Both of the brothers lived in terror of their mother, Ma Lilywhite, who was clearly a woman who cherished old-fashioned values and thought that being thrashed senseless never did anyone any harm. [H]
Lipwig, Moist von. Appointed by Lord Vetinari as Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office and then as Master of the Royal Mint.
Moist is, by nature, an experienced and skilled con man. A natural born criminal, an habitual liar, a fraudster and a totally untrustworthy perverted genius. He has used a variety of aliases – Albert Spanger, Edwin Streep, Mondo Smith, etc. He has stolen, embezzled, defrauded and swindled without discrimination. He has ruined businesses and destroyed jobs. When banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve. Moist’s actions in the past had taken money from those who had little enough to begin with. In a myriad of small ways he had hastened the deaths of many. For sport. For the joy of the game.
Moist did not mean anyone any harm. There is a saying ‘you can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never knowingly tried it, anyway. If you did fool an honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch. Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there are so many more of them.
Half an hour after arriving in a town he would be sitting outside an inn, downcast, with nothing in the world but a genuine diamond ring worth a hundred dollars and a pressing need to get home, where his poor aged mother was dying. Eleven minutes later he would be standing patiently in a jeweller’s shop, inside which the jeweller was telling a sympathetic citizen that the ring the stranger was prepared to sell for twenty dollars was worth seventy-five (even jewellers have to make a living). And thirty-five minutes later he was riding out of town on a better horse, with ten dollars in his pocket, leaving behind a gloating sympathetic citizen who, despite having been bright enough to watch Moist’s hands carefully, was about to go back to the jeweller to try to sell for seventy-five dollars a shiny brass ring with a glass stone that was worth fifty pence of anybody’s money.
The world was blessedly free of honest men, and wonderfully full of people who believed they could tell the difference between an honest man and a crook.
Moist had a talent. He’d also acquired a lot of skills so completely that they were second natures. He’d learned to be personable, but something in his genetics made him unmemorable. He has a talent for not being noticed, for being a face in the crowd. People have difficulty describing him. He was . . . He was ‘about’. He was about twenty, or about thirty. On Watch reports across the continent he was anywhere between, oh, about six feet two inches and five feet nine inches tall, hair all shades from mid-brown to blond, and his lack of distinguishing features included his entire face. He was about . . . average. What people remembered was the furniture, things like spectacles and moustaches, so he always carried a selection of both. They remembered names and mannerisms, too. He had hundreds of those.
Oh, and people remembered that they’d been richer before they met him. [GP, MM]
Lio!rt Dragonlord. Brother of LIESSA and LIARTES, and son of GREICHA the First. A lord of the WYRMBERG. [COM]
Listeners, the (or Listening Monks). The oldest of the Disc’s religious sects – although even the Gods are divided as to whether Listening is really a proper religion.
The Listeners are trying to work out precisely what it was the CREATOR said when he made the universe: clearly nothing the Creator makes can ever be destroyed, so those first syllables must still be around somewhere, bouncing and re-bouncing off all the matter in the cosmos but still audible to a really good listener.
The monks dwell in a temple shaped like a great white ammonite at the end of a funnel-shaped valley. Eons ago the Listeners found that ice and chance had carved this one valley into the perfect acoustic opposite of an echo valley, and built their multi-chambered temple in the exact position that the comfy chair always occupies in the home of a rabid hi-fi fanatic. Complex baffles catch and amplify the sound that is funnelled up the chilly valley, steering it ever inwards to the central chamber where, at any hour of the day or night, three monks always sit.
This hidden valley is accessible only by a narrow staircase. There is a village in a lower valley a few miles from the temple. [M]
Littlebottom, Cheery. A dwarf corporal, now a sergeant, in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and its forensics expert. Cheery’s father was Jolly Littlebottom and his father was Beaky Littlebottom, both from the Überwald mountain regions, where the naming of dwarfs follows a very famous tradition. His brother, Snorey, died in an explosion somewhere under Borogravia.
Cheery originally studied as an alchemist, until an unfortunate accident blew up the Guild Council. Unusual as a dwarf, not for having no eyebrows and a frizzled beard (fairly common amongst alchemists and people who undertake her type of forensics work), but for an inability to hold an axe, a fear of fighting, a hatred of beer, an inability to drink dwarfishly and a belief that songs about gold are stupid.
