CorinaWrites

Hey, so, remember when I made that huge fictional family tree for the Black Dagger Brotherhood ? Well, there have been about seven books and a few e-book/novellas published since then. It was definitely time for an update to the Black Dagger Brotherhood family trees!

~Looking for a BDB character guide? Click here!~

The thing about that, though, is it was just a massive BEAST (yes, pun intended, I’m easily amused!) of a chart. It was hard to follow and you couldn’t view it easily since it was so damn big. It included all of the main characters from J.R. Ward’s book series The Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like:

(If you’re curious about the books, I highly encourage you to check them out! I’ve fallen in love with the characters, and being immersed in their world is my favorite escape. I’ve written more about my fondness for the series in my earlier post “Reasons To Read The Black Dagger Brotherhood (BDB) Books”.)

Here’s a master list of all the family trees, to be filled in with links as I get them published:

• Wrath, Beth, Darius, John Matthew, Xhex, Tohr, Wellsie, Autumn
• Phury, Zsadist, Bella, Rehvenge, Ehlena, Cormia
• Vishous, Jane, Payne, The Scribe Virgin, Lassiter, The Omega, Devina
• Butch, Marissa, Manny, Jo Early
• Rhage, Mary, Ruhn, Saxton
• Qhuinn, Blaylock, Laila, Xcor
• Murhder, Sarah, Nate
• Assail, Sola
• The Chosen
• The Trainee Class
• The Shadows and Selena
• Official BDB Brothers
• The Glymera
• The e-book characters (Dearest Ivie, Prisoner of Night, and The Story of Son)

I had a lot of fun with that first family tree, so I decided to take a more logical approach to my updated version. I’ve split them up across different families/bloodlines and connected characters. This means that I’m now working on a total of about fifteen charts, with a fair amount of overlap.

I’m publishing each as a separate post, because it will be way too much content to contain within just one. I made these all on LucidChart, btw. 

General Notes:

• When possible, I used line colors that reflect the bloodline colors listed in the books. Only a small number are officially listed, so anything unknown was left in dark gray.
• Wrath is basically related to everyone, and everyone is a cousin to everyone else. This is particularly true of the Brotherhood, Chosen, and Glymera. Lots of inbreeding among all of them, so if you ever wonder about the relationship of any two random characters, they’re probably cousins somehow.
• I haven’t included the legend chart, because I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. There are different colors for each species and sub-groups within the species, and all members of the BDB have black bars on their squares.
• For the purposes of this project I used the term “mated” to refer to any couples that are:
  • Officially, ceremonially mated (or wed, in the case of humans)
  • In love/each other’s Happily Ever After
  • Main characters and their love interests
• If I wasn’t positive about a mating, I didn’t specify what type of relationship it was. This is particularly true of a lot of the Brotherhood’s parents, who may or may not have been conceived according to traditions. If that is the case, the Brother (father) and Chosen (mother) would not be listed as “Mated”, because they were mainly together just to propagate. 
• Vampires are a patriarchal society (except for Shadows), and are formerly distinguished through their fathers and grandfathers. That’s why Wrath is currently introduced now as The King, Wrath, Son of Wrath, Sire of Wrath. It’s less confusing when they use different names for their offspring :) Anyway I kept the bloodline colors to match the patriarchal lines. Bella’s color is purple, for example, and Z’s is green. For their mating and offspring I used the color green.
• I wasn’t positive about the living or dead status for many characters. I tried to only designate them as dead/In The Fade when it has been confirmed in writing, however, I did draw a line. Even if you tend to live for a thousand years, the older generation is still going to die off eventually. So, generally speaking, I tended to show characters at least two generations back as dead. Also, members of the Brotherhood and the Chosen would likely be present now if they were still alive, so it is safe to assume that any former Brothers or their mothers/mates are no longer alive.
• Finally, I welcome any and all questions, suggestions, corrections, etc. There are so many intricate details here that some things are bound to be off, or change through the series, and so on. I would love for these to be a collaborative effort among fans!

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