Unlucky with boys (or, perhaps, lucky, depending on your point of view – in any case, relationships don’t seem to last). [SM, H, TOT]
Sto Lat. A walled city kingdom, twenty miles Hubwards of Ankh-Morpork, clustered around a castle built on a rock outcrop that pokes up out of the STO PLAINS like a geological pimple. It is a huge stone from the distant RAMTOPS, which was left there by retreating glaciers.
Its younger citizens consider it to be boring and indeed its night life is not as colourful and full of incident as that of Ankh-Morpork, in the same way that a wastepaper basket cannot compete with a municipal tip. On fire. In the rain. [M]
Stollop, Juliet. Daughter of the Captain of the Dollies Football Club, Ankh-Morpork. She lives in Dolly Sisters (of course), with her father and her brothers Billy and Algernon. Her mother is dead. Juliet (Jools) is very short, but she is so beautiful that boys get nervous and occasionally faint as she passes. Although she is beautiful, with milky blue eyes, and she doesn’t have a nasty bone in her body, she is not very bright – her head is not exactly overcrowded. She is dumb about everything. She is, however, (sadly) the brains of the Stollop family. [UA]
Stoner, William. A solicitor and Clerk to the Magistrates in the village close by Ramkin Hall. Bit of a country dresser in his fantailer hat and jodhpurs.
Sto Plains. A rich country, full of silt and rolling cabbage fields, and neat little kingdoms whose boundaries wriggle like snakes as small, formal wars, marriage pacts, complex alliances and the occasional bit of sloppy cartography change the political shape of the land.
The thick, black loam of the Sto Plains has been constructed over eons by the periodic flooding of the great, slow ANKH, and every bit of it has at some time travelled along someone’s alimentary canal. [M, S]
Stowley. A financial adviser from Ankh Futures. Also on the Board of the Grand Trunk Company. [GP]
Strappi, Corporal. A greasy little corporal in the Borogravian army. The sort of person who puts a damper on everything. Described by one of his colleagues as a ‘cross-grained little bugger’. He later rises, for a while, to the rank of captain in the political division. [MR]
Stratford. A nutjob and a knife cove. Worked for the young Lord Rust. What does he look like? Well, he’s sort of average height. To tell you the truth, he sort of looks like everyone else. Until he gets angry. And that is when he looks like Stratford. Mr Stratford is the kind of maniac that will keep going in suicidal circumstances. [SN]
Street Theatre (prohibition of). Street theatre and mime artistry are banned in Ankh-Morpork under one of the strictest city ordinances (fire-eaters and jugglers are considered acceptable, provided they are good at it and can pass the exam; in the case of jugglers, this consists of juggling six razor-sharp knives and a live cat. It is seldom necessary to take the exam a second time).
The unusually inflexible rule has led to the development of street theatre as a criminal activity, and those who feel inexorably drawn to looking like a dumb tit in white make-up or hectoring people while doing something dull with a diabolo live a desperate existence outside the law. Many of them have more mundane jobs as a cover, but they can be spotted by their tendency to unicycle when they think no one is looking.
If caught, they are imprisoned and tortured, usually by being put in a cell with one another (although scorpions also often feature). No one is certain why the PATRICIAN, who has a relaxed approach to assassins and thieves, has this particular quirk, but the citizens of Ankh-Morpork seem quite happy to accept it.
Strewth. An opal miner in Xxxx who found the LUGGAGE in a mine. [TLC]
Strippers’ Guild. Motto: NVMQVAM VESTIMVS. Coat of arms: enlevé.
Officially, the Guild of Ecdysiasts, Nautchers, Cancanie`res and Exponents of Exotic Dance. This small, all-female and mainly human guild is located in SoSo Street, SoSo. Its members are hard-working women, especially at lunchtimes; Ankh-Morpork is in many respects an unreconstructed society and removing one’s clothes for money is considered perfectly acceptable, although doing it for nothing would be considered immoral.
Dwarfs have no grasp of the basic idea, since removing any item of clothing except in the direst emergency is quite foreign to them, and there are no dwarf members. Trolls, however, form a small but vital part of the membership, although the troll outlook on life, their habit of going around more or less naked in any case and their unusual grasp of the nature of time all mean that a troll stripper actually dons more clothes as the dance progresses, often causing a riot as the fourth overcoat goes on.
