The Colour of Magic characters

Appears from the start

A failed student of Unseen University, the Disc's college of wizardry, who was expelled after a single forbidden spell from the Octavo, the world's most powerful grimoire, lodged itself in his mind and crowded out every other. He can cast almost nothing and is a coward by conviction, treating flight as the only sane response to danger and mere survival as an accomplishment. He speaks a number of languages, which makes him useful as a guide. When the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork orders him to protect a visiting foreigner, his quiet, precarious life comes to an end.

Appears from the start

A small, eager man from the wealthy Agatean Empire on the far side of the Disc, and the first tourist the Discworld has ever seen. An insurance clerk by trade, he travels for pleasure with a purse full of gold, an unshakeable belief that almost everyone he meets is good at heart, and a delight in danger he does not recognize as dangerous. He hires Rincewind as guide and interpreter and introduces Ankh-Morpork to the ruinous new idea of insurance.

Appears from the start

A large travelling chest made of sapient pearwood, belonging to Twoflower. It walks on hundreds of little legs, follows its owner with doglike devotion, and holds far more than its size should allow, producing clean laundry from unknown depths. It is utterly loyal and utterly murderous toward anything that threatens its owner, swallowing enemies whole, and it cannot be stopped, reasoned with, or outrun.

Appears from the start

The ruler of Ankh-Morpork, the Disc's greatest and most disreputable city. Shrewd and calculating, he grasps at once that a rich foreign visitor is both an opportunity and a diplomatic hazard, and he charges Rincewind with keeping the tourist alive and content, on pain of death.

Appears from the start

The anthropomorphic personification of death, a robed skeleton who arrives in person to collect the souls of the notable and the interesting and speaks in a voice that lands directly in the mind. He takes a particular, repeatedly thwarted interest in Rincewind, turning up expecting to claim him only to be cheated each time by the wizard's improbable luck.

First appears in chapter 2

One of the Disc's greatest heroes, a heavily muscled warrior who roams in search of treasure, monsters, and fame. Practical about his trade, he briefly takes Rincewind and Twoflower under his protection, drawn chiefly by Twoflower's picture-making box and the promise of reward.

First appears in chapter 2

An ancient, malignant entity known as the Sender of Eight, a tentacled evil older than the gods that dwells beneath a lightless temple. Its power is bound up with the number eight, which wizards of the Disc avoid speaking aloud for fear of drawing its attention.

First appears in chapter 3

A dragonrider and would-be ruler of the Wyrmberg, an inverted mountain whose people summon dragons out of imagination. Ambitious and commanding, she means to seize the Wyrmberg from her brothers and needs a champion to help her do it.

Appears from the start

The vast star turtle that swims through space carrying the four world-bearing elephants on its shell, with the Discworld resting upon them. Its age, its sex, and its destination are all unknown, and the question of where it is going underlies the whole of the Disc's cosmology.