#99% of this is canon but I'm tagging it as headcanon for convenience lol

[viciousgold]

So my friend @aercnaut recently made a post about the general basics of how to start off with a HDM verse if you're new to the fandom. I've also noticed that several of my mutuals now have HDM verses as people new to the fandom, mainly @daemondaes, @unbeleveable, @nightmdic and @hlfaghst. If there are more of my mutuals who either have or desire an HDM verse, hi, welcome <3. so glad to have you here <3 hello <3.

aercnaut's post is a very helpful post and I want to thank them for inspiring this post of mine. I highly recommend you read aercnaut's post first if you haven't already, shown here: X

This post is basically my autism being like "here's an expanded version/ted talk/extended guide of the basics of this world". bc my autism demanded it. again though, please read aercnaut's post, it inspired mine, full credit where credit's due. <3

So with all that being said, this is what I am going to call:

The Long List of Need to Know Basics in This World Guide

the title isn't great lol. but anyway, here's the guide:

DAEMONS:

So from the moment someone is born, they have a daemon. When we see baby Lyra in the show, we see a baby Pan (her daemon) swaddled in the baby blanket with her. Daemons are most commonly the opposite sex of their human, but there are canon mentions of others who have same sex daemons. It's just not as common. What does it mean when a person has a same sex daemon? Who knows. There's no canon answer. People have asked Philip Pullman, the author of HDM and he's basically been like "there are so many interpretations of same sex daemons, I don't want to deny any of them". Super nice guy, hates confirming anything lol. Fanon interpretations of same sex daemons range from anything like someone being gay, someone being trans, someone being hyper masculine or hyper feminine, someone being non-binary, etc. Feel free to go with whatever interpretation feels right for your character if you choose to have their daemon be the same sex. You can even have your own interpretation, it's completely up to you.

Something that Pullman has deigned to tell us though, daemons are usually named by the daemons of the child's parents. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, such as me being like "haha Marisa's daemon doesn't have a name bc her bitch ass mom's daemon didn't name his son", orphans, etc. There are almost always some exceptions.

For example, for most people, it hurts both physically and emotionally to go too far from your daemon. Usually your daemon can only go a few feet or a few yards away before you and your daemon start feeling that intense pain. It's said to be the worst pain imaginable. Makes sense, it's like your soul getting ripped out of your body. However, like I said, there are almost always exceptions. The biggest exception to this are the witches and their daemons. What are witches in this world? We'll get more into that in the species category. For now; witches can go far from their daemon due to a ritual performed when a witch comes of age. They don't feel pain from being far from their daemons, and they remain connected.

Speaking of coming of age, when you're still a child, your daemon can shift into any animal possible, depending on mood, feelings, wants, etc. When they come of age via puberty, usually around either 13 or 14 (but there are sometimes late bloomers), the daemon settles into one form representing who you are deep down at your core. It's said that usually if your daemon settles into a form you don't personally like or agree with for yourself, it could signify discontentment with who you are, lack of a sense of self, self hatred, etc. Your relationship with your daemon reflects your relationship with yourself, essentially. If you're someone who knows yourself pretty well, has a lot of self love, your daemon will likely be your best friend, like Lyra and Pan, and Lee and Hester. If you have a lack of that sense of self, your relationship will likely be that of Marisa and her daemon, at odds with each other, annoyed with each other, possibly even hating each other. Of course, it's all a spectrum. There can be varying degrees of all this, it doesn't have to be cut and dry. Lyra, Lee and Marisa are just very good examples of the more extreme ends of that spectrum.

Marisa is another exception to the "going far from your daemon" thing, but not exactly. She can go far from her daemon, but unlike the witches, this isn't natural, and she and her daemon do feel immense pain when it happens. It's heavily implied that Marisa can go far from her daemon because of whatever abuse her mother did to her. She feels the pain of going far from her daemon but because she's done it so much, essentially it's pain that she's used to.

