Sourcery characters

First appears in chapter 2

The Disc's most incompetent wizard, kept on at Unseen University in a menial role because he cannot cast spells. A dedicated coward who regards running away as the height of wisdom, he wants nothing more than a quiet life, which makes him exactly the wrong person to be caught up in the return of high magic. He is looked after, in a fashion, by the Luggage.

Appears from the start

A young boy who is a sourcerer, the eighth son of an eighth son who is himself a wizard, and thus a source of raw new magic rather than a mere user of it. Such a birth is forbidden, because sourcerers can reshape the world at will. Coin arrives at Unseen University wielding a powerful staff and swiftly bends the wizards to his purpose, not realizing that he is being driven by another's will.

Appears from the start

A wizard cast out of the orders for marrying and fathering sons. Dying and embittered, and refusing to surrender his soul to Death, he pours his will into a wizard's staff and passes it to his infant eighth son, Coin, so that through the boy he can take revenge on the wizards who rejected him.

First appears in chapter 2

A large chest on many legs, made of sapient pearwood, fiercely loyal to whoever it regards as its owner and lethal to anything that threatens them. Long attached to Rincewind, it follows him through the crisis, impossible to lose and impossible to stop.

First appears in chapter 3

The daughter of the legendary hero Cohen the Barbarian, born with every instinct of a master warrior but longing only to be a hairdresser. She is caught between her nature, which makes her deadly with any weapon or improvised object, and her wish for an ordinary, respectable trade. She joins Rincewind in trying to keep a dangerous magical artifact out of the wrong hands.

First appears in chapter 5

The Seriph of Al Khali, a fabulously wealthy ruler of a desert city in Klatch who fancies himself a poet and maintains a vast palace and harem. Indolent and self-indulgent, he becomes entangled in the pursuit of the Archchancellor's hat.

First appears in chapter 6

A thin, bookish young man trying to become a barbarian hero by following a manual, despite having none of the build or ferocity the part requires. Earnest and accident-prone, he attaches himself to the adventure, and to Conina.

First appears in chapter 2

The librarian of Unseen University, a wizard who was turned into an orangutan by a magical accident and has firmly declined to be changed back, finding the shape convenient for reaching high shelves. Fiercely protective of the library's dangerous books, he communicates chiefly through a single expressive word and is one of the few at the University to keep his head as sourcery takes hold.

First appears in chapter 2

The pointed hat of the Archchancellor of Unseen University, which carries the accumulated wisdom and personalities of every wizard who has ever worn it. When the University falls under the sourcerer's control, the hat speaks for itself and seeks to be carried to safety, setting Rincewind and Conina on their journey.