Black Dagger Brotherhood Cheat Sheet (Part 2)

In anticipation of the release of Lover Mine by J. R. Ward, Decadence has updated the Black Dagger Brotherhood cheat sheets. The cheat sheets sum up what we know so far about the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Lover Mine is out in hardback (US) today and in paperback (UK, Australia) on May 6. For all BDB-related posts on Book Thingo, click here.

Black Dagger Brotherhood: Rhage, son of Tohrture

In the years immediately following his transition, Rhage was extremely cocky and went wherever his mood took him. He got drunk, did drugs, fought a lot, and had a nasty habit of sleeping with other males’ shellans. He became interested in a female who didn’t want him until he joined the Brotherhood, so he showed off his weapons and his gun went off in her hand, killing a barn owl.

The Scribe Virgin considered this a special offence as she loves birds and the barn owl is her own symbol, so to teach Rhage responsibility for his actions, she sentenced him to 200 years with the beast. If he lets his mood get out of control, the beast would break out of his body, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake and Rhage with a hell of a stomach ache.

Rhage learned to control the beast by regulating his moods with regular fighting and sex wherever he could get it. His Hollywood-perfect looks ensured he had no problems getting it and his exploits became legend, but inside he hated what he had to do and frequently worried that the beast would eat his brothers. To deal, he tried to keep things light and goofy, but this kept his brothers from recognising that he can be serious and is a male of worth.

While recovering one day from the beast’s visit, Rhage heard a lovely female voice and feels compelled to listen to it speak. He tracked down the human woman, Mary Luce, who was brought to the compound to interpret John Matthew’s sign language, and set up a date. He discovered that the lovely voice belonged to an unremarkable looking woman with warrior eyes and wanted to get to know this woman of quality who wasvso different from the one-nighters who just looked at his body or his Rolex.

His attachment to Mary brings out his responsible, selfless side. He decided to give up all the other females he had sex with and feeds from one of the Chosen in Mary’s presence. This, along with the sacrifice he made in taking punishment from the Brotherhood to keep her at the mansion, eventually wore down Mary’s determination to be strong and let Rhage go. (Mary had watched her mother die from cancer and later battled the disease herself. When Rhage learned that she has died and come back, his respect for her grew even more. He finally managed to convince her that he genuinely wanted her, regardless of her quiet looks. However, much to his frustration, she continued to hold him at arm’s length emotionally because her cancer had returned and didn’t want to have someone watch her die the way she watched her mother a few years earlier.)

When Mary found lessers at her vampire neighbour Bella’s house, Rhage dematerialised as soon as the sun went down and having Mary so close to the line of fire brought the beast out. The beast saved the day and Mary stroked it and thanked it for protecting her and distracted it from eating the Brothers. When she asked to have Rhage back, the beast receded because it wanted to please her as much as Rhage did. Being on the same page allowed Rhage and the beast to live together more harmoniously.

Mary’s doctor told her to put her affairs in order. To save her, Rhage made the ultimate sacrifice to the Scribe Virgin: he would keep the beast indefinitely and give Mary up—only he would remember her. But Mary appeared at the mansion and the Scribe Virgin explained that since Mary was unable to have children, she won’t force Mary to give up Rhage as well. Mary is allowed to live without ageing as long as she chooses, although the Scribe Virgin suspects that will only be as long as Rhage lives.

Rhage and Mary are looking at alternative methods of having kids, but Rhage refuses to do anything that requires him to actually inseminate another female.

Rhage’s beast is the only one who can remain standing after being hit by one of Lash’s fireballs, unless it’s fired at point blank range. Then the beast is knocked out cold. Unfortunately, the beast’s fire has no effect on Lash.

Reproduction and the Needing

The vampire population has a high infant mortality rate, and females face a high risk of death during pregnancy and delivery. Furthermore, females are only fertile every ten years.

The needing is a female’s fertile time. It happens five years after her transition and then every ten years after that. Her body becomes wracked with painful cravings that can only be relieved by full, penetrative sex with ejaculation (her orgasm alone just won’t ut it). The needing can also cause fights to break out among nearby males as they are programmed to respond to a female in her need.

For up to two days, the female needs constant sex and feeding. As Wrath points out in Dark Lover, the needing can wear a male down to complete exhaustion, but damn if any male has ever complained. How selfless of them.

For some reason, conception only works via the traditional method; IVF just isn’t successful.

But even after all that, conception still isn’t a certainty. But if it does happen, the pregnancy lasts for 18 months and delivery can be problematic for both the mother and young due to high incidences of blood loss, pre-eclampsia and stillbirth.

This post was originally published on April 26, 2009. Updates are shown in blue font.