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gallifreyinstituteforlearning · 1 month ago

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What are the Houses of Gallifrey?

This is quite a long post. Strap in; learning is fun.

House Structure and Servants

Gallifreyans are born into one of the Houses of Gallifrey. Each person is a 'cousin' of their House, which is led by a Kithriarch, typically chosen by the previous leader.

[left: a Drudge; right: the Doctor's personal avatroid, named Badger]

Sentient Houses: These ancient, sentient structures have furniture that sometimes needs training to behave and paintings that whisper at passersby. As if your Gallifreyan childhood wasn't already creepy enough.

Drudges: Massive humanoid servants controlled by the Housekeeper. They're made of non-living, wood-like material and help maintain the House and its inhabitants.

Avatroids: Robotic beings originally from the planet Ava, they were effectively enslaved by the Time Lords. They act as tutors, protectors and friends to individual children.

Looms: Each House has a Loom, which determines the genetic makeup of its cousins.

Housekeepers: These caretakers take vows to protect and maintain the House, using mirrors for surveillance. If they fail, their service ring will burn to ash.

Oldblood Houses

Oldblood Houses are the most traditional and resistant to change. Their cousins often only gain a second heart after their first regeneration, and some can be identified by small purple flecks in their eyes.

👑 House Rassilon (Prydon): Bearing the name of Gallifrey's most celebrated figure, this House's origins trace back to Castellan Fordfarding, when it was previously known as House of Fordfarding. With Rassilon's subsequent rise as a Gallifreyan hero, the family transformed into a Great House, and guess what happened next.

❤️ House Heartshaven (Prydon): Heartshaven was renowned for its exquisite vineyards and the coveted Hartshaven Wine, which it kept in a heavily reinforced wine cellar to protect it from earthquakes. In later years, it was abandoned and infested by pig rats for reasons unknown, but is the wine still there?

📚 House Lineacrux (Probably Prydon, possibly unaffiliated): Famed for its scholarly pursuits, Lineacrux is a bastion of Gallifreyan history and law, obsessed with stability and non-invention and filled with fuddy-duddys walking around pondering. Their loom makes the cousins have the appearance of extremely old and senile people; however, its members wield considerable influence, often serving as advisors within Gallifreyan society. They’ve been known to shy away from the limelight, not taking credit for their input.

🏞️ House Lungbarrow (Prydon): This House has had a - let's say - mixed history, and we're not blaming it all on the Doctor. It's located in the Southern Mountains on Mount Lung and overlooks the river Cadonflood. This House, with its members known as Lungbarrovians, was long a place of wealth and privilege. Then it wasn't. Let's just say it’s awkward.

💎 House Jadedreamers (Probably Patrex): This House has ties to the Sisterhood of Karn, embodying the House's mystical and elusive nature.

🏰 House Blyledge (Prydon or Cerulean): Not too much is known about Blyledge, though we know its dark, angular structure is surrounded by a walled garden of silver trees and sits on some random hill.

🔥 House Firebrand (?): Situated near Mount Cadon, Firebrand is believed to be extinct following the war between Lady Borusa and Lord Prydon.

💡House Goodlight (?): Goodlight was another House that fell during the War between Lady Borusa and Lord Prydon.

🔬 House Arpexia (Probably Arcal): The bastion of scientific fundamentalism on Gallifrey, Arpexia is renowned for its unwavering dedication to logic and doesn't like emotions. This House's innovative spirit has birthed countless experimental time travel capsules, intricate technologies and a bottomless armoury, though sometimes at the cost of stability. Their biggest rivals are House Xianthellipse.

🏛️ House Brightshore (Prydon, could be unaffiliated though): Known more for its political clout and opulent wealth than for the scholarly pursuits of its members, Brightshore has carved out a reputation for producing influential Prydonians. This House's hallmark is a sense of entitlement that sets its cousins apart, often marking them as figures of considerable influence within Gallifreyan society – completely intolerable, but with cash.

🪞 House Mirraflex (Probably Prydon): Originating from the valorous General Mirraflex, this House is a testament to military might and strategic acumen. Known for birthing generals, enforcers, and strategists, Mirraflex members wear their supercilious entitlement like armour, viewing lesser species with disdain. Their aggressive defence of the Laws of Time is legendary, as is their deep-seated xenophobia, particularly towards Newblood Houses like Xianthellipse.

🌌 House Stillhaven (Prydon): Stillhaven's Patriarch dared to defy the Ultimate Sanction, and as punishment, the cousins had their memories erased and were used in experiments. Praise Rassilon!

⚖️ House Jurisprudence (Probably Prydon): Little is known about this House, but some of Gallifrey's legal minds and inquisitors hail from here, making it possibly known for its dedication to law and order.

🛞House Artronides (Maybe Arcal): Likely the House of the great engineer Time Lord Artron. It also produced a notable Commander of the Chancellory Guard.

🌲 House Bluewood (?): This House's contributions to Gallifreyan society aren't very significant. One time, they had their interests represented by K9 in diplomatic discussions, which tells you all you need to know.

🎲 House Urquineath (?): Known for its insignificance as the 'maven House of inconsequence' and 'holder of naught'. The Hussar's gambling led to the House driving into bankruptcy and obscurity. By the era of the Last Great Time War, House Urquineath had vanished. Shocker.

❓House of Dellatrovellas (Probably Patrex): One of the oldest and most noble and privileged Houses.

❓House Warpsmith (?): Once again, Warpsmith was a House that fell during the War between Lady Borusa and Lord Prydon. No more information is known.

❓House Witforge (Patrex): Produced probably the most infamous leader of the Celestial Intervention Agency.

