CHEAT SHEET.

[sakhr]

Cheat sheet

Bartimaeus

How do you pronounce Bartimaeus?

Bart-im-ay-us

Why does he have so many names?

Because he's had a long career and was named different things by different people from different cultures. His true name is Bartimaeus and this is the name that holds power — in his world, knowing a spirit's true name is what allows magicians to be able to summon and bind them. A spirit knowing a human's true name makes the human vulnerable. It's considered polite not to call Bartimaeus by his true name if you have another option.

I've noticed that he's kind of inconsistent/a bit of a hypocrite in tags.

This is on purpose. He's not very self-aware and has an inflated idea of himself. He doesn't lie about everything but he does big himself up, and also thinks he's way more humble than he actually is.

Why do you have footnotes in your tags?

The books have chapters written in first person from Bartimaeus's point of view. They have pithy little footnotes in them also written by Bartimaeus that add additional info or interject with humorous comments or asides. The in-universe explanation is that Bartimaeus thinks many different things at once so can have two different entire thought processes at the same time. Mostly it's just for fun and character voice. They're in third person because I just don't feel comfortable RPing in first person.

What pronouns should I use for Bartimaeus?

Bartimaeus' pronouns are as malleable as his form and there are no hard and fast rules for how you refer to him in your own tags, regardless of how he looks. He really wouldn't mind, so whatever makes the most sense to what your character is seeing is fine. I will be a bit flexible with pronouns in my own tags, for example referring to "the girl" and how she is moving/acting/speaking if he's in Kitty's form, but interiority will always go back to he/him. If this gets confusing for you at any point, let me know and I can clarify!

World

What's an afrit/marid/djinni/foliot/etc.?

Spirits in Bartimaeus's world belong to different categories that reflect their power and ability. These categories, ranging from least powerful to most, are:

⛤Assorted mites and extremely minor spirits.

⛤Imps — lowliest of spirits with little magic. mostly used by magicians for minor tasks like cleaning, carrying messages, and keeping watch.

⛤Foliots — favoured by magicians for stealth and cunning, but not as powerful or dangerous as djinn.

⛤Djinn — the largest and most varied class of spirit; no two djinn are alike. They are fairly powerful but can vastly differ in power from one djinni to the next. A djinni is the favoured spirit slave for most competent magicians. (Singular is djinni; plural is djinn.)

⛤Afrits — strong, bullheaded, and arrogant. Their might frequently exceeds their intelligence.

⛤Marids — most dangerous, least common. Only the greatest magicians dare to summon them.

⛤There are spirits more powerful than marids, but they are so rarely summoned that they don't have particular classifications.

Much of Bartimaeus' existence is framed around these categories in relation to one another, so that's why they come up a lot in tags.