Discworld gods - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Discworld gods are the fictional deities

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

from Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

's Discworld

Discworld

Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....

series of fantasy novels. The Discworld

Discworld (world)

The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin as it slowly swims...

, being a flat disc supported on the backs of four elephants on top of a giant flying turtle, exists in a region of the universe where reality is somewhat less consistent than it appears in our own, more mundane corner of existence. Because reality on the Disc is so fragile and malleable, belief has a tendency to take on a life of its own, and Gods are far more obvious to the people of the Disc than they appear to us.
Gods are everywhere on the Discworld, a crucial element of the world's peculiar ecology that gives power to belief and demands resolution to any and all narratives. Gods exist in potentia in numbers uncountable, but the moment an event of any note occurs — say, two snails happening to cross at a single point — a god becomes tied to it and begins to manifest in the physical world. Most gods remain small and unknown, but a very few come to the notice of humanity, whose belief then shapes and strengthens them until they gather enough power to join the Disc's vast, unwieldy pantheon.

Gods on the Discworld exist as long as people believe in them and their power grows as their followers increase. This is a philosophy echoing the real-world politics of the power of religion and is most detailed in the novel Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

. If people should cease believing in a particular god (say, if the religion becomes more important than faith) the god begins to fade and, eventually, will "die", becoming little more than a faded wispy echo.

Discworld demons are also considered gods, more or less; after all, "believers" does not necessarily mean "worshippers". A thousand people cursing you as an evil djinn has the same effect as a thousand people singing psalms in your honor (in fact, it's probably preferable –- fear tends to be a rather more powerful motivator than love ).

A third category of godlike being on the disc is the "anthropomorphic personification"; a sentient manifestation of a worldly process, such as Death

Death (Discworld)

Death is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and a parody of several other personifications of death. Like most Grim Reapers, he is a black-robed skeleton usually carrying a scythe...

, Time or Chaos whose aspects, though not necessarily powers, are shaped by belief. Beings such as The Old High Ones, the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions and the Auditors of Reality

Auditors of Reality

The Auditors of Reality are fictional godlike beings in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. They are one of the major recurring villains in the series, although they lack the necessary imagination to be truly evil....

appear to exist without, and in some cases, despite, the power of human belief.

On the Disc, the power of belief blurs the line between godhood and mortality. Many very human characters, such as Mort

Mort

Mort is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1987, it is the fourth Discworld novel and the first to focus on the Death of the Discworld, who only appeared as a side character in the previous novels...

, Susan Sto Helit

Susan Sto Helit

Susan Sto Helit , once referred to as Susan Death, is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. She is the "granddaughter" of Death, the Disc's Grim Reaper, and, as such, has "inherited" a number of his abilities...

, Lobsang Ludd, Jeremy Clockson, Tiffany Aching

Tiffany Aching

Tiffany Aching is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels.Tiffany is a trainee witch whose growth into her job forms one of the many arcs in the Discworld series. She is the main character in The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I...

, and Pteppic have permanently or momentarily assumed the roles of gods, or at least of anthropomorphic personifications. Tooth Fairies

Tooth fairy

The tooth fairy is a fantasy figure of early childhood. The folklore states that when a child loses a baby tooth, if he or she places it beneath the bed pillow, the tooth fairy will visit while the child sleeps, replacing the lost tooth with a small payment....

and the History Monks

History Monks

The Order of Wen the Eternally Surprised, better known as the History Monks, and also sometimes referred to as THE Fighting Order of Wen, the Men In Saffron and No Such Monastery , is a highly secretive religious organisation in the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, based in the Monastery of...

are groups of humans who play godlike roles.

The total number of gods on the Disc is effectively infinite. Of those, the number powerful enough to fully manifest is about 3000, according to The Folklore of Discworld

The Folklore of Discworld

The Folklore of Discworld is a book written by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson as an ancillary to the Discworld series of novels. It details the folklore aspects of the Discworld novels and draws parallels with earth's folklore...

. Here is a list of most of the gods mentioned in the series to date, describing their roles in the stories.

Gods of Dunmanifestin

The major gods live in an Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...

-like mountain-top kingdom in the centre of the Discworld

Discworld (world)

called Dunmanifestin ("Done Manifesting", which is also as a pun on the traditional British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

house name Dunroamin). Most of the major gods tend to stay at home, usually limiting their presence in the rest of Discworld to the occasional lightning bolt. Cori Celesti, the mountain upon which Dunmanifestin stands, can be seen from anywhere on the Disc on a clear day, and has likely made lasting impressions on most of the original myth-creators. Those gods known (or likely) to reside in Dunmanifestin are:

Alohura

The lightning goddess of the beTrobi people. Mentioned in The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic is a 1983 comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the Discworld series. Pratchett has described it as "an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns."...

Aniger

Aniger is a minor goddess of squashed animals. She is a relatively recent addition to the Discworld pantheon, appearing only after some developments relating to the speed of carts and quality of roads. Since she is witnessed by thinking "Oh God, what was that I hit?", she may be an Oh God(dess), much like Bilious is. She is mentioned in Hogfather

Hogfather

Hogfather is the 20th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, and a 1997 British Fantasy Award nominee.The Hogfather is also a character in the book, representing something akin to Father Christmas. He grants children's wishes on Hogswatchnight and brings them presents...

and The Last Hero

The Last Hero

The Last Hero is a short novel, the twenty-seventh of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It was published in 2001 in a larger format than the other Discworld novels and illustrated on every page by Paul Kidby.-Plot summary:...

Anoia

The minor goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, Anoia is praised by rattling a drawer and crying "How can it close on the damned thing but not open with it? Who bought this? Do we ever use it?" As she says, sooner or later every curse is a prayer. She also eats corkscrews and is responsible for Things Down The Backs of Sofas, and is considering moving into stuck zips. The Maccalariat family of Ankh-Morpork

Ankh-Morpork

Ankh-Morpork is a fictional city-state which prominently features in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. As cities go, it is on the far side of corrupt and polluted, and is subject to outbreaks of comedic violence and brouhaha on a fairly regular basis...

have been Anoians for five generations. She is not part of the number of gods praised at the Temple of Small Gods, but instead has a freelance priestess who also serves for various other minor deities. Thud! refers to a painting of Anoia Rising From The Cutlery (probably a parody of the iconic Venus Rising From the Sea).

She was previously a volcano goddess, possibly under the name Lela. Anoia (and Lela) are first mentioned in Going Postal

Going Postal

Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel, released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2004. Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, Going Postal is divided into chapters, a feature previously seen only in Pratchett's children's books and the Science of Discworld series...

. She appears in Wintersmith

Wintersmith

This article is about the novel. For the Wintersmith himself, see the WintersmithWintersmith is the title of the third Tiffany Aching novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published on the 21 September 2006...

as a tired, skinny woman wearing a bedsheet and smoking a cigarette that sparks like a volcano (she began smoking when the Storm God kept raining on her lava). On a whim, Moist von Lipwig

Moist von Lipwig

Moist von Lipwig is a fictional character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. He is the protagonist of the novels Going Postal and Making Money.-Background and execution:Little is known about Moist von Lipwig's past...

named her as one of the gods responsible for his "miraculous" recovery of a large sum of buried money that he had in fact himself buried: since belief is what empowers Discworld gods, she benefited tremendously from the resulting surge of believers. As of Making Money

Making Money

Making Money is a Terry Pratchett novel in the Discworld series, first published in the UK on 20 September 2007. It is the second novel featuring Moist von Lipwig, and involves the Ankh-Morpork mint and specifically the introduction of paper money to the city...

her religion has seen something of a revival, and now she is making a move into becoming the Goddess of Hopeless Causes.

"Anoia" sounds like a Greek word meaning "mindlessness", but contains an obvious allusion to the verb "to annoy".

Astoria

The Ephebian Goddess of Love, held in extremely low regard by the god Om and sister to the goddess Patina. She bribed Rhome of Ephebe to steal and hide the Golden Falchion

Falchion

A falchion is a one-handed, single-edged sword of European origin, whose design is reminiscent of the Persian scimitar and the Chinese dao....

, in return she gave Elenor of Tsort to Rhome; This story is a parody of the beginning of the Trojan War

Judgement of Paris

thumb |right |460px |[[The Judgment of Paris |The Judgment of Paris]], [[Peter Paul Rubens]], ca 1636...

; the Golden Falchion is the Golden Apple, Elenor of Tsort is Helen of Troy, and Rhome is Paris

Paris (mythology)

Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...

(they are both names of European cities). Mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

and Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

.

Her name may be a reference to Astoria, Queens

Astoria, Queens

Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside , and Woodside...

, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...

, the city of Astoria

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is the county seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Situated near the mouth of the Columbia River, the city was named after the American investor John Jacob Astor. His American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site in 1811...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, or to one of the other institutions named after the Astor family.

Bibulous

The God of Wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

and Things on Sticks

Cocktail stick

A cocktail stick is a short cylindrical stick, made of wood, that has a somewhat sharp point on both ends. It is usually used as a skewer for holding decorations in cocktails and also for serving food at parties.- Further reading :*Br Med J . 1987 Dec 19-26;295:1658...

. He appears as a large, overly-merry man in a toga. In Tsort he is also known as Smimto, and Tuvelpit in Ephebe. He never gets a hangover (those are part of Bilious' portfolio), but he does get the unpleasant side-effects when Bilious takes a hangover cure. The effects of this link, should either ever drink time-reversed alcohol such as vul-nut wine, is undiscovered. His name literally means "one who drinks".

He appears in Hogfather

Hogfather

, The Last Hero

The Last Hero

, and is mentioned (under his other identities) in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

Bilious

The "Oh God of Hangovers," who gets all of the bad effects of drinking even though he has never touched a drop. He has a supreme dislike of people who drink heavily, especially if they don't appear to suffer from a hangover the next day; understandably so, since the reason that they have not, in fact, suffered a hangover, is because he has suffered it instead.

He appears in "Hogfather

Hogfather

," where he decides to drop his duties as the Oh God of Hangovers and become holiday relief for other gods. He also begins dating one of the many Tooth Fairies and still exists because of her belief in him.

