The Wammy's House

Wammy's House (located in Winchester, England) is one of many orphanages established by Quillsh Wammy (aka Watari), founded after World War II, as a training facility for children with exceptional intelligence and skills. After the success of the detective L, the motive of the school was to raise children to be the successor to the original L. None of the children refer to (or know) each other by their real names, instead using aliases, mostly patterned after letters in the alphabet.

Information
The orphanage is first introduced in chapter 59 (shown briefly in the equivalent episode 26 of the anime), when Roger Ruvie, a friend of Watari's and current head of the House, has learned of his passing. At the end of the chapter, he also learns L is dead, and informs the two top students of the orphanage, Mello and Near. After learning of L's death and refusing to work with Near, Mello leaves the orphanage, heading off to America. Near and Matt later depart ftom the orphanage at some point during the five-year time skip, Near eventually setting up the SPK while Matt's whereabouts remain unknown in canon.

When Light Yagami learns of Wammy's, he sends Aizawa and Matsuda to investigate. As both L and Watari are dead, Roger tells the two detectives what he knows, including information on the two top successors.However, as even Roger did not know of their real names, and there were no photos left of them. The only evidence of their identities that the investigation team and Light had to go on were two portraits, drawn by a former student of the House named Linda, who had since become a professional artist. When Near and Mello finally meet again, Near gives Mello his only photo back and tells him that he has made sure that anyone who knew him at Wammy's would not divulge information about him.

Later in the series, Matt, having been contacted by Mello, joins up with Mello in the race of catching Kira. However, they both die shortly before the finale, as consequences of their plan to kidnap Kiyomi Takada. In the epilogue, Near is shown to have become the new L, with Roger in the role of Watari.

In the post-series oneshot, Near reveals that none of the children in the House ever saw L's face or directly spoke to him, only having heard him once through a monitor broadcast when he revealed his true reasoning behind being a detective. L favored Mello and Near as candidates, due to their refusal to question him and a "nasty look" in their eyes.

In Another Note
In the novel Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Case, Mello's recollection of Wammy's is somewhat different, as he attests to having known and met L, who told him of three cases he had worked on (The BB Case being one). The novel gives more insight into Wammy's, characterizing it as more of an institution that caused would-be successors to feel pressure to succeed L. The first child taken in at Wammy's after L, A, eventually committed suicide due to this pressure, while B (the next successor in line) ran away and later became a serial killer.

A and B are respectively referred to as being the "second generation" and "third generation" of L, while Mello and Near are described as being from the fourth generation. Three other Wammy's students (X, Y and Z) are briefly alluded to, though no information on them is given.

Characters related to the House

 * Watari- Quillsh Wammy, a famous inventor and philanthropist, founder of the orphanage, and assistant and mentor to L.
 * Roger Ruvie- A close friend of Wammy's, who took over control of the orphanage when he left. According to How To Read 13, he cannot stand children and prefers insects.
 * L Lawliet- The famous detective L, found by Wammy as a child and brought to the House. The goal of the House is to train a worthy successor to his title.
 * A - The first child that was in line to succeed L. Nothing is known about him, other than that he snapped and committed suicide.
 * Beyond Birthday/Backup/B - The second child in line to succeed L, who was born with Shinigami Eyes, giving him the ability to know when people would die. He eventually ran away from the House, becoming the serial killer behind the Los Angeles BB Case.
 * Near/N - The first in line out of the later Wammy's generation to succeed L, eventually taking on the mantle of L by the end of the series.
 * Mello/M - Second in line after Near, with an inferiority complex and resentment of Near and his own second position. He leaves the House behind, planning to live life "his own way".
 * Matt - The third successor of L, of which little is known about. He is only shown at Wammy's in a flashback, and in his minor appearances in the manga, serves as Mello's cohort in espionage.
 * Linda - A female student who is only shown once in the manga, when she attempts to get Near to come outside to play. She is referred to once more when Matsuda and Aizawa give her portraits of Mello and Near to Light. She is never shown or mentioned in the anime adaptation.
 * X, Y, and Z- Only briefly alluded to at the end of Another Note, they are referred to by Mello as three other children that L related stories to.

Various other children are depicted in both chapter 59 and the one-shot special's flashback, though none are given any names.

Film characters

 * K - A former student of Wammy's in L: Change The WorLd, who has become part of a bioterrorist organization which plans to "cleanse" the world of its excess population by a deadly virus.
 * F - A former Wammy's student and cohort of L's that dies early on in L: Change The World, while on a deadly rescue mission in Thailand.