Alamut

The novel served as a primary inspiration for the original Assassin's Creed game, particularly regarding the organization of the Assassins and the famous maxim that nothing is true and everything is permitted.

While the book features the real historical figure Hasan-i Sabbah and the fortress of Alamut, it is a fictionalized, allegorical work that uses the 11th-century setting to explore the nature of totalitarianism and political manipulation as observed by the author in the 1930s.

Vladimir Bartol wrote the novel as a response to the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe, and he originally intended to dedicate the work to Benito Mussolini as a sarcastic commentary on the nature of dictatorial power.