Ahmed got his nickname by killing a man guilty of poisoning a well, one hour before the cultural D'reg three days of unwavering hospitality allowed; a time during which even great enemies should be shown respect.
Mavolio Bent's history bears a passing resemblance to that of John Major who was born the son of a music hall performer, but left to join a bank, eventually becoming Prime Minister of the UK, 1990–1997.
Ron's 'catchphrase', "Buggrit, millennium hand an' shrimp...", was the result of Pratchett feeding a random text generating program with a Chinese takeaway menu and the lyrics to They Might Be Giants's song Particle Man.
Cohen first appears already as a toothless sinewy old man, with a long white beard that reaches below his loincloth and with a patch over one eye — "a legend in his own lifetime" — but still tough enough to handle anything, as to survive to such an age one must be very good as a barbarian indeed.
Described as both a well-endowed, beautiful, and a skilled fighter due to attributes inherited from both parents, she nonetheless aspires to be a hairdresser, despite her natural talents as a barbarian heroine, where her genetics keep getting in the way, so she instinctively kills people who threaten her.
Miss Sacharissa Cripslock is the reporter for the Ankh-Morpork Times in the 25th Discworld novel, The Truth, having originally arrived at the print-works to complain about the invention of moveable type putting her father, an engraver out of a job.
Universally known as Doughnut Jimmy, Dr James Folsom is a highly proficient horse doctor that Samuel Vimes instructs to treat Lord Vetinari in the 19th Discworld novel, Feet of Clay.
Evil Harry Dread is the archetypal, villainous counterpart to Cohen the Barbarian; an old fashioned heroic fantasy type annoyed with how the Discworld has changed; such as modern heroes always blocking his escape tunnel before confronting him.
Gaspode and Laddie blow up the Odium picture-throwing pit during the disrupted premiere of Blown Away to kill a creature from the Dungeon Dimensions, and destroy the portal created by the "click"; left for dead, he climbs out of the wreckage and reverts to a normal dog when the Holy Wood Dream ends.
In Men at Arms, Gaspode has regained his sapience and ability to speak after too much time sleeping by the High Energy Magic Building at Unseen University, he assists the Night Watch's investigation of a plot involving the Disc's first and only 'gonne'.
Reacher Gilt appears in the 33rd Discworld novel, Going Postal, he is the head of a consortium of financiers who had been embezzling from the clacks network since it was set up, and who, when it reached the point of collapse, bought the original owners out with their own money.
A ruthless businessman with a piratical appearance; an eyepatch and a cockatoo which doesn't say 'pieces of eight' but 'twelve and a half percent' (one eighth), Reacher is a shameless con-artist and fraudster whose business style is akin to playing "find the lady with entire banks".
Tolliver is a "very old man" in a cheap (possibly sentient) wig; Groat had spent most of his career in the Post Office as a Junior Postman, since until von Lipwig's arrival none of the other Postmasters appointed by Lord Vetinari had survived long enough to promote him.
People, to whom Lu-Tze was a vaguely glimpsed figure behind a very slow broom, would have been surprised at his turn of speed, especially in a man six thousand years old, who ate nothing but brown rice and drank only green tea with a knob of rancid butter in it.
This has lead to the rule, 'Rule One', which states "Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men", since such a person is almost always a highly trained martial artist due to the Disc's law of narrative causality.
A past Patrician of Ankh-Morpork referred to in the second Discworld novel, The Light Fantastic, Olaf Quimby was noted for his interest in honest and accurate descriptions as well as proper standards for everything, particularly metaphor.
As a member of the Cheesemongers, Private 'Ozzer' Perks serves with the colourful Sergeant-Major Jack Jackrum, a reformed vampire named Maladict, a troll called Carborundum, an Igor, and a few even stranger people, who are, in fact, all women in disguise.
He comes to a rather sticky end when he is impaled by the desk spike of William de Worde in the offices of The Ankh-Morpork Times after being trapped in a cellar with molten lead raining from the ceiling as the building burned, killing Mr Tulip to use his body as a raft and to steal his potato (which he believed granted its possessor a path to reincarnation).
Due to the Discworld's rather literal adherence to the laws of narrative convention, this is not an entirely mental issue: he is killed in an extremely operatic duel with the Ghost and spends two pages on a final monologue before keeling over.
His one recorded act (The Colour of Magic) was to direct the Assassins' Guild to "inhume" the tourist Twoflower at the request of the Grand Vizier of the Agatean Empire, contrary to the orders of the Emperor; the attempt failed.
Originally portrayed as an obsessive geeky student who passed the university's graduation exam because he was allowed to take the test paper of the absent slacker genius, Victor Tugelbend, — which consisted solely of the question "What is your name?"
It is revealed in Unseen Academicals that, due to the number of positions he holds — because somebody has to — Stibbons has accumulated sufficient votes to technically control the University Council — causing the Archchancellor to remark "Didn't anyone notice you were getting all this power?"
His entry in The New Discworld Companion states: "originally rather lazy by nature, he seems to have blossomed to become the youngest and most depressingly keen member of the faculty ... as one of the few wizards at the University with his head screwed on in any fashion, he appears, quite against his will, to be in the front line."
The Ankh-Morpork official Hangman and executioner, Trooper specialises in Death by Hanging; his skill with a noose allows him to simulate an execution but leave the victim alive, as he did with Moist von Lipwig at the behest of Lord Vetinari.
Twoflower is a native of the Agatean Empire, on the Counterweight Continent, living in the major sea port of Bes Pelargic where he works as an "inn-sewer-ants" clerk where he calculates the level of insurance premiums.
He has no understanding of the Agatean/Ankh-Morpork currency exchange rate and often overpays, primarily because even the smallest denomination of Agatean coin is made of pure gold, and, thus, often pays for small items and minor services with enough wealth to buy a sizable fraction of the city.
The book relating his journey across the Discworld is considered a revolutionary pamphlet in his native land as it is traditionally believed (and officially decreed) that the world outside of the Empire is a hellish wasteland populated by "bloodsucking vampire ghosts", resulting in him being imprisoned in the Forbidden City.
Brother Murduck was killed by Ephebeans unwilling to convert, he says, expressing immovable unfounded beliefs: that the Discworld is a perfect sphere, for example, and that steam-powered machines cannot exist since they do not have minds or muscles.
Hex temporarily inherited the Bursar's condition after having a "conversation" with him, until Archchancellor Ridcully remedied the matter by convincing the ant-run thinking engine it had just been administered "LOTS OF DRYD FRORG P¼LLS".
The Librarian spends his leisure hours at the pub, the Mended Drum, on Short Street where drinks quietly unless provoked, eats prodigious quantities of peanuts, and plays a ruthless game of Cripple Mr Onion.