Socially, of course, Cheery is notable for being the first dwarf to come out and admit that he, OK, she is female. Her initial attempts at portraying this outwardly have had a mixed reception, since the only suitable role-models around are human females, who generally do not wear beards and are less attached to the wearing of iron helmets. She now sports a heavy leather skirt, for example, when on duty, plus slightly raised heels to her iron boots. However, she is learning as she goes along. Her early attempts have been met with horror by most of the dwarf population. A small minority have asked her for a date, and are probably male. An even smaller minority sidles up and asks timidly where they can buy lipstick like hers. They are probably female, but who knows in these changing times? This is the Century of the Anchovy, after all.
Llamedos. A small, mountainous country, where it rains continuously except for brief periods of drizzle and snow. Rain is the country’s main export. It has rain mines. Only holly grows there – everything else just rots.
The Llamedese are a musical but quite strict people of the druidical persuasion. They are in fact the centre of druidical expertise, and stone-circle builders from Llamedos are found wherever megalithic circles are not quite working properly. The Llamedese are also famed and feared for their singing, and in more warlike times their massed male voice choirs and reinforced harps laid waste the land wherever they appeared. The bardic tradition is now a little less warlike. Central to it is the annual Eisteddfod: three days of poetry, singing and superb bladder control. [SM]
Lobsang, Abbot. Leader of the LISTENERS. A small and totally bald man, with more wrinkles than a sackful of prunes. Currently he is the eighty-ninth Abbot, but he is the victim of reincarnation. He is constantly reincarnated in a child conceived at the moment of his death. Each time an Abbot dies, the monks go down to the village to look for a boy child conceived at the hour that the old Abbot died. That boy is then made the new Abbot, and so it goes on. Only in the brief time between death and conception is Lobsang allowed to be aware of the true situation: that he is, in fact, in a kind of karmic loop. [M, GG]
Lobsters. The University porters, who double, with rather more enthusiasm, as its private police, or proctors. They command their nickname for being thick-shelled, liable to turn red when hot, and having the smallest brain for their size of any known creature. [T!]
Long Man, the. A collection of three burial mounds in a very old part of the forest in LANCRE. They comprise two round mounds at the foot of a long one.
In the old days, the men of Lancre would come up to the Long Man for strange rites. They used to build sweat lodges and drink SCUMBLE and dance around the fires with horns on their heads, and so on. This may have been a very ancient rite, or possibly just a response to man’s age-old desire to get out of the house and have a jar and a few laughs.
At the foot of the long mound three large irregular stones form a cave, inside which is a flat rock carved with the symbol of a horned man and an inscription in Oggh
am (a runic alphabet). The inscription as translated by Nanny OGG reads: ‘I’ve got a great big tonker’ although this may be her idiosyncratic spin on one central theme of all fertility and Nature cults.
Below the stone is one entrance to the Lancre Caves, which run all through Lancre and also lead to one world of the elves. [LL]
Loremaster. An hereditary official of the WYRMBERG. [COM]
Lorenzo the Kind. The last king of Ankh-Morpork. A fat and elderly man with unspecified and possibly unspeakable predilections. He was beheaded by ‘Old Stoneface’ VIMES, who didn’t say much. [MAA]
Luck (the Lady). The Goddess Who Must Not Be Named. She appears beautiful, with bright green eyes – the green of fresh emeralds and iridescent as a dragonfly. Like all gods and goddesses she can change her appearance at will, but cannot change the look of her eyes.
Those who seek her never find her yet she is known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. Then again, sometimes she doesn’t. She does, it may be gathered, have a soft spot for last, desperate million-to-one chances, but it would be unwise to depend upon this.
