Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion ... So Far

by Terry Pratchett

  Games. Disc games include:

  Aargrooha. Troll game, played with obsidian boots and a human head. Not played any more, of course, except in remote mountain regions. [SM]

  Aqueduct (or is it Fishing Line/Weir/Dam?) Rules include mention of trumps, ruffs, trump return, trump lead, contract, psychic bids, rebiddable suit, double finesse, grand slam and rubbers. [LF]

  BARBARIAN INVADERS

  Chase My Neighbour Up the Passage. Details have never been given, but it appears to be a simple game like Old Maid or Happy Families. [WA, W]

  Craps. Dice game played with three eight-sided dice, and probably similar in general rules and terminology to our craps, although since it is played on the cobbles of Ankh-Morpork the name may have a rather more honest origin. [M]

  CRIPPLE MR ONION

  Crockett [SN]

  Darts. Effectively the standard British game, although the Ankh-Morpork rules specifically ban leaning out over the oche and hammering the darts in with your fingertip while exclaiming ‘Ook!’ [RM]

  Dead Rat Conkers [T!}

  Exclusive Possession. Game once played by Death instead of the symbolic chess game. Reference is made to another player getting ‘three streets and all the utilities’. One of the playing pieces is a boot. We can only guess at what the board looks like . . . [RM]

  Floods and Droughts (played only by gods) [IT]

  Foot-the-Ball (Poor Boys’ Funne) [UA]

  Grandmother’s Footsteps [H]

  Hooray Jolly Tinker [H]

  Jikan no Muda. Game of a square filled with a lot of smaller squares, some of them containing numbers. Reproduced in the Ankh-Morpork Times. [MM]

  Mad Kings (another god game) [IT]

  Mighty Empires (yet another god game) [IT]

  Pond. Game played on a table with holes and nets around the edge and, in rural areas, balls carved expertly out of wood. [RM]

  Saddle Pork [SN]

  Shibo Yangcong-san (Learned readers, and are there any other, will instantly recognise this appears to be the Agatean of Cripple Mr Onion.) [IT]

  Significant Quest. Very popular among gods, demi-gods, demons and other supernatural creatures. [S]

  Star-Crossed Lovers (these gods certainly like to play games!) [IT]

  Thud!

  Tiddley Rats [T!]

  Turd Races (Poo Sticks) [T!]

  Wallgame. Played at the ASSASSINS’ GUILD, usually two or three storeys above street level. [P]

  Gancia. Leader of the gang of mercenaries led by Herrena on their mission to capture Rincewind for Ymper TRYMON. A fairly long explanatory note for someone whose job was, basically, to die at the right time. [LF]

  Gander, Adab. Trail boss of the caravanserai which transported ESK from Zemphis to Ankh-Morpork. An impressive figure in a trollhide jerkin, rakishly floppy hat and leather kilt. Trollhide as a type of very hard-wearing leather – in fact, a flexible type of stone – is certainly not politically correct wear in Ankh-Morpork these days. Or a survival suit, if it comes to that. [ER]

  Gargoyles. An urban species of troll, which has evolved a symbiotic relationship with gutters, funnelling run-off water into their ears and out through fine sieves in their mouths. This means their mouths can never fully close and their speech is only intelligible to a trained ear. Gargoyles often spend years without moving from one spot and do not have names so much as locations or descriptions (see CORNICE OVERLOOKING BROADWAY). When they do move it is in a jerky fashion, like bad stop-motion photography. Few birds nest on buildings colonised by gargoyles, and bats also tend to fly around them.

  Garhartra. Guestmaster of Krull. His job is to make sacrificial victims feel comfortable, at least up to the point just before they are sacrificed. A wizard, with a cracked yet cheerful voice. [COM]

  Garlick, Magrat. A witch in LANCRE. The youngest member (comparatively speaking) of the coven that Granny Weatherwax swears she has not got. Magrat had a cottage in Mad Stoat, but she now lives in LANCRE CASTLE, as Queen to VERENCE II, after a romance which was always on the point of foundering because the principals were invariably too embarrassed to speak to each other. They must have said something, however, since now they have produced an heir – the Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling (don’t ask). In becoming Queen, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax both feel she has settled for second prize.

