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, Wammy's House began 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. In addition to these protective aliases, notable individuals who graduate from Wammy's House may be assigned a 'letter' by Watari, now by his successor, Roger Ruvie. Until the holder of that letter dies, they are understood to be recognized by the current L and as all that have connections to Wammy's House as having significant potential to positively affect the world, and work for its change. The letters closest to L (M and N) are often direct candidates for L's succession.

Information
The orphanage is first introduced in chapter 59 (shown briefly in the anime equivalent episode 26), when Roger Ruvie, a friend of Watari's and current head of Wammy's House, learned of his passing. At the end of the chapter, he also learns that 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,(but Near is nonchalant about the idea) Mello leaves the orphanage, heading off to America. Near and Matt later depart from the orphanage at some point during the five-year time skip, with Near eventually setting up the SPK, while Matt's whereabouts remain unknown in canon.

When Light Yagami learns of Wammy's House, 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 to catch Kira. However, they both die shortly before the finale, 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 (commonly known as "BB" or Beyond Birthday).

A and B are respectively referred to as being from the "first 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 as being the last students of the first generation, though no further information on them is given.

In L: Change the WorLd
At the end of L: Change the WorLd, L, with only two days left to live, brings the "Boy" to Wammy's House. He names the "Boy" as "Near" and then leaves him in the care of the orphanage. Note that in the movie version, it is not the same Near as in the manga and anime.

Characters related to the House

 * Watari - Quillsh Wammy,/W 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 (Read Another Note for more information).
 * Beyond Birthday (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 (Read Another Note for more information).


 * Near (N) - Nate River - 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) - Mihael Keehl - 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". He is killed by Kiyomi Takada (using a scrap of a Death Note page given to her by Light Yagami) after he kidnaps her with Matt’s help. Mello does this knowing it would probably lead to his death, but it was the only way to reveal Teru Mikami’s Death Note as a fake (Read Manga for more information).
 * Matt - Mail Jeevas, The third smartest student at Wammys. He is only shown at Wammy's in a flashback, and in his minor appearances in the manga, serving as Mello's cohort in espionage. During Kiyomi Takada's kidnapping, Matt is surrounded by her bodyguards and is shot to death. His letter is not ever stated, though there is a good chance that if Matt had been given a letter is would be J, as the letter is close to L and his last name also begins with J. Even though he is third smartest at Wammy's orphanage, he was not chosen as a successor.
 * 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 children that appeared in the "Detective Wars" bio-terror case with L.

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 colleague of L's that dies early on in L: Change The WorLd, while on a deadly rescue mission in Thailand.
 * D, P, Q, G, I, E - Shown on L's mailing list in L: Change The WorLd
 * R, V, T - Also shown on L's mailing list however their letters are grayed-out along with B's implying they were killed as well as Beyond Birthday (hence the B).

Trivia

 * Although Wammy's House is located in England, instead of them speaking English with subtitles in the Japanese version, they spoke Japanese anyway. Some people think that this is because it makes more sense in the English version than the Japanese version, although there are key parts expressed in the English version that made more sense in Japanese. (Example: Light reading aloud a simple sentence in English in High School to show his brilliance. In the English version, it just looked very simple and didn't make sense.) Others think it was because they needed money to do that and simply didn't have enough.


 * Technically, after L died, the purpose of Wammy's House had been diminished. Though there was no L to succeed, Wammy's House was continued for four years after his death.


 * After Roger became Near's Watari in Death Note, it was unclear who was running Wammy's House afterwards, or if it had still been there at all. Some people infer that Roger's successor became the new Wammy, others disagree and say that it had been burned down. Others think that Near sent a member of the SPK to watch over it, but nothing is clear.