❓House Neutronides (?): No longer in existence, with the most prolific member being a cow farmer. Might be Drome affiliated but not even sure even to guess.

❓House Wetrix (?): Your guess is as good as mine, but it does exist.

❓House Wetstone (?): Again, it's a thing. It produced the minor character Norvid (sorry, Norvid).

Newblood Houses

Newbloods come from newer Gallifreyan Houses, born with two hearts and have better control over regeneration than Oldbloods. They're more open to time-active cultures, which Oldbloods see as overambitious. Newblood Houses are fewer in number, and their members tend to be a bit more eccentric.

🐺 House Dvora (Originally Patrex, now Prydon): The first of the Newblood houses and by far the most successful, it likely came out of the House of Heartshaven. Its cousins are very self-assured, extremely practical and like to remain impersonal. It has a strict power structure that works on the premise of a wolf pack with a pack leader.

🛸 House Lolita (Probably unaffiliated): Founded by the 101-form timeship Lolita during the early years of the Time War, initially consisting only of Lolita and reserved for her timeship children.

🌳 House Oakdown (Prydon): A highly respected Newblood House allied with the Prydon Chapter. Known for its noble status and estates on Mount Perdition, characterised by fields of red grass. However, legendarily produced The Master. Whoops.

👠 House Tracolix (Maybe Scendeles, probably not): Known for its ambition and adaptability, often exploiting societal changes. They love to follow fashion trends and are also noted to be arrogant and reckless, just like that preppy guy/gal you've spent your entire life avoiding.

🧬 House Xianthellipse (Maybe Arcal): Known for its expertise in biology and biodata. Their experiments with biodiversity and 'war forms' made them a key player during the war, despite earning the animosity of traditionalist Houses, and eventually becoming physically indistinguishable from monsters. Their rivalry with House Arpexia was notable.

🧪 House Meddhoran (Maybe Arcal): Meddhoran's members were known for their unique biodata, interwoven with traits from lesser races - an experiment by their parent House, Xianthellipse. This genetic gamble was considered to be a failure.

Oldblood/Newblood Unknown

These are Houses we can't be entirely sure of their status of old or newbloods.

❓House Hellfrost (?): A House that was totally devoted to Morbius.

❓House Duskeriall (Prydon or Mixed, likely Oldblood): All that's known is it produced one certifiably weak politician named Goth, and they liked doing experiments.

❓House Avarna (?): Absolutely nothing is known about this House.

❓House Gashani (?): Or this.

❓House Scarlet (Probably Prydon): Or even this.

Servitor and Caretaker Houses

The Plebeian Class, composed of Gallifreyans who aren't Time Lords, handle vital roles like guards, technicians, cooks, and musicians. They mostly live in the Capitol, with Mid Town bridging the Capitol and Low Town. These Houses are led by a Castellan (or Chatelaine, if female).

🏚️ House Catherion (?): Once a ruling house, House Catherion met a bloody end when a rogue babel massacred its cousins on one dark night. The event stopped further generations from being loomed, marking the House's decline into extinction.

🌄 House Ixion (Mixed): Situated at the edge of Gallifrey's civilised regions at the 'edge of the world', House Ixion's original family departed, leaving caretakers behind. Later, it became the base for the Order of the Weal, getting cousins from other houses who mainly served administrative roles. Rumours suggest it tampered with other Houses' Looms to produce mutants and renegades.

🍁 House Deeptree/Redlooms (Prydon): Deeptree/Redloom/whatever we're calling it these days is characterised by its servitor-class status, producing military. Known for its loyal yet maverick cousins, the house has a history of quelling Time Lord traitors and sharing tales of vampires with its children. Kinda suss, huh?

❓House of Everston (?): Yet another house with no details, all that's known is Romana was a custodian of it.

Not Recognised

These houses are not recognised by Gallifrey as existing, for various reasons.

😈 House Celestis (Unaffiliated): Originally the elite of the Celestial Intervention Agency, they transformed into conceptual entities beyond Gallifreyan biology in order to run away from a War. Sustained by belief, they fashioned themselves as deities, often appearing to lesser species in God-form and becoming amoral and somewhat intolerable in the process.

⌛ Faction Paradox (Unaffiliated): Faction Paradox, initially House Paradox, morphed from a Great House into a cult opposing Time Lord orthodoxy, engaging in temporal shenanigans and roping in lesser species. They deviated from Time Lord norms with their love for paradoxes and death rituals, leading to their eventual estrangement. I believe someone wrote a very long book about it. A splinter House from this is also House of the Seven Gables, which is literally just a man split into seven.

👤 House of Shadows (Unaffiliated): Rumours swirl around Gallifrey of clandestine House/s of Shadows, a place for those scarred by regeneration gone awry – incomplete transformations, insides turned out, or minds unaltered by new forms. The Black Nurseries might house the paradoxical youth trapped in perpetual childhood or monstrous forms within its rumoured walls. Despite modern Gallifreyan advancements (apparently) rendering such anomalies near extinct, whispers persist of the House's past and possibly concealed existence.

Other

🕰️ Nechronmancers (Originally Arcal, now unaffiliated): Nechronmancers are House of Arpexia dropouts, who challenge the very fabric of Time Lord society by denying the existence of time itself. They've renounced their names, genders, and pasts, they embrace a form of existence that defies conventional understanding. Their radical beliefs and practices make them social pariahs, yet their unique abilities to manipulate temporal states hint at powers beyond the grasp of ordinary Time Lords. However, it's not known whether this group formed their own House structure. They may also be related to Faction Paradox. Wild.

Whoniverse Facts for Friday by GIL

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