Spriggins. Mr Spriggins is the butler at Lancre Castle. He has a bad memory, a nervous twitch and a rubber knee. [ LL ]

Spudding, Mrs. Lives in New Cobblers, Ankh-Morpork, seventy-five years old and with a fine set of wooden teeth. She's the cleaner at the Pink p.u.s.s.ycat Club. [T!]

Spuds, Hoggy. An old army pal of Sergeant COLON. [MAA]

Staffs, wizards'. Wizards in foreign parts may think they can get away with a crystal ball and some magic scarves, but what an Unseen University wizard expects to find in his hand is six feet of good solid oak or ash or even SAPIENT PEARWOOD, if he is lucky as a repository and storehouse of personal magic, a walking aid and, if necessary, a weapon. As the current ARCHCHANCELLOR of UU has pointed out in his robust way, what cannot be stopped by the magic in a staff can often be brought short by a good poke in any available soft bits with a length of heavy timber.

Most staffs in use today are quite venerable, having been handed down from wizard to wizard for perhaps hundreds of years, and in very extreme cases the staff possessed by Drum BILLET and subsequently by Eskarina Smith (see ESK), for example can be so imbued with magic as to have lives of their own.

A wizard will treat his staff with respect, taking care to top up its power every day and then give it a good polish, paying particular attention to the k.n.o.b on the end. The fact that there is a popular song about said k.n.o.b is deeply puzzling to wizards. So what? they say, staffs have always had k.n.o.bs on. What's funny about that? It's just the tool of our trade. It's nothing to joke about.

The k.n.o.bs may be ornate jewellery, a complicated piece of sculpture, a music box or even a small polished container handy for some matches and a packet of f.a.gs. Sometimes, such artificial additions are not required because the staff grows its own k.n.o.b, a growth rather like the 'knees' grown by the American swamp cypress. Because this gall is the wood's response to the magic within it, it can take many forms the face of the wizard himself, or an object dear to him, or even stranger things . . .

Staffs made of metal are occasionally tried. They are efficient, but somehow the magic always seems to change for the worse.

Stamp, Miss. Teaches Maths at the Quirm College for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. [SM]

Standards, Ankh-Morporkian. Obviously any civilisation needs some way of standardising weights and measures and time. In modern times, for example, an official unit of measurement is likely to be a length of metal bar kept at a precise temperature, or some reproducible count based on atomic decay or the speed of light. The old Ankh-Morpork Bureau of Measures in the Barbican still performs this role for a large part of the Discworld, but less so for its common units of measurement (which in any case have been filed down, soldered on to, drilled and had bits of chewing gum stuck to them on too many occasions) than for its more esoteric ones, a legacy of the precise-minded Patrician Olaf QUIMBY.

Here, for example, may be found the exact Blunt Stick, a crude but effective measurement of the acceptability of just about anything; it is this Blunt Stick14 that the test object may, or may not, be better than. Although the official Pie that it may even be as nice as is not maintained here, there is a standardised recipe readily available. Also, kept in a gla.s.s cabinet, are the original Two Short Planks and the stone used in the original Moss-Gathering trials.

Bureau officials still maintain a small programme of tests of, for instance, the degree of similarity of any two peas or the alcoholic tendencies of newts. It is vital, as the current PATRICIAN has noted, that something like this is found for people with minds like that to do, otherwise they might do anything.

Standing Stone, The. Stands on the crest of the moor in the RAMTOPS. It is the same height as a tall man and is made of bluish tinted rock. It is considered to be intensely magical because, although there is only one of it, no one has ever been able to count it. If it sees anyone looking at it speculatively, it shuffles behind them and, in extreme cases, goes and hides in the peat bogs. It is also one of the numerous discharge points for the magic that acc.u.mulates in the Ramtops. [WS]

Stanley, Apprentice Postman. (Later, Head of Stamps.) Young man who works at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. He is an orphan from the Siblings of Offler Charity Home, both his parents having died of Gnats on their farm out in the wilds. He was raised by peas until the home took him in. He is a good lad, if he doesn't get upset and he once was quite obsessional about pins he even edited Total Pins. When we first meet him, he has a blue cotton shirt with the legend 'Ask Me About Pins'.

