Discworld/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Discworld has Loads and Loads of Characters, so here they will be grouped roughly by "series". Characters that mainly appear in only one book will be grouped down at the bottom, in hopefully alphabetical order.


Once more for old times sake... WATCH OUT FOR SPOILERS!

City Watch

Commander Samuel Vimes

Head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and a hardened copper to the bone. His tenure as captain of the Night Watch came while the Guilds were on the rise and the Watch was in decline, and this combined with his natural cynicism drove him to drink. However, after seizing a series of opportunities to save the city, he unexpectedly found himself moving up in the world, starting with his marriage to the wealthy socialite and swamp-dragon fancier Sybil Ramkin and ending up with Vimes the Commander of a revitalized City Watch and receiving two titles (first his promotion to Commander coming with a knighthood, later given the title of Duke of Ankh in Jingo by Lord Vetinari in recognition of his accomplishments as commander of the Watch). He is also a truly incredible Badass.

  • Addiction Displacement: From alcohol to tobacco.
  • The Alcoholic: In Guards! Guards!. After that he goes cold turkey. As Vimes puts it, "one drink would be too much, two not enough."
  • The Anti-Nihilist: If there's no justice in the cold, uncaring universe, he's damn well going to shove some where the sun does not shine.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh, Commander of the City Watch, Blackboard Monitor.
    • Although, to some dwarfs it's actually Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick
      • In Snuff, it's mentioned that the title "Blackboard Monitor" has officially been bestowed on Vimes by the Low King, marking Vimes as someone who can bear the burden of being responsible for words (which in Dwarf-mythology are what created the entire world).

Lady Sybil: "Yes, Sam, the highest honor that the King of the Dwarfs can bestow. Blackboard Monitor Vimes: one who can erase the writings, somebody who can rub out what is there.

  • Authority Equals Asskicking
  • Badass
    • Badass in Charge
    • Badass Normal
    • Four-Star Badass: In the later books.
    • The Determinator: To the point where, in Thud! he defeats an "ancient quasi-demonic thing of pure vengeance" with sheer willpower.
    • "Ancient" in this case meaning older than the created universe.
    • He did this without realizing it! Plus, Vetinari and his chief clerk had guessed even odds of this happening ahead of time.
    • In Night Watch he tells the Watch to surround the place where deadly serial killer Carcer is hiding so he can go after the bastard himself. Vimes is the Watch's one man SWAT Team.
  • Casting a Shadow: As of Snuff, he has the powers not only to see in the dark, but to magically communicate with underground-living entities and have near-omniscient universal perception of anything that happens in darkness.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Learned from his mentor Sergeant John Keel... in one timeline, at least.
  • Comic Book Fantasy Casting: Paul Kidby draws Vimes as Clint Eastwood. Melvyn Grant draws him as Pete Postlethwaite, who Pratchett reportedly would prefer.
  • Cowboy Cop: Has been asked to turn in his badge a couple times because his investigations have upset the wrong people.
  • Crazy Prepared: His home is liberally strewn with booby-traps to catch any Assassin trying to collect on a contract for his head. The effectiveness of these traps is part of the reason why the Assassin's Guild refuses to take contracts out on him anymore.
  • The Cynic: In Going Postal, Adora Belle Dearheart calls him even more cynical than Vetinari.
  • Da Chief: Combines with Cowboy Cop in very strange ways. As Vetinari put it:

"I have noted before that you have a definite anti-authoritarian streak, Commander."
"Sir?"
"You seem to have retained this even though you are Authority."
"Sir?"
"That's practically Zen."

  • Dark Is Not Evil: Darkness is something of a running theme with Vimes, and it gets rather more literal in Thud! when he's possessed by the Summoning Dark... which he throws out with his own form of "Dark." It apparently was impressed, and in Snuff it's taken to helping him out a bit.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Disappeared Dad: Heavily implied to have had one in Night Watch, possibly tying into his own Adult Fear regarding young Sam. Snuff makes it even clearer.
  • Discriminate and Switch: His main objection to Angua joining the Watch is that she's a werewolf. This, in conjunction with his alcoholism, is why Angua has a very low opinion of him for most of Men at Arms.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Well, until his wife put a stop to it.
  • Enemy Within: Less blatant than usual with this trope, The Beast is Vimes' very own inner Shadow Archetype, containing all of the mindless rage and animalistic instinct that simmers within Vimes. There's even a bit of Super-Powered Evil Side in there whenever Vimes "lets The Beast off its chain."
    • And full-on when he's infected by the Summoning Dark in Thud!.
  • The Fettered: The source of his Determinator willpower is his unwavering belief in justice and laws.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: As of Snuff, he's on good terms with the Summoning Dark.
  • Good Is Not Nice: He's a good person, but is taciturn and short-tempered. Although the fact that he decided to stay good instead of being nice (which is pretty well near mutually exclusive in the pre-Carrot Night Watch) is something that can be attributed to how good he is really.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: In his case, it's yet another sign of massive badassitude.
  • Heroic Willpower: Walking embodiment of it.
  • Happily Married: To Sybil. True, he becomes a Henpecked Husband in some ways, but he's so in love with her (as said henpecking is nearly always to his benefit) he wouldn't have it any other way.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Vimes spends half his life avoiding this trope through sheer force of will. It's implied in Snuff that he might be starting to go too far in bending the rules to make sure justice is done.
  • Inter Class Romance: Captain Sam Vimes and Lady Sybil Ramkin (subsequently Sir Samuel and Lady Sybil Vimes). The resultant class dynamics lead to Vimes being seen as "a jumped-up copper to the nobs, and a nob to the rest".
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Pretty nearly defines it, and was in fact, actually knighted. He also prefers wearing battered, rusty armour to ceremonial Bling of War.
  • Lawful Good: held up as an excellent example of how to be a Lawful Good Badass.
  • Memetic Badass: In-universe. Criminals don't fear the Law, they fear the Sam. Becomes even more blatant whenever someone starts listing things he's done, which includes arresting Vetinari of all people, for treason (and living), beating up a group of werewolves bare handed, and fighting off a demon older than civilization itself by sheer willpower. When Vimes was out of the city and the Watch was on strike in The Fifth Elephant, unlicensed crime practically disappeared because no-one wanted to be on the Vimes Shit List.
    • A significant part of his Memetic Baddassery is the fact that he is a leader of Ankh-Morpork, quite possibly the most important leader after Vetinari himself, and yet remains uncorrupt. This is explicitly stated as part of the reason he commands such respect.
  • Not with Them for the Money: A Rare Male Example. He's less than interested in his wife's vast fortune. He's made exceptions when it was something very important—like getting an emergency medical care when Sybil was giving birth. He prefers looking like a grubby cop, as opposed to dressing like the money would allow.
  • Only Sane Man: Often Vimes feels like this.
  • Overly Long Name: His Grace, His Excellency, the Duke of Ankh Commander Sir Samuel Vimes.
    • As of Snuff, he's officially called His Grace, His Excellence, His Blackboard-Monitorship, the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Lord of Ramkin Estate. Yeah.
  • Papa Wolf: Don't get between him and his family, especially his son. Just don't.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: He's been described as "burning" to arrest the Creator of the universe for doing such a shoddy job.
  • Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: becomes the human container for the Summoning Dark.
  • Street Smart: Grew up on the streets. They never left him.
  • Super-Powered Evil Side: initially a natural part of his personality, but gets turned right up once he's infected with, and manages to tame, the Summoning Dark.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Except that he can stop it.
  • Technical Pacifist: He's not reluctant to do a Groin Attack or other dirty fighting but will avoid killing suspects at almost any cost because he believes that the law has a process that can be bent but not broken.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Vimes can't seem to let go of a blade without it sticking in something. Even a chisel. And it's lampshaded every single time.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: In later books, the bacon sandwich. And most things that involve considerable amounts of salt, sugar, fat, and "burnt crunchy bits". While Sybil has become an expert in making such things for Sam, of late she's been keeping him on a diet, to his dismay.
  • Turn in Your Badge: Played with; it was because he'd already announced his resignation. And then we have this gem from Feet of Clay... "In all, I have had seventeen demands for your badge. Some of them want parts of your body attached."
    • When Lord Rust was running the city in Jingo, Vimes and his entire officer corps turned them in immediately so they wouldn't have to follow his insane orders. He then proceeded to exploit an old rule stating that noblemen could raise a militia and headed off to a war zone to do what he wanted, reducing Rust to incoherent rage.
    • Earlier in his career (back when he was still captain and not a duke yet), Vimes did have to turn his badge over to Wonse, the Patrician's mad clerk. Vimes didn't know what to do with himself afterward, since being a copper was all he knew how to do.
    • In Snuff, Vimes is asked by several people to hand in his badge temporarily while he goes on a holiday to the countryside. Vimes complies and hands it over in a sealed envelope. Even without looking at or feeling the envelope, Vetinari knows that Vimes instead put a metal canister (of snuff) into the envelope.
  • Underdressed for the Occasion: Played with, in that he does this on purpose — to the extent of throwing his ducal regalia into a convenient canyon in The Fifth Elephant.
  • We Help the Helpless: Several of the Watch books start, or involve, investigating the murder of someone who wouldn't be considered "important" by those in power. It's not out of idealism—Vimes doesn't think that the poor and unrepresented are less mean, small-minded, or wicked than the rich—but someone has to defend them.
  • Wrong Side of the Tracks: Despite growing up in a notoriously poor and crime-ridden neighborhood and spending some time in a street gang, where he learned to fight dirty, his street had Standards (buying soap to clean the table is better than putting food on it). He was shamed by a future version of himself masquerading as his mentor out of taking a bribe by asking what his mum would say if she knew where he got it. This sets him on the path of Lawful Good when most of the police were corrupt.

Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson

A tall, strong, and somewhat naive young man who came to Ankh-Morpork looking to have a man made of him (in more ways than one: Carrot had been raised by dwarfs all his life). He signed up with the Night Watch, and was largely responsible for pulling the organization to its feet and making it what it is today. Despite all evidence to the contrary (such as his incredible charisma, his crown-shaped birthmark, and his old but very well-made sword), he will do everything possible without actually lying to indicate he is not secretly the last long-lost heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork. Currently Carrot holds the rank of Captain of the Watch, which makes him Commander Vimes' second-in-command.

  • The Ace: Singlehandedly won a bar fight in the Mended Drum and stops dwarf and troll riots by being nice.
  • Badass
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He's a 6-foot adopted dwarf, meaning he grew up in a mine swinging a pickaxe all day as soon as he could hold it. He's just as strong as any Dwarf, only scaled up 200%. Oh, and he's got the Narrative behind his back.

If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word. -- Men at Arms

    • The quote comes in an ironic echo when Carrot later does just that to Dr. Cruces, who was then under the influence of a magically-possessed firearm.. He then destroys said firearm without flinching, when Vimes could barely keep himself from murdering with it.
  • Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Doesn't help that being raised by dwarves makes him take things literally.
  • Chosen One: Subverted because he would rather be on the Watch than be king of Ankh-Morpork.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Carrot is set up to be the main character in Guards! Guards!, but partway through the perspective shifts mostly to Vimes, with Carrot becoming a supporting character.
    • Actually, Pratchett himself has stated that he intended Carrot to be the main character from the beginning, but Vimes pretty much took over the story, lending credence to the "stories write themselves, the author is just the conduit" theory.
  • Dork Knight: he's painfully decent and, especially at first, rather naive in some ways, but as mentioned above, not someone to mess with.
  • Excalibur in the Rust: The absolutely ordinary-looking, non-magical sword wielded by Carrot Ironfoundersson. It doesn't gleam or have embellishments, it has minor chips along the edge, and is sharp enough to effortlessly nail someone to a stone pillar.
  • Fantastic Racism: The only serious flaw Carrot ever exhibited was prejudice against undead. He got over that one quickly.
    • And it took him a while to accept "out" female dwarfs, too.
      • He actually seemed okay with it once someone explained it to him. At first he just didn't see the point more than anything, but he was probably the first dwarf who is not actually part of the movement to accept it.
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: His eventual girlfriend, Angua, is blonde.
  • The Good Captain: Though Captain is a fairly high rank in the Watch (the second-in-command), Carrot often emphasizes the role of Vimes' subordinate and the one who gets things done, not the one giving out executive orders.
  • Good Is Not Dumb
  • Good Is Not Soft
  • Happily Adopted: Once he wraps his head around the fact he WAS adopted.
  • Honor Before Reason: Although he subverts this in unusual ways.
    • Perhaps one of the strangest was when he decided to take a nap while they were trying to catch up to the ship Angua had gotten stuck on. When Vimes expressed a great deal of surprise at how calm he seemed about his girlfriend getting kidnapped, he said that worrying about her wouldn't do her any good, and if he was well-rested he would be better-prepared to rescue her. Compare this attitude to the one about two dozen pages back, where he was barely able to keep himself from attempting to singlehandedly arrest a suspect surrounded by at least a dozen armed guards.
  • Ideal Hero
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin: Well, he was, and rather cluelessly so (e.g. never noticing he's lodging with the, hem-hem, seamstresses) until his encounter with Angua.
    • Apparently his upbringing by a race that thinks of puberty as something that happens in the fifties had something to do with it.
  • No Social Skills: At least some of his quirks and naivete come from his unusual (for a human, anyway) upbringing.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: In the later books. It's more like Obfuscating Naiveté, though.
  • Oblivious Adoption: He was the only one who had to stoop to avoid banging his head in the mine back home.
  • Officer and a Gentleman
  • Prophecy Twist: "The king will come bringing Law and Justice, and know nothing but the Truth, and Protect and Serve the People with his Sword." Does the prophecy say anywhere that the king would actually claim the throne?
  • Right Makes Might: He firmly believes this, and since he can beat trolls in bare-fisted fights no-one is going to argue.
  • Understanding Boyfriend: So understanding it actually gets on Angua's nerves at times.
  • Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Trope Namer, coming from Vimes's description of his reports. Though very intelligent in certain ways, Carrot never really got the hang of writing. Vimes describes his approach to punctuation as "ballistic".


