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LOOM TO TOMB
Life on Gallifrey


"What do you mean, you were bored?"
"Well, the Time Lords are an immensely civilized race. We can control our own environment, we can live forever, barring accidents, and we have the secret of space time travel."
"Well what's so wrong in all that?"
"Well we hardly ever use our great powers. We consent simply to observe and to gather knowledge."
"And that wasn't enough for you?"
- Zoe Heriot, the Doctor, James McCrimmon
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Great House Interior Novice
Interior of a Great House and a Gallifreyan Novice
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BRAINBUFFING

Every Gallifreyan is born into one of Rassilon’s ChapterHouses. Each House has a loomshed which holds its loom. This loom has a unique genetic core to loom its cousins. This creates a template that standardizes the abilities and blood of everyone loomling of that family.

A Gallifreyan begins their life as a cousin of of their House. The physical houses are sentient and the oldest living thing on the planet. The interior of a House and its furniture are designed to a massive scale to give newly loomed Gallifreyans a chance to feel like childrene. The artificially animated furniture needs to be house trained, otherwise it will tend to chase people around. The paintings whisper at passing cousins. The Druges are massive automated humanoid servants who can be found throughout the house.

After looming, childrene spend several decades undergoing brainbuffing both at home and at school. This is often supervised by a robotic avatroid. (Avatroids were originally from the world of Ava before being enslaved by the Time Lords.) Brainbuffing might also have involved Gallifreyan psychosurgeons. For the first 8 years of their life their extended family trains them in writing, culture, mathematics, and science. The Rhyme and Reason of Rassilon is required reading for a Time-Tot, and they are trained to use an abacus. There are quantum primers which allow one to near instantly telepathically access and comprehend desired information from a vast collection of books. A single primer can hold all 300 volumes of the Law of Rassilon. Their use by anyone over 70 is considered embarrassing, but they are quite popular with time-tots in the nurseries. By the end of this phase of brainbuffing their education surpasses that many human college students. Before they leave the nursery they will know which areas of space are empty of life and for how long they remained that way. Many Childeren recite prayers to the Time and her Sisters. While in the nursery, many learn to shuffle dangerous amounts of radiation out of their bodies by playing with Roentgen (or Rontgen) Bricks and Blocks. They spend almost all of their childhood learning to repress their impulses and focus on living a life of duty and obedience. For this reason, there are no playgrounds on modern Gallifrey. A common Gallfreyan toy is an onion doll. It is a small colorful ball shaped object which can be split in half with a twist to reveal a slightly larger different colored sphere on the inside. This can be opened to reveal another even larger ball. The user can continue to open each one, until the resulting balls are too large to be twisted open by a single person. Some childrene are allowed to play with stuffed rabbit-like toys. Novices at the wear long black and white gowns. Black and White robes appear to indicate Gallifreyans who are not currently allied with a particular Chapter.

Mythology Seal
The Seal of the Pythia?
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RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY

Old Times: The Order of the Pythia

Pythia
The Last Pythia

Old Time legends and Gallifreyan mythology states that the Universe was born from a sentient singularity called Eru or the Great Old One Azathoth. It was written that at the Big Bang the being split into 10 dimensions (though the Universe has 11 dimensions). After Event 0 the Mother Goddess used the Aurora Temporalis (Anvils of Heaven) to create and pour the dimension of Time itself into the void of the empty Universe. The seconds of Time were said to be created by the Temporal Phoenix that was imprisoned in a time loop by the Philesians.

The primary Gallifreyan gods worshiped by the original Shobogans during the Old Time are the Higher Eternals known as the Menti Celesti ('heavenly minds'). Pain, Death, and Time the primary gods, but Fate (also known as Osuda) is also known for her hallowed hand. Other deities include mystic virgin moon goddess Pazithi who's name adorns one of Gallifrey's moons. The Menti Celesti drove all of Gallifrey’s civilization.

The ratio 1 to 812 is key to understanding the 12 dimensional nature of quantum string theory. When the Shobogans discovered this ratio, most Shobogans saw it a conclusive proof of the existence of the Menti Celesti. But most agreed that the gods only observe and do not interfere. Still, in times of crisis, the Shobogans pray to the Menti Celesti for salvation. Gallifreyans have also been known to mention a Devil from time to time. Early in their history the Gallifreyans came to believe that if they killed all the evil people in the Universe then the good people who remained would become evil. Light can not exist without darkness. If evil were destroyed then good would vanish as well. Ancient Gallifreyans belive that Evil could be used to repel Evil.  

Homes have alcoved shrines, which are obscured by curtains with frames of woven wood and flowers. Votive gifts and offerings are placed on the ledge to gain favor with the Menti Celesti. It is traditional to make an offering to the Menti Celesti when good events come to pass.

At one point the Shobogans (like all other life in the cosmos) could live forever baring accidents. According to ancient fairytales, Death’s Messenger arrived on Gallifrey on Mount Perdition, and it was there that Presus fought the Messenger and gained the favor of the Goddess Time. This could refer to when the Kotturuh brought their gift of mortality to the Shobogans of Gallifrey. The ancient Shobogans referred to dying as facing the Ultimate. Modern Gallifreyan’s fear death even more than humans do. Reincarnation of these souls in the newborn was a common belief. But some believed the souls of the dead ended up in the sea and that you could hear them whispering. This could be the Hell referenced in Gallifreyan legends. 

In the Bright Past of Gallifrey the irrational force of Odic Energy was plentiful. Odic Energy made miraculous healing and acts of prophecy possible. Among the Shobogans the ability to see the future could be attained by certain women. These rare visionaries that developed there precognitive powers by staring into the Untempered Schism. Their minds became connected and nearly merged with the Astral Vortex. They could see the future of specific people, places, and species in amazing detail. Those women who spent too much time with their minds in the Vortex, became disconnected and catatonic. These wandering seers can be found traveling from town to town and traditionally subsist on a diet of fish tongues.

The greatest of the oracles was the exalted Pythia. The Constitution of the Gallifreyan Empire stated the Pythia was chosen by the Menti Celesti to rule all of Gallifrey's Shobogans. She was the Embodiment of Gallifrey itself and Guardian/Crown of the Gallifreyan Empire. She was also the symbol of the planet's fertility, Mouthpiece of the Gods, and Guardian of the Great Book of Future Legends. She had the title of Excellency (and possibly Majestrix as well). Amulets and talismen hung from golden chains on the Pythia’s robes. Throughout the Bright Past, a Pythia could expect a life of potentially hundreds of thousands of years. The Empire's Constitution required that the Pythia name a successor by placing their name in the Epiphany Scrolls of Soneuramos.

The Sisterhood of the Pythian Order work directly with and for the Pythia. Among their ranks a physician, a food taster, vot'resses, and adepts. These attendants wore rust red devotional vestments and most had the red hair of Individuals.

Sacrifices (to regain the favor of the Menti Celesti and for other purposes) were made on alters in the temple. Shobogans sometimes sacrifice their own people. Petitioners (most wanting miracles) had to wait in the temple courtyard for an audiance. An herbal knot garden could be found there. A copper sanctum gate leads to the inner temple, known as the Hall of the Gods. Religious-military imagery of the Time of Chaos included armored cherubs and decorative archways that don’t actually lead anywhere.  

Steps found in the adytum of the temple lead the Cavern of Prophecy. Dominating the chamber is deep fissure known as the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be. Legend states that constrictor snakes lived withing the Crevasse. The granite walls and ceilding of the sanctum are supported pillars. One of these is hollowed where the Pythia's bodyguard lies in wait to deal with threats. To see the future, a Pythia sits in a wicker cage in the Cavern, under the adytum of the Temple. She is suspended over the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be. At the signal, an Adept in the watch-place activates a control triggering the release of steam and bitter smoke that billows up out of the Crevasse and around the wicker cage. The smoky vapors from the Crevasse allow her to achieve the states of both clairvoyance and clairaudiance. 

Holy relics include the invisible armor of Troppolsabler, and the holy icons of the Bright Past. The Reliquary of Accession holds the Epiphany Scrolls of Soneuramos. These ancient sacraments were entrusted to the 217th Pythia in the sacred Firelake of Rag-Finish. But the most holy is the Great Book of Future Legends itself.  Its prophecies were taught in school and all the truly impressive victories for the Empire were foretold in its pages. The Amphisbaena was a terrible beast described in the Book. The Sisterhood tell tales of dangerous and powerful Boojums (eight-foot gray hair coverd humanoids with a bare Shobogan-like face) living on Mount Lung. But many Neo-Rationalists don’t believe them. 

Men are expected to wear fur coats
with deep hoods that obscure their faces when having when entering the Hall of the Gods for an audience with the Pythia. The Adepts say to a petitioner (who is granted an audience with the Pythia) “Clean let the hearts be of each Seeker.” The petitioner replies with “So shall we never doubt.”

There was a theory that stated that if all the magic of the universe became science and everything about everything was understood then all the science and technology of the universe would fail. The 254th Pythia declare that all technology should be abandoned (or maybe technological advances are forbidden). The Sisterhood was forbidden from using aircars. 

During the Time of Chaos, one of the Guardians declared an end to precognition, and this led to the death of the 508th Pythia and the collapse of the ancient order. The surviving attendants traveled to the world of Karn and reorganized themselves into the Sisterhood of the Flame under High Priestess Maren.

Since modern Gallifreyans are never born, never learn like children, and almost never die, their understanding of mythology and fairy-tales is limited. To them myths are only valuable as a way of symbolically teaching morals. It wasn't till millions of years after the creation of the Eye of Harmony that they finally invented post-modernism.

The ratio 1 to 812 is key to understanding the 12 dimensional nature of quantum string theory. In the Rassilon Era many Gallifreyans see this a conclusive proof of the existence of the old Gods. But just as many see it as conclusive proof that the gods could never have existed. Most Gallifreyans do believe that the ordered complexity of the universe points unquestionably to the existence of a creator. This creator's power takes the form of gravity when viewed from 3 dimensions. But (with the exception of some Shobogan cults) no Gallifreyans worship either Azathoth or the Mother Goddess, nor do they do call the creators "Gods." The Book of Rassilon is a Time Lord religious text that the Other might have helped write. It starts with the words "In the Beginning..."

