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Robert de Sablé was a deplorable, repugnant, and hideous creature, but I've made enough jokes about the French, so let's instead go into what little we know about the actual biography of Robert de Sablé, 11th Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He was born in or around 1150 to Robert III, Lord of Sablé, a region in the County of Anjou. Despite being a relatively inconsequential corner of France, the lords of Sablé were known as a respected military family, and Robert was raised as such. The young Robert first started distinguishing himself from the thousands of other generic French noblemen NPCs in 1173, when Henry the Young King decided he was sick of being "the kid who will be King of England eventually", and rebelled to convince his father, King Henry II, to christen him "the kid who is King of England now". Robert lent his support to the Young King, but then the upstart royal died in 1183. At this point, Robert presumably pursed his lips, shrugged dramatically, and said "weeeeelp", because he almost immediately got to work licking the boot of the next heir to Henry II's throne: Richard the Lionheart. In fact, by the time Richard was crowned king in 1189, Robert had become one of his closest advisors. As such, when Richard set sail for the Holy Land in 1190 to get in on the whole Crusade fad that was sweeping the nation, Robert was hauled along for the ride.

Richard's fleet actually got scattered on their way down from Dartmouth by a storm that rolled in near the Bay of Biscay. I can only assume God was trying to tell them to knock off the whole killing your fellow People of the Book in your own sacred lands thing, but hey, why start listening to that hippie God now? Robert's segment of the fleet docked in Portugal, then ruled by King Sancho I. Sancho, though, was extremely displeased by this arrival, because apparently another segment of the Crusaders had arrived in Lisbon prior to Robert's, took one look around, said "eh, close enough", and started absolutely ransacking the place. This is an… uncomfortably common trope in the Crusades. Maybe this wasn't such a great fad afterall, guys. Robert, for his part, pinky promised not to be a total dick during his stay, and seemingly passed through into the Mediterranean without further incident. He and Richard finally arrived in the Holy Land in the summer of 1191.

While Richard got straight to work backing up Guy of Lusignan at the Siege of Acre, Robert found a clubhouse of his own to bum around in: the Knights Templar. By the time he had joined the Templars, he found them to actually be in quite the pickle. See, their last Grand Master, Gerard of Ridefort, had died in a battle back in 1189. For… some reason, this was an appalling shock to the Knights Templar, so much so that they had been delaying the election of a new Grand Master lest that new guy also die in battle. King Richard, ever the shrewd chessmaster, said "hey yo, have I got the guy for you!", or you know something less intelligible because it was in French. Probably persuaded by Richard's enormous jingling wallet, the Templars agreed to elect Robert, who had not even been a member of the organization for a year yet, as their next Grand Master. This meant that Richard could pretty much bully the Templars into doing whatever he wanted. Need to get some quick cash to go break all of Saladin's stuff? Why, just sell the freshly conquered island of Cyprus to the Templars! The 14 Templars stationed on Cyprus can't control the popular uprising? Ehh just take it back, we'll give it to Guy or something. He could use a kingdom of his own anyways, it'll make him happy.

Robert was more than just a walking bank account, however. He was legitimately a skilled warrior. He and his Templars were instrumental in securing Richard's legendary victory at the Battle of Arsuf in September 1191. While he didn't die in battle (at least not that I could find record of), this Templar Grand Master wasn't long for the world any more than Ridefort was. He died while stationed at Arsuf in 1193, and his properties back in Anjou were inherited by his daughter, Marguerite de Sablé. By that, I of course mean that they were inherited by her husband, William des Roches, because this is medieval Europe, and rule 70 of the Templar code clearly states that girls have cooties. Of course, that's how Abstergo wants you to think the story went. We all know that Robert de Sablé was actually cut down by the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad in a glorious altercation of running around in circles for ten minutes waiting for Altaïr's health to slowly regenerate because I lack the reflexes to smoothly transition between attacking and dodging like a real gamer.

Design notes, aaaaAAAAAAAA hello world, it's me, Ava. You may remember me from such projects as the DeviantArt page Avapithecus, or from your garbage bin. Yes, I was that raccoon, and no, I won't give it back. Well shucks, Ava, this piece looks a little messy. Looks like you lazily touched it up after a long week of work and chronic night terrors and just wanted to get on to hibernating straight through your two days off. You're rather observant, Voice of Crippling Mental Illness. I hate that about you, so in order to persuade myself it's not as blech as I perceive it to be, I'm going to mask my exhaustion with a thin veneer of humor while I explain my design process. There seem to be absolutely no historical depictions of Robert de Sablé. If they do exist, they've all been completely drowned out online by screenshots of Assassin's Creed. I love you, AC, but please get the hell out of the way so I can find references to design these people for the Drake Hero Universe. But okay, I decided to take that as a challenge and try to design my version as differently from the one in the game as possible. The first idea to come to mind was… hair XD Just giving him a nice set of luscious locks honestly that went a long way. As for his outfit, I based the colors off of the coat of arms which the internet loves to attribute to Robert. Are these historical? Where did they source this from? Who knows, there are some questions to which Man is not meant to know the answer to. But at least it's always consistent, so I decided to just roll with it. I kept the outfit itself relatively simple. I think in my head, I have this concept of Robert de Sablé as this big main character looming over the history of the Third Crusade, but that's really just because of AC. Finding information about the real Robert is like pulling teeth, so I decided it wasn't worth getting too creative or excessive with the design. Effort can be saved for people who have more than three paragraphs of copy-pasted information online, and for after I've had a pot of chili to clear out my seasonal allergies.