Speaking of pain, humans and daemons share that completely, and any other senses too. Any sensation that one feels, the other feels too, as well as sharing a telepathic link. Of course, humans and daemons can audibly talk to each other, and to other humans and daemons, but they can also telepathically communicate. Because of the shared sensation thing, it's basically human nature in this world to instinctively know that a human shouldn't touch another person's daemon.

With that shared sensation, when someone else touches your daemon, it feels like a phantom hand is touching your very core, and it can feel like one of the most violating things. However, there's almost always an exception. When you have an incredibly deep and intimate relationship with someone, touching their daemon, with permission, can be one of the most wonderful, sensual and beautiful things.

I think that might be like, the core basics of daemons. Feel free to ask questions though. <3

SPECIES:

Remember how I said we'd get to the witches in this category? We're to this category now and we'll start with witches (with a brief mention of humans)

Humans: they're like humans of our world, except for the daemons. that's the only difference. they're there.

Witches: Witches are usually in large groups known as witch clans, each witch clan being lead by a witch queen, usually a very powerful witch who has already lived for a super long time, they can typically live anywhere up to thousands of years. They almost always have bird daemons, so they can fly as their witch can fly. Daemons can go far from their witches due to a magic ritual, we touched on this above. They fly using cloud pine. In the books, it's actual sticks of cloud pine that they grab and use as flying instruments, in the show, cloud pine is something embedded in a witch's skin, either interpretation works. Witches also are exclusively women. Witches can have children with humans who are boys, but they won't have magic. Only the girlies will become magical girls. There are, however--

Shamans: Shamans are human men who, through a lot of time and effort and rituals and shit idk how it exactly works, they eventually gain magic. Other than some nature magic and shit though, they're basically humans.

Armored Bears: Armored Bears, mainly known as Panserbjørn, but I don't want to keep copy and pasting that little o symbol so I'm going to keep calling them by their lesser known name, Armored Bears. They're talking bears that wear armor. Their armor is very meaningful to them, as they craft it for themselves using a precious metal made out of meteorites, sky iron. Armored Bears live in Svalbard, ruled by a King, and they have their own bear society, basically.

Cliff-ghasts: Cliff-ghasts are these weird bat creatures that live in the north and they are dangerous, they fly, they will attack you on sight, stay away from these fuckers. They're usually up in cliffs, usually seen at night or in dark places.

Spyflies: Spyflies are like, half machine, half spirit, they're these tiny mechanical insects that can be used to track people, spy on them, and then relay information back to the person first using them. The spirits trapped inside spyflies though are said to be specifically evil spirits, so like, if you provoke one, it aims to either knock out and/or kill the first target it sees after being provoked. (ie locking them in a container and not letting them out for a while. when you let them out, they will shoot out flying, craving violence.) They're also very illegal to have.

Arctic Foxes: So, animals do exist outside of daemons. Dogs exist, dolphins exist, foxes exist, etc. And they're all just random animals. (fun fact, dogs and cats in this world, though domesticated, are all working animals. with the strong companionship of daemons, humans in this world never saw a widespread longing for things like pets. there are probably exceptions, who knows, there are almost always exceptions. but the majority of society do not see animals as pets.) Arctic Foxes, however, are a different thing. They are animals, but they're also talking animals. Not daemons, they're kinda like the Armored Bears, except they don't really have their own society or anything? They're just... talking Arctic Foxes. A random fact about Arctic Foxes: They only understand the present tense in speech and they usually tell lies.

Mermaids: Mermaids are real. We don't know much about them. We just kinda know they exist. Most people don't know they exist, but there are people who have claimed to have seen mermaids. Mermaids are real though. Also, somehow, some guy's daemon settled as a mermaid? idk man.

Ghosts: Ghosts are what people become when they die. They go to the land of the dead. They're not the same as Night-ghasts though, which are beings that don't go to the land of the dead.

