Warning: Spoilers for His Dark Materials ahead.

In the first episode of the BBC and HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, we're introduced to the "gobblers," a group of mysterious adults who are said to be taking children in and around Oxford. We see the creepy-looking daemon of one of the gobblers in a couple of scenes, approaching unwitting children before abducting them. Billy Costa, a young Gyptian, is the first to go missing, though the Gyptian leader John Faa is later heard saying that a number of Gyptian children have disappeared. Toward the end of episode one, Lyra's friend Roger is taken the day before he's meant to travel with Lyra and Mrs. Coulter to London. Her desire to rescue Roger becomes the catalyst for Lyra's own journey.

But if it's been a while since you've read the books - or you never got around to...