What is the story about? And what prompted you to set it in India?

Assassin’s Creed: Brahman is a story about identity. I’d say it’s a pretty pertinent theme throughout the Assassin’s Creed universe but we wanted to push it a bit further and see what kind of answers we could wring out of the big questions. It had its genesis in the desire to create an Indian assassin; to play with striking Indian landscapes, architecture and weaponry and to dig into the glorious wealth of Indian myths and legends and tie them into the Assassin’s Creed universe. Our exploration of the country’s religious and cultural landscape really informed the narrative.

Tell us about the world the comic book is set in…

This is the Assassin’s Creed you all know and love — deadly assassins running across rooftops, battles with Templar agents (members of a military order-turned-corporate giant), Abstergo (the front for the modern-day activities of the Templar Order) technology digging into genetic material to uncover buried ancestral secrets, etc... the only difference being that it’s now set in India. The primary plot drives through our present-day story, which bounces between Bangalore and Mumbai, but the mystery and adventure really heat up in our flashbacks to 1839 Amritsar, when Punjab was powerful and united. Stability in the region was hanging by the thread of one man’s fragile life. This is where our assassin, Arbaaz Mir, enters the fray.

What kind of research went into the comic book?

We got a leg-up on research through Karl’s (Kerschl) travels in India (Karl’s brother was a teacher near Bangalore for several years) but were mostly relegated to mining for details and facts the traditional way –– interviews and reading up a lot.

MP