Family sagas and succession plots share a problem that ordinary character lists hide. The interesting facts are not who exists but how people are connected, how sure anyone is about it, and how those connections change. A bastard son's claim, a secret second marriage, a title that passes three times in one book: each is a relationship or a fact that holds at one moment and not at another, and each is contested by someone.
A family tree for writers has to carry that doubt and that movement, or it is just a diagram you redraw every draft. Lokee draws the tree from the relationships already in your vault, lets you say how certain each line of descent is, and records marriages, deaths and inheritances at the moments they happen. This guide builds a three-generation family for an invented saga, follows it from an empty vault to the chapter where the secret comes out, and is clear about what the tree checks and what it leaves to you.
The family this guide builds
The Ashfords hold a minor title in the north. Lord Hugo Ashford and Lady Constance have two children, Edgar and Beatrice. Edgar is the heir. A stable hand, Tom Reed, is rumoured to be Edgar's son, and in the second half of the book a letter half-confirms it. Beatrice marries into the rival Delacroix family; her husband's own parentage is disputed by his cousins. Hugo dies in chapter 6, and the title passes.
That gives us every kind of line a saga needs: certain, alleged, disputed, and changing over time.
Why a family tree for writers starts with relationship roles
The Family Tree page has no data of its own. It draws every relationship whose type has a Family tree role, so the first step is in Settings → Structure → Relationship types. Edit each relationship type and set Family tree role:
- Parent: "the first entity is a parent of the second" (
parent_of). - Child: "the first is a child of the second", for vaults that record the link the other way round.
- Partner: marriages, betrothals, consorts.
- Sibling: brothers and sisters, when you want them linked directly.
- Other family: wards, foster children, sworn kin.
- Not on the family tree: everything else.
A type with a role shows a badge such as "Family tree · Parent" in the list. You can give several types the same role: married_to and betrothed_to can both be Partner, which keeps the distinction in the graph while both appear on the tree.
Decide this early. A saga with spouse_of, married_to and wife_of all meaning the same thing is easier to fix before there are two hundred relationships than after. A story bible that scales is about exactly that kind of early decision: types and fields settled before the cast grows.
Add relatives from the tree itself
Open Family Tree in the sidebar. If nothing appears yet, the page says so and points you to an entity's page. Once one family relationship exists, you can do the rest on the tree.
Right-click a person, or use the ⋯ on their card, to open the menu titled with their family, "Family of Edgar Ashford", with Add parent, Add child, Add partner, Add sibling, Other family relationship… and Open card.
Choosing Add child on Edgar opens "Add a child to Edgar Ashford". In Person, search for someone already in the vault or type a new name and choose Create with that name, picking the type under New, as. Relationship type lists the types with a matching role. Then Lokee offers the links that complete the family, already ticked:
- Adding a parent to someone who has exactly one parent offers Also the partner of that parent.
- Adding a child to someone with a partner offers Also the child of the partner.
- Adding a sibling offers Also the child of each of the person's parents.
- Adding a partner adds just that link.
Untick any that are wrong. That is the point for a saga: Tom Reed is Edgar's son, and not the child of Edgar's wife, so when you add him as Edgar's child, untick "Also the child of" her. If no relationship type has the needed role yet, the dialog says which role is missing and where to set it.
Edit a person's family in the side panel
Click a person on the tree to open the side panel, titled "Edgar Ashford — Family relationships". It lists each family relationship with an arrow for its direction, a type selector and a Lineage: selector, and offers + Add family relationship for links the quick-add menu does not cover. The same relationships are on the person's own page, under Relationships; editing either place edits the same record.
Certainty: Confirmed, Alleged, Unknown, Disputed
Every family relationship carries a lineage status, set with Lineage: in the side panel:
- Confirmed: the default, drawn as a solid line.
- Alleged: somebody says so. Tom Reed as Edgar's son, before the letter.
- Unknown: the link is recorded but nobody knows whether it holds.
- Disputed: contested by someone with a stake. Beatrice's husband's parentage, as his cousins tell it.
On the tree, every status other than Confirmed is drawn as a dashed line, and hovering the line shows which one ("lineage: alleged"; that tooltip is in English whichever language the app runs in). The dashes are the same for all three, so when the difference between alleged and disputed matters to the plot, hover or open the side panel.
Why bother? Because in a succession plot the status is the plot. A claim to the title rests on a line the reader sees as dashed, and the moment it turns solid is a turning point. Recording the status also keeps you honest in the manuscript: if the line is still Alleged, no character should speak of Tom as Edgar's acknowledged son.
