- "They (the Isu) are real. No question. It can’t be debated. The writings they left behind are clear proof they existed."
- ―Alexandra Dorian on the existence of the Isu, 1921.
Alexandra Marie Dorian (1889 - 1939) was a French military nurse, diplomat, and Master Assassin who served in the Parisian Brotherhood of Assassins from 1909 to 1939, serving as the Mentor from 1933 to her death in 1939. She was known for being active during the Great War and beginning to revitalize the Parisian Assassins, an act that her daughter would finish in the 1950s. As a Master Assassin, she would fulfill roles in both the field and accounting under Mentor Olivier R. Abadie. She was also known for her friendship with Lydia Frye, as well as her extensive research on the Isu, at a time when the study of the Isu wasn’t relevant. Alexandra was also known as the mother of legendary Master Assassin and Mentor Isabelle Allard. She is of French and Austrian descent.
Alexandra was a member of the legendary Dorian Family of Assassins, being a descendant through the line of Francois Charles Dorian and his daughter, Gabrielle Elise. Francois is Alexandra’s great-grandfather and Gabrielle is her grandmother.
Early Years and Assassin Origins[]
Alexandra Marie Dorian was born in Saint-Denis, a district in Paris, on October 15th, 1889 to Annabelle Doreen Dorian and her husband, Nicolas Rene Laurent. Both of her parents gained notoriety for participating in the Paris Commune, where the young Alexandra was exposed to left-wing politics for the first time. Growing up, due to her being the youngest child, Alexandra was homeschooled while her sister Sara, got to go to school, which Alexandra was not too fond of in her later years and led to a strained relationship with her mother. This had some benefits, as she got to learn directly how to maintain a household, write correspondences, and bookkeeping, all skills she would later utilize as an Assassin. After her lessons are when she would go out and play with her friends. At the age of ten, Anabelle sat her young daughter down and informed her of her lineage and that she came from a line of Assassins who played a role in the events of the French Revolution and the establishment of the several French Republics that preceded it. She was told of the Templar Order and that they were the enemies of the people, and wanted to rule through the control of the people. After the talk she had with her mother, Annabelle gave her daughter the choice to fight alongside the Assassins. Almost immediately, Alexandra began her training as an apprentice under her mother. While she trained as an Assassin, her mother sent her to the Notre-Dame-des-Champs convent to become a nun. She would leave the convent due to alleged misbehavior on her part at the age of 15.
Later on in her training, at the age of eighteen, Alexandra enrolled at the University of Paris, studying in the field of medicine, earning her degree at the age of 22 in 1911, all while still training to become a Master Assassin. At the age of 23, Alexandra earned her rank as a Master Assassin and earned her golden Hidden Blade. Just as she was about to go back to school for her Ph.D., the Great War broke out, and due to the fulfillment of military nurses in the French Military, she was sent to London to aid in the war effort as a military nurse at the request of her mother.
Alexandra and her family were aboard the Titanic during its sinking in 1912. After Annabelle and Sara managed to get on a lifeboat, Alexandra managed to swim in the freezing Atlantic waters to a lifeboat where she met up with her mother on the Carpathia.
