Locations in His Dark Materials

This article covers the fictional locations in the His Dark Materials trilogy and related works by Philip Pullman.

Jordan College is an exaggerated version of the real Exeter College, rambling above and below ground in a motley arrangement of buildings, cellars and tunnels constructed over several centuries:[4] The name 'Jordan' was inspired partly by the area of Oxford known as Jericho,[4] through which the Oxford Canal passes; an area called 'Jericho' also features in Northern Lights as a mooring point for the Gyptians's boats.

In Trollesund Lyra first meets Lee Scoresby, an aeronaut and prospector who has been stranded in the town as a result of a failed expedition, and Iorek Byrnison, an exiled armoured bear whom the townspeople had tricked into working for them as a metalworker with alcohol as payment.

In Lyra's world, the far north location of the research facility where the Magisterium conducts experiments with intercision, a process which involves severing the link between a human and their dæmon, children are kidnapped and brought to Bolvangar for this to happen.

Its main features are quaint restaurants, parasols hung over circular tables beneath trailing plants, wide cobbled roads, and ancient architecture.

However, it also has electric lights, refrigerators and department stores, thus, this world appears to be similar to ours in many respects while inferior in others such as medicine and transport.

Its most significant feature is the Torre degli Angeli (Tower of the Angels in Italian), in which the Subtle Knife is first encountered.

It is the setting for much of the early part of The Subtle Knife and features briefly at the conclusion of The Amber Spyglass.

Lyra and Will used the Subtle Knife to enter this world and are carried across a lake to reach its gate by a ferryman reminiscent of Charon of mythology.

Will was able to use the Knife again to cut open a portal for any of the ghost inhabitants to get out to the Mulefa's world, where they can dissipate away into the universe, for the price of telling a good true life story to Gracious Wings and her fellow harpies.

The name given to the world in which Lord Asriel builds his defensive basalt fortress and citadel with its adamant tower above a vast arsenal to prepare the armies and weapons to fight the war against The Authority.

The land is mountainous and shows extensive signs of volcanic activity with only low scrub on the plains.