Cena. Prophet of the Omnian religion. A tall fellow with a full beard, whose eyes wobbled when he talked. His sandals are a religious artefact. [SG]
Cenobiarch. Head of the Omnian religion. The Superior Iam. After him come six archpriests, thirty lesser iams, hundreds of bishops, deacons, sub-deacons and priests, plus the inquisitors and exquisitors (see QUISITION). Then novices, bull breeders, torturers and Vestigial Virgins. [SG]
Cern. One of the sons of Gordo Smith, and brother of ESKARINA. [ER]
Chalky. Troll who runs a wholesale building supplies firm in Ankh-Morpork. He also does jobbing printing, cheap pottery and, in short, all those little jobs that need to be done to a budget, badly and quick. And, sometimes, with the Law finding out. [RM, MAA]
Champot. Past king of LANCRE, who built LANCRE CASTLE. As a ghost, he carries his head under his arm. Since he died of gout, this may take some explaining. [WS]
Chance. Broadly, the greater the odds against anything happening the more likely it is to happen on the Discworld. It’s summed up by the saying – amounting to a scientific law – that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Changebasket, Skrelt. Wizard, and refounder of the Ancient and Truly Original Sages of the Unbroken Circle. By dint of close study Skrelt learned that although a wizard’s spells will say themselves when he dies, a Great Spell will simply take refuge in the nearest mind open and ready to receive it. [ER]
Charlie. Used to run a clothes shop in Pseudopolis. Now a member of the Guild of Actors, he makes his living as a Lord VETINARI look-alike at children’s parties, etc. He can stare at balloons until they twist themselves into strange shapes. [TT]
Charnel, Brother. A priest who stole the altar gold from the Temple of OFFLER and had it made into a horn, and played magical music until the gods caught up with him and . . . The story always ends with those terrible three dots, as if legend itself is too scared to continue. [SM]
Cheese, Mr. Owner of the BUCKET in Gleam Street, Ankh-Morpork. A thin, dry man who only smiles when he hears news of some serious murder. Traditionally, he has always sold short measure but, to make up for it, he short-changes as well. He also makes money by renting out the rat’s nest of old sheds and cellars that back onto the pub. The Bucket, which lacks charm, ambience or even many customers, is now, as mentioned elsewhere, the bar of choice for the City WATCH. [MAA]
Cheesemongers, the. The Borogravian 10th Infantry Regiment, known as the Ins & Outs – first into battle, last out of the fray. The regiment has battle honours from Raladan, Sheep’s Drift, Blunderberg, Ibblestarn & Slomp. [MR]
Cheesewaller, C. V. A very elderly wizard (D.M. (Unseen), B.Thau, B.F.) who lives in QUIRM. He has a talking brass plate outside his premises, a piece of stage magickery that is typical of jobbing wizards in small towns where the natives need to be impressed from the word go.
The same thinking applies to his props, which happen to include a raven and a talking skull. The raven QUOTH has gone on to greater things; there is no news of the skull. [SM]
Cheesewright, G. Fellow student of TEPPIC at the ASSASSINS’ GUILD in Ankh-Morpork. A skinny young man with red hair and a face that is one large freckle. [P]
Chelonauts. Men who journey – or at least intend to journey – below the Rim to explore the mysteries of the Great A’TUIN. Their suits are of fine white leather, hung about with straps and brass nozzles and other unfamiliar and suspicious contrivances. The leggings end in high, thick-soled boots, and the arms are shoved into big supple gauntlets. Topping it all is a big copper helmet designed to fit on the heavy collars around the neck of the suits. The helmet has a crest of white feathers on top and a little glass window in front. [COM]
Chert. Troll who runs a sawmill near Cutshade Forest in the Ramtops. He also sells coffins. [WA, TB]
Chickenwire. One of a number of criminals employed by Mr TEATIME. Got his nickname from his habit of encasing bodies in chicken wire before dumping them in the sea, to prevent bits floating to the surface. A small but considerate action, on the whole. [H]
Chidder. Classmate of TEPPIC at the ASSASSINS’ GUILD in Ankh-Morpork. When first encountered he was wearing a plain black suit which looked as though it had been nailed on to him in bits. He ambles through life as though he’s already worked it all out. Teppic calls him ‘Chiddy’. His family are merchant venturers. They provide things that people want. [P]
Weathervane atop the Assassin’s Guild Building
Chillum, Millie. Servant at LANCRE CASTLE. A small, dark girl with a tendency to call her female superiors (i.e., everyone else) ‘m’m’. [LL]
Chimera. A desert creature, with the legs of a mermaid, the hair of a tortoise, the teeth of a fowl, the wings of a snake, the breath of a furnace and the temperament of a rubber balloon in a hurricane. Clearly a magical remnant. It is not known whether chimera breed and, if so, with what. [S]
Chimeria. Desert country, now invisible on any map. Original home of a hero called Codice (hero: very strong, beats people up, can’t read if his index finger is removed, wears a leather loincloth whatever the weather. Straight from stock, in fact.).