The Menti Celesti are the most well known of the Gallifreyan Gods. The primary Gods are Pain, Death, and Time. But other gods include Light, Life, Fate, and Hope are included in the pantheon. The Time Lords believe these Gods to merely be Higher Eternals but, in reality, they are part of the essence of the Universe. The higher dimensions are filled with a background radiation of artron energy generated by every sapient life in history, and one of these realms is known as the dimension of Imagination. The Menti Celesti are non-corporeal abstract universal conceptual entities. Pain, Death, and Time, are thought to be the dreams of Time Lords which leak out into the cosmos. These conceptual Loa were brought into existence by the sapient beings who conceived of Death, and Time and the others as entities with their own will. It was said that Pain was the first and oldest of the gods. The Hond of the Dark Times are the sapient conceptual embodiment of Pain. The Gallifreyan Gods have the following colors attributed to them: red & black for Pain, white for Death, and a shifting gray color for Time.

The Eternal Death
The Higher Eternal Death

Its likely that Death's origin relates to collective trauma of the Kotturuh granting the 'gift' of mortality to all life in the Universe. A Gallifreyan fairy tale states that the drunken gods who were supposed to give the newborn Death her name, instead gave the name to someone else and then forgot the name. Angered by this failure, she now spends her time removing every mortal's name. Death serves as a gatekeeper between Null-Space and the afterlife (the City of the Saved??). The ancient symbol of Death is a red circle called a Regenerative Circle.

The Eternal Time
The Higher Eternal Time (taking on the form of the Doctor)
Time was said to be the youngest of the Menti Celesti. Before the first Time Lord existed, the Astral Vortex filled with a background radiation of artron energy generated by every sapient in history. Their observation and perception helped crystallize the History by collapsing the quantum probability waveform. While the Gallifreyans view the Great Time Line of History as high-order mathematical structures, these processes are complex enough to be regard as living beings. Indeed the theory that led to their comprehension of the Vortex is know as the Idea of Living Matter. The collective illusion it forms functions as the universe's subconscious, making the vortex a dimension of pure thought with a complexity that borders on sentience. Some Time Lords (and all members of Faction Paradox) view History itself as a sentient being or beings (sometimes called Loa). History is even capable of affecting the minds of a Time Lord. The Father of Time once indicated to the Doctor that he was the Timeless Child. 

Before being imprisoned on Atropos, Time ran wild and unstoppable. Time was erosion and destruction, and her mission was to erode Space.  While she was worshipped by the ancient Shobogans, Time was seen as evil by modern Gallifreyans. Time was sometimes depicted as a tall woman wearing a grey shall and carrying a two handled amphora. The outside of this jar depicts scampering dancing figures. It is filled with the dust of Time which she pours endlessly to ensure the passage of time. Time uses her flute to create a single timeless melody that encompasses multiple moods and goals based on who hears it. Time is also depicted as the Father of Time, in the form of an elderly robed man with a scythe.

Time is the source of the time force. The time force is another force in addition to electro-magnetic, weak/strong nuclear and gravity forces. The time force is known to be many times more powerful then gravity. The Time Lords' ability to control and manipulate the time force, allows the Eye of Harmony to actually alter the Web of Time.

While she was worshipped by Shobogans and even some Time Lords, in truth, Time had been captured and imprisoned by
Rassilon's Garda as part of the anchoring of history. She is held in the Temple of Atropos on the artificial world of Time. Given time's interest in weaponizing entropy against space and the Key to Time's importance at anchoring Time, its possible that Time's imprisonment was undertaken to prevent the heat death of the Universe.  Despite only being worshipped by about a quarter of the newer generations of Gallifreyans, Time secretly drove all of Time Lord civilization. While still imprisoned, Time was able to use a bootstrap pardox to create an avatar for her consciousness in the form of the granddaughter of an entity known as the Timewyrm and a human agent of the Time Lords named Chris Cwej. (Indeed, all bootstrap paradoxes are actually the work of Time herself.) Despite achieving a limited freedom, in the modern era, the goddess Time (like most of the goddesses) feels she has a responsibility to the people who worship her and she tries to live up to their expectations. She uses her champions to protect the history established by the Time Lords. This change of heart might be due to exposure to the Doctor and his involvement with finding her an avatar to live through.

These beings can control time, and fate. Like, all of the transcendental beings, the Eternals are bound by the Great and Ancient Covenants. But some focus on their own agendas Time Lords in nightmares or near-death states sometimes make deals with them, sometimes to become their Champions. Such Champions will be tested to see if they are worthy. By the time of the 1st Doctor, many Time Lords will see the Eternals as little more the legends. Despite this, about 25% of the population of Gallifrey still worship Death, Time, Pain, and the others. Many Childeren recite prayers to the Time and her Sisters. Prayer to the gods is usually conducted by individuals in a private setting.

The religious institution of Gallifrey originally included the Black Council of Cardinals, Time Priests, Time Monks, and Wardens of the Church - all led by the Supreme Pontiff of Time (the Time Pope). Shortly after the anchoring of the Eye of Harmony (several thousands of years before the Doctor) Gallifreyan law was changed so that Gallifreyan religious class no longer had access to Time Travel, Time Lord genetic benefits, and could not serve on the Supreme Council. The High Council had the monasteries dissolved. There was no violence involved in these reforms but the leaders of the church became little more than figure heads. The position of the Supreme Pontiff of Time and other lower ranking Cardinals remained, but they had no real powers. The position of Supreme Pontiff was finally abolished during the Doctor's exile to the Earth.

In the modern era, The philosophers of Gallifrey realize that all life relies on the death of others, and they have no answer for horror of that truth. As Lords of Time, many see themselves as being above conventional mortality. Indeed, most Time Lords consider notions of good and evil to outdated, archaic, redundant, or even incomprehensible. And sin is not a concept that can be found in Gallifreyan culture. Damaging History is about as close to evil as Gallifreyan culture gets. Other Gallifreyans (including the Doctor) believe in The Great Moral Dialectic. It states that as the physical Universes keeps expanding, the Moral Universe continually refines itself towards goodness to maintain balance with evil. According to Gallifreyan science, the only thing that can stand against entropy and random decay is Life. Reality leads to complexity, which leads to life, which leads to civilization, which leads to ethics. This will lead to the ultimate superiority of Good over Evil.

Time Lords have also been known to mention a Devil from time to time. The Time Lord mythology speaks of the Dark God Valdemar who was destroy by the Old Ones. The battle to achieve this took centuries and is regarded as the biggest war in Gallifreyan mythology. Following this all of the Old Ones vanished, and this is considered to be the 6th Greatest mystery in the history of the Universe. The phrase Old Ones describes any long dead aliens who had immense powers.

The Omniscate has been seen as an almost magical symbol for warding off evil and is placed on rooms and objects of great power. There is a Gallifreyan charm that, when stated, is supposed to bring good luck. Cats are a symbol of intelligence in Gallifreyan culture. The Owl is the symbol of Rassilon. The Bat is the symbol of the Vampires.

The number six is very important to Gallifreyan culture and is used in architecture, and numerous other aspects of life. While this idea probably relates to the Six-fold God or the 6 segments of the Key to Time, it was formalized by the founding of the 6 Chapters by the 6 great heroes of the Time of Legend. This number is reflected in their architecture, social structures, mythology, and art. Most Time Lords consider the six segments of the Key to Time to be a myth. The number 13 is important as well (stemming from the Fendahl being composed of 13 parts).

There are secret societies that worship Rassilon, Omega, and the Other. Worship of Omega is particularly popular. He is know as the God Ohm and his followers are the Adherents of Ohm. Academy undergraduates sometimes watch forbidden low-resolution thought-prints of the adventures of Omega that had been stolen from the Matrix by long dead cardinals and secretly passed down.  Some Gallifreyans believe that the Matrix controls Gallifrey. Some even believe it created the Gallifreyans so that it would have an origin. Some people believe that anything that can be imagined must exist otherwise you wouldn't be able to imagine it. There was a cult on Gallifrey that used Mimesis which is a form of theater in which whatever is written and performed can be manifested. Mimesis is a variation of Quantum Mnemonics. It was performed in the annual ritual of "The Thirteenth Night. The High Council had the cult banned.The Time Lords guard against magic and have files on everyone who claims to use it.

    The Story of Lady Patience: There is an ancient Time Lord legend which tells the story of a noble lady who ended up being named Patience. When what would become the River of Time was merely a small tributary that flowed down Mount Perdition. (This could be a reference to the initial limited perception of the Eye of Harmony?) The people of the Capitol had achieved great power, but they had severed their connection with the Past and the Future. (This is likely a reference to Gallifrey existing in Inner Time instead of Outer Space, which places the world outside of History itself.) The Time Lords’ society now hung in stasis. And the people were sterile. The Lady desired a child above other things. She searched the Capitol every night for a wizard or soothsayers who could give her a child, but all failed. On the hillsides of Mount Perdition the Lady found the Stranger, who was trying to expand Time’s Tributary into a property stream. He tells her to take his old bag and fill it with water from the Sea of Life. He claims that once it is full to the brim she will find the child she seeks. The Lady could sense the power of the sack. She tries to fill the bag but the water quickly runs out a hole in the bag. She tries numerous times. During this time the Stream of Time grows in size. She tried to patch the bag, but the patch keeps coming off as the brings the bag to shore – spilling the Water of Life on the shore. She does this over and over for months creating piles of discarded patches. The soaked patches dry, stiffening into cards, which depicted all of reality. These cards became known as the Paradoxica. She continued to spend every day trying to fill the bag, and every night she dealt the cards and read reality. She does this until the entire Sea of Life had been emptied and spilled upon the shore. At the bottom of the emptied sea was a child. The discovery of this child broke the curse and the people got back their past and future. (This almost sounds more like a re-framing of the story of Tecteun and the Timeless Child then it does a story about the member of House Blyledge that Doctor would name Patience.)
Paradoxica Cards: An ancient Time Lord device that appears to be a pack of cards. The cards function as something akin to a temporal spirit level that can chart the shape of reality. It seems possible that the Paradoxica deck is related to Faction Paradox in some way. So cards have powers of the past, others of the future, and others of the forever present. With the power of a TARDIS they can even be used as a transportation device. The cards are powerful enough to disorient the minds of even Time Lords, often causing amnesia. The lower the artron energy level of the subject the worse the effect. According to legend, these were created by Lady Patience.

There are also stories of infants being found beneath a gooseberry bushes at the bottom of Rassilon’s Garden.
There are also stories of the Great Gallifreyan Stork bringing a childe and stories of the Loom Fairy. Many Gallifreyan childeren believe in magic. There are nursery stories and rhymes from Lullabies for Time Tots by Benncuiq III. These told of Rassilon, and his Ring of Immortality and included The Nursery Rhyme of Rassilon's Tower which told of the Death Zone. Some Gallifreyan bedtime stories claim excessive time travel causes dementia and hallucinatory schizophrenia.

