Shay Patrick Cormac (born 1731) was a member of the Colonial Brotherhood of Assassins and later a Master Templar of the Colonial Rite, active during the mid-to-late 18th century. He is an ancestor of the 21st century Assassin Javier Mondragón.[2]
Born to Irish immigrants in New York City, Shay lost his parents at an early age and was brought into the Colonial Brotherhood by his childhood friend Liam O'Brien, where the two served under the Mentor Achilles Davenport.
In 1752, Shay became the captain of his own sloop-of-war, the Morrigan, and was tasked with the retrieval of two Isu artifacts from the Templars: a Precursor box and the Voynich manuscript. Shay was successful in his mission, which allowed the Assassins to learn the locations of several Isu temples. Sent to investigate one such site in Lisbon, Shay inadvertently triggered a massive earthquake when he removed the temple's artifact, leaving thousands dead or homeless.
Wracked with guilt and his faith in the Brotherhood shattered, Shay resolved to prevent the Assassins from finding more temples by stealing the Voynich manuscript. However, he was caught by his former comrades and fell into the ocean after being shot. The unconscious and wounded Shay was soon found and rescued by the Templar George Monro, who left him in the care of Barry and Cassidy Finnegan in New York.
Upon recovering, Shay met Monro and his fellow Templar Christopher Gist and began working with them to reclaim the Morrigan and bring down the city's Assassin-allied gangs. After Liam killed Monro in the aftermath of the Siege of Fort William Henry, Shay was inducted into the Templar Order, working with Grand Master Haytham Kenway to help the British Empire win the Seven Years' War and destroy the Colonial Assassins by hunting down his former comrades.
In 1760, a final confrontation in the Arctic left Liam dead, Achilles crippled and without followers, and the Voynich manuscript in the Templars' possession. Shay would then spend the next sixteen years searching for the Precursor box, eventually leading him to Versailles, France, where he killed the Assassin Charles Dorian and reclaimed the artifact in 1776.
In his later life, Shay continued to serve the Templar cause by searching for more Isu artifacts on the Order's behalf and trained both his son and grandson in the Templar ways.
