A girl raised among the scholars of Jordan College, Oxford, in a world where every human soul takes the form of an external animal companion called a daemon. Reckless, gifted at deception, and possessed of an instinctive ability to read the alethiometer, she embarks on a journey north to rescue missing children that becomes something far larger - a journey that places her at the centre of a war for the nature of consciousness across all worlds.

A boy from our world who has spent years caring for his mentally fragile mother while searching for his missing father. His discovery of a window into the abandoned city of Cittagazze brings him into Lyra's world and eventually makes him the bearer of the subtle knife - a blade capable of cutting windows between any two worlds. Quiet, self-contained, and accustomed to carrying adult burdens, he forms a partnership with Lyra that becomes the emotional centre of the trilogy.

The aged bearer of the subtle knife in Cittagazze, whose injury forces him to pass the knife to Will. He instructs Will in the knife's use, passing on both the weapon and the burden that comes with it.

An armoured bear - one of the panserbjorne, a race of intelligent polar bears who craft and wear their own soul in the form of armour - who has been exiled from Svalbard and reduced to working as a blacksmith in Trollesund when Lyra finds him. His friendship with Lyra grows into one of the trilogy's most steadfast and consequential alliances.

Lord of the western Gyptians. A large, calm, authoritative man who leads the Gyptian rescue expedition north to recover the stolen children.

A Texan aeronaut who pilots a hot-air balloon and takes on dangerous commissions for pay. Laconic, practical, and deeply loyal to those he chooses to trust, he becomes one of Lyra's most important protectors.

A nobleman, explorer, and experimental theologian whose obsessive research into Dust and the nature of parallel worlds places him in direct conflict with the Magisterium. Cold, imperious, and capable of extraordinary ruthlessness, he nonetheless drives the central philosophical argument of the trilogy - that experience, consciousness, and the freedom to know are worth any cost.

A senior figure in the Magisterium - polished, well-connected, and conspicuously well-informed about matters the rest of the Church's leadership has barely begun to grasp. Lord Boreal moves through the upper circles of Geneva and Oxford with the careful, well-practised confidence of a man whose private interests have rather wider reach than his official position implies.

A physicist and former nun at a research institute in Will's world, whose work on dark matter makes her an unwitting participant in events far beyond her understanding. Warm, intellectually honest, and shaped by her departure from religious life, she becomes a crucial figure in the philosophical argument of the trilogy.

A brilliant, charismatic agent of the Magisterium whose beauty and social intelligence conceal ruthless ambition and a capacity for cruelty. Head of the General Oblation Board - the organisation responsible for abducting children for Dust experiments - and a figure whose particular interest in Lyra Northern Lights unfolds with deliberate, slow weight.

Lyra's daemon, capable of changing form at will until adulthood fixes his shape as a pine marten. Pantalaimon functions as Lyra's conscience, companion, and other self - a manifestation of her soul that can speak, reason, and feel independently.

Lyra's closest friend at Jordan College, a kitchen boy whose disappearance among the stolen children sets her on her journey north.

Queen of a Latvian witch clan and ally of Serafina Pekkala, who brings her clan into the war against the Magisterium.

Queen of a Finnish witch clan and former lover of Farder Coram, she is centuries old but appears as a young woman. Witches in this world do not age visibly and live apart from human society. Serafina becomes a critical ally to Lyra, bringing her clan's resources and her own formidable abilities to bear in the war against the Magisterium.

A scholar from the Berlin Academy who became a shaman among the Siberian Tartars under the name Jopari. A lean, powerful man with a trepanned skull and an osprey daemon, he possesses knowledge of doorways between worlds and seeks the bearer of the subtle knife.

A red-haired girl from Cittagazze around Lyra's age. She and her younger brother Paolo are among the children left behind when adults flee the Specters, and she becomes hostile toward Will and Lyra after her brother Tullio is attacked.

A Magisterium alethiometrist whose slow and plodding reading of the alethiometer contrasts pointedly with Lyra's instinctive facility.

A young witch of just over a hundred years old with plump red cheeks and a robin daemon. She once loved Stanislaus Grumman but was rejected, and nurses a fierce hatred toward him.

Angelica's younger brother, a small boy from Cittagazze who is fiercely bold despite his age, boasting of killing Specters and following his sister everywhere.

Lord Asriel's loyal manservant, who accompanies his master to the North and tends to his household on Svalbard. His daemon is a pinscher dog called Anfang.