proving it was indeed a replica. When Nicholas II asked him to spare his family just like he spared his father's if he would kill him, he replied that he wouldn't kill him, saying that he did "not care any longer" and that he only wanted to make sure that the Staff was indeed destroyed. He did warn Nicholas II that the next Assassin to come after him wouldn't be as objective as him, however.

Nikolai proceeded to leave the building via a window, but not before hearing Nicholas II confirm to him that Grigori Rasputin had worn a splinter around his neck, which was of the same material as the Staff, according to Nikolai's description.

Nikolai had made it his personal mission to find the remaining shard of the Staff. Traveling to Krasnoyarsk, the aged Assassin scaled the walls of the city's asylum and broke into the cell holding Khioniya Guseva, one of Grigori Rasputin's many failed assassins. Nikolai offered to free Guseva in exchange for the information he sought, forcibly taking her by the hand and leading her from the building.

After bribing a priest, the two took refuge in the city's cathedral. Guseva then revealed the details of her attempt on Rasputin's life; how, despite her stabbing and mutilating him where he stood, Rasputin survived the attempt, thanks to his shard from the Staff. She then informed Nikolai that her facial wounds had been self-inflicted; her own hands, controlled by Rasputin and the shard. At her request, Nikolai then killed Guseva with his hidden blade.

Nikolai and two other men went to search for Rasputin's grave and upon finding it, dug him up. Examining the corpse, Nikolai searched for the splinter that Nicholas II had mentioned, until he found what he was after and then returned to Anna, who was waiting for him in their carriage.

Later life
Some time after taking the splinter from Rasputin's corpse, Nikolai chose to retire and abruptly cut his ties with the Assassin Order. Along with their daughter, Nikolai and Anna crossed Russia's borders and boarded a ship bound for the United States, where they started a new life together and had at least one more child.

Personality
"I began as a crusader for change and now I am no better than a common grave-robber."

- Nikolai Orelov to his wife, after recovering the shard of the Staff from Rasputin's grave.

At an early age Nikolai was trained as an Assassin, though this was his father's choice, not his, and shown despair sometimes in his life as an Assassin. Nikolai also felt massive guilt from Aleksandr Ulyanov's death, which haunted him for over a year. Though showing slight despair in his life as a Assassin and feeling guilty when a close friend or colleague is lost, Nikolai's personality went through a massive change after the death of his first child.

Following the death of his child, Nikolai became bitter and unflinching, no longer showing much despair for his life as an Assassin. Nikolai also became noticeably more heavy-handed in his actions as a result of his loss; he showed little compassion or lenience towards Dolinsky, a Templar that had recently been captured, and even made threats against the man's innocent family in order to coerce some information. During this interrogation, Nikolai's two Assassins counterparts commented on how the death of Nikolai's child had driven him to become as "savage" as he was, and that before, he had been a gentler man.

Appearance
Orelov wore a large fur coat with the traditional Assassin's hood. He wielded one Hidden Blade, a dagger, a sabre and a rifle. He wore a sash and a baldric with the Assassins' emblem on it.

Trivia

 * Nikolai's surname, Orelov, is not a Russian name; the closest match being "Orlov" (Оpлов), which means "сын орла" (syn orla), or "son of oryol," where "oryol" means "eagle." This is in continuation of the series' tradition of referencing the protagonist's name to that of the eagle in the Assassin's native language, or some derivation.