The one warning the tree gives
Lokee checks family structure for one thing: a structurally impossible lineage, where following parents upward brings you back to the same person, someone who is, through some chain of links, their own ancestor. That person's card gets an amber marker whose title reads "structurally impossible lineage (own ancestor)". It almost always means a relationship recorded in the wrong direction, such as a Child-role type used as if it were Parent.
That is the only lineage check. Lokee does not compare ages, flag a parent younger than their child, or notice two people who are both siblings and partners. For ages, give your characters a birth date, a Date or Story date field, and compare them on the Timeline with the Field: filter; a calendar and timeline for an invented world shows how.
What the tree shows on each card
Each card leads with the person's photo, taken from the images on their entity card, or their initials in their type's colour. Couples sit side by side, joined by a line, and a line runs from its middle down to their children.
Two settings in Settings → Structure → Entity types add information under the name:
- Show on family tree on a field shows that field's value under the person. Up to three fields per entity type can be shown; titles, birth years and houses are typical.
- Family tree marker turns a field into a trait shown as percentage chips. Add options with + Add option, each with a label, one of ten symbols and a colour. On a person's card you then assign values with Add value…; adding a second value splits 100% evenly, and you adjust from there. The percentages must add up to 100% or less.
Markers suit sagas where descent itself carries meaning: elven blood, a royal line, a hereditary gift. They are entered by hand on each card. Lokee does not compute a child's share from the parents.
Keeping a large family readable
The tree's toolbar has the controls that keep a large family readable:
- Zoom in, Zoom out and Reset.
- ↓ Vertical or → Horizontal orientation.
- Generation spacing: Tight, Normal or Wide.
- Density: Compact or Spread.
- Photos, to switch portraits off.
- Collapse branch on a person, to fold away their descendants.
Drag cards to place them by hand; Lokee keeps your positions, and Reset layout clears them.
Views opens a list of the vault's separate families under Families, your own Custom views ("+ New custom view" with a name and a list of members, for example the Delacroix line only) and Center on entity…, which centres the tree on one person.
Marriages, deaths and inheritance over time
The tree shows relationships as they are now. A saga needs them as they were. That history lives on the entity pages and in the time model; see recording change instead of overwriting it for the basics.
A marriage begins at a moment. Put the wedding on the Timeline as a world point. Set Viewing to that point, open Beatrice's page and her Relationships tab, and use + Add a relationship that began here. Tick Still true now if the marriage still stands, so it is added to the current relationships as well.
A marriage ends at a moment. Viewing the point where it ends, use Ended here… on the relationship and record it. If you remove a relationship that has history at Current, Lokee asks whether to Keep it as history — it's over now or delete it with its history. Kept, it stops appearing on the tree but still shows at the moments where it existed.
Certainty changes at a moment. Viewing the point where the letter is found, use Lineage… on Tom's relationship to Edgar and record Confirmed. Before that point the line is Alleged; from it, Confirmed. Set the status at Current too, in the side panel, so the tree shows the line as it now stands.
A title passes at a moment. Give your character type a Title field. Hugo's Current value can stay as it was in his life; at the world point Hugo dies, use Record a change… beside Edgar's Title to make it Lord of Ashford. For a death that moves several things at once, a title, an estate, a ward, create a story event and record its effects together; planning plot with story events covers that.
To see the family as it was at any moment, set Viewing on an entity page or on the Graph. Reading your relationship graph to find plot holes shows how to read the graph at a past moment.
Keeping the line of succession readable
A succession plot is easier to write when the order of claims is visible, not worked out afresh in every chapter. Two small habits help.
First, give the type a Claim field ("Heir", "Second in line", "Pretender", "Renounced") and tick Show on family tree for it, next to Title. The tree then reads like a map of the contest: who holds, who waits, who disputes. Because the field is ordinary, every change to it can be recorded at the moment it happens, exactly like the title.
Second, record the claim and the lineage together. When the letter confirms Tom, his Claim changes at the same world point where his lineage becomes Confirmed. Set Viewing to the point just before and just after, or use Compare… on Tom's page, and the turn of the plot is one highlighted row. If the two drift apart, a claim recorded at chapter 12, a confirmation at chapter 14, you have found either a gap in the story or a scene you have not written yet.
The consistency check helps here as well: two different values for Claim recorded at the same point are listed as a Contradiction. Running a continuity check before every draft explains what to do with it.