Their myths also speak of races of creatures that "wear the skins of men" (meaning aliens that look like Gallifreyans). Gallifreyan mythology has lots to say about the Daleks and the Klade including the fairytale The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Their are dark fairy tales of the immortal and indestructible evil Malador who was imprisoned by the ancients, but not before he created an indestructible army of Melkur. Childrene are told tales of the lost city of Altrazar on the world of Nirvana, which would appear in normal space once every thousand years. Gallifreyan folk-tales speak of Gallifreyans abandoned and “raised” by humans. These Gallifreyans are said to develop amazing abilities and are ruled by their extreme passions.

The Story of the Rock is an old Gallifreyan fairy-tale designed to train time-tots of the dangers of curiosity and interference. In the story, two Time Lords are traveling in very hot desert filled with sand dunes. They finds a massive cube made of red stone. Imprisoned against the rock is the Chained Man. He’s chained to the Rock with long rusty chains. The Chained man is starved and thin with yellow pointed teeth and long hair. He begs the Time Lords come and look at what is behind the rock. One of them walks around to the other side – much to the pleasure of the Chained Man. This Time Lord vanishes and the remaining Time Lord waits in the sand for a week trying to ignore the Chained Man who pleads with him to follow his friend. The first Time Lord never returns and the second one realizes he was right not to give in to his curiosity

Doctor-like figures can be found appearing throughout the myths and legends of Gallifrey.  He is considered to be something of an archetype by most, but some think he might be a Time Lord breaking the 3rd Law of Time to visit Gallifrey’s past. Others think he is some sort of shape-shifter or some sort of child-god.

 Could the Sea of Life be where the souls of deceased Gallifreyans are sometimes said to reside?  This would a bit of sense if the Sea was actually the Matrix which holds both the History of the (River of) Time and the minds the Gallifreyans who have passed on. The Gallifreyan Hell is a world of horror and pain from which there is no escape. Death might have served as a gatekeeper between Null-Space and the afterlife. Other Gallifreyan legends speak of a world in null-space called Nineveh where Gallifreyans go to die. This place is occupied the Watcher of Nineveh and is filled with ruined timeships. (It is likely that this legend refers to House and its never ending need to consume time capsules.) To avoid death, the minds (or souls) Gallifreyans are stored in the APC after death which is considered to be a form of heaven. The yellow six petaled Gallifreyan Flower of Remembrance (Memento Mori) is an omen for disaster. It is often scattered around Funerals and Tombings. There is a Gallifreyan word that is said [or rather thought] on the occasion of Death and Entombment of innocents.

Toclafane

The word Toclafane means bogeyman and is a general descriptor for numerous different mythical creatures. Legends and fairytales of various Toclafane (like Grandfather Paradox) are often told to childrene. Their role was to provide the horror necessary to get loomlings to behave. Like most toclafane, there are no records of Grandfather Paradox in the Matrix files.

  • Stories are told in the nurseries of Gallifrey about the Great Vampires. Some Gallifreyans believe that Rassilon was a Vampire. The Cult of Rassilon the Vampire even worship him and have been known to sacrifice Gallifreyans and try to infect themselves with the V-factor. Vampires still scare adult Time Lords, even in the modern era. The idea of Vampires in the Capitol is a particularly horrific thought. 
  • The Higher Evolutionaries known as the Parallel Sect were dimensional pioneers who could cross dimensions at will. They had symbiotic nuclei and were considered to be a myth on many worlds including Gallifrey. They were said to have created a web of all the parallel timelines.
  • Legends speak of the Ancients of the Universe. The Gallifreyans have stories about the Nameless City of the Archons that exist in the Great Desolation. The Archons are the last of the Great Old Ones. These tales were found in the Necronomicon.
  • Fairytales and legends include stories of Time Sprites. The stories claim that there is one Time Sprite caught in the heart of every TARDIS.
  • Blue Fire (aka Mi'en Kalarash) is an ancient Gallifreyan myth. The Blue Fire is a Great Old One made up of tiny slivers of incremental time that form a time magnet. It lives in the wasteland between realties. The Blue Fire stimulates a sleeping victim's limbic system and feeds on the artron energy generated by the resulting fear and nightmares. Blue Fire did horrible things during the Time of Night and the Time of Chaos (both occurred during the Old Times).
  • The myth of the Koltroxa tells of a being who was trapped drifting through time till her body aged to death.
  • There are songs about impossibly old Time Vortex Leeches taking control of timeships and forcing them to travel to the location of their crew’s lost lovers.
  • The Shakri nursery rhymes told of a powerful mythic species that served as pest controllers of the Universe, exterminating species that were viewed as being too dangerous before they could spread to other worlds. The Shakri were believed in the Tally, a time in the future when the cosmos would be perfectly balanced before everything ended. They lived in an adjacent dimension called Darkspace. From there they could reach all moments in time and space. They considered 7 to be a very important number and always traveled in groups of seven. Timetots were taught to never attract the Shakri's attention. These stories were designed to encourage young Gallifreyans to obey the rules.
  • Malador is near mythical bogeyman in Time Lord history. He had had his conscience removed and created the Melkurs. Malador was imprisoned by the Union of Traken.
  • The Watchmaker was the consort of one of Rassilon's generals. After the general was erased from history in a war with the Vondax, his consort traveled between dimensions trying to remove all temporal anomalies. In the early days of the Time Lords, she would appear, bringing death to many Gallifreyans who had been touched by paradox. She eventually became known as the mythological Watchmaker.
  • After a Civil War in the Capitol, the first Lady President of Gallifrey, Imperiatrix Pandora, was executed via D-Mat dispersal. On Gallifrey legends will claim that the soul of the Imperiatrix lives on as a ghost in the Vaults. On Earth the stories will tell of Pandora and the box she opened. Other legends speak of the greatest warrior in the universe (sometimes describe as a goblin) who fell from the heavens and tore the world apart until a good wizard locked it up in the Pandorica. In reality Pandora lives on in a partition in the Matrix which has an access point to the Matrix.
  • Sabjatric and Rungar were prisoners on Shada but some Gallifreyans believe that they were Gods of the Dark Time. Some Gallifreyans swear by Rungar. The Legends of Cuwirti, Ferisix, and Thrayke are important.
  • There are nursery stories and rhymes told of the Fendahl (and the Fendahleen), Zagreus, Salyavin, the Krafayis, the Weeping Angels,and the Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.
Untempered Schism
The Untempered Schism
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CHAPTER ACADEMY

The major fear of most seven year-old Gallifreyans is the events that will occur when the turn 8. Most (if not all) childrene are taken from their families at the age of 8 to an area outside the Capitol into the mountains of Solace or Solitude for their initiation. The Untempered Schism is found there, contained in a stone and metal ring about 20 feet in diameter. The Novices gaze into the gap in reality and stare at the raw power of the entire Space-Time Vortex and all of History. The schism floods their minds with all of time and space attune them to the Vortex and show them the vast responsibility of being a Time Lord. The painful exposure to this rip in the fabric of space and time is what gives Gallifreyans the incredible strength that they have for their size. The Schism also empowers their ability to regenerate.

Visionary
A Visionary

In theory, being confronted with eternity inspires the initiate, and many are. But some Novices some run away, a very few go mad, and an extremely small percentage runaway and go mad. This last category are known as Visionaries because they have had their minds merged with the Vortex and were opened to all of history. They see the biodata threads of destiny and can make prophecies of the future and alternate time. This includes incredibly accurate predictions about species, places, and individual people. Their connection with history grows as time goes by leaving most in a semi-catatonic state. Unfortunately their madness leaves most of them babbling incoherently for their entire life. For most of the Rassilon Era, these prophecies were ignored as babble and the subject's family would keep them quietly locked away in institutions like the Quantum of Solace. It wasn't till the Time War the the High Council revived these pre-Rassilon techniques of training these Seers and assigned each one a Minder.

Prydonian Arcalian Patrexian
Prydonian, Arcalian, and Patrexian Students
Gallifreyans who successfully survive the Untempered Schism are know as Time Tots (aka Time Toddlers) and are given the rank of Novice. The same year they face the Untempered Schism they are enrolled one of the 6 Academies of Learning. The Prydon Chapter has its own Academy and the Patrex Chapter has its own Academy as does each of the other Chapters. Schooling is segregated by ability based on test results. The initiate's personality and talents determine which Academy they are sent to. This is why most of the members of each chapter embody certain traits. Decision makers, plotters, and those with language talents are sent to Prydon Academy. Initiates with logical minds, a thirst for knowledge, and scientific or engineering talents and no firm political ideology are sent to the Arcal Academy. Potential artists, philosophers, archivists, and talented telepaths attend the Patrex Academy. Environmentally conscious Gallifreyans are sent to the Cerulean Academy. The Drome Academy accepts those Gallifreyans whose focus is on social democracy. The Scendeles Academy receives the remainder of the childeren.

In the Old Times, Shobogan children took their surnames from their mothers. But in the modern era, some (if not all) students receive a new official name while attending their Academy - probably after taking vows to their Chapter. All Gallifreyans receive single names, but some eccentrics later acquire multiple names. These names are usually very long, and near unpronounceable by most humans. They often includes their house's name. The long-form version of a Gallifreyan's name is written in Old High Gallifreyan. Time Lord names represent power, status, and beliefs. The length of a Time Lord's name grows as his social and political stature increase. It is traditional to abbreviate the name with a two syllable structure, like Spandrall, Hilred, Solis, Engin, Andred, Gomer, Savar, Rodan, Kelner, Nesbin, Ablif, Prestra, Jasko, Damon, Maxil, Talor, and Zorac. Though these shorter versions are only shared with people whom the Gallifreyan wishes to be friendly with. Other very popular names include Pandak, Pandad, Hedin, and Borusa, Meteor, Zenarck, Vortron, Golven, Dynamo, Dextive, and Moorid. They also receive a nickname using Greek letters that identifies them uniquely and relates to the location their mind will occupy in the Matrix, based off their physical and mental abilities. The closer to alpha their names is the greater their perceived abilities. These names are listed on the Academy Roll in a bronze Records Building.

