In Lyra's world, every human is accompanied by a dæmon, representing the animal nature of the human soul and consciousness. The form of the dæmon can change anytime during childhood and settles when puberty comes. In most of cases, the gender of a dæmon is opposed to the human's.

     The shape of a dæmon reflects the nature of a being (a mouse-dæmon reveals a discret person) but can also impose a way of life to humans: people with fish-dæmons have to live on water.

     Dæmons also speak: humans and dæmons can talk to each other, most notably in the case of children.

     Dæmons and humans are closely linked. They cannot be away from one another over a few meters; it is however a common play among children to test the strength of this spatial link. Only witches can make their way separated from her dæmon and the simple vision of a human without a dæmon is terribly wrong in Lyra's world.

     It is socially and commonly forbidden to touch someone else's dæmon: humans touch humans, dæmons touch dæmons. A human-dæmon contact can nonetheless occur in case of strong intimacy of close friendship.

     In the trilogy, Pantalaimon is Lyra's dæmon while Lord Asriel's is a snow leopard named Stelmaria and Mrs. Coulter's is a golden monkey whose name is never mentionned. Serafina's goose-dæmon, Kaisa, is a bird, as for most of witches.

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