Sergeant Frederick Colon

Fred Colon is "one of nature's sergeants"; he has years of experience patrolling the mean streets of Ankh-Morpork, but he's also fat, not very brave, not too bright, and doesn't deal well with having to take command. But according to Vimes himself, he has a trained street ear and can pick up the word on the street amazingly fast.

  • Butt Monkey
  • Feigning Intelligence: Enough to fool Nobby, anyway...Or is it?
  • The Fool: With Nobby. Expressly given as the reason why they're still on the force now that the city watch has moved past when their antics are amusing or acceptable. They both have countless clues and crimes literally fall into their laps.
  • Greek Chorus: With Nobby, in several books that are not focused on the Watch.
  • Happily Married: And with several children as well. Despite the fact that he and his wife work different shifts in the day and only communicate with notes.
    • Vimes speculates that their children have been born as the result of "particularly persuasive handwriting".
  • Knowledge Broker: Of a sort. Colon is one of those people who naturally gets along with everyone, so Vimes gives him a comfy little office with a meaningless job title in the training building, where the kettle is always on and the doughnuts are free. Off-duty cops come by all the time to, as Vimes puts it, "gossip like washerwomen," and Vimes happily signs the bills for the tea and doughnuts in exchange for this free-flowing source of information. Vimes mentions that he uses Colon to figure out what the "man in the street" is thinking since Colon basically is the man in the street.
  • The Neidermeyer: In The Fifth Elephant. Also shades of this during basic training in Men at Arms. This is why, although he's senior to Vimes and Carrot, he isn't in charge and generally just patrols with Nobby.
  • Non-Action Guy: If he can possibly get away with it. When all officers were summoned to contain Carcer at the beginning of Night Watch, he and Nobby were posted to the least likely escape route.
  • Pretend Prejudice: Colon expresses some not very enlightened opinions about Ankh-Morpork's non-white citizens, but continues to eat in his favorite curry restaurant which knows to make their food bland enough that he won't think it's "foreign", and is friendly with the proprietors. In fact it is pretty clear he was jumping on the national mood against Klatchians only, as it was pointed out he had no problem with other non-white people, such as the 'pretty brown' Constable Visit, lending credence to his characterization as amicable to most people as a rule.
  • Punch Clock Hero
  • Ridiculously Average Guy: Considering this is Discworld, that's an impressive rarity.
  • Snipe Hunt: Because he's not exactly the most dedicated and selfless officer, Colon likes to assign himself jobs like watching the Opera House or Unseen University to make sure no-one steals it.
    • To his credit, they've only ever been stolen once, and that one doesn't count because it was a prank by the students of the Unseen University.
  • The Archer: On the rare occasion he does end up in combat, he's shown to be fairly proficient with both a bow and a crossbow.
  • Those Two Guys: With Nobby.

Corporal Cecil Wormsborough St. John "Nobby" Nobbs

Despite his resemblance to a shaved chimpanzee with bad acne, and despite his many bad habits (including kleptomania, chain-smoking, and telling off-color jokes in mixed company), Nobby Nobbs has a skill for getting along with people; Commander Vimes suspects it has something to do with the "common denominator", as there's nobody commoner than Nobby. He shares a strong camaraderie with Fred Colon, as well as street smarts, a fear of responsibility, and a belief in 'safe' policing (like keeping the peace in neighborhoods that have plenty of peace to keep, or guarding city landmarks from theft).

"There something strangely compelling about the little tit."
“What do you mean?”
"He's got charisn'tma: He's so vile he actually fascinates people"

    • He is, however, fantastically attractive to Goblin women... and the feeling is mutual.
  • Butt Monkey
  • The Fool: With Colon. Expressly given as the reason why they're still on the force now that the city watch has moved past when their antics are amusing or acceptable. They both have countless clues and crimes literally fall into their laps.
  • Gonk: Few Discworld characters are described as ugly, but Nobby's looks and doubtful species is a running joke.
  • I Am Not Weasel: "Disqualified from the human race for shoving." People seem to have trouble believing he's human. He carries papers from the Patrician to this end.
    • And even they will only go so far as to say that the "balance of probability" is that he's human.
    • According to Pratchett, "While most people know there's a werewolf in the Watch, most people think it's Nobby, for obvious reasons."
    • Even Death doesn't know what his species is—responding with a confused delay then tentatively suggesting he is a "male" when he meets him while playing the role of the Hogfather.
  • Interspecies Romance: One could technically argue that Nobby with a human girl is this, given how people tend to mistake him for some kind of goblin or primate-creature on first sight. However, it becomes canon (between Nobby and a female goblin) in Snuff.
  • Instant Dogend
  • Lovable Coward: "When the call came out, it would not find Nobby wanting. It would not find him at all".
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: His conversations with Fred often give the impression that he's 'pulling a Socrates', or feigning stupidity in order to challenge Colon's prejudices.
  • Orphaned Punchline: It's probably for the best that we don't hear how his jokes start out.
  • Overly Long Name
  • Real Men Wear Pink: And have a fabulous dress sense... and are regular members of the Folk Dance society...
    • And, given that this is Nobby we're talking about, aren't much in the way of 'real men' either.
  • Those Two Guys: With Fred Colon.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Girlfriend: In Thud!, briefly and inexplicably.
    • It's not inexplicable, just highly improbable. It's explained as (to paraphrase the book's description) the Hot Girlfriend having low self-esteem because all the normal men who would otherwise be all over her automatically assume she's out of their league and thus she thinks she must be dreadfully ugly. Nobby does not have these men's inhibitions.
  • Wholes... Non-Villainous Crossdresser: After wearing female clothing as a disguise in Jingo, he's begun to enjoy those assignments a little too much.
    • Nobby actually strains the powers of Narrative Causality which state that any plain male, when wearing women's clothing will be seem attractive, a very rare occurrence in Discworld.


Captain [1] Angua (Delphine Angua von Uberwald)

A female Watch officer, love interest for Carrot, and resident werewolf. Probably one of the most formidable Watch members and her werewolf skills make her very useful, but she has to deal with an entire city getting Genre Savvy about it (though they all think Nobby is the werewolf).


Sergeant Cheery "Cheri" Littlebottom

The Watch's first forensics expert, Cheery was hired straight after being kicked out of the Guild of Alchemists for blowing it up even more spectacularly than usual. She promptly met Sergeant Angua, who, having a very good sense of smell, immediately knew she was female, something dwarfs Do Not Talk About. Cheery became one of the leaders in the dwarf feminist movement, respelling her name, wearing skirts, putting on makeup, and admitting that she really doesn't like beer that much. She's very competent but gets embarrassed when she has to yell at people, and as such Vimes doesn't promote her until she's been on the force for a while.


Sergeant Detritus

One of Discworld's great success stories, Detritus went from a splatter outside a pub ("like a bouncer, but trolls use more force") to a sergeant in the City Watch charged with yelling at recruits until they behave. He's not too bright unless it's cold out, but can eventually reach a satisfactory conclusion given enough time. He carries a converted siege crossbow and wore elephant battle armor until they could find something better.

Some weapons are called a Saturday Night Special; Detritus's multi-arrow crossbow would last you all week.
—Snuff

For him, the humor was a human aberration, that had to be overcome by talking slowly and with patience.

Jus' say "AarrghaarrghpleeassennononoUGH"

Carrot: How are we going to get in, sir?
Vimes: How would you go about it, Carrot?
Carrot: Well, I'd start by knocking, sir.
Vimes: Really? Sergeant Detritus, blow the bloody doors off!
Detritus: Yessir!

  • Fire-Forged Friends: Develops this with Cuddy in the course of Men at Arms.
  • Genius Bruiser: Trolls in the Discworld are walking minerals with silicon-based brains. The colder it gets, the smarter trolls get. When he was trapped in the Pork Futures Warehouse, Detritus very nearly worked out a Unified Field Theory while he was freezing to death. He survived, but alas, the equations did not.
    • It's implied that Detritus is in fact, extremely intelligent by any standard when in cooler environments. The problem is that such temperatures are rarely achieved in a temperate environment like Ankh-Morpork's, and that his optimal temperature is unfortunately, also at the point where he is about to freeze to death.
      • It's actually been shown that trolls are all pretty smart in their home territories. It's just when they decide to travel to Ankh-Morpork to make a living that their intelligence drops, due to the hot, muggy weather. In The Fifth Elephant, when Detritus is in Uberwald, he shows signs of being dangerously clever. In Jingo, too, at night in the Klatchian desert (desert nights tend to be cold), he verged on Spock Speak.
  • Happily Married: But childless.
    • No longer true as of Thud!, after he adopts Brick.
  • Mighty Glacier: Usually slow on the uptake and tends to walk by dragging his knuckles, but can move and think very quickly when the situation calls for it.
    • He (Detritus) walked fast now, with that lava-like deceptive "slowliness".

Detritus moved so fast that he was halfway through the crowd before the dwarf hit the cobbles. His arm dipped into the press of bodies and hauled up a struggling figure. He spun round, thudded back through the gap that hadn't had time to close yet, and was beside Vimes before Ringfounder's helmet had stopped rolling.

Constable Reginald "Reg" Shoe

The City Watch's resident zombie. Rather affable and upbeat about his status as an undead, and loyally serves Vimes with the same passion he did in life (see Night Watch).

  • Badass: See how he decided to go down in Night Watch.
  • Crazy Prepared: Was a conspiracy nut in life, and now carries everything he needs to stitch his body back together when it falls apart. (Of course, this is probably because it tends to be necessary on a regular basis)
  • Determinator: He lives on as an undead because of his sheer willpower in life, death being merely a minor (and very temporary) inconvenience.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: He tends to lose body parts practically every other scene. He just sews them back on.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: In Jingo, he gets his arm chopped off, and uses it to attack the enemy, who runs off, terrified.
  • La Résistance: Was a member of the Glorious People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road (Night Watch), which led to his death and subsequent afterlife.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: In life, and to some extent, as an undead.
  • Soapbox Sadie: Very much so before he joined the Watch, less so afterward, though he'll still lead any pickets and strikes, and continues to work for undead rights, including hanging out in graveyards haranguing the dead to stop just lying there.


Lance-Constable Salacia "Sally" [...] von Humpeding

The first vampire constable, debuted in Thud!. She and Angua don't get along very well at all, but wind up having a grudging friendship. Vimes has a pathological distrust of vampires, but he is able to suppress this in light of her utility.

'He is in fact she,' said Lord Vetinari. He glanced down at his paperwork. 'Salacia Deloresista Amanita Trigestatra Zeldana Malifee...' he paused, turned over several pages, and said, 'I think I can skip some of these, but they end "von Humpeding".'

"We are not bonding, okay? I am not a bondage sort of person!"
—Angua

Constable Dorfl

The resident golem on the City Watch. Taken on by Vimes partially because he wanted to piss off "the establishment". Currently is saving up his wages to buy other golems their freedom, and has a friendly but recurring argument with Constable Visit over religion.

  • Badass Automaton
  • Determinator: Like other Discworld golems, Dorfl is fireproof, super-strong, nearly indestructible, and doesn't need to sleep, rest, or eat. Unlike other Discworld golems, Dorfl returned to life after his chem was destroyed.

"Undead Or Alive, You Are Coming With Me."

"I Don't Call That Much Of An Argument."

  • Flat Earth Atheist: A very literal example.
  • Nay Theist: He refuses to accept the possibility that gods exist. When they chuck a lightning bolt at him he responds with the above quote. He has, however, expressed a willingness to believe if a logical argument can be presented by their priests. So far this has yet to happen.
    • Exact Words: he's willing to debate about god on his time off with the high priest of the most accomplished god. In the same scene he tells Sam Vimes that he doesn't need time off, and says the line about "most accomplished god" to the crowd of all the holy men in Ankh Morpork, that proceed to bicker about this the moment he turns his back.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: He Speaks With Every Word Capitalized.
  • Raised by Wolves: Golems have peculiar ideas about possession, work ethic, and religion.


Constable Visit

A native of Omnia, he is the resident ultra-religious member of the watch. He and Dorfl disagree of the existence of God, but this is more of an intellectual dispute than heated rivalry, and he is generally one of the nicest and most moral members of the Watch. Vimes considers him an excellent copper (largely due to his abilities at keeping the peace)

  • Bunny Ears Lawyer
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Not crazy, but does come off as very odd due to some of his beliefs.
  • The Fundamentalist: Mild version, played for laughs. See Overly Long Name below for modern Omnian evangelism.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Has a fondness for pigeons (and some of them ironically become meals for the gargoyle members of the Watch).
  • Knocking on Heathens' Door: Speaking sincerely to the infidel through their (pamphlet-filled) letter boxes while people all over Ankh-Morpork pretend they're not at home.
  • Overly Long Name: "Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets"
    • Omnians apparently love these; see also "Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats", aka Mightily Oats. Also, Visit's friend "Smite-the-Unbeliever-with-Cunning-Arguments".
      • Presumably this custom arose after the events of Small Gods, whose Omnian characters have ordinary names.
      • In the least, it's mentioned in Thud! that their names are actually shorter written and said in the Omnian language. Their very earnest desire to convert infidel populations to Om's side might have something to do with the very literal translations...


Constable Downspout

The first gargoyle on the City Watch. Patient, loves pigeons (as food), and Vimes' ideal choice for prolonged stakeouts.