The Guild president for life – and, indeed, the entire committee – is Miss Dixie ‘VaVa’ Voom, now officially retired from the stage along with Edward the snake but still taking a very active part in the Guild’s training programme. Her farewell performance in the Skunk Club, Brewer Street, resulted in three heart attacks, a riot and five separate fires; as she tells her trainees, ‘It’s not what you’ve got but what you do with it that counts.’
Stronginthearm, Bjorn. A dwarf. Carrot Ironfoundersson’s great-uncle. [GG]
Stronginthearm, Zakzak. Dwarf proprietor of a magical emporium in Sallet Without – he sells everything for the modern witch from his low-ceilinged dark shop. [HFOS, etc.]
Stygium. It’s called a metal, but it’s thought to be a magically constructed alloy. The dwarfs sometimes find it in the Loko region, and it is extremely expensive. It is usually only of interest to those who by inclination or lifestyle move in darkness – and also, of course, to those who find a life without danger hardly worth living. It can kill, you see. In direct sunshine it heats within a few seconds to a temperature that will melt iron. No one knows why. Occasionally there is a fad among young Assassins for Stygium rings. Classically, they wear an ornate black glove over the ring during the day. [MM]
Sugarbean, Glenda. Head of the Night Kitchen at Unseen University. She is an excellent cook, famed for her pies and is the legendary inventor of the famous Ploughman’s Pie. She lives up Dolly Sisters and has a generous nature – she daily cooks breakfast for a neighbour, the Widow Crowdy, for example, and sells cosmetics in her spare time. She has a soft spot, indicated by her love of romantic novels, and by her elderly (three-eyed) teddy bear, Mr Wobble.
She is not very tall, and a homely woman – but has quite a nice home, clean and decent and with roses round the door and a welcome on the mat and an apple pie in the oven. She is pleasant-looking, but she has a bosom intended for a girl two feet taller. [UA]
Sumtin. A philosophical system from Klatch. A sub-sect of Sumtin is Zen. [WS, WA]
Sun, Place Where It Does Not Shine. This has been firmly located near Slice, LANCRE, where it is coincidentally between a rock and a hard place.
It is, as its name suggests, a deep dark hole under an overhang so that even heavy Discworld light cannot find its way into it. The people of Slice, considered crazed even by Lancre standards, occasionally lower one of their number to prospect for the items that turn up there – usually workmen’s tools, musical instruments and unpopular jobs.
This geographical anomaly serves to illustrate the unusual role of metaphor and colourful language on the Discworld. As another example, the curiobiological museum in Unseen University contains, among even stranger things, The One That Has Bells On (preserved in formaldehyde) and the original Horse You Rode In On (stuffed).
Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons. Located in Morphic Street, Ankh-Morpork. Outside is a small and hollow and pathetic papier mâché dragon, holding a collection box, chained very heavily to the wall and bearing the sign ‘Don’t Let My Flame Go Out’.
There is a big sign scrawled over the big double gates: ‘Here Be Dragons’. A brass plaque besides the gates reads: ‘The Ankh-Morpork Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons’.
There is also yet another, smaller sign: ‘Please Leave Donations of Coal by Side Door’.
The building is built with very, very thick walls and a very, very lightweight roof, a method of construction found elsewhere only in firework fac
tories.
The Place Where the Sun Does Not Shine
All these things are clues, you might say, to the fact that the Sanctuary is a home for lost or strayed or abandoned swamp dragons. There tend to be more of the latter every day. There is occasionally a vogue for keeping young swamp dragons as pets, or even as cigarette lighters, but the charm wears off as the creatures grow and their essential dragonishness manifests itself in corroded carpets and big burn marks on the walls. Many are simply abandoned, and if they are lucky end up at the Sanctuary.
This charity is run by Rosie Devant-Molie, with the very regular help of Lady Sybil Ramkin (now VIMES). Much of the actual work is done by a group of betrou-sered upper-class young women described by that class warrior His Grace Commander Sir Samuel VIMES, Duke of Ankh, as ‘the INTERNCHANGEABLE EMMAS’.