  Magrat is the daughter of Simplicity Garlick, now deceased. Her grandmother was Araminta Garlick, and her aunt Yolande Garlick. None of her relations was a witch, which is unusual. Although by tradition witches do not train their relations, witchcraft tends to run in families. Magrat is an original. Her unusual name is down to a misunderstanding over the spelling at her naming ceremony, presided over by Brother Perdore; her own daughter’s unusual name just goes to show that, despite everyone’s best efforts, things tend to keep on going wrong.

  Magrat was selected and trained by Goodie WHEMPER, a methodical and sympathetic witch with a rather greater regard for the written word than is common among the Lancre witches. Goodie was a research witch; she may have had some long-term aim in mind.

  In a certain light, and from a carefully chosen angle, Magrat Garlick is not unattractive. Despite her tendency to squint when she’s thinking, and her pointy nose, red from too much blowing. She is short, thin, decently plain, well scrubbed and has the watery-eyed expression of hopeless goodwill wedged between a body like a maypole and hair like a haystack after a gale. No matter what she does to that hair, it takes about three minutes to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe left in a shed. She likes to wind flowers in it, because she thinks this is romantic. In some other kind of hair it might be.

  Magrat has an open mind. It is as open as a field, as open as the sky. No mind could be more open without special surgical implements. As a result, it fills up with all sorts of things. For example, Magrat is one of those people who firmly believe that wisdom is wiser if it comes from a long way away (see WISDOM). A lot of what she believes in has the word ‘folk’ in it somewhere (folk wisdom, folk dance, folk song, folk medicine), as if ‘folk’ were other than the mundane people she sees every day. She plays a guitar badly and sings wobbly folk songs with her eyes shut in a way that suggests she really believes them. She thinks it would be nice if people could just be a bit kinder.

  She is a relentless doer of good works, whether or not anyone needs them or wants them to be done. She rescues small lost baby birds and cries when they die; at various times, trying to get into the swing of it, she has attempted to keep a magical familiar – generally some small creature that wanders away or dies or just gets the hell out of it at the earliest opportunity.

  She is, however, more practical than most people believe. And latterly there is some evidence that marriage and motherhood are burning away some of the deeper layers of silliness. However, she still quite likes flowers in her hair. These days, she can afford slightly more expensive flowers.

  Gaskin, Herbert ‘Leggy’. A member of the City Watch. Killed in the line of duty. His widow lives in Mincing Street, Ankh-Morpork. [GG, MAA]

  Gaspode (the Wonder Dog). Small, bow-legged and wiry; basically a rusty grey but with patches of brown, white and black in outlying areas. Gaspode has fleas, hard-pad, scurf, crusted yellow eyes, arthritis, rotting teeth and horrible bad breath, and is probably the only dog to contract Licky End, which is usually restricted to sheep. In fact he is host to so many doggy diseases that he is surrounded by a cloud of dust and, all in all, smells like a privy carpet.

  He is named after the original ‘famous’ Gaspode, who belonged to an old man in Ankh many years ago. When his owner died and was buried, the dog lay down on his grave and howled and howled for a couple of weeks, growling at everyone who came near. Then he died. He was considered a paragon of doggy faithfulness and loyalty until it was discovered that his tail had been trapped under the stone.

  Gaspode was thrown into the river with a brick in a sack when he was a pup. Luckily, it was the ANKH, so he walked ashore inside the sack, form
ing for several days a certain confused relationship with the brick.

  Gaspode encapsulates the essential schizophrenia of all dogs. On the one hand, he desires nothing more than to be owned, to have a master and in general have a very secure warm place in front of the fire of life; on the other hand, he rebels against the very idea of ownership and any restriction on his freedom to roam Ankh-Morpork, eating and rolling in whatever he likes. Gaspode’s tragedy is that, unlike other dogs, he is aware of this conflict.

  Oh, and he can talk. But not many people pay any attention, because everyone knows that dogs can’t talk.