Inspector A.E. Pessimal

A former Obstructive Bureaucrat hired by Vetinari to examine Vimes' operations in Thud! Despite his aggravating nature, he's secretly a City Watch Fan Boy, and Vimes unwittingly gives Pessimal his dream by making him an acting constable (erroneously believing that seeing real police work up close would get him to shut up and go away). This merely inspired Pessimal to Take a Level In Badass, and become a Crazy Awesome Ascended Fanboy, committing an act of bravery (attacking a rioting troll with his teeth) so insane that Vetinari couldn't believe it. By the end of Thud!, he's a full fledged Lance-Constable Trainee, whom Vimes poached from Vetinari partially for his Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass qualities, and partially because the Watch needed a good paper pusher. Is also one of the few people who so impressed Vimes with his Hidden Depths that he's allowed to call him "Mr. Vimes". As of Snuff, he puts his talents to work discovering the dirty laundry in other people's account books.

A. E. Pessimal stepped forward, taking a deep breath. 'C'mon if you think you're hard enough!' he screamed wildly.
Vimes coughed. 'Thank you, Mr Pessimal,' he said weakly. 'I imagine that should do it.'

Constable Buggy Swires

The City Watch's resident Gnome. Although he was raised as a gnome, he found he was less interested in reapiring shoes as he was in kicking ass and taking names. He has since found out about his true heritage and is all the happier for it.

.

  • Ascended Extra: A gnome character named "Swires" was found living in a toadstool in the very first discworld story. Pratchett has hinted that the sequence of events that led to him appearing ten books later as a watchman is epic even by discworld standards.
  • Badass: Buggy Swires is vicious even for a gnome. He fought thirty other gnomes and won.
  • Big Badass Bird of Prey: His favoured means of transport.
  • Boisterous Bruiser
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Fortunately, his raw strength makes this not a problem.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Perhaps the ultimate Discworld example.
  • Violent Glaswegian: As is the standard among littlekind. The rest of the Watch suspect he's intentionally overdoing it.


Sybil Ramkin

Lady Ramkin (later just Lady Sybil) is a duchess, one of the richest women in the city of Ankh-Morpork, and wife of Commander Samuel Vimes. A hobbyist breeder of swamp dragons. Sybil is rather quiet, a good listener, and leans toward understatement. But like most Discworld characters, she's tougher (and smarter) than she looks. Her aristocratic birth is a source of mild frustration to Vimes, since he adores his wife, but can't stand being a duke or talking to most of her nobby rich friends.

  • Bald of Awesome: Wears a wig, as she lost her hair due to working with fire-breathing swamp dragons.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: When this woman gets pissed, Commander Sam Vimes gets scared. In fact, her potentially getting pissed is enough to scare Vimes.
  • Blue Blood
  • BBW: "If a valkyrie can carry off one hero at a time, this one could sweep off an entire battalion."
    • Sam accidentally lampshades this when, trying to hide a gigantic troll head in panic, he tells her to "stand in front of it".

Sybil: I am not that tall, Sam! Or that wide!

  • Crazy Swamp Dragon Lady
  • Fluffy Tamer: Not only one of Discworld's foremost dragon breeders, but she also likes Nobby.
  • Good Is Not Dumb: Sybil looks harmless and cheery, but she's got a razor-sharp mind underneath. Most ably demonstrated in The Fifth Elephant when she negotiates the fat trade for Ankh-Morpork.
  • Happily Married: Though she worries about Sam and his work. However, she knows the former without the latter would no longer be Sam.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: See Mama Bear.
  • Mama Bear: Not quite as dangerous as her husband when the family is threatened, because Sybil is genteel and well-bred. However, she also comes from a line of lords reaching back to the days when "nobility" meant "he who can kill the greatest number of enemies". As befitting a noblewoman, Sybil's weapons of choice are words and gestures. But making her angry is not a good idea.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: She does have a tendency to seem a tad airheaded, but that is a thin veneer hiding a mind capable of manipulating her husband like a puppet. She is notably one of the few people who calls Lord Vetinari by his first name (Havelock).
    • Sybil is also a very shrewd businesswoman when she wants to be, as demonstrated by the aforementioned The Fifth Elephant scene.
    • In Snuff, she surprises even Lord Vetinari by her gambit — getting the most important people in Ankh-Morpork (and representatives of most of the neighbouring countries) to listen to Tears of the Mushroom play her harp. Which results in a number of laws being rewritten. All According to Plan.


Willikins

Sybil and Sam's butler. Seems like the stereotypical butler, but is capable of feats of stunning badassery.

  • Badass: Has bitten a guy's nose off, and stabbed an assassin to death with an ice knife. And that's after serious gentrification.
    • Even more so in Snuff, to the point where Vimes comments that Willikins would've made a great copper, if he wouldn't have made a just-as-good, if not better, assassin.
  • Battle Butler: Has not only gone eagerly into battle for Ankh-Morpork, he has stood his ground to defend the Vimes homestead, and kicked serious ass while doing so.
  • Deadpan Snarker: To A.E. Pessimal. Brutally.

"Has Sir ever gone Sir-on-one with a troll?" Amusingly, later, A.E. does.

  • Former Teen Rebel: In his youth, ran with a street gang that even Vimes considered to be a bunch of tough bastards. Is now a butler.
  • Old Retainer: Has been with the Ramkin family since at least events in Night Watch.
  • Screaming Warrior: During Jingo, he screams at the enemy and fellow soldiers during a charge. Once Vimes enters the scene, he oscillates between this trope and his butlery manners to humorous effect:

"I'LL CUT YER TONKER OFF'F YER YER GREASY — Oh, is that you, Sir Samuel?"
"Huh? Willikins?"
"Indeed, sir." The butler straightened up.
"Willikins?"
"Do excuse me one moment, sir KNOCK IT OFF YOU MOTHERLOVIN SONS OF BITCHES I had no apprehension of your presence, sir."

  • Tranquil Fury: During the second climax of Snuff, when he is taking out the psychopath who went after Young Sam.

Witches

Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax

I can't be having with this.

A stern, skinny old woman who walks just on the "good" side of the thin line between good witch and bad witch. Thinks she knows what's best for people, and is usually right. Not well-liked, but well-respected, and that's usually good enough for her. Lives in the mountain kingdom of Lancre, and as far as she's concerned she and her fellow witches are the ones who really run the place. Tends to avoid using actual witch-magic unless she actually has to, preferring to use "headology" — her own personal version of psychology — something she is very, very, very good at.

  • Anti-Hero: Custom made to be bad, but when her sister left she was forced to be the good one.
  • Anti-Villain: In her own opinion.
  • Being Good Sucks: Practically the postergirl for this trope.
  • Brainwash Residue: The shapeshifting variety. For example, she stopped using owls to see at night because "You ends up for days trying to twist your head right round," and after she's borrowed an entire beehive, she declares, "I wantzzz a bunzzch of flowerzz, a pot of honey, and someone to szzzting."
  • Catch Phrase: "Blessings be upon this house!", "I can't be having with this.", "I (still) aten't dead."
  • Celibate Eccentric Genius: a Rare Female Example.
  • Child-Hater: Combined with Wouldn't Hurt a Child. Yes, she has that combination. She will loudly (and repeatedly) complain about children and threaten them with over-the-top punishments, but she would never act on any of them.
  • Celibate Hero: This amazes her former suitor Ridcully when he finds out.
  • Cuteness Proximity: With You the kitten.
  • The Dreaded
  • Good Is Not Nice: She never wanted to be the good one, and is somewhat grumpy as a result.
  • Icy Blue Eyes: Much attention is given to her piercing, diamond-blue eyes.
  • I Have Many Names: At one point, Nanny brings up that her name among the trolls translates as "She Who Must Be Avoided" and the dwarfs know her as "Go Around The Other Side Of The Mountain".
  • In-Series Nickname: Nanny Ogg calls her "Esme".
  • Insufferable Genius: But they suffer her anyway, because it's way better than the alternatives.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Insists she "ain't got no romance in her soul." (Though that suspiciously dramatic streak persists.)
  • Lethal Chef:
  • Memetic Badass: In-universe, Sam Vimes is the only one who comes close to her in this territory.
  • Nay Theist: The quote at the top of the trope page belongs to her.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Ever.
  • Nice Hat
  • No Sense of Humor: Is famed for it.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: She's forced into one in Witches Abroad, and again in Maskerade, in order to pose as an upper-class lady. She would never admit to liking it, of course, or the midnight black velvet cloak Tiffany gifts her.
  • Pride: Nanny Ogg describes her as 'proud' in the same sense that 'the sea is full of water'. She isn't a proud person, her existence is pride.
  • Prim and Proper Bun: She wears her hair in a "tight bun that could crack rocks."
  • Retired Badass: Not so much a badass who retired as a badass who happens to be the age of your grandmother. Granny has heard of the concept of retirement for the elderly; for her, it's something that happens to other people.
  • Running Gag: Her broomstick is old, made of spare parts, and requires jump-starting. This involves holding it and running around like an idiot until the magic "catches."
    • Or JUMPING OFF A ROOF.
    • Another one: Granny is such an expert at "Borrowing" (or casting her mind into animals while in a trance) that she has to carry a card with the words "I ATEN'T DEAD" on it to stop people from burying her. This turns out to be an astonishingly long range Running Gag that pays off in Carpe Jugulum where after fighting off vampires for the entire book she ends the book lying on her bed clutching a card saying I STILL ATEN'T DEAD.
  • Shout-Out: Lots of her lines.
  • Transplant, Mentor and (arguably) one-woman Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In the Tiffany Aching books.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: She can't talk to Nanny for more than a few minutes without them starting to fight.
    • As said in Witches Abroad, Granny "really couldn't be having at all with Nanny Ogg, who was her best friend."
    • And in Maskerade Nanny Ogg muses how they need to have a third, younger girl in the group to boss around or they'll just end up getting on each other's nerves, while as a trio they can get on the nerves of the rest of the world, which is much more fun.
  • Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Despite the abundance of witches, they don't have spelling in the mountains.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Towards Magrat. She saw potential for real witchery in the girl, and was a Stealth Mentor to her. She was secretly very proud of her, even though she never shows it. She was very upset when Magrat left witching, and was incredibly upset when she thought she'd not been invited to her wedding. Still, she was the one who told the Fool to marry her and was secretly very honoured when Magrat named her daughter Esmerelda.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: To the degree that when she ends up infecting a clan of vampires with herself, they become unable to harm children as well.

Gytha "Nanny" Ogg

A fat, likeable old woman with a fondness for free food, strong drink, dirty jokes, and dirtier songs. Easygoing, bends the rules all the time when reality gets too boring, gets on well with nearly everyone, given time[4] to get to know them. Has been married three times ("and that's only the official score") and had fifteen children, and is thus the absolute ruler of a massive extended family. Owns an ill-tempered tomcat named Greebo who, despite Nanny's insistence that he's "an old softy," is practically the poster child for Cats Are Mean and sires his own expansive clan (though once she admits "just between you and me, he's a fiend from hell."). Nanny has been best friends with Granny Weatherwax for decades, with the result that the two argue frequently. Despite her facade of a dim-but-lovable old lady, she hides "a mind like a buzzsaw behind a face like an elderly apple", and may be even more powerful than Granny.


Magrat Garlick

Third witch in a small coven consisting of herself ("The Maiden"), Nanny Ogg ("The Mother") and Granny Weatherwax ("The... Other One"). Initially a naive young woman who tries a little too hard to be nice to everyone, and who believes in the healing power of nature and all that other hippie rubbish. Magrat is a romantic soul with an open mind... so open, in fact, she's always letting in ideas before she can really think about them. However, she's quite skilled and quite dangerous when she gets her act together. She eventually goes on to marry Verence II, the King of Lancre.

Agnes Nitt

AKA "that Agnes who calls herself Perditax", Agnes is the third witch after Magrat leaves, and indeed Maskerade is about Nanny and Granny coming to Ankh-Morpork specifically to get her. Agnes is a shy, helpful, insecure fat girl who's sick and tired of being a shy, helpful, insecure fat girl (and people trying to reassure her by saying she's got good hair and a wonderful personality), and has thus developed a bit of an edge to her personality. She's able to sing in harmony with herself, thanks to a little quirk in her psychology that's exacerbated by her natural leanings towards witchcraft: she has a complete alternate personality that she unknowingly created herself. Naming it Perdita X Dream, it's the snarky inner monologue that comes out to make a mess of Agnes' life when she least expects it, but also helps her out a few times. She eventually learns to control Perdita, and falls in (and out) of love with a handsome young vampire in her second starring book.


Verence of Lancre

He'd always slept in front of the door to his master. And now he was king, he slept in front of the door to his kingdom.

His initial appearance in Wyrd Sisters was as the court Fool, and his name was unknown until Magrat used magic to find it out. He ended up on the throne of Lancre after the usurper Duke Felmet, more or less because no one else was better qualified or interested in the job, and possibly something to do with that mysterious droit de signeur business. Verence is small, shy and unassuming, and his subjects are amiably indifferent to him, provided he looks appropriately kingly at ceremonies and doesn't interfere with their lives too much. He eventually married Magrat in Lords and Ladies.

Jason Ogg

Nanny Ogg's eldest son, a blacksmith and master farrier (And we mean 'Master'). A big gentle soul, he's slow of thought, but it's best not to get him annoyed, because he's quite capable of picking up a pair of struggling men by the scruffs of their necks.


Shawn Ogg

Nanny Ogg's youngest son, a helper at Lancre Castle with a multitude of roles including captain of the guard, the guard, and about a dozen other jobs, including the butler on occasion.

  • One-Man Army: He is the entirety of Lancre's standing army.
    • Except when he's lying down.


Wizards

Rincewind

Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is Bad.

