Lineages

A dragon's lineage is a map of its bloodline. The lineage page can be found on a bred dragon's view page under its parents' names. However, the link to a caveborn dragon's lineage is not on its view page. It can only be reached by manually replacing the word "view" in the URL of the dragon's view page with "lineage". A dragon's lineage page will only hold up to 12 generations of dragons before the next generations are cut off. On the lineage page, the male dragon is shown above the female dragon, unlike on the dragon's view page. An example of a lineage page is on the right.

Many users enjoy planning out special lineages, while just as many do not care about lineages. There is a Breeding subforum on the Dragon Cave forum dedicated to special lineages. As there are many types of lineages, breeding terminology has evolved to help users better communicate what kind of lineage a dragon has.

As of May 21, 2016, the lineage view has been updated to take on a more "family tree" appearance as part of the many updates given on Dragon Cave's 10th birthday. Another small update was done on August 14, 2016, to include a generation counter at the top of the page.

Lineage types
CB - This dragon is caveborn; it was caught from the cave, not bred.

PB - This dragon is purebred; it only contains one breed in its lineage.

GB - This dragon is graveborn; one or more of its parents are gravestones.

Inbred/IB - A dragon shows up more than once in a lineage. There are inbred checkers on some Fan-sites.

Clean - The dragon is not inbred, but has no pattern, while still having a generally good appeal.

Messy - There is no specific pattern to the lineage.

Naming scheme - All the dragons in the lineage follow some sort of naming scheme.

Tinselfail/Tinselkin - This dragon is not a Tinsel, but one of its parents is a Tinsel. Example.

Shimmerfail/Shimmerkin - This dragon is not a Shimmer-scale, but one of its parents is a Shimmer.

Notable lineage types
SA Offspring - This dragon is descended from a Spriter's Alt.

Dorkface - This dragon is descended from Midas Dorkface and Shallyna'ar.

Thuwed - This dragon is descended from one of TJ09's dragons. Dorkwed - This dragon is descended from a Thuwed and a Dorkface parent. See the Dorkwed Breeding Projects on the forums for more details.

Lineage arrangements
Rainbow - The dragons are bred in such a manner that the colors in the lineage view resemble a rainbow.

Even-gen - All the CBs in this dragon's lineage line up. Example.

Checker - It is a type of even-gen where all the females are one breed and all the males are another. Some users consider a purebred even-gen a checker if it is made of a breed that is dimorphic, meaning it has a different sprite for the male and female dragons.

Mirror - It refers to an even-gen composed of two opposite checkers.

Gaia - It is a type of even-gen where all the CBs are a different breed.

Staircase/stairstep - All the bred dragons are one gender and all the CB dragons are the other gender. When the bred dragons are male, it is a descending staircase (like in example). When the bred dragons are female, it is an ascending staircase. Example.

Spiral - It is similar to a staircase, but the gender of the bred dragon and CB dragon alternate every generation.

2-breed - This is a type of staircase/spiral lineage. All the bred dragons are one breed while all the CBs are another.

Arrowhead - It is the resulting lineage from breeding an ascending staircase to a descending staircase. Depending on the genders of each staircase, the resulting lineage may be a regular arrowhead or a reverse arrowhead. Breeding two arrowheads together creates a double arrowhead lineage.