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The only publicly available biography I managed to find on this man that doesn't just recite the Wikipedia article verbatim is in a 1904 book titled Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre (1100-1310) by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx. It's entirely in French, so I had to run it through Google Translate paragraph by paragraph to read it. If any of the information presented in this blurb is incorrect or inaccurately translated, I apologize, and I blame the French.

The internet seems to believe that Garnier de Nablus (or "Naplouse" as Delaville Le Roulx spells it) was born in 1147, but annoyingly refuses to provide a citation on this, so accept this factoid at your own risk. Given his name, we do at least know he hailed from the city of Nablus in what is today Palestine. It's possible he was of English stock, given his appointment as head of the Knights Hospitaller's English priory from 1185 to 1189 (a job which is usually delegated to a native speaker of the priory's respective language), but this isn't expressly documented anywhere, so we can't be sure. Before this, Garnier evidently had a shining career with the Knights. He was lord of their first fortress, Gibelin, from 1173 to 1175, then served twice as grand preceptor of the titular Hospital itself (first from 1176 to 1177, then from 1180 to 1184) before ultimately trading this gig to run the English priory as stated previously. It's during this chunk of his career that he left the Holy Land to administer Hospitaller affairs in London, and when he was made head of the French priory in 1189, he was relocated to Paris. Truly, this is the most miserable fate a man can endure, but he made the most of it, occupying his time building a house until suddenly, sometime between July 1189 and March 1190, he was informed that he had been elected as the Order's new Grand Master following the resignation of Armengol de Aspa.

Eager to put his new title to work by lifting the Siege of Acre, Garnier hopped on the fleet of King Richard the Lionheart alongside the future Grand Master of the Knights Templar: Robert de Sablé. By May 1191, Richard's men had stopped on the island of Cyprus, and Richard really didn't like the cut of the Byzantine Emperor's jib. Despite protests from the more level-headed Garnier, Richard conquered the island and sold it to the Templars for some quick cash. Emperor Isaac Komnenos himself had been captured by Richard, and was imprisoned under the watch of Garnier at the Hospitaller fortress of Margat. I can only imagine the two of them sitting awkwardly in a room together with Garnier constantly giving a sort of "look man it's out of my hands" expression. Eventually though, Isaac and Richard worked it all out, and the fleet was able to proceed onwards to the Holy Land. They arrived in Acre in June and lifted the siege by July, opening the way for Richard to make his march towards Jaffa.

By September 1191, Richard's army had reached Arsuf, where Saladin's army pinned him down. Despite heavy losses, Richard had commanded his forces not to advance unless he specifically signaled them with his horn. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the king refused to initiate the advance. This seriously freaked out Garnier, whose Knights Hospitaller were taking the brunt of the Ayyubid attack. The Grand Master pleaded with Richard to sound the signal, going so far as to proclaim that Christendom itself would perish if they lost here. Richard's only reply though was to caution Garnier that "no one can be everywhere at the same time", whatever the fuck that means. This clearly wasn't satisfactory enough for Garnier, and ultimately the Grand Master decided to take matters into his own hands. He himself led his Knights into a charge against Saladin's forces, and this initiative inspired the rest of Richard's army to advance against the wishes of their king. Despite being disobeyed, Richard was a steady mind who knew he wasn't about to change their minds, so he blew his horn, and made his own charge against the Ayyubids. The day was ultimately won, and this spectacular victory opened the way for Richard to march on the grand prize: Jerusalem.

Except… he didn't really want to. See, even though he basically had an open door to waltz straight through, Richard knew that it would be near impossible to hold the Holy City. While camped at Bayt Nuba during Christmas time, the Templars and Hospitallers pointed out to Richard that once they took Jerusalem, many of the Crusader leaders would just sort of dust off their hands and go home to manage affairs in Europe, leaving the Crusader garrison untenably insufficient to keep the city out of Saladin's hands. By January, Richard conceded to this point, and marched to Ascalon to plan a different tactic. He intended to sack the real beating heart of Saladin's state: Egypt, because while Jerusalem is great and all, there was realistically no way Saladin could let Egypt go unprotected, and the sultan would be forced to redirect his resources away from the Holy Land. This complete 180 in strategy seriously rubbed Richard's army the wrong way, though. In their eyes, Jerusalem was the whole point of coming out all this way, and it had been right there, literally within their sights, and so Richard had to deal with wave after wave of exhaustion and desertions.