The Great War in London[]
Upon the outbreak of the Great War in July of 1914, Alexandra enlisted as a medic and arrived in London in August of 1914 and would be stationed at a field hospital not far away from the Tower of London. Her first couple of years at the hospital were rather hectic, as the amount of wounded coming into London was fairly rapid during the early years of the War. In 1916, a young Assassin by the name of Lydia Frye visited Alexandra at the field hospital and asked for her assistance in a mission given to her by British Mentor Vienna Victoria Dorian, a distant relative of Alexandra’s. She was informed by Lydia that there was a German Spy ring and that she needed her help in rooting them out. Alexandra agreed to assist Lydia, and the two women were responsible for whittling down the resources of the spy ring and sabotaging their documents, which led to the location of the spy ring headquarters. Alexandra and Lydia infiltrated the spy ring’s headquarters. After dispatching some of their men, the ring leader made himself known and escaped through a window, provoking a chase. The two women ended up tag team assassinating him on the deck of a warship along the River Thames, bringing the German spy ring in London to an end. Alexandra and Lydia were visited by Vienna, who traveled to London and personally congratulated the two women on the success of her mission. Alexandra remained at the field hospital, where she would meet a wounded field medic by the name of Robert Allard in June 1918. She would tend to his wounds and spend time with him during his recovery and develop a romantic relationship with him. Robert would tag along with Alexandra, Lydia, and Vienna to meet Alana and the Frye Twins in Brighton. Once the armistice was signed in November of 1918, Alexandra and Robert would marry in May of 1919 and settle down in the village of Vimy, where she would later become pregnant. Alexandra, Robert, Lydia, and British Mentor Vienna would be present in Versailles to witness the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Post-War Years[]
In 1920, she would give birth to twins, a son named Louis, who was stillborn, and a daughter named Isabelle, who survived, becoming the couple’s only child. Shortly after Isabelle’s birth, Robert developed a problem with alcohol in order to cope with his PTSD from the Great War, which often led to heated arguments between the couple, with Robert even striking at Alexandra. He would eventually develop severe cirrhosis of the liver and die of liver failure. He would be interred at the Vimy War Memorial. After his death, Alexandra would move back to Paris with Isabelle and live with her parents and be closer to the Parisian Assassin headquarters. She would return to school, this time working towards a degree in accounting, which Alexandra would earn in 1925 from the University of Paris. With the move back to Paris, Alexandra filled her mother’s role within the Parisian Brotherhood upon her retirement, becoming the next in line to succeed Olivier R. Abadie as Mentor whenever he chose to pass on his leadership. Olivier would step down from the role of Mentor in May of 1933, and Alexandra would become the Mentor of the Parisian Assassins.
Years as Mentor[]
In March of 1934, Alexandra, through her close friend and advisor Isanne McCall, heard that an ex-German Templar was looking to take over the leadership of the Parisian Templars. Catching wind of this, Alexandra conducted her own personal investigation, and after some eavesdropping on conversations, she determined that the German who attempted to take over the Parisian Templars was Richard Klein, a German Templar who was cast out of the German Templars by Xavier Baudin and that he would always frequent a house not far from Hotel de Ville. Seeing him as a threat, she would eventually assassinate him in that said house in April of 1934. After this assassination, she would begin to train her daughter in the ways of the Assassins, after Isabelle discovered the Assassin insignia while sewing one of her jackets. Shortly after Isabelle began her training, she and Isabelle met up with King Edward VIII, who was an Assassin ally, at the Vimy War Memorial. She would even take Isabelle and her friend Vivian and her family to Liverpool to receive additional training from Vienna and Cavan, the famed Two Scousers, and even meet the legendary Master Assassin herself, Alana Rose Dorian. Alexandra would deliver a eulogy at her funeral, much like her mother did at Juliette’s funeral in 1900.
Unbeknownst to Alexandra, the assassination of Richard Klein earned her a spot on the hitlist of Stefan Klein, Richard’s son, who was rapidly rising through the ranks of the German Templars.
In 1936, Isanne McCall, Alexandra’s closest advisor, was found dead and beaten to a bloody pulp in a back alley not far from her place. Shortly after this, Alexandra issued a decree to all Assassins in Paris, telling them to stay low and out of sight until it was safe to do so again.
Over the course of her career as a Master Assassin and Mentor, Alexandra traveled across Europe with Marianne Cadieux, jotting down several Isu locations of interest, and visiting places such as the United Kingdom and Italy. She also began to crack the code on the mysterious Isu language, which would later be cracked by Irina McCall. Alexandra would keep the research hidden away in a safe in her study. Her research from the sites concluded the fact that there were several Isu territories scattered across the world. Alexandra stated that there were Isu territories in North Africa, Greece and Rome, and Scandinavia many years ago in her research. This research was in the hands of Marianne by 1939. Many Assassins dismissed Alexandra as a clown or crazy for making such claims.
Death[]
- "I fear he (Stefan Klein) is onto me. A suspicious lumber company has set up shop here in Saint-Denis, and I believe he’s behind it. I wish to investigate the possibilities of the rumors in the coming days. But if he dares enter my home, I will fight him to my last breath."