Supreme Grand Master. Leader of the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the ELUCIDATED BRETHREN OF THE EBON NIGTH. (See also WONSE, LUPINE.) [GG]
Swing, Findthee, Captain. Principal officer of the original CABLE STREET PARTICULARS. He was a small, thin, pale man with the screwed-up eyes of a pet rat. He looks like a clerk, a look reinforced by his lank hair – thick black strands plastered across a central bald spot. He is rumoured to have a weak chest. He moved as he talked, in a curious mix of speeds, as if he had no sense of timing.
Captain Swing trained at the ASSASSINS’ School and had too much brain to be a copper – at least, too much of the wrong kind of brain. However, he had impressed the then Patrician, Lord WINDER, was allowed into the WATCH as a sergeant and was promoted immediately to captain. His attitude was not: ‘This is how people are, how do we deal with it?’ He went instead for: ‘This is how people ought to be, how do we change them?’ Captain Swing invented craniometrics – the science of judging whether people do or do not have criminal tendencies by taking detailed measurements of the shape and conformation of the heads and faces. He usually carried a sword cane, steel ruler and steel callipers, the latter two to allow him to measure people he met. [NW]
Swires, Buggy. A gnome (though it may be now that he is actually an urban Nac Mac Feegle) first met during the events of The Light Fantastic. He lived in a mushroom with a red-and-white spotted cap and little doors and windows. He is barely six inches high, picks his nose and looks like someone who smells like someone who lives in a mushroom. He is now a corporal in the Ankh-Morpork City WACTH. He is the Head, and only member, of its Airborne Division, flying with the aid of his buzzard, Morag, who was trained by pictsies. He has an inbuilt resistance to rules – not just the law, but also to those invisible rules such as ‘Do not attempt to eat this giraffe’. [LF]
Tacticus, General. His intelligent campaigning was so successful that he has given his name to the detailed prosecution of martial endeavour. [CJ]
Tailor. A weaver in Lancre. Member of the Lancre Morris Men. [LL]
Tanty, The. Ankh-Morpork’s principal, and oldest, prison building, whose very mention chilled the blood of criminals throughout and beyond Ankh-Morpork. It was at one time the Palace de Tintement, ancestral home of the Duc de Tintement.
It is a dark, damp edifice with no fresh air, food or water, and so will probably remind you of home. Everything has to be bought from the warders, including the lice (which must be handed back when you leave).
Convicted criminals will probably spend most of their time in the Sallydancy, the huge communal cell, where they will meet friends old and new. It’s a tough life, but they will have an opportunity to improve their skills and in fact the THIEVES’ GUILD runs extensive courses there.
Those with extra cash can hire a cell in the Crush Yard, where for little more than the price of mansion in Park Lane they can enjoy a warm fire, clean sheets and food that has not been spat in. [TGD]
Tantony, Captain. Captain of the Bonk City Watch, in his uniform of shiny breast plate, ‘silly’ helmet and un-nicked sword. He is an agonisingly logical young man but also fair and ethical. [TFE]
Tawnee. (Betty) A pole dancer at the Pink Pussycat Club, Ankh-Morpork and one-time girlfriend of Nobby Nobbs. She is almost six feet tall, and with a prominent chest. While Tawneee has a body that every other woman should hate her for, she is actually very likeable. This is because she has the self esteem of a caterpillar and, as you found after any kind of conversation with her, about the same amount of brain. Perhaps it all balances out, perhaps some kindly god had said to her: ‘Sorry, kid, you are going to be thicker than a yard of lard, but the good news is, that’s not going to matter.’
And she has a stomach made of iron. Alcohol doesn’t seem to go to her head at all. Maybe it can’t find it. But she is pleasant, easygoing company, if you avoid allusion, irony, sarcasm, repartee, satire and words longer than ‘chicken’. [T!]