Around the time of the Doctor's birth,
many Time Lords (especially renegades) began abandoning their given names using a process called Elective Semantectomy. Using temporal engineering, their name would be edited out of history and have it retroactively replaced with a title. In the case of renegades the Semanectomy used to prevent embarassement to their house of origin. This led to many Time Lords being known by titles rather then names. These titles are based on what they do
and how they do it. Traditionally, renegades have to leave Gallifrey and travel outer-space to find out who they are a choose their name.

the Time Academy
The Prydonian Academy

The Prydon Academy is located in Prydos City at the northern boarder of Southern Gallifrey. It sits at the base of the northern slopes of Mount Cadon (also known Mount Lung, Mount Plutarch, and Mount Rycadia) about 600 miles due south from the Capitol. Prydos is an old city built on an artificial mound in great plane. The city-complex lacks a dome and is open to the air. Most of the buildings are ebony colored and fortress-like, with glass towers and turrets along the top. Covered sky-bridges interconnect them. Perfectly groomed lawns filled with little blue flowers surround the buildings, with sand filled pathways leading between them. The fortress-like ebony buildings have glass turrets, which are accessed by covered sky-bridges. Imports from all over the galaxy (and from any point in time) can be found for sale at Prydos. Its streets are paved with mosaics which present the history of the city. The shops and stalls in the city of Prydos have foods from across the cosmos – even from the Earth and Venus. Concept shops in Prydos City sell ideas from across the cosmos. The academy takes up much of Prydos City and covers 28 square miles. The majority of the buildings are dormitories, lecture halls, gymnasiums, and eateries. Most buildings dedicated to the Time Academy are dimensionally transcendental. The Black Collection is stored at this Academy. The Black Collection is stored at this Academy and monks taking the mystic studies course spend a great deal of time meditating and learning dark secrets in the upper levels of its towers. Because this is Gallifrey's only Time Academy (the institution which bestows the title of Time Lord) it is annexed to Sector 6 of the Citadel using dimensional junctures, and most (if not all) of the Junior Cardinals and Time Lord Councilors teach at the Time Academy. Like the other 'academy' cities, Prydos is surrounded by basalt stone walls. The ground around every city's entrances are covered in gravel-like Sound Shingles which allow automated systems to detect people approaching the metal doors. Its students are forbidden from climbing mount Cadon.

The Arcalian Academy is in the city of Arcalia, and the Patrexi Academy is in the city of Patrexi. Like the other 'academy' cities, they are surrounded by basalt stone walls. The Lodge of the Patrexian Academy is located in the Capitol. It has a gate of solid light with a sphere of the first gold ever formed in the Universe (though it should be noted that most gold has no special value on Gallifrey).

All of the Academies have dormitories, lecture halls, TARDIS bays and scaphe ports.
They are all bordered by stone walls to keep the students from entering the outlands.

Gallifreyans are force-educated using Neural Training, which on high-intensity level, can teach someone to speak, read, write, count, and play an instrument in one hour. This probably includes drinking from bottles of Encyclopedia Gallifreya Volumes 1 through at least 11. The memory acids held in bottles burble telepathically when opened. Despite this, there are a number of major similarities between the Prydon Academy and the schools on Earth in the 20th century. Pens and paper are often used by students at the Academy. The Warders ensured that the students followed the rules. Passing grades were difficult to achieve and each grade could take years to reach. A-Star Excellent and A-Star Distinction/Insightful/Outstanding where the highest achievable grades.

In Infant School novices learn quantum mechanics which are considered by Gallifreyans to be synomous with poetry. Even the simplest geometry problem is solved using the first 5 dimensions. And their cartesian geometry, involves 26 dimensions. Despite all this, one should keep in mind that there are math problems so complex that even the Time Lords haven’t managed to solve them yet. While still Time Tots they read 4 dimensional pop-up books like Our Planet's Story and Every Gallifreyan Child's Pop-Up Book of Nasty Creatures From Other Dimensions. Some time-tots collected Omega themed merchandise, including yearbooks and cookbooks. They are taught to recite their 2337 times tables. They attend Temporal Protocol classes. They also study mind-shielding, thermodynamics, cybernetics, medecine, botany, and super-logic. They are also taught how to live and act in society and that all life is sacrosanct. The Vectors’ are an incredibly ancient organization whose model of justice is the most famous in the universe. Their polices are taught to young childeren on Gallifrey to teach them fairness and the value of carefully following procedures. The goal is to ensure Gallifreyans are dedicated to a obsessive work ethic of a life of service to Time, and to the Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.

Childrene play games that involve slowing their own heart till they appear dead. Some of the games the childrene play might involve extra-galactic space travel. At around 11 or 12 years old most Gallifreyans are given a two foot tall intelligent teddybear-like robot. This homunculus functioned as a playmate for the child.

The Prydon College's Time Academy is the only one that can grant the title of Time Lord – so all would-be Time Lords (regardless of chapter) have to attend it after graduating from their chapter’s academy. While, many Gallifreyans (such as future members of the Watch or Traffic Control) attend the Prydon Academy, but only a very select few are chosen to become Time Lords. Novices take the entrance examination for the Time Academy while still in brainbuffing. Failure was one of the major fears of every 7 year-old. If they are score is accepted then, after 12 years with their Chapter's Academy, they can be enrolled in the Prydon Time Academy. If they don't pass the examination then they remain at their Chapter's Academy. Students who remained at their chapter academy generally continue their studies and could spend decades reaching the 6th or even the 7th grade.

For information about the training, and powers of the Time Lord elite of Gallifrey see this page: Time Lord Training

Adult Gallifreyan
Adult Gallifreyan
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ADULTHOOD

Once out of school most Gallifreyans become bored and take up a hobby or begin working some sort of job to help the community. The Gallifreyans who left their academy after reaching the 5th Grade generally became media commentators, artists or aids for Cardinals, or even aids for Junior Time Lords. Passing the 6th grade opened up several job opportunities, including administration and maintenance of the Citadel, Space Traffic Controller, junior technicians, Temporal Nexus Point Observation researcher, lab assistant, or service in the Watch. Graduating from the 7th Grade was considered even more difficult and prestigious, but many Gallifreyans stop attending before that point. 

Gallifreyans are not considered legal adults until they reach their majority at 200 years old. A Gallifreyan who is almost 400 years old is a legal adult, but he will still be viewed as an adolescent by the elders until he can taste his own tongue. Gallifreyans sometimes experience a mid-life crisis around 800 to 1000 years old.  

Shobogans Outsiders
Shobogans and Outsiders
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SHOBOGANS AND OUTSIDERS

Shobogans was the term the Gallifreyans originally used for themselves before the discovery of regeneration. But over time the term Shobogan became slang for any Gallifreyan who rejected the traditions and culture of Rassilon’s Time Lords. These 'new age Time Lords' often live in Low Town and have their own form of writing. They were often blamed for vandalism. The term was sometimes more broadly applied to all working-class Gallifreyans. The Low Towners call Time Lords Timeys. While cases of racism between Time Lords and Gallifreyans do occur, racism based on skin color appears to be near inconceivable on modern Gallifrey.

Some Gallifreyans and even some Time Lords reject technology entirely and live in the wilderness of Outer Gallifrey's wildlands, hunting and growing their food. They are known as Outsiders or Outlers. Few people become Outsiders until after their first regeneration. Survival in wildlands is very difficult, as most Outsider choose to exist at a stone age and bronze age level of technology. Many live in yurts.

Gallifreyan Wedding Ritual
Gallifreyan Wedding Ritual?
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LOVE AND MARRIAGE

In the pre-Time War era there are between 3 and 9 million Gallifreyans. While Gallifreyans claim to be billions of years beyond sexism, the term Time Lord is still prefered to Time Lady. Only a little more then 10% of Gallifreyans are female and only about 1% of those that achieve the rank of Time Lord are female. In truth (because of their history), Gallifreyan culture tends to view the female gender as a symbol of the unlike and the outside.

The Curse of the Pythia rendered almost all Gallifreyans sterile. Though they are physically capable of sex, most have no real sex drive. Many, like the Doctor, live most of their lives in celibacy. Losing one's virginity makes it much more difficult (if not impossible) for Gallifreyan technology to read ancestral memories from the subjects biodata. While some Gallifreyans will enjoy erotic dancers, actual prostitution is very rare (though Low Town does support a few brothels). Most Gallifreyans have little compassion and have difficulty relating to each other on an emotional level.

Despite all this, some Gallifreyans do fall in love and some even undergo marriage. However they fall in love very slowly compared to short lived humans. 
Gallifreyan Marriages are almost always undertaken to maintain the power of the Chapters by strengthening the political power of the Houses involved. The bride (and possibly the groom) traditionally wears white robes and has her hair braided. There is at least one case where two Gallifreyans remained married through several regenerations. A Gallifreyan generation is 10,000 years. The Pythia's Curse fades in the pre-War era allowing natural reproduction to occur, and by the end of the Time War there are 2,470,000,000 children on Gallifrey.

Arcadia City Gallifreyan City
Gallifreyan City Gallifreyan City Gallifreyan City Gallifreyan City
The Second City of Arcadia and other Gallifreyan city-complexes
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GALLIFREYAN CITY-COMPLEXES

Below the Time Lords are the plebeian classes (non Time Lord) such as the Watch guards, technicians, artisans, cleaners, engineers, cooks, and musicians. Before the Time War there are only between 3 and 9 million Gallifreyans, most of which live in city-complexes other than the Capitol, scattered across the planet. Gallifreyan houses can be found on opposite sides of the planet. This small population leaves many ancient settlements and roads completely abandoned.

Gallifrey's Second City of Arcadia lies to the south-east of the Capitol in the Arcadian Sector within the Arcadian Desert. The Palace of Arcadia is one of the finest restaurants in Arcadia City. Gallifreys sometimes swear by this city. The Lowlands of Outer Gallifrey are separated from the Arcadian Desert by the Myridian Mountains and it would take well over two months to walk from the Capitol to Arcadia (so at least 900 miles). By the War Era it will have become Gallifrey's best protected city.

The Prydon Academy is located in Prydos City at the northern boarder of Southern Gallifrey. It sits at the base of the northern slopes of Mount Cadon (also known Mount Lung, Mount Plutarch, and Mount Rycadia) about 600 miles due south from the Capitol. Prydos is an old city built on an artificial mound in great plane. The city-complex lacks a dome and is open to the air. Most of the buildings are ebony colored and fortress-like, with glass towers and turrets along the top. Covered sky-bridges interconnect them. Perfectly groomed lawns filled with little blue flowers surround the buildings, with sand filled pathways leading between them. The fortress-like ebony buildings have glass turrets, which are accessed by covered sky-bridges. Imports from all over the galaxy (and from any point in time) can be found for sale at Prydos. Its streets are paved with mosaics which present the history of the city. The shops and stalls in the city of Prydos have foods from across the cosmos – even from the Earth and Venus. Concept shops in Prydos City sell ideas from across the cosmos. The academy takes up much of Prydos City and covers 28 square miles. The majority of the buildings are dormitories, lecture halls, gymnasiums, and eateries.