When he stands to attention, his right side stands considerably more to attention than his left side. He stands like a banana, with a huge nervous grin and big, gleaming eyes he radiates keenness, quite probably beyond the bounds of sanity.

When he later becomes Head of Stamps, he then sports a T-shirt with 'Ask Me About Stamps' on it. [GP]

Stibbons, Ponder. Originally a fellow student wizard with Victor TUGELBEND at Unseen University and also known, to his UU colleagues, as Poncy Stibbons and Stibbo. He graduated by getting Victor's rigged exam paper in error (which had one question Name?). Originally rather lazy by nature, he seems to have blossomed to become the youngest and most depressingly keen member of the UU faculty. He is now the Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, as well as Reader in Invisible Writings and Praelector of UU. However, as one of the few wizards at the University with his head screwed on in any fashion, he now seems quite against his will to be in the front line. He has discovered too late that he has the unfortunate defect of a logical mind and an incipient desire to understand the Universe. He is in some way the creator of HEX, the UU computer, although now Hex appears to be self-creating.

Every organisation needs at least one person who knows what's going on and why it's happening and who's doing it, and at UU this role is filled by Stibbons, who often wishes it isn't. He does all the jobs that involve paperwork, everything that requires even a modic.u.m of effort and responsibility. Ponder now sees it as his mission in life to stoke the fires that keep Mustrum RIDCULLY bubbling and make the University a happy place. As a dog reflects the mood of its owner, so a university reflects its Master. As the University's sole self-confessed entirely sensible person, his job is to steer things as best he can, and find ways of keeping the Archchancellor too occupied to get under Ponder's feet.

He now has twelve jobs at UU, including the posts of Master of the Traditions and Camerlengo. This means that if the Archchancellor drops dead, from any cause other than legitimate succession under the Dead Man's Pointy Shoes tradition, he runs UU until a successor is elected which, given the nature of wizardry, could mean a job for life.

Ponder once played third goblin in his school play.

Stinky. A goblin from the caves close to Ramkin Hall. He is as skinny as a skeleton and, like most goblins, looks like a cross between a wolf and an ape; sounds like a bag of walnuts being jumped on, and smells like . . . Well, it's more a sensation like your dental enamel is being evaporated and any armour you have is rusting at some speed. [SN]

St.i.tched, Sir Reynold. Curator of Fine Art at the Royal Art Museum, Ankh-Morpork. A tall, thin figure, with the att.i.tude of a preoccupied chicken. [T!]

Sto Helit, Duke of. Original motto: FABER EST QVISQVE FORTVNAE SVAE. Original coat of arms: a boar's head, sable, on a field, argent.

A man with a little moustache and a grin like a lizard. Not the nicest of people, since he was quite capable of killing all who stood between him and the throne of Sto Helit or even between him and the drinks cabinet. He murdered his way close to the throne of STO LAT and was only prevented from killing Princess KELI, the last barrier to his accession, by the actions of MORT. [M]

Sto Helit, Susan. Daughter of MORT and YSABELL, and granddaughter of DEATH, from whom she has inherited a number of traits (this should be impossible, since Ysabell was adopted, but see GENETICS).

A self-possessed and somewhat chilly young woman. As a pupil at the QUIRM COLLEGE FOR YOUNG LADIES, she was good at those sports that involved swinging some sort of stick (hockey, lacrosse, rounders) and she was academically brilliant at the things she liked doing. But brilliant, though, like a diamond all edges and coldness, as it were. It is noteworthy that the only other pupils she even vaguely considered friends were a dwarf and a troll, both in some way 'outcasts' from normal school society. She had and has the ability to make herself so inconspicuous as to be invisible to non-magical minds (a definite family attribute).

She is attractive, in a skinny way, and while still quite young has an indefinable air of age about her. Her hair is pure white apart from a black streak. Initially it was uncontrollable, but now it tends to follow her mood, re-styling itself into a tight bun or a ponytail or whatever other shape suits the occasion (this is clearly a by-product of all the other talents she has 'inherited' from her grandfather, although Death himself needs few tonsorial attentions other than the occasional moment with a duster). She moves like a tiger and she has a most disconcerting Look cool and calm but not something you'd want to see twice.

