Lobsang Ludd

This article contains brief biographies for prominent characters from Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' series. More central characters' biographies are also listed in articles relating to the organisations they belong to, main characters have their own articles.

Characters are listed alphabetically by name.

''71-Hour'' Ahmed

A Klatchian warrior and bodyguard who accompanies his Prince, Khufurah, an envoy on a diplomatic mission from Klatch to Ankh-Morpork in the 21st ''Discworld'' novel, '' Jingo''. Ahmed belongs to a formidable but honourable warrior clan called the D'regs. Speaking purposefully with a heavy accent and chewing cloves he is suspected of killing the Watch's prime suspect in a botched assassination attempt on the prince; provoking Vimes and the Watch to pursue Ahmed back to Klatch.

Ahmed got his nickname by killing a man guilty of poisoning a well, one hour before the cultural D'reg three days of unwavering hospitality allowed; a time during which even great enemies should be shown respect. He is later revealed to be the ''Wali'' of Klatch, equivalent to Vimes's position as Commander of the City Watch. Ahmed and Vimes eventually develop a wary respect for each other as basically honest cops in unenviable positions.

Ankh-Morpork

A character in itself, Ankh-Morpork is the largest city on the Disc with 1 million inhabitants, and a common location for many of the Discworld's stories. Its nickname is "the Big Wahoonie" (an ugly, smelly fruit). Originally two cities separated by a river, Ankh and Morpork today are governed as one city-state. Ankh-Morpork contains the Assassin's guild, the Unseen University and the City Watch amongst many other famous Discworld institutions.

Ankh-Morpork City Watch

The Ankh-Morpork Watch, also known as just "The Watch", is Ankh-Morpork's police force.

The Auditors of Reality

The Auditors of Reality are formless non-beings housed under grey cloaks with no distinguishing marks. Auditors do not speak, they re-arrange the world what they wish to express been stated without words being uttered. Auditors are neutral, devoid of emotion but are opposed to the chaotic morass of emotions of humanity. This is because humanity is messy and upsets the logically reasoned order of the universe; by which the Auditors feel the universe should be run without let or hindrance.

Auditors appear in eleventh ''Discworld'' novel, '' Reaper Man'', attempting to replace Death with a more amenable professional, with less of an identity and personality. The Auditors choose to remain at odds with Death as he champions the concepts of identity, individuality and personality, which remain alien to the Auditors. Any Auditors who start to exhibit expressions of individuality are instantaneously, disintegrated into non-existence and immediately replaced by a new identical facsimile. Auditors are supposedly of one mind, always acting in concert with unanimity, but as more interaction with reality occurs this unison gradually and inevitably breaks down as disagreement, bickering, creativity and jealousy formulate with Auditors developing consciousness. A notable example of an Auditor going through the process of anthropopathism is ''Myria LeJean'', (''myriad'' and ''legion''), who appears in the 26th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Thief of Time'', who rebels against the Auditors in their mission to destroy humanity.

The 'greyness' of the Auditors may be a nod to The Grey Men of the novel Momo and its similar paranormal entities.

Mavolio Bent

The Head Cashier and all but in charge of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, makes his first appearance in the 36th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Making Money''. Mr Bent has been employed at the bank since he was thirteen, when he came to the city with a group of travelling accountants. He was born as a clown, but his first time performing the audience laughing at him caused him to flee and join a group of travelling accountants, discovering his talent for numbers.

Mavolio Bent's history bears a passing resemblance to that of John Major who was born the son of a music hall performer, but left to join a bank, eventually becoming Prime Minister of the UK, 1990–1997. Andrew Rawnsley said that he "ran away from the circus to join a troupe of accountants".

Lieutenant Blouse

Polly Perks's platoon commander in 31st ''Discworld'' novel, '' Monstrous Regiment'', Blouse is an effeminate aristocrat who was promoted from administrator in the Quartermaster-General's Blanket, Bedding, and Horse Fodder Department to field command with no previous experience, thanks to the rapidly decreasing circle of Borogravia's supply of combat-ready men.