Tear of Offler. The biggest diamond in the world, weighing 850 carats. Used to be kept in the innermost sanctuary of the Lost Jewelled Temple of Doom of OFFLER the Crocodile God in darkest HOWONDALAND. All Offlian temples have a Tear of greater or lesser size, and they are stolen on a regular basis. This particular one was picked up after the Harvest Dance at SHEEPRIDGE and given to his daughter by William SPIGOT, who reasoned that any gem that big had to be glass. [RM]
Tears of the Mushroom. A young teenage goblin girl, and star pupil of Miss Felicity BEEDLE. Despite her prognathous jaw, she is a handsome girl. Not exactly pretty, with her odd, fat, pale face – but she looks like a piece of fragile porcelain. She plays the harp exquisitely. [SN]
Teatime, Jonathan. Student at the ASSASSINS’ GUILD. He preferred his surname to be pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh. He was a very thin, young man, with a friendly, pink and white face topped by curly hair. He was quite pretty, in a boyish sort of way, although this effect was spoiled by his eyes: one was a ball of grey glass, as a result of some childhood accident, and the real one had a small, sharp pupil. Mr Teatime saw things differently from other people, in that he saw other people as things. He lost both his parents at an early age, in a tragic accident that occurred while they were leaning over his playpen. In a student assassin, this might have been considered prescient.
He had a truly brilliant mind, but brilliant like a fractured mirror – all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, something that is broken. [H]
Temperance, Überwald League of. This new society for reformed vampires (Black Ribboners) exists to further the cause of temperance and of total abstinence from drinking human blood (‘zer Old Vays’), to provide recreation and means of social intercourse for its members and to assist members, by means of meetings, lectures, discussions, sing-songs and healthy refreshing cocoa, to help one another refrain from the Old Vays. Branches first opened in Überwald, but have quickly spread to Ankh-Morpork.
Teppic. (Pteppic). Son of King TEPPICYMON XXVII and 1,398th monarch of DJELIBEYBI.
His father shocked the country’s priesthood by sending his son away to be trained at the Assassins’ School in Ankh-Morpork, since he had heard that it gave a very good education; the priesthood were very much against any kind of secular education for someone who would one day be a god.
After many adventures, Teppic returned to his own country and acceded to the throne and then abdicated in favour of the handmaiden PTRACI. [P]
Teppicymon XXVII. 1,397th monarch of DJELIBEYBI. TEPPIC’S father. Also known as Pootle (by his grandmother). A pleasant and intelligent man who was therefore entirely unsuited to be king of that sombre kingdom. He died in an accident when he thought he could fly. It is a well-known fact that too much intelligence in a monarch is a bad thing for all concerned. [P]
Terton. A lengthman on the Circumfence. Lived in a hut built on wooden piles driven into the sea bed. He collected salvage for Krull along the 45th length of their Circumfence. As a result of his encounter with the LUGGAGE, he developed hydrophobia and went to live in the Great Nef. [COM]
Tethis. A sea troll. A lengthman for KRULL. He originally came from the water world of Bathys, but was first encountered in a driftwood shanty on a crag on the Rim of
the world. Through the shanty passed a rope leading to the 10,000-mile-long net which runs along the CIRCUMFENCE to catch the salvage arriving at the Rim.
Tethis was a rather squat (although his height altered with the tides) but not entirely ugly old troll composed of water and little else. He was a pleasant translucent blue colour, with cold, fishy breath and a voice that made people think of submarine chasms and things lurking in coral reefs.
He briefly left the Disc with TWOFLOWER and RINCEWIND and has not been heard of since. The POTENT VOYAGER, the ship on which they reluctantly travelled, eventually landed in a lake near Skund. Presumably he is still there. [COM]
Tewt, ‘Lofty’. A volunteer to the Borogravian army. Tewt is short (petite), dark and dark haired, and with a strange, selfabsorbed look. Very close to ‘Tonker’ Manickle. A bit of a pyromaniac and is good with explosives. Was treated very badly when younger. A past pupil at the Girls Working School, where he/she was known as Tilda. [MR]
Tez. Tez the Terrible. A student wizard at the Unseen University. [SM]
Tezuman Empire (Kingdom of Tezuma). The people are renowned for being the most suicidally gloomy, irritable and pessimistic you could ever hope to avoid meeting.
The Tezumen invented the wheel, but didn’t put it to its right use. As a result, their chariots, which are pulled by llamas, have two people running along each side, holding up the axles. The wheel itself is used as headgear and jewellery.
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