Although she is arguably the most powerful goddess in the entire history of Creation, there are no temples to her. She doesn’t like the clicking of rosaries, but is attracted to the sound of dice. [COM]
Ludd, Lobsang. Originally called Newgate Ludd when he was a foundling at the THIEVES’ GUILD – one of ‘Ludd’s Lads and Lasses’, as the foundlings were known, in memory of one of the founders of the Guild. When we first met him, he was aged about sixteen or seventeen and weighed a bit over 110 lbs. He was recruited to the HISTORY Monks by SOTO. He could move very fast. The monks observed that, around him, things went missing; they seemed simply to vanish. He was always late for his lessons but he was smart. He thought he knew more than his tutors, he answered back and he interrupted. He never paid attention in class but he always knew the answers to questions posed by his teachers, though he could never say how he knew. Lobsang has an interesting relationship with TIME and with Jeremy CLOCKSON. [TOT]
Ludorum, Arthur. A fellow student of TEPPIC’S at the ASSASSINS’ GUILD. One of only two worshippers of the Great Orm (a god who, therefore, must no longer be that great) and a son of Johan Ludorum – one of the greatest assassins in the history of the Guild. Arthur’s innocent, friendly smile and boyish complexion are frequently the last thing some people see. [P]
Luggage, the. In appearance: a largish, metal-bound chest which is capable of extruding a large number of little legs, ending in horny-nailed, calloused feet, to help it move about. It is made of SAPIENT PEARWOOD, a magical timber which can cause its constructs to portray characteristics similar to that set of characteristics known as ‘life’.
Pearwood constructions can be set to do small tasks, such as carry water or guard property. Since it is a magical substance, sapient pearwood is impervious to magic, and in the STO PLAINS is much sought after for the manufacture of wizards’ staffs, since its capacity for storing magic is up to ten times greater than that of other leading timbers.
In the case of the Luggage, built to serve as self-propelled travel accessory and bodyguard, one of the set of characteristics known as ‘life’ is a particular characteristic known as ‘faithfulness’ and another is one known as ‘murderous intent’.
When it opens its lid – often in order to snap it hard on something it considers to be threatening its owner – the luggage may reveal clean laundry, or a king’s ransom in gold. As often as not, though, it displays teeth like bleached beechwood and a tongue as large as a palm leaf and red as mahogany.
Although it has a keyhole, it cannot be opened when it is in a locked mood.
The Luggage will follow its owner everywhere. The word is an absolute – everywhere. One use for sapient pearwood in the AGATEAN EMPIRE – where it is quite common – used to be the manufacture of grave goods that the dead could be certain of taking with them.
The Luggage is currently owned, or at least chooses to follow, the wizard RINCEWIND. Its progress across the Disc is marked by debris, people who get nervous at the sound of hurrying footsteps, and communities who are unusually polite to strangers.
No other item in the entire chronicle of travel accessories has quite such a history of mystery and grievous bodily harm.
Lully I. A past king of LANCRE. A bit of an historian and a romantic, which is a polite way of saying that he invented most of Lancre’s history and several of its monarchs and almost all of its printable folklore. Of course, this does not mean that the history he invented was untrue, only that it did not, in actual fact, happen. In fact this is generally the case everywhere. History is what people believe; therefore, what people believe is history. [LL]
Lupine. A wereman. That is to say, the exact opposite of a werewolf. He is a seven-foot-tall, muscular, hairy, young man with long canines, pointy ears and yellow eyes – during full moon. The rest of the time he is a real wolf. Last seen leaving Ankh-Morpork in the company of Ludmilla CAKE, a female werewolf. They appeared to have worked out a satisfactory liaison despite being the same shape for only one week per month. [RM]
Lu-Tze. A senior History Monk, also known as Sweeper. Because he is a . . . well, sweeper. Although he is generally acknowledged to be 800 years old, there are some who claim he is 6,000 years old, because for History MONKS time is a resource to manipulate rather than an amber in which they are imprisoned. There is no doubt that he encourages every conflicting rumour about himself.
Lu-Tze is a little, bald, yellow-toothed man with a wispy beard and a faintly amiable grin, as if he is constantly waiting for something amusing to happen. He wears a robe which was once white before it fell prey to a variety of stains and patches. He uses just a piece of old string to keep his robe closed and string, too, plays an important part in keeping his sandals repaired. He smokes foul roll-ups (which probably accounts for at least some of the stains on his robe – and his teeth). In Oi Dong monastery, at least, he eats nothing but brown rice and drinks nothing but green tea with a knob of rancid butter in it. However, this is simply because he likes the stuff. There’s nothing particularly holy about rancid butter.