Description
Robert de Sablé was a deplorable, repugnant, and hideous creature, but I've made enough jokes about the French, so let's instead go into what little we know about the actual biography of Robert de Sablé, 11th Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He was born in or around 1150 to Robert III, Lord of Sablé, a region in the County of Anjou. Despite being a relatively inconsequential corner of France, the lords of Sablé were known as a respected military family, and Robert was raised as such. The young Robert first started distinguishing himself from the thousands of other generic French noblemen NPCs in 1173, when Henry the Young King decided he was sick of being "the kid who will be King of England eventually", and rebelled to convince his father, King Henry II, to christen him "the kid who is King of England now". Robert lent his support to the Young King, but then the upstart royal died in 1183. At this point, Robert presumably pursed his lips, shrugged dramatically, and said "weeeeelp", because he almost immediately got to work licking the boot of the next heir to Henry II's throne: Richard the Lionheart. In fact, by the time Richard was crowned king in 1189, Robert had become one of his closest advisors. As such, when Richard set sail for the Holy Land in 1190 to get in on the whole Crusade fad that was sweeping the nation, Robert was hauled along for the ride.

Richard's fleet actually got scattered on their way down from Dartmouth by a storm that rolled in near the Bay of Biscay. I can only assume God was trying to tell them to knock off the whole killing your fellow People of the Book in your own sacred lands thing, but hey, why start listening to that hippie God now? Robert's segment of the fleet docked in Portugal, then ruled by King Sancho I. Sancho, though, was extremely displeased by this arrival, because apparently another segment of the Crusaders had arrived in Lisbon prior to Robert's, took one look around, said "eh, close enough", and started absolutely ransacking the place. This is an… uncomfortably common trope in the Crusades. Maybe this wasn't such a great fad afterall, guys. Robert, for his part, pinky promised not to be a total dick during his stay, and seemingly passed through into the Mediterranean without further incident. He and Richard finally arrived in the Holy Land in the summer of 1191.

While Richard got straight to work backing up Guy of Lusignan at the Siege of Acre, Robert found a clubhouse of his own to bum around in: the Knights Templar. By the time he had joined the Templars, he found them to actually be in quite the pickle. See, their last Grand Master, Gerard of Ridefort, had died in a battle back in 1189. For… some reason, this was an appalling shock to the Knights Templar, so much so that they had been delaying the election of a new Grand Master lest that new guy also die in battle. King Richard, ever the shrewd chessmaster, said "hey yo, have I got the guy for you!", or you know something less intelligible because it was in French. Probably persuaded by Richard's enormous jingling wallet, the Templars agreed to elect Robert, who had not even been a member of the organization for a year yet, as their next Grand Master. This meant that Richard could pretty much bully the Templars into doing whatever he wanted. Need to get some quick cash to go break all of Saladin's stuff? Why, just sell the freshly conquered island of Cyprus to the Templars! The 14 Templars stationed on Cyprus can't control the popular uprising? Ehh just take it back, we'll give it to Guy or something. He could use a kingdom of his own anyways, it'll make him happy.

Robert was more than just a walking bank account, however. He was legitimately a skilled warrior. He and his Templars were instrumental in securing Richard's legendary victory at the Battle of Arsuf in September 1191. While he didn't die in battle (at least not that I could find record of), this Templar Grand Master wasn't long for the world any more than Ridefort was. He died while stationed at Arsuf in 1193, and his properties back in Anjou were inherited by his daughter, Marguerite de Sablé. By that, I of course mean that they were inherited by her husband, William des Roches, because this is medieval Europe, and rule 70 of the Templar code clearly states that girls have cooties. Of course, that's how Abstergo wants you to think the story went. We all know that Robert de Sablé was actually cut down by the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad in a glorious altercation of running around in circles for ten minutes waiting for Altaïr's health to slowly regenerate because I lack the reflexes to smoothly transition between attacking and dodging like a real gamer.

Design notes, aaaaAAAAAAAA hello world, it's me, Ava. You may remember me from such projects as the DeviantArt page Avapithecus, or from your garbage bin. Yes, I was that raccoon, and no, I won't give it back. Well shucks, Ava, this piece looks a little messy. Looks like you lazily touched it up after a long week of work and chronic night terrors and just wanted to get on to hibernating straight through your two days off. You're rather observant, Voice of Crippling Mental Illness. I hate that about you, so in order to persuade myself it's not as blech as I perceive it to be, I'm going to mask my exhaustion with a thin veneer of humor while I explain my design process. There seem to be absolutely no historical depictions of Robert de Sablé. If they do exist, they've all been completely drowned out online by screenshots of Assassin's Creed. I love you, AC, but please get the hell out of the way so I can find references to design these people for the Drake Hero Universe. But okay, I decided to take that as a challenge and try to design my version as differently from the one in the game as possible. The first idea to come to mind was… hair XD Just giving him a nice set of luscious locks honestly that went a long way. As for his outfit, I based the colors off of the coat of arms which the internet loves to attribute to Robert. Are these historical? Where did they source this from? Who knows, there are some questions to which Man is not meant to know the answer to. But at least it's always consistent, so I decided to just roll with it. I kept the outfit itself relatively simple. I think in my head, I have this concept of Robert de Sablé as this big main character looming over the history of the Third Crusade, but that's really just because of AC. Finding information about the real Robert is like pulling teeth, so I decided it wasn't worth getting too creative or excessive with the design. Effort can be saved for people who have more than three paragraphs of copy-pasted information online, and for after I've had a pot of chili to clear out my seasonal allergies.