A cynical, cowardly, and incompetent wizard who frequently finds himself unwittingly thrust into situations where he must save the day. Has raised "running away" to an art form, to the point where he has the soul of a wizard and the body of a long-distance sprinter. Is one of the Discworld's greatest heroes despite himself. Accompanied by an ill-tempered and overprotective sentient suitcase known as the Luggage.

  • Badass on Paper: His list of accomplishments is long and illustrious, but most of them happened while running away from something scarier.
  • Badass Unintentional: He just wants to lead a boring life, but has to keep fighting off monsters and saving the world.

Rincewind: I do not wish to volunteer, sir.
Vetinari: No one was asking you to.

Rincewind: Oh, but they will, sir, they will. Someone will say: hey, that Rincewind fella, he's the adventurous sort... And then I'll run away, and probably hide in a crate somewhere that'll be loaded on to the flying machine in any case... Or there'll be a whole string of accidents that end up causing the same tiling. Trust me, sir, I know how my life works.
—The Last Hero
  • Berserk Button: Like many wiz(z)ards, touching his hat is one of the only ways to make him forget his "violence will only make my situation worse" motto.
  • Blessed with Suck: Having the Lady favor you means your life is a continuous chain of almost dying horribly.
  • Born Lucky: Lady Luck loves him. Fate, on the other hand...
  • Butt Monkey
  • Chew Toy: His constant Butt Monkey state is kept amusing because as even he has realized by now, he will always be saved from death or serious injury.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Oh dear god, yes. Apparently his Lifetimer is so warped that not only does Death have no idea how or when he is going to die, with Rincewind's mere presence in a situation screwing with any kind of probability of the outcome, but he keeps aforementioned Lifetimer on his desk because it's that interesting.

War: Odd person.
Death: With him here, even uncertainty is uncertain. And I'm not sure even about that.

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.
—Interesting Times
    • To be fair, he really does speak a lot of languages, mostly for the sake of narrative convenience. That was what got him hired by Twoflower to begin with.
  • Only One Name: Once he mentions that he doesn't know whether he has a first name.
  • Only Sane Man: Filling in for Ponder these days.
  • Punch Clock Hero
  • Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Reason: As the favoured of The Lady (Luck), this is pretty much Rincewind's way of life. He's saved the Disc several times over, mostly by running for his life and stumbling into the villain's plans. You can count the amount of times he acted bravely on purpose on one hand.
  • The So-Called Coward: Rincewind is the very patron saint of this trope, he wants to be a Dirty Coward, but his own decency keeps him from it. He considers this a serious character flaw in himself.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: He likes potatoes. He really likes potatoes.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He is introduced this way in the very first book, attempting to con Twoflower out of his gold, and genuinely willing to abandon his allies to their fates when danger threatens. The Light Fantastic begins his Character Development into The So-Called Coward.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: A lot.
    • Throw the Dog a Bone: His promotion to Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, however, seems to have taken, and he's more or less managed to work his way into the Unseen University faculty Cast Herd.
      • As of The Science of Discworld III, Rincewind has been appointed to twenty-one different faculty positions, all of which involve little to no actual work.


Mustrum Ridcully

Arch-Chancellor of Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork's premiere Wizarding School. Combines traits of the traditional wizard with that of the stereotype of the gruff, outgoing huntin'-and-sportin' British gentleman. Far from stupid, but very stubborn and set in his ways. His mind has been likened to a steam engine: powerful, but slow to start and stop, and almost impossible to steer.

First seen in Moving Pictures- others filled the post before him.

Not for the first time, Ponder wondered if Ridcully was smarter than he looked. Which wouldn't be that hard.

    • Ponder eventually becomes an avid "Ridcully Watcher" and is now under no illusions whatsoever about Ridcully's intelligence.
  • Only Sane Man: Depending on how you view the rest of his (frequently misplaced) faculty.
  • Shout-Out: To Radagast. He's referred to as "Friend to All Living Things" and his "wizard-colour-thing" is Ridcully the Brown. Make of this what you will.
  • The Worf Effect: His main purpose in some books (such as Reaper Man, Lords and Ladies, and Soul Music) is to show that brute force and magical power aren't enough to defeat some of the menaces to the Discworld.

Ponder Stibbons

One of the younger wizards at Unseen University, representing the "new generation" of wizardry at the "High Energy Magic" building (read: physicists and nerds). Creator of the Magitek computer "Hex".

He's a cross between Beleaguered Assistant and Hypercompetent Sidekick to Ridcully, where although he complains about things, he's actually really happy with his position, and turns down Ridcully's offer for a promotion to Professor.

He wasn't interested in promotion, anyway. He'd just be happy if people listened for five minutes instead of saying 'Well done, Mister Stibbons, but we tried that once and it doesn't work,' or 'We probably haven't got the funding,' or, worst of all, 'You don't get proper fill-in-nouns these days - remember old "nickname" ancient-wizard-who-died-fifty-years-ago-who-Ponder-wouldn't-possibly-be-able-to-remember? Now there was a chap who knew his fill-in-nouns.'

  • Good with Numbers: The only people in the Discworld (so far) who is better at them than him are Susan Sto Helit (who memorises square roots) and the Bursar (who is currently in semi-retirement, so Ponder fills in his position).
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: When he's first introduced, this trope is pretty much averted and inverted, where he is an Insufferable Genius and looks down on everyone. But by the latest books his association with UU seems to have turned this around a bit, and he's just trying to keep things running. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if he's actually being modest or not, though.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Runs most of the university by himself in the later books. When it comes to Ridcully, he is this trope incarnate.
  • I Was Told There Would Be Cake: The reason he decided to come to Unseen University in the first place. Didn't quite work out as planned though. It's not so much that The Cake Was A Lie, but that The Cake Is Less Interesting Than Multi-dimensional Sufficiently Analysed Magic.
  • Insufferable Genius: Was this until he went through a Break the Haughty courtesy of Ridcully and the senior wizard staff's misadventures.
  • Just Think of the Potential: The older wizards, who have seen the less than pleasant outcomes of thinking like this, are quick to point out the flaws, such as big green things with teeth. For example, he was quite excited when he found out that there were rips in time and space, much to the rest of the faculty's horror.
    • Hex is a direct result of his thinking along the lines of "I wonder what would happen if..."
  • Magi Babble: See the entry immediately below.
  • Mr. Exposition: If there's a reason for what's happening that is in some way connected to logic, expect him to find it... and exposit it. The other wizards find it a bit exasperating. Lampshaded, of course.
  • Only Sane Man: He thinks of himself as this, but he's shown a tendency in more recent books to regard the danger of his experiments deleting the local space-time continuum as a minor inconvenience, and has been gradually drifting toward Mad Scientist territory . Particularly as, despite their flaws, his colleagues actually do know quite a bit about certain magic (or rather, have seen most of the consequences of it in particularly painful form happening to their now deceased colleagues), and can puncture some of his supposedly 'sane' theories with some fairly potent warnings (however inelegantly expressed). However, when he's not in "Just Think of the Potential" mode, he certainly qualifies as this, and consequently has the reputation of this trope even to non-wizards (according to Moist).
    • By Unseen Academicals he really takes on this trope properly, as he has requisitioned most of the Wizard Council positions and pretty much runs most of UU. By now he's realised the reason why a lot of the older wizards (including Mustrum) Obfuscate Stupidity and tapers things accordingly so UU remains in a state of well-fed indulgent stagnation and the old days (fireballs, blood, and generally end-of-the-world kind of stuff) don't make a re-appearance.
    • However, because he can now see through all the Obfuscating Stupidity, he sometimes assumes that there's a higher level of intelligence amongst his colleagues than there really is, and counts on all the wizards understanding what he says, and doesn't believe them when they say they don't. Hence this can lead to him not bothering with more in-depth explanations when perhaps he really should, and can leave some of the older wizards with really no idea of what is going on.
      • He's also now made a science out of watching Ridcully so he can get past all the times when he's pretending to be less intelligent than he actually is. There are a lot of times when its heavily implied that Ridcully misses the times when Ponder was more the Insufferable Genius archetype and far more naive.
    • The only other person who he thinks counts is an Only Sane Man is the Librarian, who he depends on to keep things running smoothly.
  • Gaslighting: All the senior wizards had a lot of fun early on running rings around Ponder with their Obfuscating Stupidity. Then he caught on. Now they're paying for it (he now assumes they're always doing it, even when they're not).
  • Engineer Exploited For Evil: As of Hex's construction, this has become one of his defining traits. The more he investigates L-space and experiments with Magitek, the more fully entrenched in this trope he becomes.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Specialises in it.

The Librarian a.k.a. Dr. Horace Worblehat

Ook.

Ook.

Librarian at Unseen University. He was turned into an orangutan in The Light Fantastic, and shows no desire to turn back. This is because of the many advantages his new form offers, including increased agility and strength (and with a name like Worblehat, you can imagine he gets more respect as an orangutan than he ever did as a human).

  • Ascended Extra: Started as a one-off joke. Now makes an appearance in pretty much anything set in Ankh-Morpork.
    • Has been said to have been in more Discworld books than any other character except Death.
  • Animorphism: Although he could be changed back to human form, he likes being an orangutan and has taken many precautions to prevent that from happening.
  • Badass Bookworm: he might look like a 300-pound sack, but remember that it's filled with muscle. Not for no reason is he a Special Constable as well.
  • Berserk Button/I Am Not Weasel: Don't call him a "monkey."
    • Don't even say the word monkey around him. You could be talking about animals you saw at the zoo to your friend, or someone named Monk Elie and he'll come after you.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Not only does he have the specified benefits of being an orangutan, but he also gained the ability to read even the most cursed books that are said to drive a man mad from glancing at it, because he's not technically a man anymore.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Mostly because he's gone out of his way to make sure that his name is nowhere in any of the records, in case someone wanted to use it to change him back.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: But for gods sake, don't call him one!
    • Shown Their Work: He's an orangutan, and orangutans are apes, not monkeys. He feels VERY strongly about this distinction. And he doesn't have the cheek flaps because, despite being the only orangutan at Unseen University, he's still not dominant — he's a wizard as well as an ape, and Ridcully's senior to him. (Ridcully, meanwhile, insists he doesn't dominate anyone, and stop staring at his cheeks!)
  • Insistent Terminology: He is an ape and he will insist very firmly that he be called one, not a monkey.
  • No Man of Woman Born: The grimoires in the Library are full of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, not Things Ape Was Not Meant To Know. An orangutan can read them with no problem.
  • Only Sane Primate: When the rest of the University has thrown away the Sanity Ball, the Librarian is the one who catches it.
  • The Unintelligible: He only communicates through "ook"s and the occasional "eek." Despite this, few characters seem to have any trouble understanding him after a little time to acclimate.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: It's gotten to the point where people just habitually ignore the 300-pound ape at the Mended Drum, and if someone told the Faculty that there was an orangutan wandering around the grounds, they'd probably go ask the Librarian if he'd seen it.

The Bursar

Dr. A.A. Dinwiddie ("that's Dinwiddie with an O") is usually referred to only by his title, primarily when Ridcully is shouting "BursAAAR!" to get his attention. He oscillates between a nervous wreck, manic, and schizophrenic, which the wizards attempt to manage by feeding him hallucinogenic pills made from toxic Klatchian jungle frogs, carefully designed to make him hallucinate that he is completely sane. The dosage frequently needs adjusting. Regardless of whatever madness the wizards have cooked up lately, the Bursar is mentally several light-years away, and it's rare for him to come out with a comment that isn't a non-sequitur.

  • Cloudcuckoolander: Used to be relatively sane, but now does this as a coping mechanism for all the weird stuff that happens at UU.
    • Or, rather, just to cope with Arch-Chancellor Ridcully.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"
  • Genius Ditz: No matter how far gone his sanity goes, he can still function as the University's Bursar.
  • Nervous Wreck: The events of Moving Pictures and Reaper Man leave him a paranoid, twitching, nervous mess, who has to be medicated into hallucinating he is sane (attempts to cure of his nervous state proved impossible).
  • Noodle Incident: He isn't allowed metal utensils after 'The Unfortunate Incident At Dinner'.
  • Talkative Loon


The Dean AKA, since Unseen Academicals, Archchancellor Henry _______ of Brazeneck University

Another member of UU's senior faculty, the Dean (Name unknown) is seldom nice or kind. No one really knows what he does, besides attend public functions and eat big dinners. A wizard of the old school, the Dean is usually the first to launch fireballs in the face of danger, and prefers to go 'Hut-hut-hut' when trouble arises. He also may be more sensitive to occult changes in the world than other wizards, as during the 'Music With Rocks In' craze, he began to dress in leather and painted his room black while everyone else was only mildly rebelling.

  • Big Eater: Even moreso than his fellow wizards. He's gained so much weight that, according to Ridcully, he "looks like he swallered a bed!"
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Like most of the UU staff, he is known only by his title. During Unseen Academicals, Ridcully had to make an effort to remember his name.
  • Heroic Wannabe: See especially Reaper Man and Soul Music.
    • He even sets himself up as Archancellor of a different university to try to one-up Ridcully.
  • Jerkass: And HOW.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ridcully since they were undergraduates together. Revealed in Unseen Academicals, where we also learn his first name.

Professor John Hix

Head of the Department of Necrom... er, Post-Mortem Communications, first introduced in Making Money. Professor Hix is required by university statute to be at least a little evil, within acceptable levels, which usually includes cheating at games, playing pranks, and making smart-alecky or tasteless remarks.