Blind Io

Blind Io is the current king of the gods. He is seemingly an amalgam of Odin

Odin

Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....

and Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

, with elements of Thor

Thor

In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

— seen primarily in his use of a number of different hammers (seventy, actually, as detailed by Om in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

). He is completely blind

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

in the traditional sense but instead has countless eyes, which seem to have a mind of their own, orbiting his head. He was eventually compelled to get rid of his raven messengers because of their species' instinctual desire for devouring eyeballs. He lives in Dunmanifestin where he and the other gods play games with the lives of mortals.

Besides the hammers he also, apparently, uses a "double-handled axe", or at least has one as a symbol. This is probably a reference to the double-headed axe

Labrys

Labrys is the term for a symmetrical doubleheaded axe originally from Crete in Greece, one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization; to the Romans, it was known as a bipennis....

used by Zeus.

Blind Io is a thunder god. Actually, Io is the only thunder god on the Disc. He goes by many names and appearances to make sure he keeps the optimal amount of followers. This is not really unfair because all the other gods use the same trick.

He also has an apparent monopoly on the natural phenomenon of thunder, as detailed by Om in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

, who stated that lightning

Lightning

Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...

was allowed for common use by all deities but thunder was strictly regulated. Later on in the same book, Om stormed into Cori Celesti, and when Io got up to see who was at the door, Om broke his nose, and told him to 'take his face away, while he still had some left'.

The high priest of Blind Io in Ankh-Morpork is, as stated in the book Reaper Man

Reaper Man

Reaper Man is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1991, it is the 11th Discworld novel and the second to focus on Death. The title is a reference to Alex Cox's cult movie Repo Man.-Plot:...

, Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully's brother Hughnon Ridcully. Much like his brother, Hughnon is the leader of all of the Ankh-Morpork religious denominations by dint of constant vigilance.

The Discworld Companion claims that he is not native to the Disc, but was forced to leave another reality in undisclosed circumstances.

The name Blind Io probably comes from the Blind Yeo river in North Somerset, but may also be a joke on the Bingo phrase "Blind 10". It also could come from the moon Io

Io (moon)

Io ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter and, with a diameter of , the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System. It was named after the mythological character of Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of the lovers of Zeus....

, a significant moon of Jupiter named after a nymph from Greek mythology

Io (mythology)

Io was, in Greek mythology, a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. His wife Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him...

Errata

The Goddess of Misunderstandings. This little known goddess was the cause of the Tsortean Wars; not, as most people believe, Elenor. Understandably not the most liked goddess, Errata wasn't invited to many weddings, one of which was Peloria and Theta's. She was not pleased, and so devised a plan for revenge. She had Neoldian forge a golden falchion

Falchion

A falchion is a one-handed, single-edged sword of European origin, whose design is reminiscent of the Persian scimitar and the Chinese dao....

with "For the Strongest" engraved on it. This caused a fight between almost 80 different war gods. Luckily Neoldian had also engraved "Batteries Not Included" on the falchion, which fortunately for Errata, caused an argument between Patina, who thought the sword was a subtly observed metaphor for the hopelessness of existence, and Cephut, who thought it was a big knife. In the end it became so heated that Astoria bribed Rhome of Tsort to steal and hide the falchion just to shut her sister up. In return, Astoria gave Elenor to Rhome and the resulting extramarital confusion blew up into the Tsortean Wars. The whole story is a parody of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

, even to the point of having people being ignorant of her role in the matter, much as Helen's role in the Trojan War is well known, but Eris

Eris (mythology)

Eris is the Greek goddess of strife and discord, her name being translated into Latin as Discordia. Her Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is Concordia. Homer equated her with the war-goddess Enyo, whose Roman counterpart is Bellona...

' (who is not invited to a wedding, and crashes it with a golden apple saying "for the fairest", causing the female Goddesses to fight over it) is not. Mentioned in Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

Fate

One of the Discworld's most implacable gods, and very difficult to understand. He looks like a pleasant, middle-aged man, but his eyes are starry voids. It is possible (although difficult) to bargain with him, but proverbially impossible to cheat him, although this has been done at least once. (When Cohen the Barbarian rolled a 7 on a six-sided die by cleaving it in half in midair.) He is known to play games against The Lady using mortals as pawns, and always plays to win. His Temple is situated in the Gods' Quarter of Ankh-Morpork

Ankh-Morpork

. It's a small, heavy, leaden temple, where hollow-eyed and gaunt worshippers meet on dark nights for predestined and fairly pointless rites. He is said to come from a world other than the Disc.

He appears in The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

, Mort

Mort

, Interesting Times

Interesting Times

Interesting Times is the seventeenth novel in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.The opening lines explain that the title refers to the phrase "may you live in interesting times".-Plot summary:...

and The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Fedecks

Fedecks is the Messenger of the Gods, the Ephebian version of Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...

. His name is a reference to FedEx

FedEx

FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...

. There was previously a golden statue in the Ankh-Morpork Post Office which may have portrayed him. If so, he appears as a radiant figure in a winged hat, winged sandals and a winged fig leaf. He is mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

and Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

, and the statue appears in Going Postal

Going Postal

Flatulus

The Ephebian God of the Winds. He is mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

and Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

, and appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

. His name derives from "flatus", Latin for breaking wind. This also is a reference to the word flatulence

Flatulence

Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...

Foorgol

The Ephebian God of Avalanches. Mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

. Slightly sarcastic, and according to Xeno (a philosopher from Ephebe), 'enjoys a joke as much as the next-man'.

Note that the name 'Foorgol' is the reverse of 'Logroof'.

Ikebana

The Goddess of Topiary, worshipped by the Militant Servitors of Ikebana. Mentioned in Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

. She is named after the Japanese art of formal flower arranging.

Jimi

The god of beggars. The Ankh-Morpork Beggars' Guild has a statue of him. Mentioned in Men at Arms

Men at Arms

Men at Arms is the 15th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett first published in 1993. It is the second novel about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch on the Discworld. Lance-constable Angua von Überwald, later in the series promoted to the rank of Sergeant, is introduced in this book...

The Lady

The Goddess Who Must Not Be Named (also known as the million to one chance

Luck

Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...

). She is constantly opposed to Fate, and she is just as difficult to understand, although where he is implacable, she is capricious. Since everyone believes in her, she does not need to be worshipped, and would regard such a thing as taking her for granted. Her favour instantly disappears if she believes someone is relying on her, or calls her by name (though it is stated in The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

that she is attracted to the sound of dice). Attempts to worship her by some members of the Guild of Gamblers led to their deaths within a week - after all, being lucky doesn't necessarily mean having good luck.

Her appearance is hard to determine. After witnessing her in person, Rincewind

Rincewind

Rincewind is a fictional character appearing in several of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. He is a failed student at the Unseen University for wizards in Ankh-Morpork, and is often described by scholars as "the magical equivalent to the number zero". He spends just about all of his time...

and Twoflower were not able to agree upon what she had looked like, other than that she "appeared to be beautiful" and had green eyes. Her eyes are her defining feature: no Discworld God can change the nature of their own eyes, and hers are green from edge to edge, without iris or pupil.

When playing games with mortals, The Lady never sacrifices a pawn, and doesn't play to win, but rather plays not to lose. Rincewind, who refuses to believe his continued survival against the odds is anything other than coincidence, is one of her favourites.

The Lady appears in The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

, Interesting Times

Interesting Times

and The Last Hero

The Last Hero

.

Rincewind began to say her name in The Colour of Magic but was cut short; since it began with "L", and in the Audio book

Audio book

An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...

version he pronounces "Lu" with a short u, along with all the other aforementioned clues and traits, it is commonly assumed she is Lady Luck. (This would seem to jibe with a commonly-held superstition among gamblers that if they talk about their luck it will desert them.) Given Pratchett's fondness for setting things in opposition it might also be appropriate to refer to her as "Fortune," the opposite of Fate - he cannot be cheated, but she cannot be beaten. The one time Fate loses a contest with a mortal, it is with Cohen the Barbarian, another of the Lady's special favorites (she uses him as a pawn in an earlier novel) and he almost certainly has her aid in doing it (incidentally, Cohen wins in the same way as The Lady did in The Colour of Magic, rolling a seven on a six-sided dice, although Cohen's means were rather less magical

Broadsword

Broadsword may refer to:*Broadsword , a military sword used by heavy cavalry during the 17th to early 19th centuriesIn more modern times, it has also been used to refer to:...

Libertina

The Goddess of the Sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

, Apple Pie, Certain Types of Ice Cream and Short Lengths of String. Her name and appearance suggest the Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...

. She appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

and she may or may not be the same goddess as the Sea Queen, who appears in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

Neoldian

The Blacksmith of the Gods. He forged the Golden Falchion

Falchion

A falchion is a one-handed, single-edged sword of European origin, whose design is reminiscent of the Persian scimitar and the Chinese dao....

and engraved it with the words "For the Strongest - Lagunculae Leydianae Non Accedunt" (Batteries Not Included). He also repaired Leonard of Quirm's 'Kite', enabling it to return safely back to Ankh-Morpork

Ankh-Morpork

. A parody of Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...

. He is mentioned in Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

and appears (but is not named) in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Offler

Offler is a crocodile

Crocodile

A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

god originating from Klatch and is worshipped in most hot lands with great rivers, and even other parts of the Discworld where the people have never even seen any crocodiles. He is described as having developed a greater degree of common sense

Common sense

Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...

than the other gods in his long existence, leading him to take a more pragmatic approach to most problems than others do, such as limiting his list of Abominations to a few undesirable foods so as to attract more worshippers. He might be inspired by the Ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek

Sobek

Sobek , and in Greek, Suchos was the deification of crocodiles, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River...

.

Offler is given as an example to the series premise that belief, which creates gods, is a reflection of people. Thus Offler rather uncreatively resembles a human with a crocodile's head, which forces him to speak with a lisp. He is attended by sacred birds

Egyptian Plover

The Egyptian Plover is a wader, the only member of the genus Pluvianus. Formerly placed in the pratincole and courser family, Glareolidae, it is now regarded as the sole member of its own monotypic family Pluvianidae....