Prydos, Arcalia, and Patrexi are 'academy' cities surrounded by basalt stone walls. The ground around every city's entrances are covered in gravel-like Sound Shingles which allow automated systems to detect people approaching the metal doors. Olyesti is one of the Three Minute Cities in the East.

Some cities (like
the Capitol) have a low town where the society of poor that has formed in the foundations of the Capitol. 
The Gallifreyan elite refer to the New Age Time Lord dropouts who live in Low Town as Shobogans, while the low towners call Time Lords Timeys. The Shobogans are know for being trouble makers and vandals. They have their own form of writing, and often inscribe the words 'Bad Wolf' on walls and pavements.
Most Gallifreyans (and all Time Lords) never venture beyond the cities into the wilderness of the Outer Gallifrey. The exception were  those that wished reject the traditions and technology of the Time Lords and become Outsiders. During and after the Time War the number of Outsiders grew. Most turned to farming and some even sold their produce to the Time Lords in the Capitol.

Interior of Gallifreyan City Interior of Gallifreyan City Interior of Gallifreyan City
Corridors and Passageways of Gallifreyan City-Complex

The cities of Gallifrey are filled with spires, temples, and cathedrals, recreation centers, libraries, universities, and loungeariums. The tunnels and walkways that connect the different towers of a city-complex are known as cloisters. The ability to make structures dimensionally transcendent is used in most Time Lord buildings. Some of the computers on Gallifrey are the size of skyscrapers. Their buildings are opulently decorated with ionic columns, marble, and gold trim. Time Lord architecture has been described as 'High Technology' combined with 'High Gothic.' by some, but others feel it is closer to he human form known as Art Deco. In keeping with High Gothic traditons, most rooms on Gallifrey are, by human standards, deliberately under-lit. However the rooms of the Citadel are very well lit. The decor of the Capitol (and presumably the buildings in other cities) can be changed in the same way that a TARDIS’s desk-top theme can be changed. The walls of the living quarters can have their color changed by adjusting the contrast knob. Gallifreyan living quarters smell of incense.

Using block-transfer computation, massive, transcendental, buildings can be fabricated in place almost instantaneously. But the architectural plans and virtual model must be completely worked out beforehand.
Gallifreyan building materials are molecularly bonded, and plates have titanium rivets. The strong and ridged gravinium is the most common building material on Gallifrey. The valuable brass like Machenite is the finishing material of choice for the interior of important rooms. Lead is not a common building material and few on Gallifrey are trained in its manipulation. 

Gallifreyan furniture is kinetic and be re-arranged using a control panel. Many areas of the city are rigged with panoptics that observe and recored all activity. For this reason some areas are configured to project time bubbles that provide users with 5 micro-spans of total privacy. Gardens with carefully mowed grass are contained in their own glass domes.  

Transmat
Gallifreyan Power-Boosted Open-Ended Transmat

Gallifreyan Transmats use molecular disassembly to transmit matter, and can not transmit through lethal levels of ion flux. Augmented ultra long-range teleports have a maximum reach of 1 lightyear. Transmats can be used to reach individual Houses, but many Gallifreyans appear to prefer the underground trains to transmats. This might be because a transmat leaves a Time Lord's fingers tingling for about an hour, or it might be the ethical consideration of killing one's self every time one uses a transmat. The sub-surface transtube train carriages are used for transport from one city-complex to another on Gallifrey. They look a bit like Earth subways. The Gallifreyan unit of distance is consistently translated as miles.

While some Gallifreyans also use aircar skimmers to travel, they are considered by most to be obsolete. These skimmers are shaped like longboats with carved dragons in the back. They can fly and have sophisticated forcefields to protect the crew. They are computer controlled or an organic pilot can fly the ship from below decks. The golden sails can be deployed to absorb energy to power the ship. They almost certainly 'drive' on the left-hand side when encountering oncoming traffic. The streets are patrolled by automated street cleaning mechanisms. The idea of using an animal as a beast of burden is completely alien to modern Gallifreyan culture.

Interior of Gallifreyan City Interior of Gallifreyan City Interior of Gallifreyan City
A Garden and Lounges
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LIFE ON GALLIFREY

Old Times:

Pre-Rassilite Shobogans excelled at sorting through cat's cradles of interwoven lines. Such patterns were used to decorate virtually everything. Covered skimmersledges and hover cars were used for transportation. Fireplaces are common in well appointed houses. Religious-military imagery of the Time of Chaos included armored cherubs and decorative archways that don’t actually lead anywhere.

Samovars are used to make tea.
Ivory was used as a decoration. Liviahide is used by Shobogans like leather is used by humans. A nice book will be bound in Leviahide with a screen of quartz. Money was nessecary to acquire food and some Shobogans starved for the lack of it. Slavery of off-world species was common. Bubble Retinas are used to display holographic projections. 

Modern Gallifreyan society has almost no pain, suffering, or hardship and the citizens have no real unfullfilled desires. Most, if not all, Gallifreyans and Time Lords believe Gallifrey to be a just and fair society. And most prefer for someone else to handle all the big decisions so they can get on with their personal lives.

Pandaks (made of brass), pounds, guineas and even ancient depaks, dumplings and gold treazant coins are all used as currency. A guinea will buy you a few drinks in a bar. A few treazant coins could buy a slave during the Dark Times. Gallifrey has Inheritance Laws and Temporal Taxation and Gallifreyans are zero tax rated. However most uses of currency on Gallifrey appear to be completely symbolic and ritualistic. Many Gallifreyans don't actually understand how money works or what the orginal point of it is. For these reasons corperations judge Gallifrey to have a very low potential for commercial development. Even the unemployed have a standard of living greater then most beings in the cosmos. While there is no requirement to be employed, once out of school most Gallifreyans become bored and take up a hobby or begin working some sort of job to help the community. Each generation of Time Lords devise increasingly complicated traditions and rites to prevent the Gallifreyan people from realizing how boring life on Gallifrey is.

The APC Net (Amplified Panatropic Computer Network) is the essence of Gallifrey and its culture and acts as a repository of all the knowledge and history of Gallifrey. The fact that both Gallifrey's network, and the Matrix are panatropic computer networks has caused some confusion. But the Matrix of Time is only a small part of Gallifrey's planet wide APC Network. Some of the computers on Gallifrey are the size of skyscrapers. All Time Lords and Academy Students are guaranteed access to the APC Net. Retina interface technology and retina-screens have virtually replaced all but the most basic manual keyboard interfaces A standard Gallifreyan keyboard has 723 letter keys, and 13 numeric keys across the top. Powerful and complex systems (such as TARDISes) use telepathy to label the readouts and controls. Only Time Lords can sense the Telepathic Holograms.Gallifreyan technology is often telepathically operated, and a user needs access to a thought channel to interact with a given device.  Gallifreyan Thought Programs allow one to operate, alter, and program devices using one’s mind. They can be used on Time Rings and sonic screwdrivers, eliminating the need for complicated controls. Memory wafers (like those used in K-9 Mark II) are one of the most common computer elements in Gallifrey technology. On Gallifrey they are easy to purchase in bulk. Gallifreyans use datacube info-stamps when they need to physically transport information. These memory banks store the energy of perception and memories (aka artron energy) in high enough densities to be lethal if improperly discharged. Lesser species could find exposure to such memories would override their own personal memories. Some Time Lord technology uses lime-green chronomium for their memory cores. Many examples of Time Lord technology have circuits with a internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop. This temporal technology allows the circuit to send back responses just before the input signal first triggers the circuit. Such circuits emit a ‘shimmer’ of chronons as a side effect. Gallifreyan technology is often powered by Neutron Batteries held in Zybanium Cradles. Vidilinks provide video and audio communications across the planet. A fusion booster is an advanced peice of Gallifreyan technology that can convert large amounts of anti-matter into matter without disrupting its structure and nature. It needs a high pressure water source to fuel it. Sonic baffles are used to make even very noisy machines silent.

Zilika is one of the elements on the Gallifreyan Periodic Table. The Doctor (and Gallifreyans in general?) often organize their belongings alphabetically by name. Some Time Lords have storage cabinets that use TARDIS technology simply to provide access to a vast number of storage rooms. Such storage devices have many of the same systems as a TARDIS, such as chameleon circuits. But there are no drive systems. The lack of drive systems makes these capsules much more difficult to detect then a Time Travel Capsule. 

Many of the most
advanced and important pieces of Gallifreyan technology and computer index files are protected by a bio-morphic shield that requires the user to have the correct Time Lord biodata to access and operate them. Most of the steel doors and even many TARDIS systems rely on Gallifreyan retinal scans to prime/activated them. All of these retina prints are controlled by the APC which holds the Retina Master Print. Important security systems are protected with ultra-locks which can be dead locked, and some of their security systems are telepathically based. Given enough time, a Gallifreyan lock-burn can breach and pretty much any door on the planet.

Machines take care of virtually every need. While modern warp matrix engineering is relied upon for most temporal and spatial manipulation, Gallifreyan material fabricators and synthetic clothing dispensers still use tachyonic re-creation generators. These generators recreate physical materials using tachyons. There are robeing rooms filled with rails and racks of clothes but even Time Lords think its excessive to have an entire room devoted to the storage of only hats. These wardrobes have been described as wibbly-wobbly as they allow the user, from an outsider's perspective, to change their clothes instantly. Dresser servants are trained to match the robes fit any occasion. Gallifreyan transdimensional pockets appear to be able to be linked together so that something placed in one pocket can be accessed from a different pocket in a different garment. Fashions only change every few millennia and robes are, by far, the most common form of dress on Gallifrey. A large number of layers of clothing and the brightness of colors of the fabrics seems to be indicated of high status on Gallifrey. Lower class Gallifreyans might even see a lack of such layers and colors as being a sign of comraderie. Almost all Gallifreyans wear Video Communicators, either on a wrist band or attached to the back of their glove. By the end of the Time War some Gallifreyans will regularly wear very long scarves. A Gallifreyan Laundro-Demat dematerializes anything put inside down to its component molecules, removes dirt, repairs, scents, and reassembles it as unwrinkled clothing.

They have showers that alternate with pulses of water and muscle oil, that refresh the body as well as cleans it.
Gallifreyan showers can also emit universal clensing light, which is more effective at cleaning then water and better for the skin. Automatic devices can both shave the face and trim one's hair.

Gallifreyans dislike robots, considering them primitive. 
Despite this, city-complexes are patrolled by cleaning machines and automated street cleaning mechanisms. Most of the dust that settles in the capitol is made of mica. 