Garnier, for his part, stayed alongside Richard over the course of the next year's indecisive skirmishes. In June 1192, a band of 200 Ayyubids ambushed Richard's army while on the road to Emmaus, but were repulsed by the combined efforts of the Hospitallers and the Templars. A certain Hospitaller named Robert of Bruges apparently led his contingent into battle against the orders of Garnier, and was reprimanded for his insubordination after the battle was won. I guess it's only cool when Garnier does it.

Having accomplished very little in changing any borders, Richard finally opened negotiations with Saladin after they squabbled again over Jaffa from July to August. While neither side came out feeling satisfied with the results of the treaty, they were really too damn tired to care at this point. Richard, feeling his business was concluded, returned to settle his affairs in Europe in October, while Saladin would succumb to a combination of mental health and gastrointestinal issues the following year. As for Garnier, he sort of drops out of the historical record after the incident at Emmaus, but we can infer he died on August 31, 1192, based on the dates on the Hospitaller list of English priors. While he is remembered as a brave individual and a loyal soldier, his military exploits left little time to do any actual governing for the Order's affairs, which probably could've compounded into much more grievous financial woes had his tenure as Grand Master had not been so short. The pencil-pushing was taken up by Geoffroy de Donjon, when he was elected to succeed Garnier as Grand Master in January 1193, leaving Garnier as a bit of a footnote in Crusader history despite his role in some of Richard's greatest victories. Such is life.

Design notes, I could only find two images of Garnier de Nablus that weren't Assassin's Creed screenshots, one of which clearly being based on the other. The older original is a headshot engraving from a 1726 book titled "Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem", which has a longer title, but sometimes even I can't be bothered, and it'll be the first thing that pops up if you search images of Garnier de Nablus. There's a more recent headshot in technicolor (surprisingly rare), from which I took the hair color. It's similar enough to the 1726 engraving that I'm assuming it was based on it, but the furthest provenance I was able to trace it to was German Wikipedia, so maybe I've simply been bamboozled. Relating more to this illustration itself, I'm kind of on the fence with how it came out. On the one hand, I think the design itself is good. Not my best, but I wasn't going for best. Something about the composition just feels off though. I can't tell if it's the proportions that're wonky or if that's just an illusion because I don't normally draw hoods this big and floppy. It'll come to me eventually… or it'll just fester and eat up space in my gray matter until the day I die and all my neurons are finally put out of their misery. You're doing a great job, little guys, sorry you got stuck on this ride with me.

Description
The only publicly available biography I managed to find on this man that doesn't just recite the Wikipedia article verbatim is in a 1904 book titled Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre (1100-1310) by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx. It's entirely in French, so I had to run it through Google Translate paragraph by paragraph to read it. If any of the information presented in this blurb is incorrect or inaccurately translated, I apologize, and I blame the French.

The internet seems to believe that Garnier de Nablus (or "Naplouse" as Delaville Le Roulx spells it) was born in 1147, but annoyingly refuses to provide a citation on this, so accept this factoid at your own risk. Given his name, we do at least know he hailed from the city of Nablus in what is today Palestine. It's possible he was of English stock, given his appointment as head of the Knights Hospitaller's English priory from 1185 to 1189 (a job which is usually delegated to a native speaker of the priory's respective language), but this isn't expressly documented anywhere, so we can't be sure. Before this, Garnier evidently had a shining career with the Knights. He was lord of their first fortress, Gibelin, from 1173 to 1175, then served twice as grand preceptor of the titular Hospital itself (first from 1176 to 1177, then from 1180 to 1184) before ultimately trading this gig to run the English priory as stated previously. It's during this chunk of his career that he left the Holy Land to administer Hospitaller affairs in London, and when he was made head of the French priory in 1189, he was relocated to Paris. Truly, this is the most miserable fate a man can endure, but he made the most of it, occupying his time building a house until suddenly, sometime between July 1189 and March 1190, he was informed that he had been elected as the Order's new Grand Master following the resignation of Armengol de Aspa.

Eager to put his new title to work by lifting the Siege of Acre, Garnier hopped on the fleet of King Richard the Lionheart alongside the future Grand Master of the Knights Templar: Robert de Sablé. By May 1191, Richard's men had stopped on the island of Cyprus, and Richard really didn't like the cut of the Byzantine Emperor's jib. Despite protests from the more level-headed Garnier, Richard conquered the island and sold it to the Templars for some quick cash. Emperor Isaac Komnenos himself had been captured by Richard, and was imprisoned under the watch of Garnier at the Hospitaller fortress of Margat. I can only imagine the two of them sitting awkwardly in a room together with Garnier constantly giving a sort of "look man it's out of my hands" expression. Eventually though, Isaac and Richard worked it all out, and the fleet was able to proceed onwards to the Holy Land. They arrived in Acre in June and lifted the siege by July, opening the way for Richard to make his march towards Jaffa.