, who give him news from across the Disc, and also clean his teeth.

His followers are called Offlians, and the second month of the Discworld calendar, Offle, is also named after him. The traditional sacrifice to Offler when praying is composed mainly of sausage

Sausage

A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...

s, (this is almost certainly a reference to a crocodile's snatching away string after string of sausages in the traditional Punch and Judy

Punch and Judy

Punch and Judy is a traditional, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character...

show). The sausages are fried, allowing the "true sausagidity" to ascend to Offler by means of smell, while the clergy eat the "earthly shell" of the sausages, which the clergy claim taste like ash, as Offler has eaten their essence (Moist von Lipwig

Moist von Lipwig

commented that this could be the reason that frying sausages always smell more appetising than they actually taste). Atheists and non-Offlians are suspicious of this claim.

Despite his traditional moderate behavior, Offler was described as 'trigger-happy' by a priest when he struck the golem, Dorfl, with lightning after the golem doubted the gods (a lightning bolt almost struck the priest as well, but as he was the head priest of Blind Io the lightning was averted and hit the ground harmlessly a few feet away).

Patina

The Ephebian Goddess of Wisdom, a portmanteau of Pallas and Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...

, as well as a play on the word patina

Patina

Patina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...

. She is shown holding a penguin (this is due to an incompetent sculptor getting a statue wrong), a parody of Athena's owl. She is mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

, appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

and is the sister of Astoria.

Pedestriana

The Goddess of Football, first mentioned in Unseen Academicals

Unseen Academicals

Unseen Academicals is the 37th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The novel satirises football , and features Mustrum Ridcully setting up an Unseen University football team, with the Librarian in goal. It includes new details about "below stairs" life at the university...

, in which a statue of her suddenly appears in the basement of the Ankh Morpork Museum, along with an ancient urn painted with a picture called "The Tackle". It is implied she may have been influencing the events of the book to make modern Ankh-Morpork street football

Street football

The term street football encompasses a number of informal varieties of association football. These informal games do not necessarily utilise the requirements of a formal game of football, such as a large field, field markings, goal apparatus and corner flags, eleven players per team , or match...

closer to the game played by her worshippers. Her name is a play on "pedestrian

Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

", someone who uses their feet.

Petulia

The Ephebian Goddess of "negotiable affection," worshipped by ladies of the night

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

. Mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

. Her name appears to be a reference to the words "petulant" and "Petunia

Petunia

Petunia is a widely cultivated genus of flowering plants of South American origin, closely related with tobacco, cape gooseberries, tomatoes, deadly nightshades, potatoes and chili peppers; in the family Solanaceae. The popular flower derived its name from French, which took the word petun, meaning...

". Also wears a dress that by present circumstances is too low and 'skimpy' (translucent).

P'tang-P'tang

The god of a country near Omnia where the people believe there are only 51 people in the world, therefore (at least he believes) he has 51 worshippers. Appears to be very stupid, probably because of his country's very simple inhabitants. Resembles a newt. Mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

. (possible reference to Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

- P'tang P'tang Ole Biscuit Barrel, a member of the Silly Party)

Seven-Handed Sek

Possibly a parody of Set

Set (mythology)

Set was in Ancient Egyptian religion, a god of the desert, storms, and foreigners. In later myths he was also the god of darkness, and chaos...

. There is a charity school run by the Spiteful Sisters of Seven Handed Sek in Ankh-Morpork. The eleventh month of the Discworld calendar, Sektober, was probably named after him.

Sweevo

The God of Cut Timber who prohibited the practice of panipunitiplasty among his followers, even though in actuality very few of his followers knew what panupanitoplasty was (he didn't have a clue, either, but did it because it worried his worshippers). A minor deity mentioned in several novels, including The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Urika

The Goddess of Snow, Saunas and Theatrical Performances for Fewer than 120 People. Her name is probably a parody of the word Eureka, and the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

celebrity Ulrika Jonsson

Ulrika Jonsson

Eva Ulrika Jonsson is a Swedish television presenter in the UK, who became famous as a TV-am weather presenter and moved on to present Gladiators and became a team captain of the show Shooting Stars.-Early life:...

. She appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Vometia

The ancient Ankh-Morporkian goddess of being sick. "To make an offering to Vometia..." means vomiting. Mentioned in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

as having faded away from lack of worshipers.

Wilf

Featured in The Discworld Almanak

The Discworld Almanak

The Discworld Almanak is a spin-off book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, in a similar format to the Diaries and Nanny Ogg's Cookbook...

, Wilf is the god of astrology

Astrology

Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...

. Few people believe in him or worship him any more, so, in an attempt to keep belief in astrology going, he personally writes the horoscopes for the Almanak every year.

Zephyrus

The God of Slight Breezes. Mentioned in The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

, Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

, and Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

Gods of the Ramtops

The Ramtops are a series of high mountains that, due to their position near the Cori Celesti, lie like a live circuit directly over the point of origin for the Disc's magical field. Reality in the Ramtops is an even more negotiable proposition than for the rest of the Disc. It is not surprising therefore, that gods can also be found there.

Herne the Hunted

The God of Hunted Animals. Herne appears as a small figure with floppy rabbit ears, small horns and a good turn of speed. He has the unfortunate job of being the constantly terrified and apprehensive god of all small furry creatures whose destiny it is to end their lives as a brief, crunchy squeak; it has been said that he arose from the feelings of prey animals during the hunt, whereas other gods of the hunt arose from the passions of the hunters. He is a parody of Herne the Hunter

Herne the Hunter

In English folklore, Herne the Hunter is a ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park in the English county of Berkshire. His appearance is notable in the fact that he has antlers upon his head....

and is mentioned in Wyrd Sisters

Wyrd Sisters

Wyrd Sisters is Terry Pratchett's sixth Discworld novel, published in 1988, and re-introduces Granny Weatherwax of Equal Rites.- Plot :...

and appears in Lords and Ladies

Lords and Ladies (novel)

Lords and Ladies is the fourteenth Discworld book by Terry Pratchett. It was originally published in 1992.-Synopsis:At the end of Witches Abroad, Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax left Genua bound for home, in Lancre...

, where he shows that he may sometimes serve as champion and protector of hunted animals, when he defended a nest of newborn rabbits by distracting the elves torturing them.

Hoki the Jokester

A nature god usually found haunting the deep woods of the Ramtops, in which he manifests himself as an oak tree or a flute playing half-man, half-goat figure. Thought of by many gods and people alike as a bloody nuisance and a bad practical joker, he was eventually banished from Dunmanifestin for pulling the old exploding mistletoe joke on Blind Io. Hoki parodies various characteristics of Loki

Loki

In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

and Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...

and other trickster gods, and is mentioned in Mort

Mort

, Equal Rites

Equal Rites

Equal Rites is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1987, it is the third novel in the Discworld series and the first in which the main character is not Rincewind. The title is a play on words to "Equal Rights"....

and The Last Hero

The Last Hero

. His name is a wordplay on "hokey" and Loki.

Gods of Skund Forest

The barely inhabited Forest of Skund is also home to a surprisingly large number of gods, probably due to its high level of residual magic. Why this should be is unclear, though since (at least according to Count Casanunda) it is also home to a certain Queen Agantia, there might be more to it than initially apparent.

Moon Goddess

This Druidic Goddess fancies drinking mead from a silver bowl in the company of young virgins, among other things. The Druids of Skund Forest celebrate the Rebirth of the Moon (a ceremony dating back thousands of years) by sacrificing a young virgin to the Moon Goddess. The virgin, dressed in a ceremonial white robe and golden torc, is led by a precession of trumpets and percussion instruments to a large and flat stone altar, situated in the centre of a circle of standing stones, where she is summarily sacrificed, using a knife. Mentioned in The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, the second of the Discworld series. It was published in 1986. The title is a quote from a poem by John Milton and in the original context referred to dancing lightly with extravagance....

, when Rincewind, Twoflower, and Genghiz Cohen the Barbarian save the sacrificial virgin, who then complains of "eight years of staying home Saturday nights down the drain".

She may be the same as the Mother Goddess

Mother goddess

Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...

who, according to Pyramids

Pyramids (Discworld)

Pyramids is the BSFA winning seventh Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1989.-Plot summary:The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt....

, is worshipped by some believers in her aspect as the Moon (and by others in her aspect as a big fat woman.)

Skelde

In the depth of Skund Forest he is referred to as the Spirit of the Smoke. Local tribesmen believe you must first see Skelde before you can become a shaman. Mentioned in The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

Topaxi

A spirit known to the shamans of Skund Forest as Topaxci; the God of the Red Mushroom. Elsewhere he is known as Topaxi; the God of Certain Mushrooms, Great Ideas that you Forgot to Write Down and Will Never Remember Again, and of People who Tell Other People that 'Dog' is 'God' Spelt Backwards and Think that this is in Some Way Revelatory.

He is mentioned in The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

and appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Umcherrel

In the depth of Skund Forest he is referred to as the Soul of the Forest. Local tribesmen believe you must first see Umcherrel before you can become a Spirit Master. Mentioned in The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

Absent gods

These gods are still widely believed in, but no longer openly manifest or play an obvious role in mortal affairs.

Om

The Great God Om is an omnipotent, omnipresent (only within the boundaries of the Omnian church) god in the country of Omnia. His temple resides in Kom, presumably the capital, and his followers are known as Omnians. Unlike the major gods, who exist within a pantheon, Om is a monotheistic deity whose followers insist that he is the one and only true God. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Omnians also insisted, up until a hundred years ago, that the world is a sphere. Omnianism is the most oft-mentioned religion in the Discworld

Discworld

series.

The desert country of Omnia is a theocracy

Theocracy

Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

on the Klatchian continent, ruled by the Cenobiarch. At the time of Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

(a hundred years previous to the time explored by other Discworld novels according to Thief of Time

Thief of Time

Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, a 2002 Locus Award nominee.-Plot summary:The Auditors are upset because the human race are living their lives in - what the Auditors consider to be - an unpredictable way...