Mindbending Painting Stasis Cube
Mindbending apparatus and Painting Stasis Cube
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RECREATION

Death Zone
The Death Zone

Old Times: The Games of Death

The Games of Death forced aliens from across time and space to fight each other to survive. The species from the two ends of eternity fight in one giant paradox. The survivors who reached the Dark Tower would gain their freedom. The Death Zone (or Forbidden Zone) is created in a pentagon shaped valley in the southern hemisphere as an arena for the Games. The Death Zone is about the size of North Wales and is surrounded by a powerful forcefield that can trap even a TARDIS. The games are considered holy and serve as an outlet for the stresses of the telepathic group mind of Gallifreyans. The Games are constantly going on and the Gallifreyans watch them on their Public Access Channels. The Jagdagian Circus is something Shobogans attend for entertainment.

While Southern Gallifrey has been regarded as something of a vacation area, Time Lords were not encouraged to expose themselves to extreme climates or partake in extreme sports. Indeed running was viewed as conduct unbecoming of a Time Lord. The only know accepted sport was zero-grav hyperball, which used balls and rackets.

Time Lords appear to enjoy isolating themselves from the ambient complexity of Gallifreyan life, and most Gallifreyans prefer to use Sensory Tanks like those found in the Quantum of Solace. The oxygenated liquid the subject is immersed in sooths away all stress and worries and induces dreams that fulfill the user's deepest and most wonderful virtual reality fantasies. While floating in the fetal position a Gallifrey can experiance exotic sensory replications include speed-skating on the frozen moons of Plattos or climbing the sulfurous active volcanoes of Ignos. The water is imbued with oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, dopamine, and protein chains (which contains the intelligence of the Sensory Chamber). The chambers use timers to awaken the user, though a switch inside the chamber can also be used to deactivate the chamber. A Director of Calm oversees operations. Other Gallifreyans prefer the more complete relaxation of retreating to zero environments.

Media entertainment holovids are provided by Public Register Video and Public Access Television, which is is viewed on plasma image media-screens. They can also be viewed in 5-dimensional cinemas. Public Register Video covers all major ceremonies and traditional events. There are over 87,656,432 Public Access Media Services channels. There is a Presidential Bulletin issued every day with all the news about Capitol. The Observatories provides official reports of what has happens throughout the cosmos. Much of it focuses on stellar weather patterns. They have entertainment transmission (which sometimes broadcasts videos of emergency regenerations). Telepathic holograms can only be used by Time Lords, but undergraduates sometimes watch forbidden low-resolution thought-prints of the adventures of Omega that had been stolen from the Matrix by long dead cardinals. It should be noted that Time Lord culture has no mass media and the only news source read by them is the Daily Presidential Bulletin. House and TARDIS is a Time Lord magazine. It is bigger on the inside then on the outside so that it can hold a near infinite number of loose leaf advertisements. Many Gallifreyans write in 500 year diaries. 

On Gallifrey all paintings are done by computers. The computers use a stasis cube to create a pocket parallel universe created from a slide of real time. The multidimensional paintings are bigger on the inside then the outside and are composed within a frozen moment of time. The technology is similar to, but much more advanced than, the banned miniscopes. Tapestries can be found decorating rooms where an old fashion look is desired. The faces of Gallifreyan statues occasionally change shape to show off the different incarnations of the Time Lord they represent. Gallifreyan works of art are made so that they look aesthetically pleasing even when they are decaying and falling apart from old age. The aging is "part" of the sculpture. The concept of caricatures is unknown to Gallifreyan art. Air Sculptures are common on Gallifrey and reguarded as a very sophisticated art form. Gallifreyan eyes can see them, but they are invisible to human eyes. The Patrexes are an order of artists aesthetes, and might be related to the Gallifreyan Subjunctivists who are know for their paintings. The Multi-Dimensional Art Gallery in the Capitol is filled with vast numbers of computer created paintings from throughout Gallifrey's history.

The pianalaika is a Gallifreyan instrument. The Harp is another common instrument on Gallifrey. There is a small bronze-looking spherical insturment, usually covered in High Gallifreyan glyphs. When held, it emits music that reprents the user's current emotional state. Gallifreyan white noise symphonies are known for being somewhat loud. They keep track of popular music on a top twenty music chart. The Foxtrot of Rassilon is a Time Lord waltz. Shobogan folk dancing is quite common and somewhat energetic. 

There are Xeno-Zoos to visit that hold alien creatures from other worlds. While some Gallifreyans smoke pipes or cigars, most Gallifreyans view smoking as a very stupid activity. Gallifreyan tattoos move about the body (and change size) with each regeneration. Some seedy Gallifreyan Cardinals hang themselves to get rid of extra regenerations. This is considered to be a dangerous hobby. Wreck-Riders are young Time Lords (probably Junior Time Lords) who go joyriding in damaged TARDISes.

Gallifreyan and Time Lord Games

Junior Time Lords (and others with symbiotic nuclei) would also play the Perigosto Stick Game. This form of Time Lord Juggling, involves using Time Lord powers to keep a 4-dimensional rod with a sphere or cube at the end in motion, without letting it fall back into the normal space-time continuum. This technique is called Transmigration of Object and was often done as a party trick, even though it usually took hours of preparation. Most Perigosto Sticks are also designed as musical wind instruments and the Time Lord can try to use the shift in air flow to play music while juggling the stick. Shifting everything in a defined area forward a few seconds in time creates an impenetrable black wall. This is sometimes done on a small scale as a parlor trick. The Cardinals always warn the students that Transmigration of Object damages their biodata.

The people of Gallifrey invented Chess. Four-D Chess is a popular Time Lord game (though some Time Lords prefer Three Dimensional Chess). Not only can the pieces move on three vertically stacked boards but they can also move forwards and backwards in time. However the First Law of Time must be observed during play meaning that the its possible to get the other player to lose by forcing him to create a paradox. And indeed this is a common way of winning. Gallifreyan Chess Sets are sometime custom carved to look like a Time Lord’s adversaries and allies.

Gallifreyan Chequers has 2 colors - red and white. Pieces include: Presidents Cardinal, President's Commander, Chancellor's Castellan, Gold Usher's Captain.

Gallifreyan playing cards are round and have the following suits: Flames, Owls, Clouds, Souls, Deeps, Mesmers, and Dominoes. Face cards include the Hand, the Duke, and the Rogue. They can use these cards to play Five Dimensional Cribbage.

Sepulchasm was a game for one or two people that was created during the Old Time. The board was shaped to represent a mountain range with colored models of various House marking a path of squares. There was a playing piece of matching color for each house. Each player would control three of the pieces and using two 8-sided dice to dictate their pieces movement along the path. A roll of 4 on one die and 5 triggered a Sepulchasm which would split the board down the middle. The player(s) used psychic powers to keep their peices suspended over the chasm.  The first player to fail to keep their pieces in the air lost.

Gallifreyan Labyrinth Game: The point of this game is to get your opponents lost in a (dimensionally transcendental?) maze and then manipulating their movements by subconsciously training them to make certain turns. At the height of its popularity there were Labyrinth games on every street corner and even in the Panopticon.

Mindbending (aka Time Lord Wrestling) is a Time Lord game that involves a telepathic battle between two contestants. They try to regress each other mentally through their previous incarnations. Psychic duels often take the form of a physical wrestling match within the minds of the contestants and telepathic observers. Mindbending is just a game but it can end in deathlock if a contestant is pushed back to the point of looming.

While at the Academy Initiates often play Eighth Man Bound. This extreme 'rite of passage' claims the lives of 15 Gallifreyans every macrosemester. A symbiosonic generator is used, and the student's classmates (called The Inquiry) sit around him and chant his name while the student tries to predict his future incarnations. An Arcalian managed to discover what his first seven bodies but couldn't see his eighth. Thus the Arcalians named the game Eighth Man Bound.

Scratchin is another Gallifreyan game.

Food Dispenser Machine Food Capsules
Food Dispenser Machine and Food Capsules
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FOOD AND BEVERAGES

Almost all sustenance is provided by food dispenser machines and most Time Lords have never had to cook a meal for themselves. The workplace refractories have food machines of a type identical to those found in a TARDIS. These work by pulling fungi from vats and molecularly rearranging it into the food requested. Adult Gallifreyans often have only one large meal a day - often a breakfast in the morning. Usually Gallifreyans consume synthetic food in the form of freeze dried capsules, bar-shaped food, and bags of concentrated nutrition (such as biscuits, and stomach tablets). Promarzzi Bars were made of Promaze (genetically modified protean mix) and tasted like pond slime.

However, on special occasions, Karmine pudding, Dactyl Eggs, Magenta Fruit, blue fruit, chocolate, broth, shortbread, oatmeal bread, gingerbread, cake, crayperry, roasted Grockleroots, Gallifreyan Pizza, and the Flan of Omega is eaten. Sealak meat is something of a delicacy. But most Gallifreyans do not like beef or onions.

The water from a food machine has a very soft yet distinctive (probably sweet) flavor. Beverages served in Gallifrey include milk, and synthetic artificial tea replacement. Unconscious Gallifreyans can often be awakened with boiling tea vapor. A Gallifreyan Tea Set has approximately 178 pieces. Other beverages include Milean Head Juice (a type of alcohol), Bog-Truffle Tincture, Orneilian Wine and Rassilon's Red (a fine Gallifreyan wine, bottled at the time of Rassilon). Wine is dated by the President who was in power a the time it was bottled. Vinegar is also used for food preparation.

Confession Dial Morgue Cinerary Urn Sarcophagus
A Confession Dial, The Morgue, a Cinerary Urn, and a Sarcophagus
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DEATH OF A GALLIFREYAN

Most Gallifreyans they usually choose there final deathday between 7,000 and 12,000 (usually at about age 10,000). They often spend the last years leading up to their final chosen deathday in meditation.  Because the minds (or souls) Time Lords are stored in the APC after death they don't fear death. As their death day approaches a Gallifreyan will use a confession dial as part of a purification ritual to face their demons. The dial is capable of reading the Gallifreyan's mind and determining their greatest fears. Time Lords, in particular, are expected to face death with dignity. The time leading up to the final death day is filled with meditation, repentance, acceptance, and contemplation of the absolute. This brings their mind to a state of peace the before they join the memory gardens of the Matrix. Once they have imprinted their last will and Testament on this dial the dial is traditionally given to the Gallifreyan's closest friend. The dial will only respond and open for its owner and the chosen friend. Others will receive a shock if they attempt to touch it. 