By September 1191, Richard's army had reached Arsuf, where Saladin's army pinned him down. Despite heavy losses, Richard had commanded his forces not to advance unless he specifically signaled them with his horn. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the king refused to initiate the advance. This seriously freaked out Garnier, whose Knights Hospitaller were taking the brunt of the Ayyubid attack. The Grand Master pleaded with Richard to sound the signal, going so far as to proclaim that Christendom itself would perish if they lost here. Richard's only reply though was to caution Garnier that "no one can be everywhere at the same time", whatever the fuck that means. This clearly wasn't satisfactory enough for Garnier, and ultimately the Grand Master decided to take matters into his own hands. He himself led his Knights into a charge against Saladin's forces, and this initiative inspired the rest of Richard's army to advance against the wishes of their king. Despite being disobeyed, Richard was a steady mind who knew he wasn't about to change their minds, so he blew his horn, and made his own charge against the Ayyubids. The day was ultimately won, and this spectacular victory opened the way for Richard to march on the grand prize: Jerusalem.

Except… he didn't really want to. See, even though he basically had an open door to waltz straight through, Richard knew that it would be near impossible to hold the Holy City. While camped at Bayt Nuba during Christmas time, the Templars and Hospitallers pointed out to Richard that once they took Jerusalem, many of the Crusader leaders would just sort of dust off their hands and go home to manage affairs in Europe, leaving the Crusader garrison untenably insufficient to keep the city out of Saladin's hands. By January, Richard conceded to this point, and marched to Ascalon to plan a different tactic. He intended to sack the real beating heart of Saladin's state: Egypt, because while Jerusalem is great and all, there was realistically no way Saladin could let Egypt go unprotected, and the sultan would be forced to redirect his resources away from the Holy Land. This complete 180 in strategy seriously rubbed Richard's army the wrong way, though. In their eyes, Jerusalem was the whole point of coming out all this way, and it had been right there, literally within their sights, and so Richard had to deal with wave after wave of exhaustion and desertions.

Garnier, for his part, stayed alongside Richard over the course of the next year's indecisive skirmishes. In June 1192, a band of 200 Ayyubids ambushed Richard's army while on the road to Emmaus, but were repulsed by the combined efforts of the Hospitallers and the Templars. A certain Hospitaller named Robert of Bruges apparently led his contingent into battle against the orders of Garnier, and was reprimanded for his insubordination after the battle was won. I guess it's only cool when Garnier does it.

Having accomplished very little in changing any borders, Richard finally opened negotiations with Saladin after they squabbled again over Jaffa from July to August. While neither side came out feeling satisfied with the results of the treaty, they were really too damn tired to care at this point. Richard, feeling his business was concluded, returned to settle his affairs in Europe in October, while Saladin would succumb to a combination of mental health and gastrointestinal issues the following year. As for Garnier, he sort of drops out of the historical record after the incident at Emmaus, but we can infer he died on August 31, 1192, based on the dates on the Hospitaller list of English priors. While he is remembered as a brave individual and a loyal soldier, his military exploits left little time to do any actual governing for the Order's affairs, which probably could've compounded into much more grievous financial woes had his tenure as Grand Master had not been so short. The pencil-pushing was taken up by Geoffroy de Donjon, when he was elected to succeed Garnier as Grand Master in January 1193, leaving Garnier as a bit of a footnote in Crusader history despite his role in some of Richard's greatest victories. Such is life.

Design notes, I could only find two images of Garnier de Nablus that weren't Assassin's Creed screenshots, one of which clearly being based on the other. The older original is a headshot engraving from a 1726 book titled "Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem", which has a longer title, but sometimes even I can't be bothered, and it'll be the first thing that pops up if you search images of Garnier de Nablus. There's a more recent headshot in technicolor (surprisingly rare), from which I took the hair color. It's similar enough to the 1726 engraving that I'm assuming it was based on it, but the furthest provenance I was able to trace it to was German Wikipedia, so maybe I've simply been bamboozled. Relating more to this illustration itself, I'm kind of on the fence with how it came out. On the one hand, I think the design itself is good. Not my best, but I wasn't going for best. Something about the composition just feels off though. I can't tell if it's the proportions that're wonky or if that's just an illusion because I don't normally draw hoods this big and floppy. It'll come to me eventually… or it'll just fester and eat up space in my gray matter until the day I die and all my neurons are finally put out of their misery. You're doing a great job, little guys, sorry you got stuck on this ride with me.