  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Insistent Terminology: It's not necromancy, it's Post-Mortem Communications.
  • Necessarily Evil: Under University statute, Professor Hix is required to partake in acts of evil on a fairly regular basis. Not quite great evil, but still, evil none the less. This allows him to fulfill two important functions:
    • 1. Performing actions that are morally questionable but practically necessary. This includes hitting Archchancellor Ridcully over the head fairly hard to free him from a possessed object.
    • 2. Allowing the university to claim a monopoly on all evil magical activities. If independent wizards continue to perform evil acts, he is fully authorized to show up at their caves and serve orders to cease and desist. With fireballs.
  • Poke the Poodle
  • Punch Clock Villain: Seriously. As in, it's his actual job description to be (minorly) evil.
  • Token Evil Teammate
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: His parents were a Mr and Ms Hicks, but no self-respecting necromanc…err… post mortems communications wizard would pass up the chance to spell his name with an X

Death and Company

Death

What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man?

The Stealer of Souls, Defeater of Empires, Swallower of Oceans, The Ultimate Reality, Harvester of Mankind, "Picker-Up of Unconsidered Trifles", etc. Tall, bony fellow with a black robe and a scythe, talks like this all the time. You'll know him when you see him, and sooner or later everyone sees him, but most people don't notice him unless they're users of magic, or are dead/about to die. Has developed a fondness for humans (and cats) over the centuries. Also, he's the only character to appear in every Discworld book except for The Wee Free Men and Snuff.

  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: See that page for a better description.
  • All Powerful Bystander: To keep space and time cohesive he can't really interfere. However, sometimes he does give things a 'nudge' or goes on holiday.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: More than even Vimes, he knows the infinite universe has no mercy or kindness. Doesn't mean he can't make some of his own.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Even metaphors have to live. Sort of.
  • Ascended Extra: Showed up in The Colour of Magic as a gag. Is now one of the most major and recognisable characters in the series.
  • Badass: And how![context?]
  • Badass Grandpa: To Susan.
  • Black Cloak
  • Characterization Marches On: Death in his first appearance seemed actively malicious, causing deaths rather than merely collecting the souls of the dead. He's mellowed a lot.
  • The Comically Serious: His very serious-minded inability to really get human ideas is somewhere between hilarious and oddly cute.
  • Creative Sterility: Death can't create anything; he can only copy things. He also doesn't really understand what they're for or how they work, so he may create pipes but forget to make them hollow, or make a swing in a tree by removing the trunk, leaving the rest of the tree in place.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Discworld is full of these, but he's definitely a standout.
  • Death's Hourglass: Even Death himself has one — it's huge, intangible and completely empty of sand. Another noteworthy hourglass in the one belonging to Rincewind, which has been through some many bizarre magical catastrophes it's doesn't look like an hourglass so much as a piece of modern art made out of silicon by a glass-blower with hiccups and schizophrenia. Nobody, not even Death, knows when the hell it's going to run out any more. He keeps on his desk to amuse himself.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: In fact, it's Mort's family motto.
  • The Grim Reaper
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: One of his earliest sympathetic moments sees him gathering and adopting the souls of drowned kittens who were stuffed in a sack and thrown into a river.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Death is very good at hanging lampshades. He has one of the most objective standpoints you can have.
  • Near-Rincewind Experience/Near-Vimes Experience: Due to Rincewind's and Vime's constant Near Death Experiences, Death, consequently, is forced to be near them, but he has yet to take them.
    • In the latter case, he brought a lawn chair and a book. Rincewind he treats a bit like an amusing TV show.
      • Particularly when he showed up in Rincewind's prison cell in Fourecks and greeted him, G'day, mate.
  • Non-Linear Character: He's Death. Time has a very different meaning for him. As does space. The entire continuum really.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: His distinctive method of speech. (Described as sounding "like lead slabs falling on a marble floor.")
  • Power of Rock: During Soul Music.
  • Reality Writing Book: Death has an entire library of books that write themselves as people's lives unfold.
  • Santa Claus: He once took on the mantle of the Discworld Santa Claus (The Hogfather) during a period where the real one was unavailable. Doing so let him violate a few of his normal rules to give the Discworld equivalent of The Little Match Girl "the gift of a future" — allowing her more life.
  • Sinister Scythe: Come on, he's Death.
  • The Spock: He knows and represents the one logical certainty in the universe — all things end. The other stuff leaves him a little nonplussed.
  • Tin Man: He doesn't feel angry, sad or cheerful because those are things you do when you have, you know, glands. He thinks them. Sometimes it takes a run-up. But when he manages it, it's pretty spectacular.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Curry.

The Death of Rats

Squeak

During Reaper Man, Death's forced holiday resulted in the creation of all sorts of little deaths. The big guy subsumed all of them... but one.[5] The Death of Rats is something like a sidekick or a pet, and Death allows him it to continue existing independently just because it amuses him. When he isn't off collecting ill-fated rats, gerbils, hamsters, mice, and the occasional rat catcher, he runs some of Death's errands, particularly those regarding harassing Susan. His sidekick/transport is a talking raven named Quoth with a fondness for eyeballs.


Susan Sto Helit

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy any more. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.

Only child of Death's former apprentice Mort and Death's adopted daughter Ysabel, thus making her Death's granddaughter. As a result, she's "inherited" some of his talents, like an ability to walk through walls and not be seen when she doesn't want to be. Unfortunately, her parents had hoped to distance her from the supernatural side of the family, and Susan's "logical" mindset makes her resent having to meddle in the occult.

  • Ambiguously Human: Anyone who deals with her on a day-to-day basis realizes this. Way back when she was a student at boarding school (before she received The Call) she made all her teachers very nervous, even when they all ignored the fact that she could make herself invisible and wipe her presence from their memories. By Thief Of Time this almost puts her into a Heroic BSOD as she realises that although she was mostly human to begin with, the more she moves within the realm of the occult the less human she becomes.
  • Badass Bookworm
  • Beware the Nice Ones: She may be a school teacher, and the children may love her, but do not mess with her.
  • Blessed with Suck: The more she uses her powers (which are pretty much inherent to her very being and so she really can't stop using them), the more she becomes like her granddad. (It's heavily implied that if he ever decides to retire permanently the post of Death will go to her). This is all very unfortunate because she really wants to remain human.
  • Broken Bird
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: And it usually comes via the Death of Rats. Or Binky. Or the raven that the Death of Rats uses as transport. Or, in the case of Soul Music when her parents died in a fiery carriage accident, all three.
  • Compelling Voice: She can talk like her granddad to coerce people into doing things, but the power has its limits.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Expressive Hair: Halfway between this and Prehensile Hair, really. It's self-styling.
  • Flat Earth Atheist: In her first appearance in Soul Music.
  • Genre Savvy
  • Genetic Memory: She tries hard to forget it, but she can remember both the past and future. She is not happy with her grandfather about this.
  • Heroic Neutral: She really wants to be left alone... the rest of the Universe just isn't listening. Although sometimes she gets off with just being The Lancer (to whoever steps up to the Hero plate).
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Mainly in her early appearances. Note that Susan's version of 'normal' is not actually all that normal for the Disc.
    • Not that the Disc's version of normal is, well, normal. However, manipulating your boarding school teacher's mind so they can't see you or remember you're there is odd even for a world with the Ramtops and Unseen University in it.
  • Immortality: Type 2 (Undying). This is heavily implied, but not quite set in stone. No one really knows whether she's inherited immortality through her genetics, but considering she technically exists outside of time, it's more than likely.

Mr. Teatime: As for your grandfather... honestly, that motto. 'Fear Not The Reaper'. Is that good taste? Of course, you don't need to fear him, do you? Or do you?

Albert

It's no good thinking you can appeal to my better nature under this here crusty exterior, 'cos my interior's pretty damn crusty too.

Death's manservant. Death doesn't really need a manservant, of course, but he feels he needs one, and Albert isn't complaining. He used to be an incredibly powerful wizard, the Founder of Unseen University, but chose to work for Death so that he wouldn't have to worry about dying any time soon. He likes cats, smokes nasty little Nobby-style cigarettes, and fries more things than a Texan grandmother.

Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men

Tiffany Aching

A serious, lateral-thinking young witch in training, sensible and practical though prone to making mistakes due to her youth and inexperience. Matures both physically and emotionally with each book she's in. Her greatest allies are the Nac Mac Feegle or Wee Free Men, a tribe of Pictsies (little blue barbarians who were kicked out of Faerie for being too disruptive[6]), and Granny Weatherwax.

Rob Anybody

The irascible chieftain of an irascible people.

Daft Wullie

Not a very bright Feegle at all, but still manages to be second only to Rob Anybody in prominence in the Tiffany Aching books.

  • The Fool: While most Feegles are rather short on brains, Daft Wullie makes the rest look like geniuses in comparisation.
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase:

"Daft Wullie?"
"Aye, Rob?"
"Ye ken I told ye there wuz times ye should [keep yer trap shut/listen to what I wuz sayin'/do somethin' sensible instead o' tha' foolish thing ye just did]?"
"Aye, Rob?"
"That wuz one o' them times."

Granny Aching

Tiffany's grandmother and possibly a powerful witch, even though she never used any overt magic (which to Granny Weatherwax just means that she was very good at her job indeed). Dies before the beginning of The Wee Free Men.


Annagramma Hawking

An arrogant young witch and leader of a coven of other young witches before Tiffany showed up and didn't become its leader in the same way that Granny Weatherwax isn't the leader of the Ramtops witches.

  • Alpha Bitch: Oh so much. Instead of learning witch-magic, she learns wizard-magic, which is about power.
    • Lovable Alpha Bitch: In a manner of speaking. Tiffany can more or less see through her snobby attitude to see a confused young girl beneath it. Also, in the Wintersmith she instantly leaps to Tiffany's defense with a fireball.
  • Catch Phrase: Uses the word "literally" a lot and incorrectly.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: In, ironically, Wintersmith.
  • Meaningful Name: Annagramma approaches being a proper witch entirely backwards.
  • Not So Different: Snubs Tiffany's heritage, but her own is no better despite her lies to the contrary.
  • Pride: Big time. Lightens up a little after Tiffany and the other younger witches nudge her in the right direction.
  • Smug Snake

Roland

Heir to the Baron who owns the Chalk, Roland was abducted by the Queen of the elves and rescued by Tiffany. He never really got over this, and was Tiffany's potential but ultimately averted Love Interest for a time.


Others

Havelock Vetinari

Do not let me detain you.

Current Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. A thin, bearded man who dresses and lives in a Spartan manner (no, not like that), his uncanny knowledge of human nature and unparalleled talent for scheming has allowed him to make Ankh-Morpork one of the finest cities on the Discworld, through economic and cultural might rather than force of arms. So good at his job that the Assassins' Guild will not take out contracts on him, because if he was ever not in control, Ankh-Morpork would collapse. Fortunately, he is never, ever not in control, not even when he's arrested and locked in a dungeon cell. It's his dungeon cell, after all.

Succeeded "Mad Lord Snapcase". He is not named until Sourcery, but Word of God is that the Patrician in The Colour of Magic is him. It is possible Vetinari may not be entirely human, but this has yet to be proven.

  • Ambiguously Evil
  • The Anti-Nihilist: Very similar views to Vimes, but rather than confront injustice head-on, he prefers to change the world through subtle trickery and manipulation (or just terrifying it into behaving when needed.)
  • Anti-Villain: Well, sort of... He's generally on the same side as the heroes, but fulfills every other requirement for Bond Villainy except for that one crucial point.
  • Awesomeness By Analysis: He instantly displays masterful juggling skills in Jingo ("A few melons are nothing after Ankh-Morpork") and can solve the Times' Sudoku puzzles in under 15 seconds.
  • Badass: He usually doesn't even have to get his hands dirty, but when he does...
  • Berserk Button: Mimes visiting Ankh-Morpork can not expect to have a pleasant stay. This is seen by everyone else as one of the Patrician's most endearing features.
  • Bilingual Bonus: His last name is Romanian for "You Nostrils."
    • This is a coincidence; Word of God says it's a joke on the Medici family of Italy (with 'veterinary' as opposed to 'medical'), hence why a young Downey gives him the insulting nickname "Dog-botherer".
  • Black and Gray Morality: Current page quote.
  • Bluff the Eavesdropper: Vetinari sends all his semaphore communiques using codes that are "fiendishly difficult" but not unbreakable. He wants people to read them so that he knows what they think he thinks they're thinking.
  • Characterization Marches On: The reason that Pratchett had to confirm that the first book's Patrician is, in fact, Vetinari is because that Patrician couldn't be more different than the spartan, sly, Manipulative Bastard of the later books. (He had multiple chins, among other things.)
  • The Chessmaster
  • The Comically Serious
  • The Cynic: Oh my God.
  • Deadpan Snarker: People live in fear of the mere possibility of Vetinari getting sarcastic at them.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Almost unfailing. Very occasionally somebody manages to surprise him.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Vetinari's Hannibal Lecture in Guards! Guards! says so in as many words: There are always and only the evil people, but sometimes they are on different sides. It's currently gracing the page for Black and Gray Morality.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Vetinari's original plans to stabilise Ankh-Morpork, which included legalising the Thieves' Guild and winding down operations such as the Watch and the Post Office — which, odd as they sound, worked. Of course, now the city is functioning properly again, he can afford to wind all that stuff up again.
  • Fascinating Eyebrow
  • Hidden Depths: The reveal of his relationship with Lady Margolotta in The Fifth Elephant and subsequent books, after formerly being treated as basically asexual.
    • He's also extremely competent in combat, as seen in Night Watch, and he's a master of stealth, having been trained as an Assassin. How good is he at stealth? He failed his Stealth final in Assassin school because the test taker marked him absent.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Underlines his Evil Versus Evil and Black and Gray Morality worldview. He's essentially a Nietzsche Wannabe who's sufficiently angry about the world as he sees it that he considers it his moral obligation to do something about it.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • Morality Pet: Wuffles. Possibly replaced by Mr. Fusspot after it is revealed in Making Money that Wuffles has died.
  • Never Gets Drunk: In Unseen Academicals he drinks an entire room full of football hooligans— er, team captains, under the table. All it did was make him a few seconds slower in solving the next day's crossword puzzle. It also made him unusually talkative. "But I am drunk. Drunk as a skunk, in fact."
    • And he stubbed his toe.
  • Noble Demon: Takes this to an art form. Any Ankh-Morpork citizen will be happy to tell you that he's an evil, vicious, manipulative tyrant... but they'll have a great deal of difficulty explaining what's so bad about that.
  • Punny Name: Vetinari/Medici.
    • Lampshaded; he got nicknamed "Dog-Botherer" when he was at the Assassins' Guild.
  • The Rival: He used to think this about the dog food seller who was the only one other than him to regularly win the Times crossword. Since she started writing them, she seems to be getting to him over the last few books. As of Snuff, she actually came up with one he couldn't solve and he grudgingly admitted that she had won, after what for him was a major rant.
  • Scars Are Forever: Has walked with a cane ever since being wounded in an attempted assassination in Men at Arms, though it's left unspecified how much of this is a deliberate act, and how much is a genuine disability that he just happens to be Badass enough to ignore when required.
  • The Social Expert
  • Unholy Matrimony: His endlessly ambiguous relationship with Lady Margolotta... for a very limited value of 'unholy', of course.
  • Vetinari Job Security: Trope Namer, obviously: you'd expect that a nicer person would make the city a better place, but no replacement can possibly measure up to his skill at juggling groups that don't get along well.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: After tediously clearing up after several passing fads with dark secrets behind them (the dragon in Guards! Guards!, the movies in Moving Pictures, the living mall in Reaper Man, the Music With Rocks In in Soul Music, etc.), he attempts to have the printing press in The Truth closed down when he thinks it will become one. As it turns out, it is in fact part of a permanent change to how affairs work on the Disc — being Vetinari, he soon adapts, of course.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Plays a continuous one with Lady Margolotta: makes his coded messages almost unbreakable knowing that she reads them. If she doesn't or can't break them, great, she shouldn't be doing either. If she does both he'll know what she thinks is in them.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: He claims to never have any real plans, instead steering emerging events to his advantage. Plans would just get in his way.