In his life he has done just about everything, and his past deeds are legend among the History Monks. He prefers to avoid fighting, as such, and can usually find another way, frequently by taking advantage of Rule One: Do Not Act Incautiously When Confronting Little Bald Wrinkly Smiling Men. Everyone knows what happens to people who forget this easy-to-understand piece of guidance (and possibly Lu-Tze, when there has been no alternative, has been the reason for the Rule).
His actual position at Oi Dong is uncertain. He is clearly the most accomplished of the History Monks, but works as a lowly servant. He seems to enjoy sweeping, but it also means that he has entry into all kinds of places (dust gets everywhere) and, since no one notices humble old sweepers, he overhears much that he shouldn’t. He is an expert listener, having worked out years ago that if you listen hard and long enough people would tell you more than they think they know.
He appears to acknowledge no authority but that of the ABBOT, who appears to get him to undertake the most difficult of tasks by very specifically forbidding him to do so. He deals with the other monks, all of whom outrank him, by cheerfully ignoring them – and gets away with it. Remember Rule One, particularly around Lu-Tze.
Lu-Tze is a follower of the Way of Mrs Marietta COSMOPOLITE, with whom he stayed when, as a younger man, he travelled to Ankh-Morpork in search of Perplexity. Lu-Tze soon found that her home-spun wisdom neatly dove-tailed into the teaching of WEN the Eternally Surprised, and that Mrs Cosmopolite had an apt saying for every occasion, such as ‘There Is A Time and a Place for Everything’, ‘I Have Only One Pair of Hands’ and ‘It Never Rains But it Pours’. Seldom, he realised, had so much wisdom been confined in so small a space.
Lu-Tze also grows BONSAI MOUNTAINS.
Ly Tin Wheedle. Arguably the Disc’s greatest philosopher (well, he always argued that he was). Someone once asked him
at a party ‘Why are you here?’ and the reply took three years. Wheedle is a citizen of the AGATEAN EMPIRE on the COUNTERWEIGHT CONTINENT, where he is regarded as a great sage because of his peculiar smell. His many sayings about respect for the old and the virtues of poverty are often quoted by the rich and elderly. Among Ly Tin Wheedle’s oft-quoted homilies are: ‘When many expect a mighty stallion they will find hooves on an ant’ and ‘An ass may do the work of an ox in a time of no horses.’ Once you get the hang of it, you make these up at the rate of ten or more a minute. [LF, M, S, IT]
Macarona, Professor Bengo. Professor Macarona D.Thau (Bug), D.Maus (Chubb), Magistaludorum (QIS), Octavium (Hons), PHGK (Blit), DMSK, Mack, D.Thau (Bra), Visiting Professor in Chickens (Jahn the Conqueror University, Floor 2, Shrimp Packers Building, Genua), Primo Octo (Deux), Visiting Professor of Blit/Slood Exchanges (Al Khali), KCbfJ, Reciprocating Professor of Blit Theory (Unki), D.Thau (Unki), Didimus Supremuis (Unki), Emeritus Professor in Blit Substrate Determinations (Chubb), Chair of Blit and Music Studies (Quirm College for Young Ladies), He is the holder of thirteen doctorates, a visiting professorship at BUGARUP University and has been cited in 236 papers and one divorce petition. Professor Macarona is from Genua, where his family owns a huge ranch and the biggest coffee plantation outside Klatch – his grandmother owns the Macarona Shipping Company. RIDCULLY describes him as ‘tall feller with a tan and a dinky beard’. [UA]
Maccalariat, Miss. She works at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office and is a force to be reckoned with. She is a very prim and proper lady, who has kept her maiden name for professional purposes – she is the fifth generation of Maccalariats, a very old Post Office family. Sensible shoes, thick black stockings that are slightly hairy, baggy cardigan and glasses – oh, and an expression like an early frost. She has a bit of a moustache, and a withering voice. Her hair is plaited and coiled up on either side of her head in those discs that in Überwald are called ‘snails’ but in Ankh-Morpork put people in mind of a woman with a curly iced bun clamped to each ear. Oh, and it’s decorated with a little pink hairgrip with little hand painted violets on it. [GP]
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