On Susan's face is a birthmark, which shows up only when she blushes, or when she is angry, and these days she is angry far more frequently than she is embarra.s.sed. It takes the form of three pale lines across her cheek (Discworld students will recall that her father was once slapped across the face by Death, leaving just such a mark Discworld 'inheritance' at work again, it seems).

When she is covering for her grandfather she wears a black lace dress of the sort worn by healthy yet necronerdic young women who want to look consumptive. She currently works as a schoolteacher, and is a remarkably effective one. Because of her own rather special upbringing (her parents, although very caring, avoided the whole 'magical childhood fantasy' business in an ultimately useless effort to shield her from the influence of her grandfather) she tends to treat children as inconveniently small adults and to her amazement this works very well.

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, cl.u.s.tered 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 munic.i.p.al 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 pa.s.ses. 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 ca.n.a.l. [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 b.u.g.g.e.r'. 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 circ.u.mstances. [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 pa.s.s 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 t.i.t 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 a.s.sa.s.sins and thieves, has this particular quirk, but the citizens of Ankh-Morpork seem quite happy to accept it.

Strewth. An opal miner in x.x.xx who found the LUGGAGE in a mine. [TLC]

Strippers' Guild. Motto: NVMQVAM VESTIMVS. Coat of arms: enleve.

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 a.s.sa.s.sins for Stygium rings. Cla.s.sically, 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 mache 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 bra.s.s 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 factories.

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-cla.s.s young women described by that cla.s.s 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. Princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sa.s.sINS' 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 att.i.tude 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 princ.i.p.al, 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 p.u.s.s.ycat Club, Ankh-Morpork and one-time girlfriend of n.o.bby n.o.bbs. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 gla.s.s. [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 a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD. He preferred his surname to be p.r.o.nounced 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sa.s.sin, 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, uberwald League of. This new society for reformed vampires (Black Ribb.o.n.e.rs) 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 a.s.sist 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 uberwald, 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 a.s.sa.s.sins' 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 G.o.d.

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 Circ.u.mfence. Lived in a hut built on wooden piles driven into the sea bed. He collected salvage for Krull along the 45th length of their Circ.u.mfence. 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 pa.s.sed a rope leading to the 10,000-mile-long net which runs along the CIRc.u.mFENCE 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 (pet.i.te), 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.

Nor have the Tezumen discovered paper, or even wax tablets. Their pictographic language is chiselled into blocks of granite, allowing the more depressed members of the tribe to beat themselves to death with their own suicide notes.

The country is known for its organic market gardens, exquisite craftsmanship in obsidian, feathers and jade, and its ma.s.s sacrifices in honour of QUEZOVERCOATL. Their music sounds like someone clearing a particularly difficult nostril. [E]

Thargum I. Red-bearded past king of LANCRE. When he was killed (poisoned by the father of VERENCE I) they stuck his head on a pole and carried it around the village to show that he was dead, an exercise that everyone thought was very convincing. Then they had a big bonfire and everyone in the palace got drunk for a week. No one remembers now whether Thargum was particularly good or bad. Lancre people are traditionalists and aren't choosy about their monarchs, but the greatest sin an inc.u.mbent of the throne can commit is not acting like a proper king. [WS]

Thaum. The basic and traditional unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard b.a.l.l.s (a smaller measure for purposes of calculation is the millithaum). A thaumometer is used to measure the density of a magical field. It is a dark blue gla.s.s cube, with a dial on the front and a b.u.t.ton on the side.

In Unseen University's High Energy Magic building the thaum has been successfully demonstrated to be made up of resons (lit: 'thing-ies') or reality fragments. Current research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours', known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 's.e.x appeal' and 'peppermint'.

Students at UU have discussed the possibility of the power to be gained from splitting the thaum on an industrial basis, but have been dissuaded by their superiors on the grounds that this would make the place untidy.

(See also PRIME.) Thaumaturgists. Many spells require things like mould from a corpse dead of crushing, or the s.e.m.e.n of a living tiger, or the root of a plant that gives an ultrasonic scream when it is uprooted. Who is sent to get them? Right.

Thaumaturgists receive no magical schooling. They can just about be trusted to wash out an alembic. They are the lowest rung of the hierarchy of magical pract.i.tioners apart from witches, of course. That's the wizards' view. [ER]