Lady Margolotta

Lady Margolotta is a vampire, who appeared mainly in The Fifth Elephant and very recently Unseen Academicals but has made a few cameos in other books. She lives in Uberwald and shuffles the political factions (dwarfs, werewolves, trolls, etc.) there in much the same way that Vetinari does in Ankh-Morpork ... only Uberwald is less civilized and possibly less predictable. She plays chess (and occasionally Thud) with Vetinari by the clacks system (the Discworld's version of the telegraph) and has been known to read his secret messages. The Patrician is aware of this, and purposely makes his coded messages almost unbreakable, so he'll know what she thinks is in them. It is quite possible that she knows that he does this, having most likely taught him as much as he taught her (either way, it's going to lead to a Gambit Pileup sometime in the future). Lady Margolotta also annoyed the hell out of Commander Vimes by saving his life, because Vimes hates vampires.

  • Addiction Displacement: Replacing blood with politics. And cigarettes.
  • Anti-Villain: Like Vetinari, she escapes true villain status by happening to be on the hero's side. However, it's for entirely her own reasons rather than patriotism or morality, even the strange sort displayed by Vetinari.
  • Bait the Dog: When introduced, she seems pretty harmless, especially given her taste in colorful sweaters with bats on them. Vimes describes her as looking like "someone's mother". But then you find out that she is (almost?) as skilled a manipulator as Vetinari himself.
  • Blue Blood
  • The Chessmistress
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Averted. Although she spends most of The Fifth Elephant wearing a pink jumper, describing her as anything close to The Chick is bound to land you in a lot of trouble.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: In Unseen Academicals the mild-looking Lady Margolotta is confused with her much more haughty-looking assistant.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking : Well, Anti-Villain smoking anyway.
  • Interspecies Romance: The jury's still out on this one.
  • Kick the Dog: Oddly crossed with Pet the Dog in her treatment of Nutt
  • Kuudere : A large part of her personality seems to fall under type 3 and type 1 variation — a cynical and very manipulative ruler using control (and cigarettes) as an addiction replacement, who nevertheless does seem to care about Nutt (among others) beyond their usefulness as political pawns.
  • Noble Demon: Lighter on the 'noble' than Vetinari... but then again, he's something of a special case.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Lady Margolotta, like several of the vampires in later books, has sworn off human blood, and considers animal blood a poor but necessary substitute, "like lemonade replaces vhisky, believe me."
  • Overly Long Name: Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Überwald, and thats just the short form...
  • Woman in Black: In Unseen Academicals, though she wears pink around the house.
  • Vampire Vords : In The Fifth Elephant. Not so much when she reappears in UA, though.
    • This is possibly a Shout-Out to the original Dracula novel: the count speaks in a thick Hungarian accent when Jonathan Harker visits him, yet by the time he visits London it has almost disappeared.
  • The Von Trope Family: Margolotta (insert four pages worth of middle names/titles here) Von Uberwald.
  • Xanatos Gambit: See Vetinari's entry.


Moist von Lipwig

Trust me.

A con-artist turned government employee, noted for his masterful people skills and for being so average in appearance as to be nondescript. Having been saved from the hangman's noose by Lord Vetinari, Lipwig was put to work revitalizing the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, and later doing the same at the Royal Bank and the Royal Mint, before representing Ankh-Morpork to the Hygenic Railway. Romantically involved with Adora Belle Dearheart, a fiercely independent, cynical, chain-smoking but beautiful golem-rights activist. Was essentially created as a way to have novels set in Ankh-Morpork without the Watch automatically taking over the plot.

  • Boxed Crook: Moist would rather live than be executed as a scam artist, but he's an adrenaline junkie, and he misses the thrill of the hustle so much it almost drives him crazy. He finds ways to make up for it, such as by pulling crowd-pleasing stunts at the Post Office and just being near his fiance.
  • The Face: Moist is this for the Post Office staff. It's what Vetinari hired him for; Stanley is thought of as weird even by other pin collectors and Groat is... odd, to put it charitably, but Moist knows how to sell an idea.
    • The Social Expert: "Everyone had their levers. For Groat, it was his position. ... Stanley, now...Stanley was easy." He can push Gilt's buttons in this media war but is wise enough not to do the same to Vetinari. Especially after the broom incident.
  • Genre Savvy: He doesn't believe in Genre himself, but he knows it backward and forward, and uses it against other people.
  • Indy Ploy: He positively thrives on this trope.

This was where his soul lived: dancing on an avalanche, making the world up as he went along, reaching into people's ears and changing their minds.

"Am I really a bastard or am I just really good at thinking like one?"

  • The Nondescript: Very handy feature, that. When he was a child, his mother frequently came home with the wrong kid.
  • Refuge in Audacity: How he does everything. "Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! ...All or nothing, Mr. Groat!"
  • Running Gag: Stealing Drumknott's pencils.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Moist is an interesting study: He's probably second only to Lord Vetinari himself when it comes to cynicism and people-manipulation, but he utilizes this in the service of idealism. Even he doesn't quite understand how he keeps pulling it off.
  • Technical Pacifist: Of a different sort. He really does never lift a hand against anyone until Raising Steam when he drank something he really should have known better than to drink, and uses this to justify scamming people. His golem probation officer points out that the victims of his larger frauds were actually worse off than they would have been if he had simply mugged them. When he actually kills someone in self-defense, he promptly vomits.
  • Too Clever by Half
  • Unfortunate Name

The Auditors of Reality

To be an Individual is to live, and to live is to die.

  • Arch Nemesis: Arguably, to Death and Susan.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Of Order — and Bureaucracy. (Possibly "Taxes". Because there are two things certain in life, and Death is already accounted for, right?)
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Though it mostly ends up boiling down to loathsome bureaucratic pettiness and a chronic lack of imagination. The Auditors are not presented sympathetically.
  • Celestial Bureaucracy: Complete with paperwork.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Auditors' fundamental problem is that they cannot understand basic things like imagination or individuality. Or chocolate.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Death. Both are Anthropomorphic Personifications who exist to enforce some existential concept. But while Death feels compassion for humanity and the Disc, these bastards just want order. Absolute order.
  • Hive Mind
  • Insane Troll Logic: Something is only alive if it has an independent existance. All living beings die in time. Any span of time is miniscule compared to the lifespan of the universe. Therefore, if an Auditor develops an individual identity, it instantly vanishes.
    • The book that introduced them implied that this happens because you have to be an individual to get the insane troll logic of it — and since the Auditors disappear when they realize they have an identity, they never manage to get to the point of realizing that their logic is not perfectly sound before going puff.
    • Everything about them screams Insane Troll Logic. They have no emotions or physical needs, yet they hate life forms specifically because of how annoying it is to record everything they do.
  • Jerkass Gods: Well, maybe not gods in the technical sense, but...
  • Kill All Humans: And non-human sentience. And non-sentient life. All life current and in potentia, in fact. It's untidy.
  • Knight Templar
  • Light Is Not Good: Not light per-se, but given that their job is to keep the universe working, one would think they wouldn't hate its inhabitants as much as they do.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: Functionally, though they're not above breaking their own rules to get what they want.
  • Omnicidal Maniac
  • Puff of Logic: Thanks to a Slippery Slope Fallacy regarding time, any Auditor that thinks of itself as an individual will usually disappear in a Puff of Insane Troll Logic.
  • Pure Is Not Good
  • Reality Warper
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Several. Chocolate, for one. And dreams. Hell, even being human for very long functions as Mind Rape for them, and eventually causes a Heel Face Turn, insanity or death. Between these, all 700 that take on human form in Thief of Time die before the book ends.
  • World of Silence: Their ideal world is a variation of this. Though they'd probably find silence too noisy. Emptiness would be best of all.

Adora Belle Dearheart

The cynical, chain-smoking, and severe head of the Golem Trust. She is also Moist's fiance, and assisted him with the restoration of the post office by employing him Golems. Fiercely devoted to causes and doesn't take crap from anyone. Mostly because she can drive a stileto heel through their shoes... and through other parts.


William de Worde

The truth has got its boots on. And it's going to start kicking.

A scribe who comes from a wealthy family, William is making his own way by sending newsletters to leaders of various other countries. He is pulled into the newest technological advancement of the Disc, movable type. With the assistance of a shed filled with Dwarves, the attractive daughter of an engraver, and a vampire/photographer, he begins the Disc's first newspaper, the Ankh-Morpork Times. Reappears in Monstrous Regiment doing on-the-site reporting in Borogravia. As of Unseen Academicals, he seems set to become the Disc's first sports announcer.

Although he does not directly appear, mention should also be made of Going Postal, in which Moist von Lipwig observes that William was a young man who "somehow managed to write as though his bum had been stuffed with tweed."

  • Badass Bookworm
  • Blue Blood
  • Intrepid Reporter: Considering he's running the first newspaper on the Disc...
  • Jerkass: Towards the Watch, and sometimes in general — he's a snob at heart, and doesn't always recognise when he's acting like one.
  • Not So Different: At one point while he's ranting about his father's arrogant, selfish behavior, Otto cheerfully says "But you make up for it in other vays!" earning him a Death Glare.
  • Uncle Pennybags: Averted. William deliberately turns down a life of luxury living off his family fortune to avoid this trope.
  • Upper Class Twit: He's trying so hard to avoid it that he sometimes falls into it by accident. He wasn't born into poverty, he chose it, and he can always opt out (unlike people who are actually poor) — it's when he forgets this fact that he acts like a jerk, usually.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: When he was first introduced. He gets over it soon enough.

Sacharissa

The aforementioned engraver's daughter, who is William de Worde's partner at The Times. She does much of the journalist field work after William de Worde gets settled in at the newspaper, and as a reporter she receives a couple of cameos in newer Discworld books (Going Postal, Making Money). As of Going Postal, she appears to be married (presumably to William).

Otto Chriek

The iconographer (photographer) at the Times. A native of Uberwald who moved to the Big Wahooni (Ankh-Morpork, that is), Otto is a card-carrying member of the Black Ribbon society (vampires who have sworn off human "b-vord"). He has the slightly crazed edge of a born killer who has found something else to divert his energy—namely, taking iconographs. Unfortunately, as vampires are sensitive to bright light, he tends to be turned to dust by his own flash when he takes pictures ... but fortunately, a drop of blood on his remains will restore him immediately. Otto has started wearing a small container of blood to make sure he auto-resurrects on the job. Made short appearances in Thud! and Monstrous Regiment.

  • Addiction Displacement: From blood onto photography.
  • Back from the Dead: Over and over and over...
  • Blinding Camera Flash: Exaggerated. Whenever he takes a flash photo, it results in (at best) him screaming in pain on the ground or (at worst) his demise until blood is poured on his ashes. In later books, he's found filters and other ways around this.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He looks and acts like a small, meek iconographer, but he is still a vampire, with all the abilities that implies.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: "Ze bosoms goink in-and-out and up-and-down like zat" triggers his Hammer Horror instincts.
  • Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: Much of it is for self-preservation, yes, but he's also a genuinely decent guy.
  • Funny Foreigner: Deliberately goes for this vibe. It's better than the torches and pitchforks, after all.
  • Looks Like Orlok: Paul Kidby tends to portray him like this. William suspects he deliberately cultivates this image (see below).
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: He acts in a stereotypical vampire fashion tailored specifically for his profession (i.e. a pocketed vest in black silk with tails) and speaking in Vampire Vords so that people see him as more amusing than threatening.
  • Our Vampires Are Different
  • Slasher Smile: The same worryingly intense smile normally reserved for vampires about to eat you is instead used as a default (if slightly crazed) expression.
  • Unskilled but Strong: At the end of The Truth, when Otto faces down a gang of William's father's enforcers, he is a hilariously inept fighter, but having a vampire's strength and stamina means he still wipes the floor with them.
  • Vampire Vords: Exaggerated for effect, like most of his stereotypical-vampire traits.
  • We Need a Distraction: At one point, William De Worde takes advantage of the aforementioned Blinding Camera Flash to get past some watchmen, noting that a vampire writhing and screaming in pain is always the center of attention.