Worked example: the Ashfords from an empty vault to the letter
Here is the whole family built in the order I would build it, so you can see how the pieces meet.
1. Roles. In Settings → Structure → Relationship types, parent_of gets the role Parent, married_to gets Partner. Two types are enough to start; sibling_of can wait, because siblings are implied by shared parents.
2. Fields. On the Character type, add Title and Claim as text fields, both with Show on family tree ticked, and Born as a Story date.
3. The first link. On Hugo's page, under Relationships, add parent_of → Edgar. Now Family Tree has something to draw.
4. The rest from the tree. On Edgar: Add parent → Constance; the dialog offers Also the partner of Hugo, which you keep ticked. Add sibling → Beatrice; it offers Also the child of Hugo and Constance, keep both. Add child → Tom Reed, created as a new Character; it offers Also the child of Edgar's wife, which you untick. In the side panel, set Tom's line to Alleged. Add partner on Beatrice → Armand Delacroix, created new. On Armand, Add parent → the elder Delacroix, and set that line to Disputed.
5. Titles and claims at Current. Hugo: Title = Lord of Ashford, Claim = Holds. Edgar: Claim = Heir. Tom: Claim = Rumoured.
6. Moments. On Timeline, add Hugo dies and The letter is found, in that order. Chapter 6 and chapter 15.
7. Chapter 6. At Hugo dies, Record a change… on Edgar's Title → Lord of Ashford and Claim → Holds. Hugo's Current values stay as they were; he is dead, not demoted.
8. Chapter 15. With Viewing at The letter is found, use Lineage… on Tom's relationship to Edgar and record Confirmed, and Record a change… on his Claim → Heir presumptive. Back at Current, set the lineage to Confirmed in the side panel so the tree draws the line solid.
9. Read it back. Compare… on Tom between Hugo dies and The letter is found shows two rows changed, lineage and claim, at the same point. Switch Viewing to Hugo dies on the Graph and Tom still hangs off Edgar by a dashed line. That is the book's secret, drawn.
Nine steps, and every one of them is ordinary vault data: relationships, fields, moments. Nothing lives only in the tree.
Common mistakes
Three types for one relationship. spouse_of, married_to and wife_of all set to Partner will draw, but the graph legend fills with synonyms and every later cleanup touches three types. Pick one, and keep a second only when it means something different (a betrothal, a consort without marriage).
Recording parents the wrong way round. A parent_of relationship entered from the child's side makes the child the parent. The tree draws it and nothing warns, until a loop appears and someone becomes their own ancestor. When the amber marker shows, look for a reversed link first.
Leaving the quick-add ticks on. Every bastard, ward and second marriage is a case where "Also the child of" is wrong. Read the ticks before you save.
Expecting the tree to change with Viewing. It shows the current relationships only. For "who was married to whom in chapter 3", use Viewing on the Graph or the entity page.
Storing the title in the person's name. "Lord Hugo Ashford" as a name means the title cannot pass. Put it in a field, show the field on the tree, and record the change at the moment it moves.
Confirming the lineage at Current only. Then every earlier moment also shows it confirmed, and the chapter where the letter lands has no turn. Record the change at the point, then set Current.
What Lokee doesn't do here
The tree does not know what a year is. It will not notice that Edgar was four when Tom was born, that Constance married at nine, or that a line is impossible for any reason other than a loop. Ages are a Timeline job, and even there you read them; Lokee does not compute them. It also does not run inheritance for you: no "eldest surviving legitimate son" rule, no automatic succession when someone dies. Each passing of a title is one recorded change you make on purpose, which is also what makes the contested ones easy to see.
In five minutes
- Settings → Structure → Relationship types: give one type the role Parent and one the role Partner.
- On any character's page, add one
parent_ofrelationship. - Open Family Tree and use Add parent, Add child and Add partner to build the rest.
- Set one line to Alleged in the side panel and watch it go dashed.
- Add a
Titlefield with Show on family tree and give it a value.
Exporting and sharing the tree
Export PNG saves the tree as an image. PNG is the only export format for the family tree. On the free cloud plan, exported images carry a small "Made with Lokee" mark; pricing lists which plans export without it.
The tree works the same in local and cloud vaults, and the Android app includes it for cloud vaults. For the reference behind each control, see Family Tree and Entities over time in the help. If your saga's cast is still scattered across files and notebooks, how to organize worldbuilding notes covers getting it into one vault before you start drawing lines.