German Brotherhood of Assassins

The Northern European Assassins were the Brotherhood of Assassins located in the northern part of Europe, which included Germany and the Netherlands.

History

In the mid-14th century, the Assassins recruited Lukas Zurburg into the Order, and ten years after this, the plague swept across Essen, wiping out nearly half of the town's population. From there, a group called the Brothers of the Cross, a Templar organization, began promising protection from the plague.

Lukas suspected that they were after the Ankh, which was said to be located in Central Europe. However, in 1350, both the Brothers of the Cross and Lukas had mysteriously disappeared.

Circa 1501 to 1503, a historian named Conradus Celtis had been working on uncovering secrets of history. He had found out about the Assassins, who tried to convince him to keep his research a secret, since he planned to portray them as heroes to the people. However, a team of Italian Assassins in Cologne, Germany, ensured that he kept their existence unknown, and took his works back to Rome.

Around this time in the German city, the religious reformist Friedrich der Weise planned to open a school, which challenged the practices of the Borgia. In response, Rodrigo Borgia sent a bribe to convince him to back away from the "foolish project", though the Assassins intercepted the money and used it to give him a large, anonymous donation.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, had taken a heavy beating from Swiss mercenaries during the Swabian War, to which the Borgia had hired several of these commanders as their Papal Guard. Drinking with these mercenaries at a tavern, the Assassins slipped poison into their drinks, before carrying them out. Under the guise of condottieri, they delivered the commanders to Maximilian, to which the Emperor used them to train an army of his own, in order to rival the Swiss.

Following this, he invited the Assassins to him, as his armies had bested the Swiss. Once again disguised as condottieri, they helped him train the first of the "Landsknechte", upon which he offered the Assassins a regiment should they ever needed one.

During the early 16th century, the Northern European Assassins were led by the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. Circa 1512, Erasmus sent a letter to Claudia Auditore, the acting leader of the Italian Assassins, warning the Italian branch of the revolutionary religious thoughts of Martin Luther, fearing for more chaos in the European continent.