The Assassin’s Creed series of novels expand in the background of the Assassin’s Creed Video Game. The game’s premise is a continuing struggle between two groups, a war that has been going on for centuries. The Knights Templar have ambitions that encompass the whole of humanity, seeking an ancient secret that could give them control over each and every person on the Earth. The Assassin’s Order is a secret society that was created to stop the Knights Templar from realising their dreams. The game is set in current times with the protagonist, Desmond Miles, a bartender, as the modern descendant of a long lineage of Assassins. He experiences the memories of his ancestors through a device known as the animus. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood continues the story of one of Desmond’s prominent Assassin ancestors, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who lived in the Renaissance Italy of the early sixteenth century. The previous book, Assassin's Creed: Renaissance introduced Ezio and began his story. Ezio, who trains as an Assassin to seek revenge for the murder of his family, slowly realises the deep secrets buried within his family history. In the second book, Ezio comes into confrontation with one of the most powerful families in Italy, the Borgias. In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the once powerful Rome lies in ruins and the people live a life of misery, with the evil shadow of the Borgias dominating them all. Ezio is their only hope for deliverance. But Cesare Borgia is a man who is powerful and more dangerous than his father, the Pope. He has high ambitions and has no intention of letting anyone get in his way.