Chimeria is possibly a brigadoon, of which there are a number on the Disc. These are areas which, owing to a localised instability in reality, do not have a continuous existence in one place and may turn up for only one day every hundred years before once again being squeezed out of the local universe. They reappear either randomly or at lengthy fixed intervals, a common denominator being that no time passes inside the brigadoon between appearances. The lost city of EE is probably one of these, as is the village of Turnover in the RAMTOPS (a special case). In all likelihood there are also a large number of rural areas, or stretches of ocean, where the phenomenon passes unnoticed owing to the absence of anyone to notice it. For anyone interested in further research, a good place to begin looking is any area where sea-going vessels disappear or strange and theoretically extinct animals stroll out of the undergrowth.
Although most brigadoons do have a generalised geographical location to which they are anchored, occasionally one loses this point of contact and floats randomly across the worlds, coming to earth again in any time or place. Evidence suggests that the Wandering SHOPS use some kind of controlled version of this phenomenon on their travels.
Ching Aling. Method of divining used by the Hublandish. It involves the throwing of yarrow sticks into the air, observing the ensuing pattern, interpreting the results using a reference book and pretending you have the faintest idea what it’s talking about. (Example: the Octogram 8,887: Illegality, the Unatoning Goose.) [M]
Chinny, Clarence. The Ankh-Morpork Consul to Zlobenia. He used to work in the Patrician’s Office, and he has been out of the city for five years at the time we meet him. At school, he was not a good fighter – but no one could beat him over the 100 yard dash. [MR]
Chriek, Otto. Vampire iconographer with the Ankh-Morpork Times. He is thin and pale with thin, blue-veined hands, a carefully-cut widow’s peak and skinny black-clad legs. He wears little, oval dark glasses. He has a ridiculous accent which grows thicker or thinner depending on who he is talking to. Otto is a black ribboner – a member of the vampires’ League of TEMPERANCE. He is quite an innovator in the world of Discworld photography and he is working on such new processes as colour printing and the obscurograph – a camera to take pictures with DARK LIGHT. His use of salamanders for flash pictures causes him some problems and he used to deal with this by carrying a card saying: ‘DO NOT BE ALARMED. The former bearer of this card has suffered a minor accident. You will need a drop of blood from any species, and a dustpan and brush’. Later, he refined his recovery technique by carrying a small bottle of blood on a string around his neck – this breaks on the floor if he turns to dust as a result of a salamander flash. Otto suffers for his art. He wears shiny black shoes and a red-lined opera cloak (with pockets for his gear) and also wears the only photographer’s jacket with tails.
Christine. A singer at the Ankh-Morpork OPERA HOUS
E who, prior to joining the Opera, had spent three years with Mme Venturi at the Quirm Conservatory. If this had an improving effect on her voice, we can only speculate that beforehand it was used to frighten large animals. She is slightly built (and has gone to some pains to make herself look even thinner) has long, blond hair and a voice that seems to have an excited little squeak permanently attached to it. The impression she gives is that she simply cannot get a whole idea into her head in one go, but has to nibble it into manageable bits. Nevertheless, she really does look good on stage and has that quality to which mere talent comes a poor second. [M!!!!!]