- ―An excerpt from Alexandra Dorian’s final letter to Olivier R. Abadie, April 10th, 1939
On the quiet morning of April 12th, 1939, while Isabelle was at school, Alexandra’s Saint-Denis residence was beset by a group of lumberjacks wielding hatchets and knives. Despite going down earlier, Alexandra managed to fend off some of her attackers, killing some of them too with shots from her pistol and Hidden Blade, until she was stabbed in the stomach, felling to the ground. The thugs tied her up and cleared the way to her for their leader, Stefan Klein, who pulled out his pistol and executed Alexandra in cold blood with a bullet to her heart, killing her instantly. After her death, she was propped up on her couch in a natural position, and a Templar Cross was placed across her bullet wound. Before Klein and his thugs left her house, they stripped Alexandra of her clothes and put new clothes on her, making her look as if she was still alive. Her watch read 9:41 am, which was the time Klein killed her at. Klein himself destroyed her safe and took her research on the Isu with him. She was 49 years old. With Alexandra dead, the Parisian Assassins were in shambles, and Mentorship of the Brotherhood was taken over by ex-Mentor Olivier R. Abadie, who immediately went into hiding with other Parisian Assassins, taking refuge in England. Alexandra was interred in the Dorian Family Crypt by her daughter Isabelle before she left the country for England on the eve of World War 2.
Upon receiving the news of Alexandra’s death, Lydia was grief-stricken and felt like it was her responsibility to watch over Isabelle over the duration of the war, even giving Isabelle Alexandra’s bracer, reuniting it with her Hidden Blade. She would later pay her respects to her friend after the war.
Elizabeth Baudin, the newly instated Mentor of the German Assassins, was shocked to hear the news of Alexandra’s passing, as the Dorian and Williams families were slowly mending their relationship through their talks. Due to Klein’s murder of Dorian, Elizabeth devoted her Delta Squadron to lead the hunt for Klein.
Her mother Annabelle fell into a severe depression upon hearing the news of her daughter’s death and died a year later of a broken heart from a combination of her daughter’s death and kicking her granddaughter to the streets..
Alexandra’s daughter Isabelle, with help from Lydia and Elizabeth, would succeed in avenging her death five years later in August of 1944, assassinating Stefan Klein atop the Eiffel Tower.
Personal Life[]
Alexandra Dorian was an incredibly motivated person, both as an Assassin and as a person, seeing and understanding every detail of a task and seeing that it was completed to the letter, a trait that she would greatly embrace during her career as Mentor. She also deeply cared and showed tremendous affection for all she encountered in her life.
Isabelle[]
- "I see a lot of myself in Isabelle. I see a talented young woman who is willing to fight for everyone and everything, no matter the cost or circumstance."
- ―An excerpt on Isabelle from Alexandra’s journal, 1937.
Due to losing her first child Louis at birth, Alexandra spent a lot of time with her only surviving child, Isabelle. She would teach Isabelle everything she needed to do to succeed in life, ranging from managing the family finances to keeping a house clean. Every Thursday since Robert’s passing, Alexandra and Isabelle would eat at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, a tradition they would keep up until her death in 1939.
Romantic Life[]
At the age of 29, Alexandra met and fell in love with Robert Louis Allard, a combat medic she had met while serving as a nurse at a military camp in London. Shortly after he was wounded on the battlefield, she met him after he was transported to London to recover. After the Great War, Alexandra and Robert would return to Paris and marry and settle down in the village of Vimy. She would give birth to twins in their home, a son they would name Louis Alexander, who was stillborn, and Isabelle Miranda, who would later go on to become a Mentor of the Parisian Assassins and follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Skills and Talents[]
Alexandra was an incredibly skilled Assassin, utilizing all the skills she learned during her training, strongly excelling in freerunning and infiltration and eavesdropping to gain information. When forced into combat, Alexandra excelled at it, using both her hidden blade and her kukri to get her out of most combat scenarios, and would use smoke bombs to escape if the odds weren’t in her favor.
In stealth scenarios, Alexandra would often utilize throwing knives for taking out long-range targets.
Alexandra was also praised for her ability to teach fellow Assassins new abilities and aspects of theory, which earned her praise from Abadie as his second in command. She also excelled at strategy. These were traits that Isabelle would also later adapt to her arsenal as a Master Assassin.
Trivia[]
- Alexandra’s looks and appearance were inspired by Canadian curler Laura Walker.
- Alexandra stood at 5’5.
- She would frequently wear her brown hair in a ponytail.
- Alexandra would only wear her hair down in photographs and paintings.
- Alexandra spoke more French than she did English.
- Politically, she was a staunch leftist, supporting the Russian Revolution in 1917.
- Her daughter Isabelle would name her son Alexandre, born in 1953, in honor of her mother.
- Alexandra was heavily into Shakespeare, citing Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Othello as her favorite plays.
- Alexandra was very critical of the Canadian Residential School system, much like other members of her family.