Updated Updated April 8, 2008

     Okay a little background:

In January of 2007 I joined the eHarlequin 2007 10,000 Book Challenge and so began a new era... uh, never mind ~ I tend sometimes to get a little carried away.
     Ahem....
     During the challenge a number of us read J. R. Ward's, to date five, books comprising her Black Dagger Brotherhood hereafter to be known as "the Brothers".
There were a number of us that became enamoured of, and loved to chat about, the Brothers. And so, being the fans we were, we began calling ourselves the Sisterhood of the Brothers aka SOTB.
Then one of our members, ElleJay, contributed another idea for our group name Lusting After the Brotherhood aka LATB ~ which we do... most definitely ~ very appropriate name!!
You'll have to forgive us... we do, indeed, Lust after the Brothers and we've lost any kind of sense that we've ever laid claim to!



For those that are interested, I have listed here the 2007 members and any from 2008. If your name isn't on the list, please just let me know at k-kozakewich @ shaw. ca; just remove the spaces, or you can contact me through eHarlequin.com ~ on there I'm kalyko.


     For those who may not know, JR Ward has a bulletin board with a TON of information on individual Brothers, chats with and amongst the "cellies" ~ JR is our WARDen ~ as well as a lot of other excellent stuff. You can find it all here. This series to date is comprised of five books:



1. Dark Lover ~ Wrath and Beth 2. Lover Eternal ~ Rhage and Mary 3. Lover Awakened ~ Zsadist and Bella 4. Lover Revealed ~ Butch and Marissa 5. Lover Unbound ~ Vishous and Jane


In June of 2008, or thereabouts, the sixth book, Phury's story, will be released, followed approximately 6 months later (or so) by Rehvenge's story (Rehv is Bella's ~ Zsadist's Shellan ~ brother). After that the queue is pretty open... I think ~ very possibly the book after Rehv's will be Tohr's... one can only hope, yeah?? More info available on JR's bulletin board (link above). Other stories will be coming out in the future and will feature Tohrment / Tohr, John Matthew aka Tehrror, Payne (female warrior) and more. There is a listing on J.R. Ward's BB {link above}. There are also a group of pretrans** males in training as warriors: Warriors are males that are more than civilian males, but less than the brothers. John is in this group, but we all know that John is more than a warrior, don't we?? Some of his classmates ~ they are trained in martial arts as well as taking classes ~ are Blaylock, Qhuinn and Lash.

The Brotherhood consists of an elite group of vampire warriors. Yes, vampires. I know what you're thinking but these are not the vampires of fiction like Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm talking about the actual vampire race. And no, contrary to popular belief, humans can't be turned into vampires. Either you are a vampire or you aren't. Simple right? Well... not really. The thing is, vampires can breed with humans and it can get a little confusing because not all of the mixed breed children actually turn out to be vampires. And then there's the fact that vampires start off life just like humans. It's not until they reach about 25 that they go through the transition. That's when they become “vampire like”. You know the whole no sunlight, drinking blood thing. Oh, and about the blood drinking, no, they are not hanging out in dark alleys looking for human prey. Although they can drink our blood, they can't really live off it. They need to drink the blood of other vampires to survive and it's all consensual. Blood slaves are seriously frowned upon in this day and age. So anyway, back to the Brotherhood. The Brothers, who, by the way, are not all actually siblings, are a select group of highly trained warriors that are trying to protect vampires from the lessers. Those are the bad guys. The lessers are vampire slayers who are, or should I say, were humans who were de-souled by The Omega in exchange for immortality. You see, The Omega, who, by the way, is really quite evil, would like nothing more that to destroy the vampire race but, as he can't actually do it himself, he creates his lesser lackeys to do it for him. So the Brothers have dedicated their lives to trying to destroy The Lessening Society (that's the Order that the lessers belong to) and believe me, they've got their work cut out for them. But while they're trying to protect their race from being wiped out, they also have their own lives, loves, and issues to deal with and their stories are told by J.R. Ward in these books.