), the Cenobiarch was a very old man, and the country was actually ruled by his advisors, chiefly Vorbis, a character who is believed to be based on Ximenes de Cisneros. A major factor in Omnian affairs at this time was that very few people actually believed in Om himself, only in the clerical hierarchy and in the superficial trappings of religion.

Because of this lack of belief — the "food" of the Discworld gods — Om had virtually no power for most of Small Gods and was trapped in the form of a tortoise

Tortoise

Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...

. He only vaguely remembered the seven prophets who claimed to have delivered his commandments and precepts, and Brutha, his last believer, had to come to grips with the fact that the Great God Om was, in fact, insulting, arrogant, frivolous by self-admission (when he manifested to one of the prophets, his words had been 'Hey, look what I can do!' and nothing more), and not nearly as knowing, powerful, or present as Brutha had been raised to whole-heartedly believe. Om was also selfish and in some regards, amoral. Difficulties also arose because Om would immediately recognize other gods, even tell Brutha some gossip about them, but the Omnian religion put to death anyone who suggested other gods existed. The god at first cared for Brutha only because Om's own survival depended on Brutha's belief, but eventually grew to the realization that individual people are worth fighting for and agreed with Brutha that there would be no commandments unless Om adhered to them as well.

Although no one in Omnia at the time of Small Gods actually believed in Om himself, they all believed in his clergy; in particular the Quisition, and in particular what the Quisition did to unbelievers. What the Quisition (consisting of the Inquisition and the Exquisition, or people who can say "exquisite" with a straight face

Straight face test

The straight face test is a test of whether or not something is legitimate or serious based on whether or not a given statement can be made sincerely, without any compulsion to laugh. The phrase goes back to about 1987....

) largely did was torture people, as evidenced by their unofficial motto, "Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum," which Pratchett loosely translates as "When you have their full attention in your grasp, their hearts and minds will follow." (The line is a reference to a quote attributed to Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

counsel, Charles Colson

Charles Colson

Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973....

). It is also attested by their use of the Torquus Simiae Maleficarum ("The Monkey Wrench

Monkey wrench

The monkey wrench is an adjustable wrench, a later American development of eighteenth century English coach wrenches. It was popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but is now used only for heavier tasks, having been mostly replaced by the lighter and sleeker shifting adjustable or...

of Witches"; a reference to the real-world Malleus Maleficarum

Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487...

or "The Witches Hammer"). The Book of Om says that witches

Witches (Discworld)

A major subset of the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett involves the witches of Lancre. They are closely based on witches in British folklore and a slightly tongue-in-cheek reinterpretation of the Triple Goddess....

shall not be allowed to live, although this may be a mistranslation since it also says that they may be caught in traps of treacle

Treacle

Treacle is any syrup made during the refining of sugar and is defined as "uncrystallized syrup produced in refining sugar". Treacle is used chiefly in cooking as a form of sweetener or condiment....

. This has led some to believe the word may in fact be cockroach

Cockroach

Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...

es. A theory has also been advanced suggesting that, in a later passage stating they bring lascivious dreams, the word might actually be translated as "boiled lobsters." This is a parody of the controversy surrounding the translation of verse 22:18 in the book of Exodus. The verse is rendered as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" in the KJV; but the word translated as "witch" is sometimes claimed to actually mean "poisoner".

The reason for Omnianism's previous intolerance was not that Om was an intolerant god, but because he was largely an indifferent one. After spending some time trapped in the shape of a tortoise

Tortoise

in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

, his perspective was changed, and he allowed Brutha to turn Omnianism into one of the Discworld's more moderate religions, although they still insist Om is the only real god, or at least the only god worth worshipping. Om now refuses to manifest directly and demands that his followers develop their own theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

and ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

based on faith in his existence and his last few commandments, redacting the former Omnian creeds into a simple code of nonviolence and moral uprightness. Omnianism now demands that Om triumph over competing gods not through military force but in the "marketplace of ideas". The church has thus become more evangelical

Evangelism

Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....

in its methods, and its followers can be seen going from door to door to convert unbelievers. Omnianism is consequently proving popular, because a god that doesn't actually do anything is somewhat comforting. Owing to Brutha's allowance of opposing viewpoints, the church also schisms

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

every couple of weeks.

Many modern Omnians are given names like "Smite-The-Unbeliever-With-Cunning-Arguments", "Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets" and "Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om". This in contrast to older Omnians, who were given bloodier names. The names parody Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

"hortatory names" like "O-Be-Joyful", "Fear-the-Lord", "Job-Raked-Out-of-the-Ashes", and "If-Jesus-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned" Barbon. The ancestor of Samuel Vimes

Samuel Vimes

Samuel "Sam" Vimes is a fictional policeman from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As of his latest promotion, his full name and title is; "'His Grace, His Excellency, The Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes": When serving as Ambassador for Ankh-Morpork, he is also referred to simply as...

, Suffer-Not-Injustice, is also named in the Puritan manner, based as he is on real-world Puritan Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

.

Omnianism as a whole is Pratchett's parody of the less admirable aspects of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, such as the Inquisition, and later intrusive doorstep evangelism

Evangelism

Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....

. It also may resemble aspects of Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

in some of its political structures and cultural trappings. Such treatments can be seen as ambivalent, however; one of the more sympathetic characters in the Discworld is Mightily Oats, from Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum ) is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, the twenty-third in the Discworld series. It was first published in 1998....

. He is an Omnian priest who has begun to doubt his faith due to Om's putative absence and the bloodless, seemingly pointless nature of his commandments, and secretly longs for the old "fire" of the bloodthirsty Omnian prophets. Mightily Oats' conversations with Granny Weatherwax

Granny Weatherwax

Esmerelda "Esme" Weatherwax is a fictional character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. She is a witch and member of the Lancre coven. She is the self-appointed guardian of her small country, and frequently defends it against supernatural powers...

constitute a dissection of the social

Social

The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...

and psychological role of modern liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...

, and ends with Mightily Oats finding some measure of faith in the nature of his faith itself and of "holiness", if not in his faith's tenets per se.

Interestingly, Mightily Oats loses his "holy tortoise of Om", a holy symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

— based on the form Om took in his long sojourn as a tortoise (replacing the "holy horns" of Om's previous incarnation as a mighty bull), as well as the metal tortoise that the prophet Brutha was sentenced to death upon, an allusion to Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

on the Cross

Cross

A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...

— and to replace it Jason Ogg makes him an amulet of a double-headed axe

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

to symbolize his moment of true faith, when he managed to slay a vampire

Vampire

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

with an ordinary hatchet

Hatchet

A hatchet is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade used to cut and split wood...

that his faith transformed into a holy weapon. Probably intentionally, the symbol of a "double-headed axe" has often been one way of referring to the symbol of the Cross

Cross

, though it is clearly more like a Labrys

Labrys

Labrys is the term for a symmetrical doubleheaded axe originally from Crete in Greece, one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization; to the Romans, it was known as a bipennis....

— that said it may well be intended to allow for both readings.

In Monstrous Regiment

Monstrous Regiment (novel)

Monstrous Regiment is the 31st novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. It takes its name from the anti-Catholic 16th century tract by John Knox, the full title of which is The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women....

, Vimes

Samuel Vimes

refers to Om as a "very popular" god, in part due to the fact he "imposed very few abominations and no special clothing, and was rather loose on prayers".

Tak

The creator god of the dwarfs

Dwarfs (Discworld)

Sam leighton is dwarf kingDwarfs in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are similar to the Dwarves of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, to which they largely started out as a homage, and dwarves in other fantasy novels. They are short, stocky, bearded metal-workers, generally seen wearing chain mail...

, first mentioned in Thud!

Thud!

Thud! is Terry Pratchett's 34th Discworld novel, released in the United States of America on September 13, 2005, the United Kingdom on 1 October 2005. Thud! was released in the U.S. three weeks before it was released in Pratchett's native UK, to coincide with a United States signing tour...

.. The dwarvish creation myth states that Tak first "wrote himself", then "wrote the Laws," then "wrote the World", then wrote a cave and a geode. The geode hatched and from it emerged two brothers. One left the cave and saw the sky; he was the first Man and he was enlightened. The other went deeper into the cave; he was the first Dwarf, and he was endarkened. Here earlier forms of the myth differ from later forms; in the earlier version, Tak notices that the geode is striving to become alive, and as reward for the service it had given, makes it into the first troll; in a later, reedited version (written by dwarfs as propaganda), the geode comes alive of its own accord and was left to wander the world without purpose.

Though the dwarfs believe in Tak as a creator, dwarves are not religious; Tak left as soon as he created the world and doesn't demand eternal loyalty or followers. One dwarf - Grag Bashfull Bashfullson - gives a Deistic

Deism

Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...

summation that
"Tak does not require us to think of him, only that we think."

Other pantheons

Some cultures, particularly the non-human races, have their own pantheons of gods completely separate from the main stream of Discworld mythology.

Djelibeybian gods

Most of Djelibeybi's gods were likely to have been invented by the High Priest Dios. Paradoxically, many of them exclusively perform the same godly duties, with a large number claiming functions such as supremacy over the other gods and the right to push the sun. When they temporarily manifested in Pyramids (while Djelibeybi was temporarily in its own set of dimensions), they spent most of their time fighting each other or tormenting humans for fun. They include:

Bast - The cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

-headed God of Things Left on the Doorstep or Half-digested Under the Bed. The name is shared with the historical Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian cat-goddess more typically known as Bast
Bast (goddess)
Bastet is the name commonly used by scholars today to refer to a feline goddess of ancient Egyptian religion who was worshipped at least since the Second Dynasty...

, but Discworld's Bast is a male while real-world Egyptian Bast is a female. Terry Pratchett has also mentioned Bast with regard to his theory of cat-naming in The Unadulterated Cat
The Unadulterated Cat
The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett, illustrated by Gray Jolliffe, is a book written to promote what Pratchett terms the 'Real Cat', a cat who urinates in the flowerbeds, rips up the furniture, and eats frogs, mice and sundry other small animals...

