Characters
MORTAL CRITTERS / CHARACTERS
Doctor John Dee
Occupation: Scientist, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, occultist and magus extraordinaire.
Known as: The court’s conjurer and advisor to Bess Tudor.
Home: River House, Mortlake, London.
Principal relationships: Yvette Waterton, Thomas Devereux, Bess Tudor, Lady Jane Dee, Strix.
Political connections: The Crown, Walsingham, Cecil, Anjou and the wider Council of Thirteen.
Character
Doctor John Dee is one of the central characters of Mortal Critters and the intellectual engine of the series.Dee, different methods of investigating the same underlying reality.
He is exceptionally intelligent, curious and ambitious. He is also vain, financially astute and very conscious of his position and reputation. He enjoys the company of the powerful and intellectual, but is equally comfortable with a drink, a performance and the occasional appearance at London’s notorious Strangled Cat.
Tall and slender, with blue eyes, a long nose, white hair and a long white beard, Dee is an imposing and striking figure. He dresses in long gowns with hanging sleeves and carries himself like a man accustomed to being listened to.
He is regarded by many as the embodiment of the enlightened man, the intellectual soul of his age.
But Dee knows that the age is not as enlightened as it appears.
The Problem of the Fifth World
Dee’s greatest discovery is also his greatest fear.
The Fifth World is broken.
The wars, political upheavals, attacks on the magical community, supernatural disturbances and strange events surrounding the T’Ang treasure are not isolated incidents.
Dee believes they are symptoms of a deeper instability within the structure of history itself.
He knows that something is wrong with the world and believes that, if he can understand the cause, he may be able to prevent its destruction.
This makes Dee more than a wizard. He is an investigator of reality itself.
The Magus
Dee’s work combines rigorous scholarship with practical magic.
Among the objects and instruments associated with him are:
• The Table of Practice
• A Scrivening Ball bearing the Seal of God
• An Aztec obsidian Speculum
• Gold amulets
• The Book of Soyga
• The Voynich Manuscript
• Monas Hieroglyphica
• Euclid’s Elements
• The Perfect Art of Navigation
• On the Mystical Rule of the Seven Planets.
His Mortlake library is reputed to be one of the most remarkable in Europe.
Dee uses scrying, divination and other forms of magic not simply as ritual, but as instruments of investigation. He wants evidence. He wants answers. And above all, he wants to know what lies behind the visible world.
The Court and the Secret World
Dee is deeply connected to the Fifth World’s political machinery.
He is a friend, mentor and drinking companion to Thomas Devereux, an adviser to Bess Tudor, and has relationships with the House of Anjou and the King, Edward II.
He has cultivated connections with Francis Walsingham and William Cecil, while his intellectual and patronage network extends to figures such as Philip Sidney, Robert Dudley, Edward Dyer, Christopher Hatton and Kit Marlowe.
These relationships allow Dee to move between the worlds of scholarship, politics, espionage and magic.
He understands that knowledge is power, but that power is rarely exercised openly.
Characters
MORTAL CRITTERS / CHARACTERS
Doctor John Dee
Occupation: Scientist, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, occultist and magus extraordinaire.
Known as: The court’s conjurer and advisor to Bess Tudor.
Home: River House, Mortlake, London.
Principal relationships: Yvette Waterton, Thomas Devereux, Bess Tudor, Lady Jane Dee, Strix.
Political connections: The Crown, Walsingham, Cecil, Anjou and the wider Council of Thirteen.
Character
Doctor John Dee is one of the central characters of Mortal Critters and the intellectual engine of the series.Dee, different methods of investigating the same underlying reality.
He is exceptionally intelligent, curious and ambitious. He is also vain, financially astute and very conscious of his position and reputation. He enjoys the company of the powerful and intellectual, but is equally comfortable with a drink, a performance and the occasional appearance at London’s notorious Strangled Cat.
Tall and slender, with blue eyes, a long nose, white hair and a long white beard, Dee is an imposing and striking figure. He dresses in long gowns with hanging sleeves and carries himself like a man accustomed to being listened to.
He is regarded by many as the embodiment of the enlightened man, the intellectual soul of his age.
But Dee knows that the age is not as enlightened as it appears.
The Problem of the Fifth World
Dee’s greatest discovery is also his greatest fear.
The Fifth World is broken.
The wars, political upheavals, attacks on the magical community, supernatural disturbances and strange events surrounding the T’Ang treasure are not isolated incidents.
Dee believes they are symptoms of a deeper instability within the structure of history itself.
He knows that something is wrong with the world and believes that, if he can understand the cause, he may be able to prevent its destruction.
This makes Dee more than a wizard. He is an investigator of reality itself.
The Magus
Dee’s work combines rigorous scholarship with practical magic.
Among the objects and instruments associated with him are:
• The Table of Practice
• A Scrivening Ball bearing the Seal of God
• An Aztec obsidian Speculum
• Gold amulets
• The Book of Soyga
• The Voynich Manuscript
• Monas Hieroglyphica
• Euclid’s Elements
• The Perfect Art of Navigation
• On the Mystical Rule of the Seven Planets.
His Mortlake library is reputed to be one of the most remarkable in Europe.
Dee uses scrying, divination and other forms of magic not simply as ritual, but as instruments of investigation. He wants evidence. He wants answers. And above all, he wants to know what lies behind the visible world.
The Court and the Secret World
Dee is deeply connected to the Fifth World’s political machinery.
He is a friend, mentor and drinking companion to Thomas Devereux, an adviser to Bess Tudor, and has relationships with the House of Anjou and the King, Edward II.
He has cultivated connections with Francis Walsingham and William Cecil, while his intellectual and patronage network extends to figures such as Philip Sidney, Robert Dudley, Edward Dyer, Christopher Hatton and Kit Marlowe.
These relationships allow Dee to move between the worlds of scholarship, politics, espionage and magic.
He understands that knowledge is power, but that power is rarely exercised openly.