Profile

John Childermass is a magician. But nobody knows that, not even - in fact especially - his employer.

He has had a number of careers in his time, starting as a child thief in the gang run by his mother, going on to become a skilled pickpocket and do all manner of casual manual work (not all legal) before he fell in with Mr Norrell. John Childermass may or may not be his real name, but it's the only one he ever chooses to share. First and foremost, though, magic and the pursuit of returning it to England has been the prime motivation in his life for a very long time. He considers himself a loyal subject of the long-vanished Raven King, and would do anything to see him return. This is perhaps the only reason, along with his own magical education, that he managed to put up with Gilbert Norrell for 26 years.

His particular speciality in magic is prognostication - he has a set of tarot cards that always give him true answers to his questions about the future and hidden things - but his skill isn't limited to that and he's easily as talented a practical magician as Gilbert Norrell or even better (though not as good as Jonathan Strange). He has a sensitivity to magic being done, actively or passively, around him and if it's particularly powerful, it will make him faint and dizzy.

Possibly because of his harsh and impoverished upbringing, he's not a man who cares much for creature comforts. He's content to live in a bare and spartan attic room and though Norrell pays him well, no one knows what he's done with that money - he certainly hasn't spent much of it on himself. He's noted to wear ancient clothes, probably until they actually fall apart, and replaces them with second-hand ones as opposed to new.. Socially, he's inclined to be reserved and solitary, but can turn on the charm if he feels like it. He seems to have some success with the ladies with a special fondness for three of Norrell's housemaids (even suggesting he might marry one of them). That said, it seems to be easy for him to leave his fellow servants, and the closest he has to friends, behind when he knows he probably won't be back. Finally, he believes respect should be something mutual, and will greet contempt from his "betters" with outright insolence.

John Childermass is from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and is the property of Susanna Clarke. They appear here solely for the purpose of role-playing in milliways_bar, from which no profit whatsoever is being made.