; that a cat's name is for shouting, and should be short, sharp and sound somewhat like invective. He is mentioned in Pyramids
Pyramids (Discworld)
Pyramids is the BSFA winning seventh Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1989.-Plot summary:The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt....

and appears in The Last Hero
The Last Hero
The Last Hero is a short novel, the twenty-seventh of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It was published in 2001 in a larger format than the other Discworld novels and illustrated on every page by Paul Kidby.-Plot summary:...

, making him the only god seen to continue to exist after Dios disappeared.
Bin - The Supreme God.
Bunu - The goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

-headed God of Goats.
Cephnet- The god of Cutlery
Chefet - The dog-headed God of Metalwork. He carries a hammer and is known as the maker of rings and the weaver of metal.
Cephut - The God of Cutlery
Cutlery
Cutlery refers to any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in the Western world. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. This is probably the...

. At the wedding of Peloria and Theta, Cephut started an argument with Patina over the Golden Falchion
Falchion
A falchion is a one-handed, single-edged sword of European origin, whose design is reminiscent of the Persian scimitar and the Chinese dao....

. Mentioned in Pyramids
Pyramids (Discworld)
Pyramids is the BSFA winning seventh Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1989.-Plot summary:The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt....

and Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

.
Dhek - The Supreme God.
Fon - The Supreme God.
Fhez - The crocodile
Crocodile
A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

-headed God of the Lower Djel. An animosity is shared between him and Tzut.
Gil - The Sun God.
Hast - The Supreme God.
Hat - The vulture
Vulture
Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...

-headed God of Unexpected Guests.
Herpetine Triskeles - The sole ruler of the world of the dead, possibly based on Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...

.
Jeht - The Boatman of the Solar Orb.
Juf - The cobra
Cobra
Cobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...

-headed God of Papyrus.
Ket - The ibis
Ibis
The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae....

-headed God of Justice, probably based on Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

.
Khefin - The Two-Faced God of Gateways, perhaps inspired by Janus
Janus
-General:*Janus , the two-faced Roman god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings*Janus , a moon of Saturn*Janus Patera, a shallow volcanic crater on Io, a moon of Jupiter...

. The last known High Priest of Khefin was the bald-headed Hoot Koomi, who served during the Year of the Cobra.
Nept - The Night Sky Goddess whose blue naked body stretches over the heavens, possibly based on Nut.
Nesh - The Goddess of the Sun and blower of the spinning blue soap bubble which is the sky. The secret rituals of the Smoking Mirror hold that the sun was in fact merely a round hole in the soap bubble which opened into the fiery real world beyond, and that the stars were the holes that the rain came through.
Net - The Supreme God.
Orexis-Nupt - The sole ruler of the world of the dead.
Ptooie - The Supreme God.
Put - The lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

-headed God of Justice. He is often depicted holding a pair of scales
Weighing scale
A weighing scale is a measuring instrument for determining the weight or mass of an object. A spring scale measures weight by the distance a spring deflects under its load...

.
Sarduk - The Goddess of Caves. One of the older goddesses, whose female worshippers are known to "get up to no good" in sacred groves.
Sessifet - The naked blue Goddess of the Afternoon, also appears in The Last Hero
The Last Hero
The Last Hero is a short novel, the twenty-seventh of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It was published in 2001 in a larger format than the other Discworld novels and illustrated on every page by Paul Kidby.-Plot summary:...

and Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

.
Set
Set (mythology)
Set was in Ancient Egyptian religion, a god of the desert, storms, and foreigners. In later myths he was also the god of darkness, and chaos...

- The Supreme God.
Silar - The catfish
Catfish
Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

-headed God who alone rules the world of the dead.
Sot - The Supreme God.
Syncope - The sole ruler of the world of the dead.
Scrab - A giant dung beetle
Dung beetle
Dung beetles are beetles that feed partly or exclusively on feces. All of these species belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea; most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae. This beetle can also be referred to as the scarab beetle. As most species of...

known as the Pusher of the Ball of the Sun.
Teg - The easily amused horse-headed God of Agriculture.
Thrrp - The Charioteer of the Sun.
Tzut - The snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

-headed God of the Upper Djel. An animosity is shared between him and Fhez.
What - This Sky Goddess was believed to eat the sun every evening, but save and plant one pip in time to grow a fresh sun for the next day.
Vut - The bad smelling, 70 feet (21.3 m) tall, dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

-headed God of the Evening.
Yay - Whose eye is the sun, toiling across the sky in his endless search for his toenails.

The Djelibeybians also recognize Blind Io as the Supreme God.

Genuan gods

The Voodoo religion of Genua has a wide range of minor gods, or loa

Loa

The Loa are the spirits of the voodoo religion practiced in Louisiana, Haiti, Benin, and other parts of the world. They are also referred to as Mystères and the Invisibles, in which are intermediaries between Bondye —the Creator, who is distant from the world—and humanity...

s; the voodoo practitioners understand where gods come from and can feed small gods intentionally. Amongst those mentioned in Witches Abroad

Witches Abroad

Witches Abroad is the twelfth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, originally published in 1991.-Plot:Following the death of Witch, Desiderata Hollow, Magrat Garlick is sent her magic wand, for Desiderata was not only a witch, but also a Fairy Godmother. Having given the wand to Magrat, she...

are:

Hotaloga Andrews
Lady Bon Anna
Master Safe Way - The Discworld version of Mait' Carrefour, god of the crossroads, and a play on the Carrefour
Carrefour
Carrefour S.A. is an international hypermarket chain headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world...

and Safeway
Safeway (UK)
Safeway was a chain of supermarkets and convenience stores in the United Kingdom. It started as a subsidiary of the American Safeway Inc., before being sold off in 1987....

supermarket chains.
Stride Wide Man
By the end of the book Baron Saturday (named after Baron Samedi
Baron Samedi
Baron Samedi is one of the Loa of Haitian Voodoo. Samedi is a Loa of the dead, along with Baron's numerous other incarnations Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix, and Baron Kriminel. He is the head of the Guédé family of Loa, or an aspect of them, or possibly their spiritual father...

) may also have gained local divinity.

Troll gods

Chondrodite - Troll god of love. Causes trolls to fall in love by hitting them on the head with a rock. Mentioned in Moving Pictures
Moving Pictures (novel)
Moving Pictures is the name of the tenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1990. The book takes place in Discworld's most famous city, Ankh-Morpork and a town called "Holy Wood"...

. The name is a composite of Chondrite
Chondrite
Chondrites are stony meteorites that have not been modified due to melting or differentiation of the parent body. They formed when various types of dust and small grains that were present in the early solar system accreted to form primitive asteroids...

, a stoney meteorite, and Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

, the Greek goddess of love.
Gigalith - Bestows wisdom on trolls by hitting them on the head with a rock. Mentioned in Moving Pictures. The name may be a play on Ganesh, or perhaps Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...

, as well as the term megalith
Megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement.The word 'megalith' comes from the Ancient...

, or even the computer memory term gigabyte
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

.
Silicarous - Bestows good fortune on trolls by hitting them on the head with a rock. Mentioned in Moving Pictures.
Monolith - A mythic troll hero figure of dubious position. A parody of Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...

, he first wrested the secret of rocks from the gods (the secret being that you can hit someone with one). Even though the famous human Fingers-Mazda (Thief of Fire) is usually credited with being the Disc's first thief, Monolith probably predates him considerably ("Troll gods were hitting one another with clubs ten thousand years before we'd even stopped trying to eat rocks" ~Samuel Vimes
Samuel Vimes
Samuel "Sam" Vimes is a fictional policeman from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As of his latest promotion, his full name and title is; "'His Grace, His Excellency, The Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes": When serving as Ambassador for Ankh-Morpork, he is also referred to simply as...

, Men at Arms
Men at Arms
Men at Arms is the 15th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett first published in 1993. It is the second novel about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch on the Discworld. Lance-constable Angua von Überwald, later in the series promoted to the rank of Sergeant, is introduced in this book...

). In Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay is the nineteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1996. The story follows the members of the City Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari.The title is a figure of speech...

, however, statues of Monolith are referred to as "troll religious statues", indicating that he is also some kind of demigod or similar. (Kaos makes a remark in Thief of Time about how "someone steals fire from the gods, and he becomes a god," so the same thing may have happened with Monolith.) He is also mentioned in Moving Pictures.

Ice Giants

Similar to the Jotuns of Norse mythology

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

, the Ice Giants are apparently necessary for the Apocralypse. When this came close to occurring during the events of Sourcery

Sourcery

Sourcery is the fifth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1988. On the Discworld, sourcerers - wizards who are sources of magic, and thus immensely more powerful than normal wizards – were the main cause of the great mage wars that left areas of the disc uninhabitable. Men born the...

, the Ice Giants, described as huge beings made of ice with tiny, coal-like eyes and riding tame glaciers, hurtled down towards the civilised world. They spoke with a pronounced Nordic

Nordic countries

The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...

accent. Nowadays seemingly redundant, they engage in small conflicts with the Gods on the smallest pretext, currently their refusal to return the lawnmower and not turning their loud music down. While they may be opposed to the Gods of Dunmanifestin, by the Discworld definition, the Ice Giants are nonetheless gods, and are worshipped whenever one of their rather inaccurate effigies (snowmen) are made. Pratchett suggested in The Discworld Companion

The Discworld Companion

The Discworld Companion is an encyclopaedia of the Discworld fictional universe created by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs.The book compiles a precise definition of words, lives of historical people, geography of places and events that have appeared in at least one Discworld novel, map, diary,...

that they might be a kind of troll

Troll (Discworld)

Trolls in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, unlike the monstrous trolls of folklore and J. R. R. Tolkien, have been subverted into a moderately civilised race. Trolls on the Discworld are, essentially, living, mobile rocks...

Small gods

This article is about the concept of small gods. For the Discworld novel also called Small Gods, see Small Gods (novel).

Small gods are a special classification of deity unique to the fictional Discworld, but with analogues in our world, particularly the Graeco-Roman concept of numina

Numina

Numen is a Latin term for a potential, guiding the course of events in a particular place or in the whole world, used in Roman philosophical and religious thought...

or the Japanese kami

Kami

is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...