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the Black Dagger Brotherhood Wrath ~ King of the Vampires, last purebred vampire alive Rhage ~ cursed by Scribe Virgin with Beast, strongest Brother Zsadist ~ kidnapped as infant, used as blood slave for decades Phury ~ twin to Zsadist, once he hit transition began his search for Z Vishous ~ Seer, tattoos on left temple and left hand; hand is deadly Tohrment ~ (Tohr), leader of the Brothers upon Wrath's ascension Darius ~ deceased father of Wrath's shellan, also member of the princeps



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The creation of the Vampires of J.R. Ward's world "Legend has it that vampires were created by the Scribe Virgin as her one and only legacy, as her chosen children. The Omega resented her ability to generate life, and he despised the special powers she gave to the species. The Lessening Society was his defensive response. He uses humans because he is incapable of creation and because they are a readily available source of aggression.... As soon as the vampires recognized they were under siege, the strongest and most powerful males were weeded out. Trained to fight. Turned loose against the lessers. Those warriors were then bred to the strongest females over generations until a separate subspecies of vampires emerged. The most powerful of this class were indoctrinated into the Black Dagger Brotherhood." From pages 194 & 195 of J. R. Ward's Dark Lover



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Zsadist: my heart bled for him ~ he just went through sooooo much and to have a chance at happiness was wonderful. He finally found a reason to live and to thrive; which is far more than just survive which is what he has done for so long. Rhage: Okay Hollywood is gorgeous and even though he seems to have his act together, as we get to know him we realize that it is just that ~ an act. The Beast really has him chained in more ways than one. Wrath: I can understand why he'd want to drop out ~ in his mind, who ever did anything for him? And everyone wants him to be something that he doesn't want to be, or do. And to top it off, he loses a good friend. Butch: Man, he must feel like he came in the out door! Talk about falling down the white rabbit's hole; yet Butch makes a place for himself and for the first time, he has friends, real friends that take him as he is. That, for me, is probably key ~ he's finally got a place that he can call home. Vishous: Knowing his story is next has got me all atwitter! At the beginning I pretty much found him easy to put aside. Of all the Brothers, he seemed to have the least need to be part of the group; he certainly was the most alone guy. But as the books have progressed, I've seen so much pain that he hides from everyone; except maybe for Butch...I love the way those two connect! In some ways maybe it's because they've been alone among the solitary. Phury: Phury is, as Butch described, very metrosexual; along with his long, flowing multicoloured locks, he should have the women at his feet....nuh uh. Phury spent his first 100 years after transition searching for his stolen twin Zsadist, and has spent the last couple hundred years slowly dying inside because Z's so damaged. He's also decidedly celibate, likely in response to the loss of his twin?? Not to mention he also suffered the loss of the bottom half of his left leg while saving Zsadist. Hero anyone??



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First Family: King and Queen of the vampires and any children the Chosen: Female vampires who are bred to serve the Scribe Version princeps: Highest level of vampire aristocracy, second only to First Family & the Chosen glymera: the social core of the aristocracy (eg. similar to Regency England's ton) Black Dagger Brotherhood: members selected from warrior class of vampires, they must be nominated by the Brothers warriors: trained to protect civilians from lessers; numbers down due to centuries of falling population civilians: non-warriors of the Vampire society / community doggen: member of the servant class of the vampire society; they can go out in daytime, age faster than vampires with a lifespan of about 500 years. Taken from J.R. Ward's Glossary of Terms and Proper Nouns



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Kathy D found some information on J.R. Ward's BB and included it in one of her blog posts: I'm including it here, because there are some very interesting points made by J.R. Ward herself!


Here's some interesting tidbits from JRW herself: John Matthew is absolutely positively mute after his transition. The change doesn't effect the fact that he was born without vocal cords. Back in the Old Country, there were legions of soliders- fighters who were not Brothers by bloodline, but who were strong and lethal. During this time, the Brothers functioned both as fighters and as capos, leaders of these bands of solidiers (who incidentally lived in war camps.) With Wrath having ascended, and training started at the compound, the hope is that this battle infrastructure will be established once again: Brothers at the top, commanding units of soliders. Does this make sense? J.R.



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NOTES: ** Pretrans: Pre-transition applies to all vampires and is the stage of life before a vampire comes of age. When a vampire is pre-trans, they are undistinguishable from humans. Males, especially, have a very underdeveloped physique. They tend to be below average height and weight and don't have much physical strength. They are sexually unaware and unresponsive. As they near transition, and maybe before (?), they need mild, easy to digest foods. Transition occurs at around age 25, at which time both males and females, if they survive the experience, become fully vampire. Also some half-breeds will go through transition, but not all.

During transition they:

• go through a period of rapid growth, usually in about 24 to 48 hours
• develop fangs
• drink blood ~ but only from vampires of the opposite gender; without blood, they will die.
  
  After transition they:
  
• can no longer stand exposure to the sun
• are taller and bigger ~ their bodies change a LOT within a matter of hours, or less, and, especially in warriors, the growth is incredible. Muscle control basically has to be re-learned
• drink blood from opposite gender vampires
• have more acute senses
• can dematerialize