Blouse's ambition to have an item of clothing or a food named after him, following in the tradition of famous military men, is eventually fulfilled when a fingerless glove is given his name. Blouse's talent for mathematics and technology propel him to success despite a feminine manner and lack of martial prowess signalling a change in Discworld warfare as intelligence and technology begin to replace bravery and fighting skill. Blouse comes to respect the women serving under him.

Brutha

Brutha is an Omnian novice at the Citadel in the capital city of Kom in the 13th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Small Gods''. Omnia is an autocratic theocracy that believes in the existence of only one God, The Great God Om. Brutha is a dutiful and truly faithful lad; his devotion being instilled from infancy by being raised by his piously strict grandmother. Brutha is word-perfect on Omnian religious texts thanks to his eidetic memory but unable to read or write. By virtue of his memory, Brutha retains all conversations and moments from the day of his birth.

Brutha finds a one-eyed tortoise in the soft soil of his melon patch, the tortoise is actually the Great God Om afflicted with temporary amnesia, which recedes in the presence of Brutha. Brutha is the sole remaining true believer of Om as all other Omnians have unknowingly shifted their belief to the structure of the church, leaving Om with almost no godly powers, resulting in his earthly manifestation into a tortoise with memory loss instead of a rampaging giant bull.

Brutha comes to the attention of Deacon Vorbis, the Chief Exquistor in charge of the Quisition, who intends to use Brutha's amazing memory to invade and occupy the neighbouring country of Ephebe and propel himself to head of the Omnian church. Brutha foils Vorbis's plans, restores Om's godly powers, resolves the conflict between Omnia and the other nations on the Klatchian coast and becomes the Cenobiarch and the Eighth Prophet of the Church. He reforms the Church into a "constitutional religion", one where even Om has to obey his commandments. Brutha fills his time as Cenobiarch by copying all of the lost works from the Great Library of Ephebe fire that had occurred during the Omnian occupation of Ephebe. His reign as Cenobiarch lasted for one hundred years until his death.

Seldom Bucket

Seldom Bucket was a big man in cheese production in Ankh-Morpork, who just prior to the events in ''Maskerade'', purchases the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Seldom believes he can make money from opera like he can from cheese, he becomes horrified to learn how expensive opera is, and it is in fact a '' money pit''. This becomes exacerbated by the slew of strange murders being committed by the 'Opera Ghost', causing Seldom to rethink his purchase.

The Canting Crew

The Canting Crew is an informal name for a group of Ankh-Morpork beggars who are too anarchic for the Beggars' Guild, which has a tendency to constrain them with rules. Members of the group can often be found beneath Ankh-Morpork's Misbegot Bridge and are normally accompanied by the talking dog, Gaspode.

Death joins the crew in the 16th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Soul Music'' where he takes the name, ''Mr Scrub''. Death is successful at taking coin and enhancing the group's earning power where he also becomes known as ''the Grateful Death.''

In ''The Truth'', the crew are recruited by the ''Ankh-Morpork Times'' editor, William de Worde to become newspaper hawkers, where they capitalise on their unintelligibility to sell copies.

Foul Ole Ron

Excessively seedy, momentously dirty, overpoweringly smelly and entirely incomprehensible, Foul Ole Ron is the best-known member of the crew. He is often accompanied by Gaspode, the world's only ''thinking-brain dog'' (as opposed to a ' seeing-eye dog'). ''Ron's smell'' has become strong enough to not only melt earwax but to acquire a separate existence entirely — it occasionally arrives ahead of Ron and opts to stick around for a while after his departure.

Ron's 'catchphrase', "Buggrit, millennium hand an' shrimp...", was the result of Pratchett feeding a random text generating program with a Chinese takeaway menu and the lyrics to They Might Be Giants's song ''Particle Man''. His catchphrase (minus 'buggrit') is also used by Mrs Tachyon, a character in the Johnny Maxwell series, also by Pratchett.

Foul Ole Ron is in one verse of Sam Vimes's "City version" of ''Where's My Cow?'' that Young Sam enjoyed, but Lady Sybil Vimes disapproved of this version.