Chrysoprase. (also Krysoprase [LF], and Chrystophrase [WS]). Well, trolls were never good at spelling. A troll gang leader and extortionist; when he demands an arm and a leg in payment, he means it. Owns the Cavern, a troll nightclub, and wears jewellery made from the diamond teeth of other troll gangsters who have come second in their business dealings with him. Unlike most trolls he wears a suit – and a tie with a diamond pin. He is said to be big in the BRECCIA, a rather inefficiently organised troll crime syndicate. [MAA]
Chubby. A swamp dragon. Rescued by Lady RAMKIN from a blacksmith in Easy Street. Exploded by Edward D’EATH. His blue collar was an important clue in one of the Night WATCH’S few real homicide cases. [MAA]
Chume. The Notorious Herring Thrower. [RM]
Churn, Ezrolith. Very old wizard and a former ARCHCHANCELLOR of Unseen University. He had been writing a treatise on ‘Some Little Known Aspects of Kuian Rain-Making Rituals’. [E]
Circle Sea. A sizeable but almost landlocked sea approximately halfway between the Hub and the Rim, opening at its Turnwise side into the Rim Ocean. Its principal trading ports are Ankh-Morpork, on the STO PLAINS coast, and AL KHALI and EPHEBE on the Rimwards side. Discworld civilisation, which can broadly be defined as those countries that have invented the fork as well as the knife, is found around its historic coasts.
Circumfence. A barrier built by the Kingdom of KRULL around almost a third of the Disc, to catch salvage. The biggest construction ever built on the Disc. Seven navies used to patrol it constantly to keep it in repair and bring its salvage back to Krull. However, the repair work now seems to have ceased. [COM, TLH]
Civil War. The Ankh-Morpork Civil War ran from 8.32 p.m., Grune 3, 432 to 10.45 a.m., Grune 4, 432 (but see the Discworld CALENDAR – by the calendar now commonly used, this would have been 1688). The origins of the war have always been the subject of heated debate among historians. There are two theories:
1. The common people, having been heavily taxed by a particularly stupid and unpleasant king, decided that enough was enough and that it was time to do away with the outmoded concept of monarchy and replace it with, as it turned out, a series of despotic overlords who still taxed heavily but at least had the decency not to pretend the gods had given them the right to do it, which made everyone feel a bit better, or
2. One of the players in a game of CRIPPLE MR ONION in a tavern accused another of palming more than the usual number of aces, and knives were drawn, and then someone hit someone with a bench, and then someone else stabbed someone, and arrows started to fly, and someone swung on a chandelier, and a carelessly hurled axe hit someone in the street, and then the WATCH was called in, and someone set fire to the place, and someone hit a lot of people with a table, and then everyone lost their tempers and commenced fighting.
According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, it ended with a practical score of Humans 0, Ravens 1,000, which is the case with most battles.
The famous fire during the Civil War is noteworthy simply because it was started by both sides at the same time in order to stop the city falling into enemy hands. It was not otherwise impressive; the ANKH had been particularly high that summer, and most of the city was too damp to burn. [MP]
Map of the Circle Sea area
Clacks. The semaphore system now taking over as the principal method of communicating over long distances on Discworld. There are now clacks towers all over Ankh-Morpork, the Sto Plains, and all the way to Lancre, These are spaced at eight-mile intervals, each tower being 150 feet high. Überwald and beyond. Watchmen in Ankh-Morpork now carry mini-clacks paddles to communicate with each other across the city whilst they are on the move. The roofs of Ankh-Morpork are now a forest of clacks towers, winking and twinking and twinkling in the sunlight. The big tower on the Tump is one end of the Grand Trunk that winds more than 2000 miles to Genua.
Cleph-ptah-re. Past Queen of Djelibeybi. TEPPIC’S aunt. [P]
Clete, Mr. Secretary of the MUSICIANS’ GUILD. Had a pointed nose and a strange, mirthless laugh (‘Hat. Hat. Hat.’). He looked like something you might get if you extracted fossilised genetic material from something in amber and then gave it a suit.
For some years he was very active in Ankh-Morpork’s Guild system, into which he fitted like a moray eel fits into a reef.