Night-ghasts: Are night-ghasts dead people? Dead other beings? Who knows, we don't. We just know they exist. They're spirits who sometimes make contact with the living. For example, Lyra took some coins off some dead bodies. Some Night-ghasts visited her in the middle of the night and scared the fuck out of her. She immediately put the coins back and learned to not fuck around and find out with the dead.

Zombi: These people are what you get when you have adults who are separated from their daemons. They still are aware and functioning, they still hold conversations, but they mostly like, lack creativity, lack imagination, thinking for themselves, etc. They're essentially people who now literally lack a soul.

With all of this being said about daemons and different species, let's move on to general societal norms and rules of this world:

This is a very sexist society, unfortunately. Not everywhere, thankfully. In mainly the North, particularly in Svalbard and any witch territories, Africa, and in Gyptian societies, women are valued equally to men. Everywhere else though is gonna be ruled by the Magisterium, and the Magisterium says women are lesser. Because of the sexism, there are things like Marisa being denied her doctorate, colleges still being separated based on gender, like in Oxford, men go to and/or work at Jordan College, women go to and/or work at St. Sophia's College. The only exception is servants, as women and men can work at either college as something like a butler, maid, chef, etc. There are also a lot of male dominated fields that either have very few or no women working in them. The major male dominated field that has a lot more women working in it than other male dominated fields though, is being a Scholar, aka a college professor, for reasons I'll explain soon, in the Scholastic Sanctuary portion.

This is also a very classist society. General classism things. People like those who live in the North, people like the witches, people like the Gyptians, basically anyone who chooses to live outside of Magisterium-run society aka most of the world, are considered to be major outcasts, rebels, and/or heretics. Along with that, there is a huge class system of like, members of the Magisterium being the highest valued people in society, then members of the aristocracy, then the wealthy fuckers, then the upper middle class, middle class, lower class, servants, and lower-lower class aka people who don't work, don't have money, are homeless, etc. There are of course people who don't agree with this class system, and are normally people who are also very anti-Magisterium, the government of the majority of this world.

The Magisterium is not only the government, it's also the Catholic church. Or in this world, "The Holy Church". The Magisterium/The Holy Church is kinda used interchangeably throughout the series. But yeah, that's what's brought us to this hellscape folks, Pullman was basically like "lol what if the Catholic church was a near one world government/authoritarian regime" and that's how we got here.

The Magisterium views any non-approved Magisterium opinions/thoughts/etc. as "heresy". There are scientists who are Magisterium members, but they do Magisterium approved science. Any other non-Magisterium scientists are known as heretics, which is a very bad thing to be labeled as in this society. If you're accused of heresy by the Magisterium, you could be possibly imprisoned, tortured, and/or killed. However, some people, like Lord Asriel, are very vocally and proudly "a heretic", and are very vocally and proudly anti-Magisterium. Partly because of this and partly because of his scientific "heresy", he is one of the most wanted criminals in the eyes of the Magisterium. The only thing that is protecting him is that pesky little law "Scholastic Sanctuary".

Probably the biggest loophole to the Magisterium's bullshit: Scholastic Sanctuary. No one is safer in this world than members, students, staff and servants of colleges. Scholastic Sanctuary gives protection to anyone who rightfully claims it at any academic institution. This protection fully and completely protects you from any Magisterium persecution, even if it's heresy, as it falls under the umbrella of "protected academics". When Lord Asriel needed protection for baby Lyra, he literally brought the infant to Jordan College, claimed Scholastic Sanctuary for her to make sure she'd be kept safe from the Magisterium, and then peaced out. However, he remains a member of Jordan College, so as long as he continues to claim Scholastic Sanctuary while at the college, and as he continues to evade the Magisterium while not there, he's virtually untouchable. He only ever goes from Jordan, to his explorations in the North, where the Magisterium have almost no authority, and that's mainly it. He stays far out of society otherwise. Now, before the Magisterium had full power, society was mostly ruled by varying kings/queens, who are now basically just powerless figureheads. My personal theory is that the law of Scholastic Sanctuary was put into place way before the Magisterium came into full power, and thus it's long historical precedent made it unable to be dissolved.