. They are the gods of slightly significant places, say the point at which two snails cross. On the Disc, the power and presence of a god waxes and wanes according to the number of believers. A small god therefore is a god without enough believers to manifest in any significant form. There are two very different kinds: those who have yet to accumulate enough believers and those who were once powerful but have been forgotten. Of the former there is an almost infinite number on the Disc; Pratchett compares their hidden ubiquity to that of bacteria in our world. The other may still have memory of its former days, but its identity will be almost completely lost, even to itself.

A god may become small even if it has a large following. It is well established in the novel Small Gods that while many people call themselves Omnians, this has more to do with the participation in the religious institution rather actual direct belief. Therefore, while the following is large, the god Om himself is very small, both in size and power.

A household god

Household deity

A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world....

on the Discworld is a small god that has a limited number of committed believers, perhaps only one, but nonetheless enough to manifest in a specific visible form. The Unseen University

Unseen University

The Unseen University is a school of wizardry in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. Located in the city of Ankh-Morpork, the UU is staffed by a faculty composed of mostly indolent and inept old wizards. The university's name is a pun on the Invisible College...

was plagued by a plethora of household gods in Hogfather

Hogfather

when a surfeit of belief caused by the Hogfather's absence led to their uncontrolled random generation. It could be argued that the great god Om, having been reduced to just one true believer, was a household god for most of Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

.

The city of Ankh-Morpork

Ankh-Morpork

has a Temple of Small Gods, which provides spiritual solace to those who, while they may accept the idea of a deistic presence in the universe, don't really have a clue what it might be. Its cemetery is the favoured burial ground of the City Watch

Ankh-Morpork City Watch

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch is a fictional police force within the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett. It is based in the city-state of Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld. The Watch was originally two units, the Day Watch and the Night Watch which were combined after the events of Men at Arms...

.

The following is a list of those gods named so far which could be considered small gods or household gods:

Big Rat Underground

The creator god somewhat hazily conjectured by the Clan in The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is the 28th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published in 2001. It was the first Discworld book to be aimed at the younger market; this was followed by The Wee Free Men in 2003...

. Some of the Clan believe that if a rat has been a good rat, then when the Bone Rat comes, he will take them to the Big Rat, who has a tunnel full of food. Most of the rats who think about this are continually questioning it, so it's not clear if there is enough belief for a god to form. Still, one rat's near-death experience seems to suggest there may be something similar to the Big Rat Underground waiting for the Clan beyond death.

Bilious

The "Oh God of hangover

Hangover

A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dysphoria, diarrhea and thirst, typically after the...

s". His reason for being is to feel the after-effects of drinking, instead of the god Bibulous (the Discworld's Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

). He is one of the characters who appears during the events of Hogfather

Hogfather

, due to there being a lot of unused belief floating around.

Thanks to the wizards of the Unseen University

Unseen University

Bilious' symptoms are reversed for a time and he is able to help Susan

Susan Sto Helit

on her quest (and make Bibulous feel thoroughly miserable. After all, everyone knows a good hangover cure has got to involve a lot of humorous shouting, et cetera, and this one was made by wizards; however, since Bilious always receives Bibulous' hangovers, the negative effects of the cure are transferred in the opposite direction). While most of the beings created in Hogfather disappeared at the end, it is possible he remained because of the belief that Violet (a tooth fairy

Tooth fairy

) had in him, in which case he may have begun a relationship with her, and started a career as a temp-worker for gods that want a holiday. Or, alternatively, since it is impossible to die in the Tooth Fairy's Castle, he could still be there as he is unable to vanish from lack of belief.

Bilious appears in the TV version of Hogfather played by Rhodri Meilir.

Ceno

A "rather liberal" god in the opinion of Constable Visit, "not big on commandments". His followers died out fighting some of the most gruesome wars in the history of the Unnamed Continent. An excerpt from the Cenotine "Book of Truth" was the Chem of the golem

Golems (Discworld)

Golems in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series are derived from golems in Jewish mythology; early forms of a clay robot, supposedly awakened by a spell or priestly words to do people's bidding....

Dorfl, until Carrot Ironfoundersson purchased him and set him free by replacing it with the receipt of the purchase.

Czol

The goddess Czol was an ancient goddess of Thut before that land sank under the sea some 9,000 years ago. One does not ask about her. Mentioned in Going Postal

Going Postal

on a list of things that a messenger can't deal with. She is an ancient form of Mrs. Cake.

Glipzo

The Howondalandish tribe of this Goddess believed that their ancestors resided in the Moon. After a signal from their ancestors (an unusually large flare from the Moon) they were urged to kill anyone who didn't believe in Glipzo. Three years later the tribe was destroyed by a rock falling out of the sky, as a result of a star exploding a billion years before. Mentioned in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

God of Evolution

The paradoxical God of Evolution appears briefly in The Last Continent

The Last Continent

The Last Continent is the twenty-second Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. First published in 1998, it mocks the aspects of time traveling such as the grandfather paradox and the Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder"...

, where he is found 'sculpting' animals. Since he hasn't figured out reproduction yet, he makes every animal unique.

Although no-one believes in the God of Evolution, he survives thanks to his own strong belief. He does not believe in himself, because he is an atheist, but he believes in what he does. During events detailed in The Last Continent, he briefly takes on Ponder Stibbons as an apprentice, but scares him off when he reveals his most perfect creation to be the cockroach. This may be a reference to the real statement of J. B. S. Haldane

J. B. S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...

that "God must have inordinate fondness of beetles". He subsequently appears in The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch is a book set on the Discworld, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. It is the sequel to The Science of Discworld and The Science of Discworld II: The Globe....

, where he is inadvertently responsible for a lot of confusion. The God of Evolution exists in part to parody the concept of Intelligent Design

Intelligent design

Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...

Hyperopia

The Goddess of Shoes. She has a small following that gathers in the Temple of Small Gods and worships the Sacred Lace of Hyperopia. Mentioned in Reaper Man

Reaper Man

and Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

. Named after the technical term for long-sightedness

Hyperopia

Hyperopia, also known as farsightedness, longsightedness or hypermetropia, is a defect of vision caused by an imperfection in the eye , causing difficulty focusing on near objects, and in extreme cases causing a sufferer to be unable to focus on objects at any distance...

, and it is possible that she is inspired by the Greek goddess Nike

Nike (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Nike was a goddess who personified victory, also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. The Roman equivalent was Victoria. Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of Pallas and Styx and the sister of Kratos , Bia , and Zelus...

, and the shoes named after her

Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

Lamentatio

The Goddess of Interminable Opera. She is one of the many gods and goddesses recognised in the Temple of Small Gods. Mentioned in Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

Nuggan

Nuggan is the locally worshipped monotheistic and omnipotent God of Borogravia, but elsewhere he is known as the God of Paperclips, Correct Things in the Right Place in Small Desk Stationery Sets, and Unnecessary Paperwork. He usually sports a fussy little moustache.

His holy writ (the Book of Nuggan) is a Living Testament, into which more material is added on a regular basis. All believers regularly add pages to the ring binder Appendices, which then eventually fill with more commandments, usually Abominations unto Nuggan. By the time of Monstrous Regiment, his commandments were becoming rather nonsensical — among his ever-growing list of Abominations were cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

s, the colour blue

Blue

Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...

, Dwarfs

Dwarfs (Discworld)

, oyster

Oyster

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

s, mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

s, chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

, garlic

Garlic

Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...

, babies, cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, the smell of beet

Beet

The beet is a plant in the Chenopodiaceae family which is now included in Amaranthaceae family. It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is the purple root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet...

s, ear

Ear

The ear is the organ that detects sound. It not only receives sound, but also aids in balance and body position. The ear is part of the auditory system....

s, jigsaw puzzle

Jigsaw puzzle

A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...

s, crop rotation, shirts with six buttons, and rocks. He is also very opposed to the clacks system, as it interferes with the prayers of the faithful.

His existence is the basis for Monstrous Regiment

Monstrous Regiment (novel)

and he appears in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

. He is now dead because belief has switched to his abominations, similar to the events leading to Om's weakening in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

Ukli

The God of a Howondalandish tribe which wiped out the nearby N'tuitif tribe at his signal (an unusually large flare from the Moon). Shortly after, this tribe was also wiped out by another tribe who worshipped the goddess Glipzo. Mentioned in The Last Hero

The Last Hero

Ur-Gilash

Thousands of years ago this god was a major competitor against Om. The god now being completely forgotten by humans, only Om recalls the existence of Ur-Gilash. As a small god, he may have been encountered by Om while the tortoise-god was crossing the desert with Brutha. Om and Brutha came across a small god who knew genuine god-speech, which was such a rarity that given the location, Om reasoned that it was once Ur-Gilash himself. Mentioned in Small Gods

Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, the reformer Brutha...

Demons

The term "demon" is essentially interchangeable with "god" on the Discworld. It is even possible for some to be both at the same time. Pratchett explains the difference between them as being essentially the same as that between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters

Resistance movement

A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...

Astfgl

Astfgl is a Demon Lord, appearing in Eric

Eric (novel)

Eric, also known as Faust Eric, is the ninth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. It was originally published in 1990 as a "Discworld story", in a larger format than the other novels and illustrated by Josh Kirby...

. At the start of the book he has been made King of Hell, and his modern, go-ahead attitude is driving the other demons to distraction. In particular, Astfgl believes demons should operate Hell and extend themselves to the Discworld by creating such instances of extreme and inescapable boredom

Boredom

Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is without any activity or is not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a...

that the human brain turns to mush and the condemned soul realizes there are worse things than eternal pain (Particularly since they don't even have bodies any more and hence can't actually feel pain unless they want to). By the end, thanks to the machinations of his more old-fashioned rival Vassenego, he is "promoted" to Life President of Hell, a job that consists of writing "policy statements" while Vassenego rules in his stead.

