House Dvora

House Dvora (also known as the House of the Devouring Hounds) was one of the six ruling Great Houses during the War in Heaven.

The "Devouring Hounds" title referred to the controlled dominance of a pack leader rather than the wild savagery of the followers. Dvora was an "alpha male" house, its members icy, untouchable, and ironic, but able to feign any emotion. Among the Great Houses, Dvora was renowned for being practical, efficient, and unstoppable.

The House's most notorious members, the Imperator and the War King, both led precedent-setting Presidencies. They were products of flaws in the breeding-engines a thousand years before the War; after the Imperator crisis, Dvora was labelled a Newblood House (PROSE: The Book of the War) and its younger members were scattered around the Homeworld for their protection. Larissa was marched to the chapterhouse of House Ixion; (PROSE: Newtons Sleep) Romana grew up in the House of Heartshaven. She later called herself "inheritor of the House of Dvora". (AUDIO: Panacea)

Despite this setback, Dvora maintained its place as one of the ruling Houses, designing the world processor engines installed on Dronid after the fall of the renegade Presidency. One of its members acted as domestic security advisor to the head of the Presidency. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

During her escape from prison, Cousin Shuncucker burned down the secret minutes of House Dvora, which were kept in the records library's "Scarlet Chapterhouse" collection. (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories) The Prydonian Chapter was associated with the colour scarlet; (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Five Doctors) Romana, a member of Prydon, (PROSE: Shada, The Shadows of Avalon) once called herself "Inheritor of House Dvora". (AUDIO: Panacea) Her full name contained the word "dvora". (TV: The Ribos Operation)

Percy Shelley's dream-inspired 1819 poem The Mask of Anarchy originally contained a reference to Dvora:"I met Murder on the way -

He had a mask like Dvora -

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven blood-hounds followed him..."

- Percy Shelley's The Mask of Anarchy

The Book of the War commented that, since the translation of House names into English was imprecise, the pronunciation of "dev-or-ay", though non-standard, wasn't unreasonable. Shelley later replaced the apparent nonsense word with the name of his political opponent, the Viscount Castlereigh. (PROSE: The Book of the War)