  Gavin. A large wolf, and friend to ANGUA. Uncomplicated and well informed (he could understand over 800 words.) [TFE]

  Geas. A bird, with a head like a flamingo, a body like a turkey and legs like a Sumo wrestler. It walks in a jerky, bobbing fashion, as though its head were attached to its feet by elastic bands. Its prime means of defence is to cause a predator to laugh so much that it can run away before the predator recovers. Geas is also a word meaning curse or obligation. [S]

  Genetics. The study of genetics on the Disc has never been very organised. The wizard Catbury (some 300 years before the present) is on record as having noticed, while strolling in his garden, that some plants were taller than other plants and, interestingly enough, that some plants were shorter than other plants. The response to his monograph on the subject can be summed up as ‘Yes? Well? So what?’, because Ankh-Morporkians have that logical and common-sense approach to life which means that Science is beaten before it starts.

  Nevertheless, Catbury’s writings remain in the LIBRARY and there were, later, some experiments based on his simple observations. These failed at an early stage, however, when wizards tried the experimental crossing of such well-known subjects as fruit flies and sweet peas. Unfortunately, they didn’t quite grasp the fundamentals, and the resultant offspring – a sort of green thing that buzzed – led a short, sad life before being eaten by a passing vegetarian spider.

  In any case a more dispassionate study of the evidence suggests that on the Discworld heredity is more mental than genetic, and certainly owes more to Lamarck than Mendel. The observation of the current ARCHCHANCELLOR, Mustrum RIDCULLY, that heredity means ‘that if your father has a good brocade waistcoat you’ll probably end up getting it’ contains a certain amount of truth. In Soul Music, DEATH becomes encumbered with a granddaughter, Susan STO HELIT (daughter of his adopted daughter YSABELL and MORT), who has certainly acquired his powers of invisibility and memory. On Discworld, cutting off the tails of mice might well lead to them having tail-less offspring. And probably vengeful ones, too.

  Something that appears more like a high-speed conventional evolution, or at least like conventional evolution as commonly understood, has been engineered by the GOD OF EVOLUTION on an island near Fourecks. Plants there try to make themselves as useful as possible as quickly as possible in the hope of being taken off the island, and on at least one occasion a dinosaur evolved into a bird in a fraction of a second.

  Genua. The Magical Kingdom, the Diamond City, the Fortunate Country. Genua was originally a pleasant and relaxed place in which to live but, under the iron rule of Lily WEATHERWAX, it became a fairytale city; this meant that people had to smile and be joyful the livelong day – at spearpoint, if necessary.

  Genua nestles on the delta of the Vieux river, surrounded by swamp. It is a wealthy kingdom, having once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic. It has always been rich, lazy and unthreatened. From a distance, it looks like a complicated white crystal growing out of the greens and browns of the swamp.

  Close to, there is an outer ring of small buildings, an inner ring of large, impressive white houses and, at the centre, a palace – tall, pretty and multi-turreted, like a toy castle. Under Lily, everything was very clean. Even the cobblestones had a polished look. The city was guarded by tall soldiers in red and blue uniforms. The place looked, in fact, like a fairytale city . . . With all the horrors that implies.

  Both before, during and since the Weatherwax period Genua has also been a city of cooks. They don’t have much to cook there, so they have learned to cook everything. A good Genuan cook can more or less take the squeezings of a handful of mud, a few dead leaves and a pinch or two of some unpronounceable herbs and produce a meal to make the gourmet burst into tears of gratitude and swear to be a better person for the rest of their entire life if they could just have one more plateful. [WA]

  Geoffrey. One-time Secretary and Chief Butt of the Guild of Fools and Joculators. A Fool. He had eyes like two runny eggs and a very nervous disposition, as is often the case when you do not know where the next custard pie is coming from. [RM]

  Gern. Apprentice embalmer in DJELIBEYBI. A plump young man with a big, red, spotty face. He is fond of all the practical jokes you can play with the sad remnants of mortality, such as the disembodied handshake gag and all the other little delights so familiar to generations of medical students. [P]

  Gibbsson. Apprentice guitar-maker in the employ of Blert WHEEDOWN. [SM]

  Gilt, Reacher. Chairman and CEO of the Grand Trunk Company (‘As Fast As Light’). A lot of rumours had begun concerning Reacher Gilt, just as soon as people had noticed him and started asking ‘Who is Reacher Gilt? What kind of a name is Reacher, anyway?’ He threw big parties, that was certain. They were the kind of parties that entered urban mythology (was it true about the chopped liver?) Some said he owned a gold mine, others swore that he was a pirate. And he certainly looked like a pirate, with his long curly black hair, pointed beard and eyepatch. He was even said to have a parrot (this is true – a cockatoo called Alphonse, who says ‘12½ per cent’). Certainly the piracy rumour might explain the apparently bottomless fortune and the fact that no one, absolutely no one, knew anything about him prior to his arrival in the city. Perhaps he’d sold his past, people joked, just like he’d bought himself a new one. He was certainly piratical in his business dealing.

