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Marco Polo is Netflix’s new sprawling historical adventure series. Click here for all of Decider’s coverage.

Marco Polo makes its big debut on Netflix this week. We’ve already laid out why the show is so high stakes, and we’ve already given you a quick primer on the history of Marco Polo, but we haven’t yet told you about the show’s characters. And there are a lot of them.

Whenever you jump into a new historic epic, you’ve got to contend with a complex court of character whom you may or may not have ever heard of. Family trees and character guides are a must. How else can one keep your Yorks straight from your Tudors or your Starks from your Lannisters? Marco Polo introduces us to the ruling house of the Mongolian empire, a Venetian trading family, and a pair of scheming siblings.

We’ve created this quick guide to who’s who in Marco Polo. We start with our young Venetian hero, and then we lay out the major players in Kublai Khan’s vast family tree, and end with the duo making moves to save the legacy of the Song Dynasty. You may want to bookmark this. CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE:

Season one of Marco Polo debuts on Netflix December 12.

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[Photo Credit: Netflix; Photo Illustration: Jaclyn Kessel]