Many Gallifreyans have massive ceremonial funerals. In ancient times red-healed boots were worn to funerals. Flowers of Rememberance are showered on all the attendees during the ceremony. These Deathday funerals are usually held at the family's house but some funerals (likely those of Time Lords) are even held in the Panopticon. Legally all deceased consciousness (even down to the lowliest chancellery guard) must be interned in the Amplified Panatropic Computations Network (sometimes known as the Remembrance Garden) of the Matrix. To this end the dying Gallifreyan will be placed in a Gallifreyan Sarcophagus which will keep the subject in a state of hibernation until the body can be moved to the Capitol. If the subject is a Time Lord then the Sarcophagus will carry the Seal of Rassilon. This hibernation chamber has a biomechanical locking system preventing any non-Gallifreyan from opening it. Alternatively the subject's pattern can be held in a Gallifreyan cinerary urn. The memories and identities of a Gallifreyan are traditionally held in a clock or pocket watch shaped device. At the moment of death (or no more then an hour afterwards) Mind Linkage Equipment is used to make electrical scans of the brain pattern. Because of the risk of psychosomatic feedback concious brains are never hooked directly into the Matrix. The Lord President is an exception to this but he spends years training for such contact. Gallifreyans can also use 'Soul Catching' to take the 'mind' of someone who is dying. The data gathered from the confession dial is likely used by the Gallifreyan engineers in psycho-surgically separating any evil impulses in the subject and confining them to the Dark Matrix. Once in the APC they live on forever.

The deceased Gallifreyan's body is entombed in the vaults beneath their Houses where they quickly break down into degenerate matter and then into random molecules. Time Lord tombs can traditionally only be opened by speaking the true name of that Time Lord. After the Regeneration cycle is used up, and a Time Lord knows that he is about to die, he can mentally trigger his own corporeal destruction to keep his body from being discovered. Under these circumstances the disintegration of a Gallifreyan's body will happen within a minute after death.

After internment in the Matrix, the confession dial will open for the friend and they can enter the dimensionally transcendental interior. There they can view the confessions and last will and testament of the deceased. The Gallifreyan Roll of Honor is a list of Gallifreyans who have died with valor.

TARDIS Year-O-Meter
TARDIS Year-O-Meter
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TIME LORD CHRONOLOGY

Because it is located in Inner Time Gallifreyans measure local time according to the Time Band. Gallifreyan seconds, minutes, days, years are identical to the ones used on Earth. A Gallifreyan month is probably equal to 27 days (so there would be 13 or 14 months a year). The sign of crossed computers probably lies in the sixth month. 

Because of the motions of its two suns, Gallifrey technically has more then 24 seasons, but the effect of the suns tend to cancel each other out, so that most areas of the planet resemble the conditions and dryness of Earth's Serengeti throughout the year. For this reason many claim Gallifrey has no seasons at all. One of these 24 seasons is called Haytime. Their new year appears to begin in the winter. 

Some sources state that Gallifreyan have weeks but the Doctor considers ‘weeks’ to be something found on the Earth and not Gallifrey. The number of days in a Gallifreyan week hasn't been revealed (probably 6?) Gallifrey doesn’t have weekends (or at least it doesn't have traditional days of rest).

Gallifrey time is told in 18 hour days. 9 hours of daylight and 9 hours of night. The length of the hours are dependent on the season and geographical location. The passage of hours is marked by the ringing of bells. The number of rings denote the hour. Special gongs are rung at twilight. Some Gallifreyan clocks have 12 divisions. 48 hours is a commonly used division of time.

A Gallifreyan Cycle is approximately 23 years
(likely 24 years or 4 Spans). Spans are another unit in common usage (which is also used by the Sisterhood of Karn). One Span is 6 years (so a micro-span equals about 200 seconds). Time Lord watches can synchronize themselves to the local time instantaneously (use the same technique as the translations systems). The watch face morphs to match local time keeping conventions. These watches are standard equipment for field operatives.

Unit Conversion

  • 1 Gallifreyan Second = 1 Earth Second
  • 1 Gallifreyan Minute = 1 Earth Minute
  • 1 Gallifreyan Hour = approximately 1.3 Earth Hours or 80 Earth Minutes (depending on the season and latitude)
  • 1 Gallifreyan Day = 1 Earth Day
  • 1 Gallifreyan Month = 27 days (or .81 centi-spans)
  • 1 suncycle = 1 year
  • 1 nano-span = .19 seconds
  • 1 micro-span = 189 seconds (or 3.2 min)
  • 1 milli-span = 52.6 hours (or 2.2 days)
  • 1 centi-span = 22 days
  • 1 span = 6 years
  • 1 kilo-span = 6000 years
  • 1 cycle = 23 years (possibly 24 years or 4 Spans, or possibly how long Pogar takes to orbit Gallifrey's sun?) 
  • 1 epoch = tens of millions of years (also known as Deep Time)
TARDIS Destination Monitor
TARDIS Destination Monitor

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THE INNER TIME OF THE RASSILON ERA

Old Times: Shobogan Dating

The Pre-Rassilite Shobogan dating system that was in use at the time of the Intuitive Revolution had year zero being roughly 5300 years before the Revolution. So the anchoring of the Eye of Harmony and the founding of the Inner Time dating (listed below) would occur around year 5330 by the old Imperial calendar.

Transduction Barriers separate Gallifrey’s continuity and history from the rest of the universe by locating it in a Micro-Universe outside of Time. Thus when you are on Gallifrey, you are in Inner Time, "outside" of the Universe. This is sometimes known as Gallifreyan Absolute Time. In addition to this, its past is protected by powerful Temporal Baffels, Backtime Field Buffers, Absolute Temporal Barriers, and Governing Circuits built into all their time travel technology. All of these keep the Time Lords in sync with Gallifrey's Relative Causal Nexus.

Time Lord Dating Systems

Time Lords have been know to use all of the following dating systems during the Rassilon Era:


  • Local Dateline / Gallifreyan Absolute Time: (Mission to Magnus, The Gallifrey Chronicles, TV Movie) - This form of Time Lord Dating began with the installation of the Eye of Harmony in the Citadel - which was the beginning of the Rassilon Era. For this reason the dates are given with the prefix RE for Rassilon Era. Documents the passage of time from the point of view of the people living within Gallifrey's Inner Time. The Doctor would have been loomed in 2004716.44 (The Gallifrey Chronicles claim the Doctor was loomed on 4756.7 RE But this is 40.5 years off from all other sources). For convenience sake Time Lords usually abbreviate Local Date Line to five digits (ie 5725.2 RE).
    • The Relative Date can be found by adding 2004716.44 to the Doctor's age.
    • The Local Dateline (ie the 4 diget version) can be found by adding 4716.44 to the Doctor's age.
  • Date Index / Gallifrey Mean Time: (Deadly Assassin, Armageddon Factor, The Gallifrey Chronicles) - Date Indexes can be written 3-0-9-9-0-6 or it can be abbreviated to 2 digits (ie 92). Documents the passage of time from the point of view of the people living within Gallifrey's Inner Time.
    • Date Index (DI) can be found by adding 309456 to the Doctor's Age.
  • Gallifreyan TL Dating System: (FASA, The Gallifrey Chronicles) - TL works like the Relative Date system, thus 2004756.44 RE would be 100447 TL.
    • A TL Date can be found by adding 100448 to the Doctor's Age.
  • Relative Date is often used for discussing events that occurred in the outside universe relative to Gallifrey time. Relative Dating began with the installation of the Eye of Harmony in the Citadel - which was the beginning of the Rassilon Era. The Eye of Harmony was activated in 3.5 Billion BC. For example 1999 AD (the 20th century) would be 3,500,034,139.89 RE. Day 1 of the Gallifreyan new year is between day 274 and day 310 on Earth (ie Dec 30 10:47 pm EST is 1/5th of the way through the Gallifreyan year). Thus New Year's Day on Gallifrey probably begins around Oct 20. Day 1 of the Gallifreyan New Year probably corresponds to their winter solstice. 5000 AD would be relative date 1-1-1-5-0-0-0.
    • While it is based on anchoring of the Eye of Harmony, any Earth date can be translated into Local Dateline (LD) by adding 3503412400.2 (about 3.5 billion) to the Earth year if after 1 BC or 3503412399.2 if before 1 AD.
  • GRT (Gallifrey Relative Time) (Timelink, The Gallifrey Chronicles) - GRT effectively gives the Date in Humanian Era AD/BC dates. Despite being in Inner Time, Gallifrey is still liked via a real-time analogue to its former location in the Web of Time. This analogue time moves at a different speed then the rest of the Universe. Originally it was about 5 times faster, but the differential between Inner Time and Outer Space has been slowing by about 1 second every hour (so about 1 year for ever 3,600 years). It is known that the Doctor was born around March 30th, 1213 GRT, and when Greyjan had served one year as President of Gallifrey (and the Doctor was 75 3), the GRT Earth date was 1752 AD. (The absence of the 3.5 billion year time changes has been explained by a popular fan theory that the Magnatron was used to shift Gallifrey forward in time after Rassilon's death.)
    • So to find the date in the Humanian Era dating one would use the following equation: GRT = .00028 DrAge^2 +.505*DrAge + 1213.25 (or 1214.25 for ages before -1213.25).
    • A simple way to roughly estimate Earth dates in the Doctor's life can be found using GRT = .61*DrAge + 1213.25.
    • At some point (probably at the time of the Nine Homeworlds Project) this system was changed. This might have been caused by shifting Gallifrey's system into a new Time Zone. Whatever the cause, it is known that the end of the Last Time War intersected the Humanian Time Zone well before 2596 AD.
  • Revised Local Dateline (Neverland) - This revised system of Local Dateline is used by the Matrix and APC for dating events. It was probably designed to correct for the slowing of Inner Time. Because it is based on the flow of real time in the external universe it is free from the distortion found in the other systems. The Matrix records Romana's inauguration as President of a Clone Gallifrey as being 6776.6 and her mission to Neverland occurred at 6798.5.
    • To find dates in this system add 5720.44 to the Doctor's Age after he turned 1056.
Mystery of the New Time
Performance of the Mystery of the New Time
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GALLIFREYAN HOLIDAYS

  • Day 1 (Oct 19th~) New Years Day / Creation of the Web of Time
  • Day ~10 (Oct 28th~) First Shobogan crewed time travel
  • Day 14 (Nov 1st~) Rassilon becomes the first President of the High Council
  • Day ~60 (Nov 17th~) Spring begins
  • Day 128 (Feb 23rd~) Intuitive Revolution Day: The Mystery of the New Time is celebrated and the casting of stillborn Shobogan children into the Crevass of Memories that Will Be is commemorated. 
  • Day ~150 (Mar 16th~) Summer begins
  • Day 162 (Mar 28th~) Otherstide / Othermass / Festival of Freedom: (see notes below)
  • Day ~170 (Apr 5th~) Summer Solstice
  • Day 175 (April 10th~) The Thirteenth Night: On the 13th evening after Otherstide the Gallifreyan Cults performed the banned theater of Mimesis.
  • Day 205 (May 10th~) Death of Omega, almost certainly known as the Feast of Omega
  • Day ~240 (Jun 14th~) Haytime: Autumn begins
  • Day ~330 (Sep 12th~) Winter begins
  • Day ~350 (Oct 2nd~) Winter Solstice: Everyone hugs and celebrates being halfway out of the dark. 