  With his big head, flowing black hair and beard, he also looks like a better class of pirate, a buccaneer maybe, but one who took the time to polish his plank. He is a great bear of a man, in a frock coat and striped waistcoat.

  Later, briefly, styles himself ‘Randolph Stippler’. [GP]

  Gimick. One of the many cousins of Lance-Constable CUDDY. A manufacturer of pins.

  Gimlet. A dwarf with a famously penetrating gaze who runs a café and delicatessen in Cable Street, Ankh-Morpork, as well as another dwarf deli, and ‘Yo Rat!’ in Attic Bee Street. It used to be for dwarfs only but under the influence of civic decency, a sense of the brotherhood of all sapient species and a desire to get some of the ‘troll dollar’, it has subsequently catered for that species as well. Try their rat and cream cheese. For vegetarians, they do a soya rat.

  By Ankh-Morpork standards, Gimlet’s is a well-run and hygienic eatery, although he has been caught substituting ‘rats’ carved out of pork, beef and mutton when the real thing was in short supply.

  Ginger. (See WITHEL, THEDA.)

  Gladys. A seven foot tall, thousand-year-old golem. Named Gladys by Miss Maccalariat, so that it could clean the ladies’ rest room at the Post Office. Miss Maccalariat, who ruled the Post Office counters with a rod of steel and lungs of brass, had objected to a male golem cleaning the ladies’ privies. How Miss Maccalariat had arrived at the conclusion that they were male by nature rather than custom was a fascinating mystery, but there was no profit in arguing with such as her.

  And thus, with the addition of one extremely large, blue gingham dress, a golem became female enough for Miss Maccalariat.

  The odd thing is that Gladys is female now, somehow. It isn’t just the dress. She tends to spend time around the counter girls, who seem to accept her into the sisterhood despite the fact that she weighs half a ton. They even pass on their fashion magazine to her, although it’s hard to imagine what winter skin care tips would mean to someone a thousand years old with eyes that glow like holes into a furnace. [GP, MM]<
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  Glingleglingleglingle Fairy, the. While there are many FAIRIES, this one deserves a special mention as a sort of meta-fairy. It is generally a gnome or small goblin, with a set of handbells, and its sole job is the make the ‘glingleglingleglingle’ noise which heralds the arrival of any other fairy. It may also toss up the handful of chopped tinsel which makes those little twinkly glints in the air, you know the ones. Sometimes fairies have their work cut out to live up to human expectations.

  Glod. A dwarf, the tangential victim of a curse placed on the Seriph of AL-YBI (everything he touched turned into Glod, which shows how important it is, when cursing, to check your spelling). His son, Glod GLODSSON, later found employment as a horn player in Ankh-Morpork. [WA, SM]

  Glodsson, Glod. A dwarf. Small, even for a dwarf. He has lodgings behind a tannery in Phedre Road and plays a large bronze horn. A member of the BAND WITH ROCKS IN who considers himself to be an extremely professional musician, in that money is always on his mind. [SM]

  Glooper, the. The Glooper, as it is affectionately known, is an ‘analogy machine’. It solves problems not by considering them as a numerical exercise but by actually duplicating them in a form that can be manipulated – in this case, the flow of money and its effects within society becomes water flowing though a glass matrix – the Glooper. The geometrical shape of certain vessels, the operation of valves and ingenious tipping buckets and flow-rate propellers enable the Glooper to simulate quite complex transactions. It is also possible to change the starting conditions, too, to learn the rules inherent in the system. For example, one could find out what would happen if you halved the labour force in the city by the adjustment of a few valves, rather than going out into the streets and killing people! The Glooper had been worked on by glassblowing geniuses – and by their counterparts from the hypothetical Other Side, glassblowers who had sold their souls to some molten god for the skill to blow glass into spirals and intersecting bottles and shapes that seemed to be quite close but some distance away at the same time. Water gurgled, sloshed and, yes, glooped along glass tubing. There was a smell of salt. [MM]