Altogether Andrews

Altogether Andrews is a mass of many personalities, none of them named Andrews with most having higher social status than Altogether. The Duck Man speculates that Andrews was once a mild-mannered psychic, mentally overwhelmed by the other souls. Andrews is generally regarded as one of the most consistently sane of the group, since at least five of his personalities can hold a sensible conversation with other people. The personalities 'voted' on whether to act as street vendors for ''The Ankh Morpork Times'' (in ''The Truth'') and Andrews held up five fingers to indicate the outcome of his personalities' decision.

Coffin Henry

Sometimes spelt 'Coughin' Henry'. Coffin Henry has a habitual cough from which he gets his name, it is described as sounding 'almost solid'. Like Ron, he has a verse in ''Where's My Cow?'', as adapted by Vimes to fit city life. In it, Henry goes "Cough, gack, ptui".

While Ron asks people for money to stop following them, Coffin Henry makes money by not going anywhere. People send him small sums to not turn up at their parties asking people to look at his interesting collection of skin diseases. He also wears a sign saying "For sum muny I wont follo yu hom".

The Duck Man

The Duck Man is the intellectual of the group, and in comparison appears relatively sane, he seems unaware of the duck that lives on his head and has little memory of life before joining the Canting Crew, referring to it as "when I was someone else". Possibly once rich and well educated at some time, he wears the tattered remnants of an expensive suit. As a boy, he "messed around in boats". Somebody apparently wants him dead, as the price on his head at the Assassins' Guild is $132,000. but there's a chance he put that contract on himself.
The Duck Man appears in several of Pratchett's books, including ''Hogfather'', ''Soul Music'', ''The Truth'' and ''Feet of Clay''.

Arnold Sideways

Arnold Sideways is noted for being completely legless, literally — a cart ran over his legs several years ago and he now gets around on a wheelbarrow, usually pushed by the Duck Man. He carries an old boot on a stick, so muggers desperate enough to try to rob the beggars often find themselves being kicked on the top of the head by a three-foot tall man.

Carcer

Carcer (from the ) is the psychopathic villain of 29th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Night Watch'', described by Vimes as "a stone-cold killer. With brains". His full name is revealed in a preview of ''Night Watch'' but not in the completed novel, as Carcer Dun.

Carcer has a talent for unnerving people, an annoying laugh and a perpetual conviction of his own innocence despite his many crimes, which include at least two murders. Carcer claims his original crime was stealing a loaf of bread although, Vimes says, Carcer would have murdered the baker and stolen the whole bakery.

Following a rooftop chase across Unseen University in a magical thunderstorm, both Carcer and Vimes are transported thirty years into the past, about a week before the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May. Carcer immediately murders Pseudopolitan watchman John Keel and joins Lord Winder's secret police force, the ''Unmentionables'', quickly climbing though their ranks. Ultimately, Carcer is apprehended and returned to the present day by Vimes.

Imp Y Celyn

In the 16th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Soul Music'', Imp Y Celyn (, , a pun on "Buddy Holly") is a bard from the mountainous country of Llamedos who is possessed by " Music with Rocks in" and becomes the Disc's greatest musician under the name Buddy, people comment on him appearing a little "elvish. Buddy founds the ''Band with Rocks In'', along with Cliff and Glod. The band tries to adhere to the hedonistic rock'n'roll stereotypical lifestyle of 'live fast and die young,' as they tour the Disc to the new fans of this music. An intervention by Death leads to a timeline change, where the music ends and Imp may have been seen working in a fried-fish stall in Quirm, a reference to Kirsty MacColl's song "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis".

Christine

Christine is a pretty, thin, blonde chorus singer at the Ankh-Morpork Opera House, in the 18th ''Discworld'' novel, ''Maskerade'', who wears white and uses exclamation marks at the end of every sentence. She is an extraordinarily untalented singer in an inverse proportion to her beauty, but she has 'star talent'. The Opera House management promotes Christine because of her beauty and because her father helped finance the purchase of the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Christine performs onstage by lip-syncing to the voice of Agnes Nitt who remains backstage. Christine's father once told her that a "dear little pixie" would help her career and she thinks that Agnes might be that pixie.

