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.

Elder statesman and advisor to the Gyptian people, and former lover of Serafina Pekkala. Old and physically frail but sharp in mind, he guides Lyra and counsels John Faa throughout the northern journey.

The usurper king of the armoured bears on Svalbard. He is cunning in a human way, building a marble palace and seeking to imitate human society, and has made deals with the Oblation Board to imprison Lord Asriel.

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 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 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.

The son of Ma Costa, one of the Gyptian children taken by the Gobblers. His disappearance is the inciting event for the Gyptian rescue mission.

The consul representing the interests of all the witch clans at Trollesund. He has a broad, florid face and a slender serpent daemon. He is shrewd, diplomatically non-committal, and deeply knowledgeable about witch customs.

A Gyptian woman and mother of Billy Costa. She was also Lyra's wet nurse in infancy, giving her a claim on Lyra's welfare.

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.

Ma Costa's older son and Billy's brother, a strong and capable gyptian man. He rescues Lyra from kidnappers in London and later volunteers for the expedition north to find the stolen children.

One of the children stolen by the Gobblers in Northern Lights, whose path inside the experimental station at Bolvangar gives the first book one of its most quietly devastating sequences.