Lu-Tze

The not-exactly-holy, wrinkly, smiling little man who debuted in Small Gods, appears in Night Watch and co-stars with his pupil in Thief of Time. He may also have shown up in Going Postal as a background cleaner in a temple, and anytime a sweeper is mentioned, it may be him. He follows the Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite and thinks that "Rule One" Needs More Love. And if you annoy him too much, you will abruptly learn why he's Shrouded in Myth.

Lobsang Ludd: You said that it would be in Ankh-Morpork!
Lu-Tze: Yeah, but I have years of experience and cynicism! You're just talented!

  • For Want of a Nail: His shtick — he prevents wars by selling nails and horseshoes in convenient spots, putting compost heaps in the right places, and making sure that single pieces of machinery are faulty. The senior History Monks' respect from him largely derives from the subtlety with which he can alter the timeline.
  • Hermit Guru
  • Ice Cream Koan: The Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite, composed of the mundane, common-sense sayings of an Ankh-Morpork landlady. As such, they are as exotic to Lu-Tze as Zen koans are to Westerners, but still work as a form of wisdom for him.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Another major part of his shtick, with the additional wrinkle that everyone knows he's doing this, and just tries to guess how he's tricking them. Nobody ever figures out in time, though.
  • Old Master: Rule One: "Never act incautiously when confronted by a little bald wrinkly smiling man!"
    • Rule Seventeen: "Remember never to forget Rule One!"
  • Shrouded in Myth: So very, very much.


Gaspode the Wonder Dog

Woof bloody woof.

Gaspode was a fairly normal stray until Moving Pictures. Then he suddenly found himself thinking. He found this vastly irritating, and was vaguely relieved when he went back to normal after the Holy Wood incident was over. But then he slept near the University's trash heaps a few times too often and suddenly found that his little problem was back. Now he roams the city, using his talents in new and creative ways. He's extremely cynical and has pretty much every doggy skin disease known to dogkind and a few others as bonuses. The laconic description of Gaspode was provided by Vimes in The Fifth Elephant: The Corporal Nobbs of the canine world. As far as he's concerned, the only real advantage to being a thinking, talking dog is that he can remember when the guilds throw out their kitchen trash. Often seen leading the beggar Foul Ole Ron by a leash.


The Canting Crew

A group of beggars even other beggars look down on. They include:

  • Foul Ole Ron, whose speech is incomprehensible ("Millennium hand and shrimp!") and whose smell is so strong it's taken on a life of its own (and sometimes goes to parties without him). In more recent appearances, he has been accompanied by Gaspode, acting in the capacity of "thinking-brain dog".
  • Coffin Henry, who has a spectacular cough and an even more spectacular collection of skin diseases, and carries a sign saying For sum muny I wunt follo you home. Coff Coff.
  • Arnold Sideways, who has no legs and gets about on a little wheeled cart, but carries a boot on the end of a pole for the purpose of kicking people with.
  • Altogether Andrews, who has nine personalities inhabiting his body (none of whom answer to "Andrews").
  • The Duck Man, who is on the whole the sanest and most educated member of the Crew (as opposed to Altogether Andrews, who is in part the sanest and most educated), except that he's never seen without a duck on his head. And if you ask him why, he'll act like you're the odd one for seeing ducks where ducks aren't.

They appear in Soul Music (where Death, trying to get away from it all, spends some time in their company), Hogfather (where they are among the recipients of the stand-in Hogfather's attempts at an equitable distribution of Hogswatch), and The Truth (where they are hired by The Times as newspaper vendors, and play a role in the newspaper's big scoop). Foul Ole Ron and Coffin Henry both appear, individually, in Where's My Cow?.

  • Crazy Sane: Implied to be the case for the Duck Man. He finds everyone's persistent fixation on ducks around him quite bewildering.
  • Talkative Loon: All of them to some degree, but especially Foul Ole Ron.
  • Voices Are Mental: Altogether Andrews' voice changes depending on who's speaking.


Twoflower

Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards.'

The co-protagonist of the first two Discworld books and also of the later book Interesting Times. Twoflower is the Discworld's first tourist. He's a naive and harmless little man from the Agatean Empire, who happens to be fabulously wealthy by the standards of all other cultures on the Disc. Rincewind spends quite a while following Twoflower around, trying to collect a few gold pieces for his trouble, translating for him (since Twoflower doesn't speak Morporkian), and trying not to let him get killed. Twoflower, though he tosses fistfuls of gold around like pebbles, definitely gets his money's worth when it comes to hiring Rincewind, because he is very good at getting into the worst sorts of trouble. He is badly dressed, rich and utterly un-streetwise, optimistically determined to talk to everyone and get iconographs (the Discworld equivalent of photos, painted by a tiny imp in a box) of everything ... and as always, accompanied by his Luggage (which eventually becomes Rincewind's Luggage).


The Luggage

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Twoflower's Luggage is every traveler's dream: it's made of (ridiculously expensive) sapient pearwood, it looks like a wooden trunk on legs, and it follows him everywhere like a big wooden guard dog. The Luggage also is invitingly full of gold, has a near-bottomless capacity, and seems to be able to magically clean Twoflower's laundry. Thieves look at it with great interest ... until they discover (usually much too late) that the Luggage has big teeth, it's impervious to magic, it's prone to violent psychosis, and it is quite happy to eat anyone or anything that gets in its way. Twoflower later bequeathes it to Rincewind, who views it as something of a mixed blessing.


Genghiz Cohen the Barbarian

Cohen the Barbarian is exactly what you'd get if Conan the Barbarian was a skinny old man. He's a bazillion years old with all the hallmarks of age, including a bad back, bunions, no teeth (till he gets new ones made from troll teeth, i.e. diamonds), and a very long beard. Cohen is, however, not to be underestimated. In a profession with an extremely short life expectancy, Cohen is still looting temples, rescuing maidens, and pillaging villages... and he has gotten very, very good at it over the years. In Interesting Times and The Last Hero, Cohen is seen at the head of the Silver Horde, a terrifying pack of barbarian warriors who are all as old as he is, but haven't let age stop them.


Mr. Slant

Ankh-Morpork's foremost Amoral Attorney. He's also a zombie. And one of the most badass lawyers you'll ever find.

  • Amoral Attorney: Pretty nearly defines it.
  • Badass Bookworm: The fact he wrote and memorized most if not all of Ankh-Morpork's laws makes his power pretty scary. Also, aside from fire, he fears nothing.
  • Death Glare: Literally. He's dead.
  • Determinator: All zombies are this. In his case, it's powered by the fact that he simply refuses to pass on until his descendants cough up the money to pay back his legal fees (he defended himself at the trial for his own execution, which he lost), and he will wait as long as he has to; forever, if need be.
  • The Dragon: Slant has been the 'face' and executive officer in at least two plots to overthrow Vetinari, and was involved the one involving the death of Lord Winder in Night Watch.
  • Nerves of Steel: Only fire has the ability to even partially unnerve him.

Lord Ronald "Ronnie" Rust

Ankh-Morpork's leading aristocrat (Vetinari doesn't count, and as for the current Duke of Ankh...). Rust is a starched, snobbish and ridiculously pompous individual with an abiding and entirely mutual hatred towards Sam Vimes. Led Ankh-Morpork during the brief war with Klatch in Jingo where he displayed all the military genius you might expect. Apparently dated Sybil Ramkin in her youth.

  • Blue Blood
  • Born Lucky: Veterans of battles that he's led claim that arrows meant for him will always kill another one of his soldiers.
    • It's suggested this is another aspect to his Weirdness Censor, and that Rust is simply failing to notice he could ever get hit.
  • Characterization Marches On: His first appearance in Men at Arms notes that Rust is one of the nobles who managed to adapt to the changing times, whereas his latter appearances suggest he's anything but. There's also his much kinder, considerate treatment of d'Eath in the same book, but that may be because he's generally nicer to fellow members of the upper class.
  • Evil Cripple: As of Snuff.
    • Played with, in that Snuff also notes that for all that he is incompetent, pompous, arrogant and self-centred, he is also an honourable man. Basically, he is an incompetent twit rather than evil.
  • General Failure: In Jingo, where he all but single-handedly destroys the Ankh-Mopork war effort on his own.
    • Spanner in the Works: While at the same time forcing his Klatchian counterpart's hand with his premature invasion, saving the city itself from an invasion that happened in an Alternate Universe.
  • Stiff Upper Lip: A parody thereof.
  • The Neidermeyer: As Captain of the Treacle Mine Road Watch House in Night Watch. After he gave orders to open fire on civilians, Vimes (as Keel) knocked him out and claimed to be removing him from command due to temporary insanity.
  • Upper Class Twit
  • Verbal Tic: "What?"
  • Weirdness Censor: Will not notice things that cannot possibly be happening, such as Vimes calling him an inbred streak of piss to his face.


C.M.O.T. (Cut Me Own Throat/Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire) Dibbler

Twenty pence and that's cutting me own throat.

A never quite succesful peddler of well, anything he thinks will make a profit, but mostly his only theoretically edible sausages-inna-bun. Has numerous counterparts in every nation on the Discworld, including Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah (Omnia), Disembowel-Meself-Honorably Dibhala (Agatean Empire), etc.

  • Catch Phrase: "And that's cutting me own throat". Most of his counterparts have similar Catch Phrases.
  • Characterization Marches On: When we meet Mr. Dibbler in the earlier books he is a smarmy amoral vendor who will sell anything. As the series he becomes the happless "least successful businessman in Ankh Morporkh" whose ONLY skill is selling his inedible sausages.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what he tries, it never quite succeeds in the long term. Only the sausages last. Perhaps because flies won't go near them.
  • Honest John's Dealership: The trope even used to be named after him!
  • Inexplicably Identical Individuals: His numerous counterparts.
  • Lethal Chef: Or, as Nanny Ogg's Cookbook puts it: "No visit to Ankh-Morpork is complete without a taste of one of CMOT Dibbler's famous sausages-inna-bun. After that, it is often completed very, very quickly."
  • Loophole Abuse: Supplemental material for the series reveals that he's the founder and sole member of the Guild of C.M.O.T. Dibblers. Presumably there was some financial or political benefit in applying for this status, immediately before Vetinari closed the loophole. Or it's possible even the Merchants didn't want him.
  • Overly Long Name: "C.M.O.T." doesn't just stand for his Catch Phrase; his full name is Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler.
  • Stable Time Loop: In Night Watch a time-travelling Vimes gives the young Dibbler his own Catch Phrase from the future. It does take him a while to get the hang of it - "buy this sausage or I'll cut my own throat!"

Rhys Rhysson

The Low King of the Dwarves, until Raising Steam when Rhys takes the title of Low Queen of the Dwarves.

Igor

It'th a pleathure to be commanded in a clear, firm, authoritative voithe, mithtreth..

Not so much one individual as an entire clan of individuals from Uberwald, who are a parody of the archetypal hunchbacked servants of monsters and mad scientists.

  • Creepy Good: They are (usually) good guys, but tend to creep out a lot of people, due to their Mix-and-Match Man prowess.
  • Door Judo: An Igor will always open the door right before a visitor knocks.
  • Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Igors often have to scrounge materials for their master.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: In spite of their namesake archetype, Igors are actually extremely efficient at accomplishing whatever task they are assigned. If anything happens to Go Horribly Wrong, it's usually the fault of their less sensible masters.
  • If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: The price for accepting an Igor's medical assistance is to serve as an organ donor after death so that the Igors can use any intact organs to help someone else down the line. You're free to refuse, and if you do the Igors will quietly and politely never serve you or your family again. Igors do this with their own organs as well, with young Igors implanting organs from their ancestors into their bodies.
    • If an Igor says he has his grandfather's eyes (or nose, or hands, or whatever), he means it literally.
  • The Igor: Of course.
  • Inexplicably Identical Individuals/Planet of Steves: It's hard to tell Igors apart if you haven't memorized the visible scar patterns. The fact that they're all named Igor (Igorina for the girls) doesn't help. Despite this, Igors instinctively know which Igor you're talking about when you mention an Igor to them.
  • The Medic: Igors are very good at organ transplants.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Igors serve their masters loyally... right up until the angry mob arrives. (Hey, nobody put being burned at the stake in the contract, all right?)
  • Speech Impediment: All Igors lisp. It's tradition.
    • What's interesting about this is that Igors are capable of speaking without a lisp. They just do it because it's expected of them.
  • Stealth Hi Bye: An Igor will always appear behind his master when called for, even if there's no possible way for them to do this without being noticed. Some masters have done extensive tests.
  • A Storm Is Coming: Igors can tell this. Since so many of them work for mad scientists, it's a useful skill.

Leonard of Quirm

A somewhat old but talented painter, as well as a brilliant inventor (the Discworld's version of Leonardo da Vinci). Leonard invented the Discworld's first firearm in Men At Arms, but had no idea how dangerous it would prove to be. Because good-hearted Leonard keeps coming up with dangerous ideas, the Patrician keeps him in a solitary apartment and makes sure he has enough pencils, paper, and toys to keep him quietly occupied.

  • Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: His ideas are brilliant, but he has a lot of them. So many they tend to crowd a bit. He could probably have escaped his "prison" a hundred times over if he ever set his mind to it, but he's never focused for very long (and he likes it in there, anyway).
  • Expy: Of Leonardo da Vinci.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: He is one of those people who are impossible to imprison, since he "lives in his own head". And his head is an interesting place.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: How he names his inventions; This-Is-What-It-Does Device. His genius stops at names.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: He's fascinated endlessly in the most impossible detail by everything in the world.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Invoked. His designs could revolutionize the entire disc, but because they're so dangerous, Vetinari keeps him under lock and key where they can't do any damage.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: He doesn't seem to notice the military applications of his inventions unless they are pointed out. And when he does notice them, he's usually of the belief that nobody would be crazy enough to actually use them that way. And even if someone tried, the government would put a stop to it.

One-Book Wonders

71-Hour Ahmed

D'reg and police chief of Al-Khali. Something of a Foil to Vimes.

  • Covered with Scars: He has "the most crowded face Vimes had ever seen".
  • Cowboy Cop: Much like Vimes, he trusts nobody and doesn't follow all the rules and orders exactly. Unlike Vimes, he's not quite willing to arrest the Prince. He's willing to help, though...
  • Funny Foreigner: As a form of Obfuscating Stupidity. While actually a very intelligent and Badass foreigner, he plays up Klatchian stereotypes (i.e. offering various people camels in exchange for their wives) when in Ankh-Morpork, and Morporkian mannerisms while in Klatch, because "everyone knows foreigners are a bit stupid."
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: If you know the story behind it, his name is. He got his name because, while his tribe are supposed to give anyone three days (72 hours) of hospitality, he killed a man who poisoned a well one hour before the time was up. It's implied that waiting the full 72 hours would have given the man the chance to get away.


Conina the Hairdresser

Daughter of the above-mentioned Cohen the Barbarian and one of the many temple dancers he woo'ed through the years. From her mother she inherited gold-tinged skin, white-blond hair, a voice that can make "Good morning" sound like an invitation to bed, and a very good figure. From her father, she inherited sinews you could moor a ship with, muscles as solid as a plank, and reflexes like a snake on a hot tin roof. She also acquired from Cohen suitable heroic instincts (that is, strong urges to fight, kill, and steal) and an ability to use anything as a deadly weapon. These traits rather get in the way of the profession she really wants to have: hairdressing. Seen in Sourcery.

Lobsang Ludd

A foundling raised in the Guild of Thieves until a chance meeting with a history monk resulted in him being wiped from the Guild's collective memory and taken to be trained in the mountains in abilities he was only barely aware he had. However, Lobsang is apparently "a smart boy" and there's no teaching a smart boy. Compared to other characters in Thief of Time (and Pratchett characters in general), you might argue Lobsang here to be something of a blank slate. Of course then you discover that he's actually half of a whole person who is also the son of the personification of time and ends up becoming Time itself in the end, and suddenly he doesn't seem quite so standardised any more.

  • Anthropomorphic Personification
  • Blank Slate: Arguably suffers from "dull protagonist" syndrome (but then, who wouldn't look dull alongside Lu Tze and Susan?) until his upgrade.
  • A God Am I: At the end of Thief of Time.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Technically he just wants to stay partly normal, he could "just know" absolutely anything he wanted to know at any given instant because he is Time itself personified and sees all potential possibilities, but he claims he has to do things "the right way round" to stay partly human.
  • In the Blood: Son of Time. It shows.
  • Thieves' Guild: Was in the Guild of Thieves before he got up and taken to the monastery.
  • Split At Birth: He and Jeremy Clockson, a socially inept and supersane (which is just as bad as being crazy) individual, are the same person, split in half because their/his/whatever mother freaked out a little bit during childbirth, and when Time herself freaks out strange things tend to happen.
    • 'In half' may not be entirely accurate. Technically, he was born twice.


Jonathan Teatime

Nobody can seem to decide whether Teatime, the villain of Hogfather, is the personification of Nightmare Fuel or Badass. He's one of the Assassins' Guild scholarship boys, taken in because both his parents died when he was young and they felt sorry for him. As Lord Downey put it, "Perhaps we should have wondered a bit more about that."

  • Adaptation Distillation: Say what you will about the movie adaptation as a whole, their version of Teatime was so disturbingly convincing that it's likely to color your perception of him forever afterward.
  • Ax Crazy: He has a wonderful mind, like a shattered mirror - all facets and rainbows, glittering and sparkling. But ultimately, you can't get around that it's something broken.
  • Crazy Prepared: He spends his free time working out how to kill mythological figures, which comes in handy.
  • Double Jump: Somehow.
  • It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": "Teh-ah-tim-eh"
  • Kick the Dog: One of the first things we learn about him is that he nailed someone's dog to the ceiling to stop it from barking.
  • Mismatched Eyes: One eye is solid black glass, while the other is light blue with only a tiny pinprick of a pupil.
  • Psycho for Hire
  • Psychopathic Manchild
  • Self-Made Orphan: Heavily implied.
  • Slasher Smile: Mr. Teatime really, really enjoys his job.
  • The Sociopath: Mr. Teatime sees things differently from people; he sees people as things.
  • Stupid Evil: Teatime immediately kills anyone who stops being of use to him, with no thought to the long-term consequences or even whether or not this person might become useful again later. If he'd survived the mission, the Assassins and Thieves would likely have had him killed just because of all the incredibly valuable experts he went through.
  • Uh-Oh Eyes
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pretty much everybody he employs.

Polly/Oliver Perks

A young girl in the war-torn country of Borogravia, Polly Perks eventually goes against the religious abominations against women fighting and wearing men's clothing to try and find her brother, who had marched into battle a year before. Polly, as Oliver Perks, quickly grasps the basics of being a soldier, even in a motley squad consisting of two unusually close 'friends', an Igor, a troll, a vampire, a religious fanatic, a wet-behind-the-ears commander, and a legendary and mysteriously long-tenured sergeant. Oh, and Shufti too.

Carcer Dun

The Big Bad of Night Watch, he's a Serial Killer being pursued by Vimes.

  • Ax Crazy: He'd kill you for your watch rather than ask you the time.
  • Combat Pragmatist
  • Crazy Prepared
  • Dragon-in-Chief: Technically, he's always in a position of subservience to someone else; first to Findthee Swing as a sergeant in the Particulars, then briefly to Lord Snapcase as Captain of the Palace Guard. However, apprehending Carcer is what leads to the both of them being sent back thirty years, and necessitates Vimes taking on the role of John Keel, and Vimes must bring Carcer back with him.
  • Evil Counterpart: It's heavily implied that if Vimes were to ever allow himself to become The Unfettered, then he might wind up like Carcer.
  • For the Evulz: His main motivation.
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: According to Vimes, he has two bad angels.
  • Knife Nut: Carcer is never unarmed.
  • Psycho for Hire: If you manage to get a leash on him, although it probably won't stick and you'll definitely regret it.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: As mentioned by Vimes:

He'd stand there amid the carnage, blood on his hands and stolen jewellery in his pocket, and with an expression of injured innocence declare, 'Me? What did I do?' And it was believable right up until you looked hard into those cheeky, smiling eyes, and saw, deep down, the demons looking back.


The Amazing Maurice

Maurice is a talking cat, with a cat's ego and self-interest, and something of a feline equivalent of Gaspode who has a softer heart than he's willing to admit even to himself. Title character of The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.


Om

Om is the god of Omnia, a state somewhere in Discworld's hot desert regions. He starred in Small Gods, and was an example of what happens to gods when people stop believing in them (even if they're still practicing the official religion). In his official form, Om is a great big mighty golden thing with horns, but he spends most of the story as a powerless, petulant, sarcastic tortoise with a lot of natural enemies (including eagles, other small gods, and his own In...uh, Exquisition), because his religion has grown so bureaucratic that he's down to his very last believer. Said believer is an initiate named Brutha, who has faith like stone and roughly the brains of one, too.

  • Break the Haughty: Most of the events of Small Gods, which transforms Om from a smite-happy God to a leashed, somewhat forgiving God — who's learned to believe in humans.
  • Brought Down To Tortoise
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: Draws upon Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - mostly Christianity, since the events of Small Gods create a similar split to that between the Old and New Testaments.
  • Deadpan Snarker: It's just something about being a tortoise. They're naturally deapan.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: More recent books imply that Om's faith has begun eclipsing the other gods' specifically because he does not manifest or provide any concrete proof of his existence, so he may actually be the most powerful god on the disc by now. (Ironically, actually utilizing any of that power would be his undoing.)
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly
You're more afraid of him than you are of me, now. Abraxas says here: 'Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.'
—Om, when Brutha refuses his command(ment) to kill Vorbis
  • Physical God: Unfortunately, most of said godhood didn't make the transition to corporeality.


Chrysophrase the troll

Ankh-Morpork's most famous "Legitimate Businessman". Is mentioned several times, with a cameo in Soul Music, but doesn't make a real appearance until Thud!. Known to take an interest in horse racing and has recently gotten out of the drug trade business.

  • Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters: Chrysophrase helps Vimes prevent riots on Koom Valley Day by revealing a drug lab, because the drug manufactured there would cause homicidal insanity, and later death. Chrysophrase wants stable business, which is rather hard with dead customers.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Most trolls are not known for their intelligence, but Chrysophrase, even without the benefit of cold-enhanced thought processes, is smarter than most human criminals in the city. He intentionally uses Hulk Speak to throw people off their game even though he's fully capable of speaking normally.
  • Shame If Something Happened: Two of his henchmen attempt this on Vimes, but Chrysophrase later assures him that it was entirely their own idea and gives Vimes a box of gravel that couldn't possible contain an entire troll.
  • Shout-Out: To Meyer Wolfscheim from The Great Gatsby, as both wear cufflinks made of teeth (respectively human and troll)- the joke being that troll teeth are made of diamond.


Glenda Sugarbean

The head of Unseen University's Night Kitchen, a practical and down-to-earth young woman who bakes the best pies in the world. Also has repressed anger issues and a habit of unleashing it on anyone who earns her wrath, up to and including Lord Vetinari.

  • Boring but Practical: Her approach to life. At first.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A teddy bear with three eyes, due to a sewing mishap.
  • Improbable Age: Though numbers aren't given, she's the same age as Juliet, so probably in her earlier twenties, and she's running one of the largest and best kitchens in the world.
    • The night kitchen, anyway, which is considered somewhat lower in rank. Plus, she is the latest in what's apparently a long line of master chefs. Vetinari considers a Sugarbean's baked goods to be worthy of note, so just being one is probably enough to scoot you to the head of the line in a kitchen.
  • Mama Bear
  • Plucky Girl: She marches into the Patrician's Palace and harangues Vetinari. And gets away with it! Twice! And the second time he's with Lady Margolotta.
  • Supreme Chef: Vetinari himself has referred to her cooking as art.
  • The Unfettered: A major part of her Character Development is realizing that all the unwritten rules of social behavior... are more "suggestions", and if you ignore them with enough confidence, people have no idea how to respond. This leads to her multiple Crowners, including when she tells off Margolotta AND stares her down. Successfully! Cause she ignored the fact that she was "supposed" to be terrified. Even Vetinari finds this hilariously awesome.
  • Younger Than They Look: Is mistaken for Juliet's mother at one point, although her attitude probably had a lot to do with it.


Trev Likely

Technically employed downstairs at Unseen University, but prefers to spend his time at football or kicking his tin can around, which he has miraculous control over. Son of legendary footballer Dave Likely.

"It's all about the spin."


Juliet Stollop

The Disc's first supermodel, but for dwarf fashion (she's human). Plays Juliet to Trev's Romeo with rival football teams as the feuding families.


Mr. Nutt

A "goblin" employed downstairs at Unseen University at the bequest of Lord Vetinari, who is keeping him safe for Lady Margolotta. A fast learner and extremely skilled and diligent at everything he does and talks as more "nobby" than the wizards upstairs.

Nutt: I have a fast metabolism --
Glenda: Well, that's all right, as long as you don't show it to anybody.

Pepe

An incredibly campy dwarven fashion designer, and Madame Sharn's partner. Behind the camp, he's a self-described bastard and old bugger. He is not above responding to evil with knives in dark alleys where better people would stop at just words.

  • Always Camp
  • Ambiguously Gay: It's left up to individual readers to decide whether he is a straight man whose father bullied him for his natural effiminacy or if he truly is homosexual... and then there's the incredibly complicated dwarven gender-identity issues to confuse things even more...
  • Camp Gay: He's playing up the stereotype of the "mincing, feminine, flighty, homosexual fashion designer" because it's expected.
  • Camp Straight: If you figure he really is heterosexual and merely acts so camp for much the same reason that a human weapons maker in Ankh-Morpork legally changed his name to Stronginthearm and claims to be a dwarf.
  • Converting for Love: To being a dwarf, which is almost like a religion.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: When he finally gets upset enough to intervene... he deals with Andy. Permanently.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Dear God.
    • For those who haven't read the book, at the end of the book, when everything is said and done, except for Andy still being free and waiting to get his revenge on Nutt... Pepe jumps him in an alleyway, cuts his eye out, and then tricks him into rubbing raw lemon into the wounds. Dear GOD indeed.
  • Real Men Wear Pink


Madame Sharn

The owner of a dwarven fashion house.

Mr. Shine

Him Diamond.

  • Awesome but Impractical: Being made out of solid diamond allows him to think faster, since it instantly refracts away any heat, but also makes it hard for him to sneak around, and being made completely out of a precious mineral is problematic in a place like Ankh-Morpork.
  • The Messiah
  • Names to Trust Immediately
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  1. ↑ As of I Shall Wear Midnight
  2. ↑ So much so that even trolls and dwarves, who shouldn't find a human woman desirable, are suddenly inclined to be peaceful after they watch her shake out her hair.
  3. ↑ At the time, the point was that the reader was supposed to think she was being singled out for being a woman.
  4. ↑ Read: "seconds"
  5. ↑ Well, technically two, but the Death of Fleas isn't important
  6. ↑ which when you consider that Faerie essentially is the Plane of Chaos means something
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