Before Marisa, there were no women in the Magisterium as official members. There were nurses and nuns who worked for the Magisterium, but that was it. Marisa's unique research on Dust and its relation to daemons intrigued the Magisterium, so much so that they were willing to extend membership to her, allowing a woman into their ranks for the first time. We've since seen another female scientist working in specifically Marisa's branch of the Magisterium.

Speaking of which, the Magisterium is split into different branches. Marisa's is the General Oblation Board, a smaller branch of the Magisterium that is basically listed as a very unofficial, on paper not approved operation. There are also branches like The Consistorial Court of Discipline (which is the main one that deals with all the decided criminals of the Magisterium), The Office of Inquisition, The Red Chamber, The Secretariat of the Holy Presence, etc. etc. and like, they all do different shit. The CCD though is the main one that has to do with people's lives. People want to avoid pissing off anyone from the CCD, people want to stay out of their way, etc.

The Magisterium is really worried about Dust. Most people don't know what Dust is, and it's kinda taboo to talk about it. Most people also suspect, especially the Magisterium, that it's the physical embodiment of sin. The evidence used to create this theory is that the elementary particle known as Dust doesn't settle on children, that is until they reach puberty and their daemon settles. There was a connection made to Adam and Eve, since the story in this world goes that Adam and Eve had daemons that could change shape, until they ate the apple, and their daemons settled into permanent forms.

There are more, but these are the basics lol again, feel free to ask questions, I'm probably gonna make a second part to this at some point, maybe I will, maybe I won't, who knows. Anyway, onto the next section:

DIFFERENT SOCIETIES:

Magisterium societies: Explained a lot in detail above. These are gonna be your Brytains (Britain but spelled quirky), your major countries and nations etc.

Africa: In this world, Africa isn't a continent, it's considered to be a country, and it's ruled by a King, outside of Magisterium's rule.

New Denmark: The closest equivalent to America. It's not really America. It's independent from the Magisterium, but not really by much, and I honestly don't canonically know too much about New Denmark. We know that the country of Texas is a part of New Denmark. Other than that, idk man. The wiki doesn't tell me much either. By the way, yeah, Texas is also a country. This world really likes to be like lol it's actually a country here.

Gyptians: Gyptians are a nomadic people who live mostly on boats/ships out at sea, and thus mainly stay out of Magisterium societies, and are a self governed people by Gyptian kings. We know in the west, the Gyptians are made up of six different Gyptian families. There's a Western Gyptian Council and one of it's members is a Gyptian King.

Skraelings: Some Skraelings live in Magisterium societies, though a majority of them live in Groenland (this world's version of Greenland) and New Denmark, as they are indigenous people of Groenland and New Denmark. We don't know much canonically about Skraelings as a whole aside from a few individuals, like the famous Dr. Leonard Broken Arrow, and bits and pieces of information in passing, such as trepanning being mentioned as a previous common practice that was later outlawed by New Denmark.

Armored Bears: Explained a lot above in the Armored Bears section.

Witches: Explained a lot above in the Witches section.

The North: The North is a region mostly outside of Magisterium reign and consists of this general area

the Magisterium has slowly been trying to gain more power in the North though and has slowly been succeeding in this.

So these are like, the basics of this world. Is this everything? No. Are there things I'm forgetting as basics? Probably. Are there probably inaccuracies? Probably, yeah, I'm gonna be real with you, HDM has a very extensive lore and it's difficult to keep track of everything, especially since there have been a few inconsistencies within canon from either Pullman changing his mind about something, or I swear, just straight up forgetting something. Again, I want to reiterate; a very sweet man. I wish him the best. To anyone reading this that knows HDM, if I have made any mistakes in this basics guide, please feel free to tell me.