Imps

Imps are tiny demons that perform minor tasks rapidly (similar to Maxwell's demon

Maxwell's demon

In the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics, Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment created by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell to "show that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty." It demonstrates Maxwell's point by hypothetically describing how to...

). A number of Discworld labour-saving devices exist which function by trapping small imp

Imp

An imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition. The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree.-Folklore:...

s (it is implied that they are made using magic, and in Making Money

Making Money

they are described as a "living spell", but small 'wild' demons have also been used). The most notable is the iconograph

Iconograph

An iconograph is a picture formed by a word or words. It can take the form of irregularly shaped letters or irregularly aligned text....

, but others include watches (The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic

, Reaper Man

Reaper Man

, Thief of Time

Thief of Time

), food processors (Nanny Ogg's Cookbook

Nanny Ogg's Cookbook

Nanny Ogg's Cookbook is a book of recipes and wisdom of the Discworld character Nanny Ogg by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs and Tina Hannan, and illustrated by Paul Kidby...

), razors (Thud!

Thud!

) and personal "dis-organisers" (Feet of Clay

Feet of Clay

Feet of Clay is the nineteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1996. The story follows the members of the City Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari.The title is a figure of speech...

, Jingo

Jingo (novel)

Jingo is the 21st novel by Terry Pratchett, one of his Discworld series. It was published in 1997. The rising of a previously submerged island and the subconstituent sovereignty dispute were inspired by the real-life island of Ferdinandea.-Plot:...

, The Truth

The Truth (novel)

The Truth is the twenty-fifth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 2000.The book features the coming of movable type to Ankh-Morpork, and the founding of the Discworld's first newspaper by William de Worde, as he invents investigative journalism with the help of his reporter Sacharissa...

, Thud!

Thud!

).

The imps in these devices seem not to mind their jobs, although they get sarcastic if overworked or asked to do things outside their purview. They also seem to lack imagination making them (theoretically) more reliable to do things correctly.

Neuralger

A neuralger is a female demon

Demon

call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

which comes to men in their dream

Dream

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...

s and has a headache at them. They are usually summoned by mistake, by demonologists who were expecting a succubus

Succubus

In folklore traced back to medieval legend, a succubus is a female demon appearing in dreams who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus...

. The Neuralger is mentioned in Eric

Eric (novel)

, although a similar concept appears in Pratchett's (non-Discworld) drabble

Drabble

A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction of exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often erroneously used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words...

Incubust. From Neuralgia

Neuralgia

Neuralgia is pain in one or more nerves that occurs without stimulation of pain receptor cells. Neuralgia pain is produced by a change in neurological structure or function rather than by the excitation of pain receptors that causes nociceptive pain. Neuralgia falls into two categories: central...

the medical term for a painful disorder of the nerves often resulting in severe headaches.

Quezovercoatl

While being basically a demon of relatively low rank, Quezovercoatl (also known as The Feathered Boa

Feather boa

A feather boa is a fashion accessory that is usually worn wrapped around the neck like a scarf.-Construction:A boa can be made of fur, but it is usually made instead from various types of feathers. Ostrich, marabou, chandelle, and turkey are the most common feathers used, although non-feather boas...

), was the god of Human Sacrifices in the Tezuman Empire's state religion. He appears in Eric

Eric (novel)

and is described as half-man, half-chicken, half-jaguar, half-serpent, half-scorpion and half-mad (a total of three homicidal maniacs). Because his physical form was some six inches tall in real life, he had relied on appearing in visions to guide his followers. Conversion was probably sped by the bloodthirsty nature of his religion and the fact that the Tezumen were at the time worshipping a stick. Eventually he was forced into appearing physically by Astfgl, whereupon he was trampled by The Luggage. After some time spent worshipping the Luggage, to no avail, the Tezumen finally killed off their priests and settled for atheism. His name is a portmanteau of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...

and the word "overcoat".

Orm

The Great God of the Strict Authorized Ormits. He can usually be found residing in one of the Nether Hells. As of the Year of the Cobra there are only two known worshippers left; a student assassin (Arthur Ludorum) and his mother.

The correct worshipping of Orm seems to consist of sacrificing a goat within a double circle with occult runes, a sprig of herbs and a rope of skulls. It is said that, as a punishment for not worshipping him, Orm comes in the night, winds out your entrails on a stick and sucks out your eyeballs. By the completion of his assassin training, Arthur appears to have become a "lapsed Ormite", having noticed the aforementioned punishment never happened. Mentioned in Pyramids

Pyramids (Discworld)

Anthropomorphic personifications

An anthropomorphic personification
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

is a natural process endowed with human form and personality. On the Disc, personifications are fully fledged characters whose personalities have evolved beyond their "jobs". The difference between "god" and "anthropomorphic personification" in the Disc's pantheon is unclear; essentially it appears to be that a "god" is a being assigned a wide range of roles and powers by human belief, while personifications embody concepts and things that would exist whether people believed in them or not. However, Anthropomorphic Personifications of the disc would cease to exist if total belief in them stopped. (see The Hogfather.) Belief shapes how a personification manifests, not what it does. There are a number of ambiguities. For example, Death is certainly a personification (since living things die whether or not people believe they do), as are his fellow Apocralyptic (Apocryphally apocalyptic) riders Kaos, War, Pestilence and Famine. However, Fate and The Lady (i.e. Lady Luck), despite personifying concepts, are better thought of as gods, since one has to believe in fate or luck for them to exist.

The Creator

The Discworld Creator appears in Eric

Eric (novel)

. He is a little rat-faced man with a put-upon voice made for complaining, who created the Discworld while the main universe was being built, and it was obviously on a budget.

He was not responsible for creating the entire universe, and is somewhat disparaging of it, describing the Big Bang

Big Bang

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...

as "showy". After creating the Discworld, he left behind his personal grimoire

Grimoire

A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...

, the Octavo. This was, apparently, typical absent-mindedness; he says he once created a world

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

and completely forgot the fingles. No-one noticed, because they evolved there and didn't know there should be fingles, but they could tell there was something missing somewhere, and it caused them deep psychological problems.

Rincewind

Rincewind

is believed to have had a hand in creating humans on the Discworld, as described in Eric, when he met the Creator and dropped an egg and cress sandwich (with no mayo) that the Creator had brought into being for him, into a rockpool. He believes that this may have kick started evolution, and isn't happy about it (possibly because this was the first good thing to happen to Rincewind, and he wasn't there to see it).

The various aspects of the Creator's act of Creation are remembered vaguely by the spirits of the Octavo, who spend a great deal of time arguing over which event was the true act of Creation. They are described in mythological terms but seem more mundane than they might appear – the Cosmic Egg is described as "rubbery" – and it is only later that we learn how mundane these events appeared when the Creator actually performed them.

It is strongly implied that the Creator's physical appearance is a reference to Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

himself, and he is a self-parody of Pratchett's own act of creation in writing the novels.

The Creator of XXXX

The Creator of XXXX is not the same Creator who made the rest of the Disc. As described by "Scrappy" the kangaroo

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series for children created by John McCallum, produced from 1966–1968, telling the adventures of a young boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, in the Waratah National Park in Duffys Forest, near Sydney, New South Wales.Ninety-one 30-minute...

(a manifestation of a Trickster

Trickster

In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...

), after the world was made, there was a big space in an ocean with nothing in it, so another Creator added on another continent. Kangaroos are apparently a kind of signature – he includes them in every place he creates (implying that Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

itself was created by him, but also possibly in reference to Australian cartoonist Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

, who frequently includes "Rolf-aroo" self-caricatures in his work). The Creator is described as being an old aborigine man, with skin as black as space and deep set eyes. He wears just a loin cloth, and carries a spear, a leather sack that contains the universe (according to legend), and a boomerang – described as being a large, heavy, gently curving object that does not return on account of being stuck in the ribcage of what it was thrown at. He doesn't speak unless he has to, and only speaks in a whisper when he does – and the ground rumbles slightly at even that. As described in The Last Continent, he doesn't dare raise his voice in "the shadow world" lest he raise mountains as well.

The Hogfather

The Discworld's version of Father Christmas

Father Christmas

Father Christmas is the name used in many English-speaking countries for a figure associated with Christmas. A similar figure with the same name exists in several other countries, including France , Spain , Brazil , Portugal , Italy , Armenia , India...

or Santa Claus

Santa Claus

Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...

. He wears a red, fur-lined cloak, and rides a sleigh pulled by four wild boars (or, in modern portrayals, cute pink piggies), Gouger, Rooter, Tusker and Snouter. In earlier times he gave households pork products, and naughty children a bag of bloody bones. Earlier than that, he was a winter god of the death-and-renewal kind

Life-death-rebirth deity

A dying god, also known as a dying-and-rising or resurrection deity, is a god who dies and is resurrected or reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Male examples include the ancient Near Eastern and Greek deities Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Attis Tammuz, Asclepius, Orpheus, as well as...

. The modern version is a jolly toymaker, with vestiges of the earlier myths (such as his Castle of Bones, a vast palace of ice which has nothing notably bony about it, except for the suggestion of a protruding femur

Femur

The femur , or thigh bone, is the most proximal bone of the leg in tetrapod vertebrates capable of walking or jumping, such as most land mammals, birds, many reptiles such as lizards, and amphibians such as frogs. In vertebrates with four legs such as dogs and horses, the femur is found only in...

or scapula

Scapula

In anatomy, the scapula , omo, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus with the clavicle ....

here and there) still clinging to him.

In the book Hogfather

Hogfather

, the Hogfather first appears in the manifestation of a wild boar

Boar

Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...

. Death and his granddaughter Susan manage to save him, in order that the sun might rise in the morning. Without the Hogfather, according to Death, the Discworld would merely be 'ILLUMINATED BY A BALL OF GLOWING GAS.'

