Web Guide: Encyclopedia

Discworld characters

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is a comic fantasy work and includes a cast of several hundred characters.

Some of the best-known inhabitants of the Discworld include:

• Wizards and others at Unseen University, the principal seat of magical learning on the Disc:
  • Mustrum Ridcully[?], or Ridcully the Brown; the current Arch-Chancellor of the University
  • Galder Weatherwax[?]; the 304th Chancellor of the University
  • The Librarian; transformed by a magical accident into an orangutan
  • Rincewind[?] the Wizzard (sic); after a lifetime of running away that has taken him to the far regions of the Disc, he is now the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography
  • Ponder Stibbons[?]; formerly a postgraduate student in the High Energy Magic building, now the Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic
  • Windle Poons[?]; the Disc's oldest living wizard (and then, for a brief time, the Disc's most mobile dead wizard)
  • The Bursar[?]; at some remove from reality, subsists on dried frog pills
  • Modo, the dwarfish gardener of the Unseen University.
  • HEX[?], the most powerful (and possibly only) computing machine on the Disc

• Witches:
  • Granny Weatherwax[?]; possibly the most powerful witch on the Disc
  • Nanny Ogg[?]
  • Magrat Garlick[?]; Queen of Lancre
  • Agnes (Perdita X) Nitt[?]
  • Tiffany Aching[?] (Wee Free Men[?] only)

• Members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch[?] (which has an active policy of recruiting amongst ethnic minorities):
  • Sir Samuel Vimes[?], Duke of Ankh, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
  • Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson[?], the Disc's tallest dwarf (by adoption), Captain of the City Watch
  • Sergeant Fred Colon[?]
  • Sergeant Detritus[?], a troll
  • Corporal Cecil "Nobby" Nobbs[?]
  • Corporal Angua[?], a werewolf
  • Corporal Cheery Littlebottom[?], a dwarf, and the Watch's forensics expert
  • Dorfl[?], a golem

• Anthropomorphic personifications[?]:
  • Death (the Grim Reaper; resembles a skeleton in a black robe, carrying a scythe)
  • the Death of Rats[?] (the Grim Squeaker; resembles a rat skeleton in a black robe, carrying a scythe)
  • Binky (Death's steed)
  • Quoth the Raven (steed of the Death of Rats)
  • Time
  • Ernie Soak, the milkman
  • War (and possibly also Mrs. War and their children Terror, Panic, and Clancy)
  • Famine
  • Pestilence
  • The Auditors
  • The Hogfather[?]
  • The Tooth Fairy
  • Old Man Trouble

• Associates of Death
  • Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter
  • Mort, Death's apprentice
  • Susan Sto-Helit, Death's granddaughter (i.e. the daughter of Ysabell and Mort)
  • Albert[?], Death's manservant; formerly a wizard, the founder of Unseen University

• Ankh-Morpork society
  • Havelock Vetinari[?], the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork
  • Lady Sybil Vimes[?]
  • The heads of the various guilds

• Other inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork
  • Foul Ole Ron[?], Coffin Henry[?], the Duck Man[?] ("what duck?"), Arnold Sideways[?], and Altogether Andrews[?]; five beggars even the Beggars' Guild will have nothing to do with
  • Leonard of Quirm[?], mad inventor
  • Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler[?], entrepreneur and seller of street food ("For you, two dollars - and that's cutting me own throat!")
  • Chrysophrase, troll gangster
  • Mrs Cake, a small medium in a large hat

• Animals
  • Great A'Tuin, the gigantic turtle that carries the four elephants that carry the Disc
  • Gaspode[?] the Wonder Dog (Foul Ole Ron's Thinking Brain Dog)
  • Laddie (the Disc's first canine film star)
  • Greebo (Nanny Ogg's cat)

• Gods and other similar shady characters
  • Blind Io[?], leader of the gods
  • The Lady, not really a goddess, but very powerful, disappears when one says her name; not in any sense the patron goddess of gamblers
  • Fate, rival of the Lady
  • Om
  • Offler, the crocodile-headed god

• Other characters
  • Verence[?], King of Lancre[?]
  • Cohen the Barbarian[?]
  • Twoflower[?] the imperturbable Tourist
  • Casanunda[?] the dwarf - highwayman, liar, and the Disc's second-greatest lover ("I try harder.")
  • various bogeymen[?]
  • The Luggage
  • Lu-Tse[?], the Sweeper, and other monks

It is even possible to get a character in one of the future Discworld books named after yourself. Usually people appear in the books by bidding for the privilege in charity auctions.

Elsewhere

Search engine
Web directory