Most Gallifreyan holidays are classified as Feast Days, such as the Feast of Rassilon. During the Old Times, at the end of the feast, everyone would draw firereeds. The Shobogan who drew the shortest firereed had to duel the most experianced warrior at the feast. The Festival of the Timewright (Anmers-Tonastide, or TimeWorker), Rassilon's Flag Day, Rassilon the Lamp Day, Harrenenmas, and Cold Lamentation are other holidays. Name-day treats are sometimes given on the anniversary of a Gallifrey’s name-day. Childrene on Gallifrey celebrate certain events by doing a ribbon dance around a pole.

Otherstide

Otherstide is a holiday on Gallifrey that is seen as a time of renewal. No one leaves their houses on Otherstide eve, and gifts are given to time-tots. Mystery of the New Time is a play depicting the events leading up to the first Otherstide. This play is performed with giant puppets in every House on Otherstide. (Otherstide is also the name-day of the Doctor). The follow incantation is also sung:

Modern Low Gallifreyan
Modern Low Gallifreyan
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LANGUAGES
Old and Modern, High and Low

Gallifreyans use 208 language tenses to aid in discussing the complexities of time travel. Because of the stagnation of their society Gallifreyans have difficulty handling different cultures. They have 30 different words to describe culture shock. The human concept of denial and schadenfreude had no equivalents in Gallifreyan language. The language's structure and syntax is such that it sounds like a rhyming poem or song. While most Gallifreyans use the pronouns he/him or she/her, a minority prefer heshe/himher. The term "Time Lord" is technically masculine but, in the modern era, it is often used by both male and females. The title "Time Lady" is rarely used and considered to be old fashioned. The plural of TARDIS is still still debated by Time Lords. Many (if not all) Time Lord documents are printed on circular colored paper. Sometimes these are rolled up into scrolls. It should be noted that using green ink to write was considered to be very bad manners.

Gallifreyan Morse (similar to Morse Code), is easy to translate. Rassilon's Cipher is very difficult to decode and only a few Time Lords are trained to understand it. Rassilon's Cipher can be decoded using the algorithm imprinted in the atomic structure of an authentic seal of Rassilon.

Old Time: Old High Gallifreyan

Old High Gallifreyan
Plinth with Old High Gallifreyan that reads (in part) "This is the Tomb of Rassilon, where Rassilon lies in eternal sleep. Anyone who's got this far has passed many dangers and shown great courage and determination. To lose is to win and he who wins shall lose. Whoever takes the ring from Rassilon's hand and puts it on shall get the reward he seeks: Immortality."
Δ:x ◫.ʮ: Øx
Harp of Rassilon

Old High Gallifreyan was a Pre-Rassilite language that had 10,000,000 letters in its alphabet and worked well as code for computer programs. This language had at least three levels of interpretation, each of which added a different subtext to statements. The versitility of the tenses made it easier for time travellers to speak about events. Despite this, Gallifreyans of this era tended to write a lot just to convey simple ideas. Many of these letters appear Greek, and it is possible that the early Time Lords had some influence on Greek culture. This language was the most magic-like power ever wielded by the Gallifreyans as a whole. Before the anchoring of the Web, this language possesses great powers and, when correctly harnessed, can raise empires and destroy gods. It was used by the ancient Gallifreyans and early Time Lords, but in the modern era very few Gallifreyans know how to speak or read it. Humans would have a great deal of difficulty speaking this language.

Deliavatsud Reporter's Name Archivist's Name
∞×∑û≠∆
The names Deliavatsud, and Adelphi, as well as two more Gallifreyan Names, all written in the Omegabet.

Partial Old High Gallifreyan Pronunciation Guide

English Gallifreyan
A Φ
D Σ
E
F
G ♃:
H ▽꜕
I 🝆=
K
L 𝜈
M Ξ
N
O
R ∂³
S
T ξ.
V
W 𝚵
Y Ħ
Z
'space'

Old Time: Old Low Gallifreyan

Old Low Gallifreyan
Old Low Gallifreyan numbers found on Dice

Old Low Gallifreyan is another language that was used in Pre-Rassilite times. It was know for its foul curse words. Its probably related to the form of writing used by the Shobogans of Low Town.

Modern High Gallifreyan

Modern High Gallifreyan
Modern High Gallifreyan Text from 21stcenturydoctorwho.com

Modern High Gallifreyan (sometimes known as Circular Gallifreyan) is a form of writing that appears to have come into existance around the time Tecteun returned to Gallifrey. Even TARDIS telepathic circuits can't translate for lesser species. As such, it was often used for sensitive technical or scientific notation, as it couldn't be easily decoded by other species. During the Time War era everything the Time Lords wrote was in this more secure Gallifreyan.

Entrance in Gallifreyan Exit in Gallifreyan Balance in Gallifreyan
The words "entrance," "exit," and "balance" in Gallifreyan
Thust in Gallifreyan Decelerate in Gallifreyan Course in Gallifreyan
The words "thrust," "decelerate," and "Course" in Gallifreyan
Warp in Gallifreyan System Shutdown in Gallifreyan
The words "Warp" and "System Shutdown" in Gallifreyan
Home in Gallifreyan Galaxy in Gallifreyan
The words "Home" and "Galaxy" in Gallifreyan
Gallifreyan Numbers Gallifreyan Numerical Readout Gallifreyan Numbers
Modern High Gallifreyan Numbers 1-6, a standard numerical readout, and Gallifreyan Numbers 1-23 (the symbol at the bottom of each readout is the actual number)

The Patrexian Numbers serve as a numerical base to everything that Patrexian's create. Messages are written in equations that must be solved to be deciphered. This half writing, half math language is very precise, but not very practical. It is a base 7 counting system

Sherman Gallifreyan
The words 'Rassilon Omega and that Other Guy' written in Sherman's Circular Gallifreyan

The fan-made Circular Gallifreyan writing style created by Loren Sherman has been used on screen on the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver and on multiple liscensed Dr Who products. Lots more information about it can be found here. A Radio Times approved conversion program can be found here here

Phonetic Gallifreyan Phonetic Gallifreyan
Two different sets of Phonetic Gallifreyan symbols with English equivalents

Modern Low Gallifreyan

The Doctor's Letter
"To the Castellan of the Chancery Guard. I've good reason to think the life of His Supremacy the President is in grave danger. Do not ignore this warning. The Doctor." (The name is signed over the Prydonian Seal)

The Modern Low Gallifreyan Omegabet is a mathematically based language that has only 1,000,000 characters. Omega has a capital Greek letter Omega mounted on his helmet in Arc of Infinity. A standard Gallifreyan keyboard has 723 letter keys, and 13 numeric keys across the top. There are only 12 keys on a standard Gallifreyan numeric keypad. Its possible that their number system is base 12 and the 13th key on a full keyboard might be for positive/negative notation. Messages are written in equations that must be solved to be deciphered. This half writing, half math language is very precise, but not very practical.

You Love Ha Ha
The words "You, "Love" and "Ha Ha"(as in the reader), written in Gallifreyan
Salyavin
The name Salyavin X written in the Omegabet
Gallifreyan Numerical Keypad
Gallifreyan numerical keypad. Translation:
[1][2][3][4][5][6]
[7][8][9]
[10][11][12]

Known Gallifreyan Words

CENSORED
This Gallifreyan curse has no English translation, and is so rude that it has been deleted from the Matrix.
  • Arkytior: High Gallifreyan for 'rose'
  • Bitch: insult for a (non-Time Lady) woman
  • Doctor: This word might mean 'the good man.' People who possess a doctorate are greatly honored in Gallifreyan society. (The Doctor's extensive visits to the Earth lead to the word being adopted into several of their languages as well.)
  • Childe (plural Childrene): a term created to distinguish young loomed Gallifryens from the children of lesser species.
  • D'Arvit: a curse word
  • Down-Time: Old Gallifreyan term for the relative past
  • Gallifrey: means they that walk in shadows. (This refers to the planet and its peoples existing in the shadows cast by the warm darkness of magick and the cold light of science.) 
  • Gjara'vont: means of darkest thought
  • Gods-guardian: Old Gallifreyan for someone’s godmother or godfather.
  • Grumblies: Old Gallifreyan child slang for adults
  • Henophidian: insult to members of the Sisterhood of the Pythia/Flame
  • Karn: Old Gallifreyan for Winter?
  • Lacing: Shobogan slang for telepathically sharing memories. 
  • Medicus: Old Time title for a medical physician.
  • Meyopapa: appears to mean master
  • Mi'en Kalarash: blue fire
  • Opticon: the meeting place within a village
  • Osuda: Old Gallifreyan for fate.  
  • Pre-ja Vu: (Modern Gallifreyan) the sense that you're going to have been somewhere before. Coined by Academi Plurix (Deja Vu is a form of astral projection)
  • Shobogan: This term was what the ancient Gallifreyans originally called themselves (before the discovery of regeneration). Over time the term Shobogans became slang Gallifreyan for 'new age' dropouts, who reject the traditions and culture of Rassilon’s Time Lords.
  • Solace Bay: Term for a medical treatment center.
  • Swowana: Snow?
  • Suncycle: a Gallifreyan year.
  • Tardis: probably means timeship
  • Tegorak: black mountain
  • Thought-Pool: the name of the collective consciousness of all Shobogans before the Curse.
  • Timefall: the arrival of a timeship in Normal Space.
  • Toclafane: A general descriptor for numerous different bogeyman-like entities.
  • Up-Time: Old Gallifreyan term for the relative future 
  • Wreck-Riders: young Time Lords (probably Junior Time Lords) who go joyriding in damaged TARDISes.
Horns of Rassilon
The Horns of Rassilon (aka the Sign of Rassilon, aka the V of Rassilon): The rudest insult of the Dark Times.
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GALLIFREYAN SAYINGS, RHYMES, TEACHINGS, AND JOKES