Roland de Chumsfanleigh

Roland de Chumsfanleigh — pronounced 'de Chuffley', which, as Pratchett says, is not his fault — is the son of the Baron of the Chalkland. Roland is introduced as a 12-year-old in the 30th ''Discworld'' novel, ''The Wee Free Men'', the first novel in the Tiffany Aching series. A dull-witted child, Roland is kidnapped and held by the Queen of the Elves for a year, eventually being freed by Tiffany.

In ''Wintersmith'', now a young man Roland is recruited by the Nac Mac Feegle to perform the role of the mythic Hero in the Dance of the Seasons, to fix the damage done by Tiffany and the Wintersmith.

In ''I Shall Wear Midnight'', the fourth book in the series, Roland marries Letitia Keepsake, a good-natured, pampered aristocrat.

Cohen the Barbarian

Ghenghiz Cohen, known as Cohen the Barbarian, is a hero in the classical sense, that is, a professional thief, brawler and ravisher of women. Cohen is introduced in the second ''Discworld'' novel, ''The Light Fantastic'', and returns prominently in ''Interesting Times'' and ''The Last Hero''. Cohen is the Discworld's greatest warrior hero, renowned for rescuing maidens, destroying mad high priests of dark cults, looting ancient ruins, and so on. Cohen first appears already as a toothless sinewy old man, with a long white beard that reaches below his loincloth and with a patch over one eye — "a legend in his own lifetime" — but still tough enough to handle anything, as to survive to such an age one must be very good as a barbarian indeed. Cohen supposes he might be between 90 and 95, before acquiring a set of diamond dentures made of troll teeth.

Cohen has outlived the heroic age and finds himself in a world where great battles and astonishing rescues rarely happen except in stories, one of the last being Troll Bridge where Cohen and a troll reminisce about the good old days when everyone respected tradition.

In ''Interesting Times'' Cohen becomes Emperor of the Agatean Empire by his own hand, but soon becomes bored and invades the home of the Gods in ''The Last Hero'', by "returning fire to the gods, with interest". Cohen is last seen stealing horses belonging to the Valkyries and riding into the sky, to explore space.

Cohen's name and character may be a literary echo of Robert E. Howard's character Conan the Barbarian and Genghis Khan, combined with the Jewish surname Cohen, because he can bring you "wholesale slaughter".

Cohen boasts of fathering dozens of children over his long life, but only one is introduced — Conina who appears in ''Sourcery''.

Conina

Conina is the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian and a temple dancer, introduced in the fifth ''Discworld'' novel, ''Sourcery''. Described as both a well-endowed, beautiful, and a skilled fighter due to attributes inherited from both parents, she nonetheless aspires to be a hairdresser, despite her natural talents as a barbarian heroine, where her genetics keep getting in the way, so she instinctively kills people who threaten her. Conina falls in love with Nijel the Destroyer, a clerk with the talents and physique to match who, despite having no aptitude for it, desperately wants to be a barbarian hero.

Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite

Mrs Cosmopilite is a dressmaker, who first appears in 10th ''Discworld'' novel, '' Moving Pictures'' as 'Vice-President' of Costuming and Theda Withel's landlady. Mrs Cosmopilite holds some individualistic ideas; amongst them she believes the Disc is under threat from inhuman monsters, that the world is round and that three dwarfs look in on her undressing every night.

Mrs Cosmopilite known to be venerated by the History Monks, who know that knowledge is greater if it comes from further away. This reverence might be attributed to Lu-Tze, a former lodger of Mrs Cosmopilite. Lu-Tze wrote down many of Marietta's working class aphorisms as guides by which to live life. The sayings serving dual purpose of stereotypical utterances of an older working-class woman and pieces of oriental wisdom. An example being, "I wasn't born yesterday" which, as Lu Tze points out, resembles one of the key revelations of Wen the Eternally Surprised, who, in reference to the continually destroyed and renewed nature of the universe, and the constancy of revelation, said "I was not born-yesterday!".

Sacharissa Cripslock

Miss Sacharissa Cripslock is the reporter for the ''Ankh-Morpork Times'' in the 25th ''Discworld'' novel, The Truth, having originally arrived at the print-works to complain about the invention of moveable type putting her father, an engraver out of a job.

Sacharissa combines her buxom

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