Many people have sought power by great feats of arms or complex diplomatic negotiations, but Clete followed what we might call the Grand Vizier road to power. He did things. Trivial and thankless but essential things. Keeping Minutes, for example (after all, no one remembers what they decided until they read the Minutes). Making sure the membership roll is quite up to date. Filing. Organising. He worked hard on behalf of the THIEVES’ GUILD, although he wasn’t a thief (at least in the normal sense). Then there was a rather more senior vacancy in the FOOLS’ GUILD, and Mr Clete was no fool and took it immediately. And finally there was the Secretaryship of the MUSICIANS’ GUILD. Since technically he should have been a musician, he bought a comb and paper. Mr Clete believed in organisation rather more than he believed in the people and things that needed organising. [SM]
Clockson, Jeremy. He was left on the doorstep of the Guild of Clockmakers in a basket when he was a few days old and has been a member of the Guild since then, as a foundling. He was (although past tense is somewhat problematical here) a thin lad who never laughed. He grew up healthy, in body at least, and with an absolute genius for clockmaking to the exclusion of everything else, such as proper human relationships, the ability to be sensibly untidy, intelligent conversation and so on. He also had a perfect, even pathologically accurate, sense of time. On the table by his bed he had a row of alarm clocks, currently under test; he’d set them for seven and then would wake up at 6.59 to check that they went off on time. Jeremy has an interesting relationship with TIME and with Lobsang LUDD and, in the problematical sense alluded to above, still does. [TOT]
Clogston, Major. An officer in the Borogravian Army Provost’s Office. At first impression, the Major is a smart young man, with half-moon reading glasses and a blood sugar disorder which means he needs to eat regularly. Known, to some colleagues, as Christine. [MR]
Clubs and societies. Ankh-Morpork has a wide range of clubs catering for its vast population. These include:
Ankh Committee on Safety [UA]
Ankh-Morpork Trespassers’ Society (was Explorers’ Society) [UA]
BRECCIA [SM]
Caged Birds Society, Ankh-Morpork [TT]
Campaign for Dead Rights [TFE]
Campaign for Equal Heights – A pressure group to ensure and enforce equable treatment for dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork. And this is strange because, unlike trolls, dwarfs have never really been the subject of discrimination and are the city’s largest ethnic group after humans themselves. Most of the Campaign’s committee are human. [H]
Cavern Club – a sort of Kennel Club for the breeders of pedigree swamp dragons. Not to be confused with the Cavern, in Quarry Lane, which is a club for the cooler sort of human and the nastier sort of troll. [GG, SM]
Cockbill Boars (AM football club) [UA]
Country Landowners’ Association [MAA]
Dimwell Old Pals (AM football club) (colours – pink & green) [UA]
Dolly Sisters’ Baking & Flower C
ircle [TT]
Dolly Sisters Football Club (colours – white & black) [UA]
Dolly Sisters Players [UA]
ELUCIDATED BRETHREN OF THE EBON NIGHT
Fidgett’s – exclusive gentlemen’s club in Ankh-Morpork [TOT]
Fine Art Appreciation Society (A-M) – believed by Sergeant Colon to be an excuse for men to ‘paint pictures of women in the nudd’ [GG]
Floral Arranging Society, Ankh-Morpork [TT]
Folk-Dance & Song Club (M) – not much is known except that one of its keenest members is Corporal ‘Nobby’ Nobbs of the City WATCH. This is like finding King Herod attending meetings of the Bethlehem Playgroup Association. [GG]
FRESH START CLUB
Friendly Flamethrowers’ League – another dragon organisation. Whereas the Cavern Club judges, however, would award points for pointiness of ear and healthiness of scale, the Flamethrowers are a much jollier bunch whose dragon shows include categories like The Dragon Who the Judges Would Most Like To Cook On. [GG, MAA]
Funny Vegetable Society, Ankh-Morpork [TT]
Golem Trust, The [GP, MM]
Illuminated & Ancient Brethren of Ee – one of Ankh-Morpork’s many well-known secret societies [GG]
League of Decency (AM) [MM]
Little Sisters of Perpetual Velocity (Ephebian) [UA]
Merry Pranksters, The [FGD]
Nap Hill Jolly Pals [TT]
Nap Hill United (AM football club) [UA]
Offler’s League of Temperance (wear a blue ribbon) [H]
Peeled Nuts, The – The Ankh-Morpork Historical Re-Creation Society [FC]
Pigsty Hill Pork Packers (AM football club) [UA]
Pink PussyCat Club (Ankh-Morpork [T!]
Recovering Accordion Players Society, Ankh-Morpork [TT]
Royal Society for the Betterment of Mankind – founded by King VERENCE [CJ]
Silicon Anti-Defamation League (often considered, without any real evidence, to be a front organisation for the Breccia). This is a troll organisation, formed originally by working trolls in Ankh-Morpork who were fed up with the way trolls in general were stereotyped as big, slow, violent and stupid. Initially their response was to knuckle around to an offender’s house and pull off his arms. Things have since settled down a bit, and the SADL is now just another one of Ankh-Morpork’s numerous pressure groups. [MAA, MP, FC]
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