The Hogfather is one of a number of beings that hover on the boundary between "god" and "personification", yet probably is best thought of as the latter, since people still receive presents at Hogswatchnight, even if they no longer believe in him. The Hogfather was first mentioned in Reaper Man

Reaper Man

and dealt with extensively in Hogfather

Hogfather

The Horsemen of the Apocralypse

Besides Death, the Horsemen of the Apocralypse are War, Famine and Pestilence (and, originally, Kaos). Like Death (and many other anthropomorphic personifications) they have developed beyond their roles. They make a brief appearance in The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

and subsequently have more significant roles in Sourcery

Sourcery

and Thief of Time

Thief of Time

. War and his children also make an appearance in Interesting Times

Interesting Times

War is an overly jolly and enthusiastic man, something like the less sadistic kind of gym teacher, in red armour. He is married to a former Valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...

, who does his thinking for him, and has lost some interest in war by Thief of Time
Thief of Time
Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, a 2002 Locus Award nominee.-Plot summary:The Auditors are upset because the human race are living their lives in - what the Auditors consider to be - an unpredictable way...

, although he likes watching ants fight in his garden. They have two sons (Terror and Panic) and one daughter (Clancy). Clancy appears to be about seven years old, and wears a hard hat
Hard hat
A hard hat is a type of helmet predominantly used in workplace environments, such as construction sites, to protect the head from injury by falling objects, impact with other objects, debris, bad weather and electric shock. Inside the helmet is a suspension that spreads the helmet's weight over the...

and a Pony Club
Pony Club
Pony Club is an international youth organization devoted to the educating youths about horses and riding. Pony Club organizations exist in over 30 countries worldwide...

badge.

Famine is, as his name suggests, permanently hungry (or at least, permanently eating, although this may be merely to ensure others go hungry). While he enjoys good food, he also enjoys salad cream
Salad cream
Salad cream is a creamy, yellow condiment based on an emulsion of about 25-50 percent of oil in water, emulsified by egg yolk and acidified by spirit vinegar, and with other ingredients which may include sugar, mustard, salt, thickener, spices, flavouring and colouring. It was introduced in the...

sandwiches. Amongst the personality traits he has picked up from humans is arrogance.

Pestilence's sense of self has led to a sense of self-preservation. Beyond that, his most notable personality trait is an annoyance with soap, although he likes hospitals, which gather sick people together. In early appearances he spoke in italics (representing a voice that sounds contagious), but this was dropped by Thief of Time.

Jack Frost

Leaves frosty tracings on icy windows. Can draw anything, but happens to really like fern patterns. Mentioned in Hogfather

Hogfather

, when the newly created Verruca Gnome (a household god that went around dispensing foot warts

Plantar wart

-External links:* at the Mayo Clinic website* at The Merck Manual* at dermnet.com...

) convinced him to branch out from ferns, feathers, and paisley, and there are references throughout the rest of the book to a window forming a picture such as three puppies looking out of a boot.

Kaos, aka Ronnie Soak

An anthropomorphic

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

personification of Chaos

Chaos (cosmogony)

Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....

, originally spelled with a "K". The fifth horseman of the Apocralypse who left before they became famous (a play on the fifth Beatle

Fifth Beatle

The Fifth Beatle is an informal title that various commentators in the press and entertainment industry have applied to persons who were at one point a member of The Beatles, or who had a strong association with the "Fab Four" during the group's existence...

), known for his disruptive behavior whenever the horsemen attempted to interact with mortals, a parody of various stories of temperamental rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

stars. Rides a chariot rather than a horse and wields a sword so cold that it has negative heat – it radiates cold, symbolizing in general Kaos' power to reverse entropy

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

and violate laws of probability

Probability

Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...

.

His abandonment of the Four Horsemen coincided with a decreasing sense among humans of the nature of the unpredictable Kaos from which the universe sprang as their world became increasingly civilized. He was persuaded to return to power in a new form by Lu-Tze, one of "his creatures" (an individual naturally defiant of odds and of the way things ought to go), after learning how to exist in a symbiotic rather than hostile relationship with order, and also that the vastly increasing complexity of civilization and laws only made their effects more widespread and unpredictable. In Thief of Time

Thief of Time

, he changes from the ancient Kaos of old to a slicker, altogether more modern and mathematically complex Chaos

Chaos theory

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...

(Pratchett uses the butterfly effect

Butterfly effect

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state...

and fractals as recurring themes leading up to this). His intervention is decisive in giving the other four horsemen the power to defeat the "overwhelming odds" of the Auditors, for whom he holds a special hatred and whom he refers to as "The Law".

When not heralding the destruction of all that is (or saving it from the Auditors), he runs a very fine dairy, using his super-cold sword (which is so cold that he is considering expanding to ice cream

Ice cream

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...

to keep things from getting too cold) and his ability to move outside of time to be able to sell any dairy product in existence (derived from any species' milk, including alligator), perfectly fresh, perfectly cold, and always arriving at precisely 7:00 a.m. simultaneously at every household in the city to sell his wares. Known for being the only person punctual enough to please Jeremy Clockson's preternatural awareness of time.

Old Man Trouble

Comes round your door if you ain't got rhythm and you ain't got music. It's best if you don't mind him. Mentioned in Soul Music

Soul Music

Soul Music is the sixteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1994. Like many of Pratchett's novels it introduces an element of modern society into the magical and vaguely late medieval, early modern world of the Discworld, in this case Rock and Roll music and stardom, with...

, Thief of Time

Thief of Time

and Hogfather

Hogfather

as one of the gods who, having lost his purpose, has truly gone insane. Also mentioned as being in an Anhk-Morpork bar in Feet of Clay

Feet of Clay

. A reference to the George

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

and Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....

tune "I Got Rhythm

I Got Rhythm

"I Got Rhythm" is a song composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and published in 1930, which became a jazz standard. Its chord progression, known as the "rhythm changes", is the foundation for many other popular jazz tunes such as Charlie Parker's and Dizzy Gillespie's Bebop...

The Sandman

Presumably the personification of slumber, The Sandman uses bags of sand to put people to sleep, though in Soul Music it is mentioned that he doesn't take the sand out of them, implying that he uses the bags to knock his clients out.

Soul Cake Duck

An analogue of the Easter Bunny

Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny or Easter Rabbit is a character depicted as a rabbit bringing Easter eggs, who sometimes is depicted with clothes...

, it comes on Soul Cake Tuesday
(the Disc's equivalent of Halloween). Soul Cake Tuesday is also the start of the duck-hunting season, which complicates the story somewhat. The first duck

Duck

Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...

to appear on Soul Cake Tuesday is considered very lucky, although this luck clearly doesn't apply to that duck itself. Mentioned in Soul Music

Soul Music

and Hogfather

Hogfather

, with further details from The Discworld Companion

The Discworld Companion

. Soul cake

Soul cake

A Soul cake is a small round cake which is traditionally made for All Saints Day or All Souls' Day to celebrate the dead. The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, were given out to soulers who would go from door to door on Halloween singing and saying prayers for the dead. Each cake eaten...

s are a real-world feature of Halloween in some parts of England.

It can also be seen as a reference to Pancake Tuesday in the UK, as it also always falls on a Tuesday, and shredded duck is commonly served in pancakes.

The Summer Lady

The spirit of Summer, she is asleep when the Wintersmith is awake and vice versa; they meet only at the Spring and Autumn Morris dance

Morris dance

Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...

s. She appears towards the end of Wintersmith

Wintersmith

resembling Tiffany Aching

Tiffany Aching

, but says her real form is "the shape of heat on a road, the shape of the smell of apples". She is, at her core, the element of Fire. Her natural home, her "heart", lies in the blasted deserts where all life dies. She speaks in a hiss and has golden, snakelike eyes. She carries a cornucopia

Cornucopia

The cornucopia or horn of plenty is a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers, nuts, other edibles, or wealth in some form...

, and plants grow where she walks. Like all elemental

Elemental

An elemental is a mythological being first appearing in the alchemical works of Paracelsus in the 16th century. Traditionally, there are four types:*gnomes, earth elementals*undines , water elementals*sylphs, air elementals...

s she does not understand humans, which makes her somewhat petulant when forced to deal with them.

Time

Originally a dark-haired woman who resided in a palace of glass, she had an affair with the founder of the History Monks

History Monks

, Wen the Eternally Surprised, which led to the birth of two sons, or, more accurately, two different versions of the same son. One, Lobsang Ludd, eventually became a History Monk himself under the tutelage of Lu-Tze; the other, Jeremy Clockson, became a brilliant if socially maladjusted clockmaker. The Auditors eventually fooled Jeremy into constructing a truly accurate clock, which halted the passage of time. Able to move outside of time, both "brothers" eventually met and fused, becoming the new personification of Time, allowing history to recommence from where it had left off, and their mother to go on a long honeymoon with Wen. This new personification has been romantically linked with Susan Sto Helit

Susan Sto Helit

, Death's granddaughter. Appeared in Thief of Time

Thief of Time

Tooth Fairy

Unlike our concept of the Tooth Fairy

Tooth fairy

, the Discworld Tooth Fairy is operated as a franchise. Tooth collection is subcontracted to ordinary young women who walk the streets at night with money, ladders and pliers (the pliers are necessary in case the tooth collector finds herself without the correct change – a second tooth can be taken to balance the books). The Tooth Fairy lives in an unreal place shaped by the idea of a child's painting. The entity that became the Tooth Fairy personification was originally the first bogeyman. The bogeyman's stated purpose in establishing this was to prevent the teeth from falling into the wrong hands, as they could be used to control the children. It seems that centuries of watching children had given it an affection for them, much like Death has for humans. The role is eventually delegated to Banjo Lilywhite by Susan Sto Helit

Susan Sto Helit

. Appears in Hogfather

Hogfather

The Wintersmith

The personification of Winter

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...

, he appears in Wintersmith

Wintersmith

, where he believes he's fallen in love with Tiffany Aching

Tiffany Aching

. At his core he is the elemental personification of ice. Originally just a shape in the snow, with two violet eyes, he later formed a "snowman" out of all the elements that make a human body. He creates snowflakes and icebergs, and also the patterns of ice on windows (which may make him the same as Jack Frost

Jack Frost

Jack Frost is a sprite-like character with roots in Viking lore. There, he is known as Jokul Frosti . In Britain and United States, Jack is a variant of Old Man Winter and is held responsible for frosty weather, for nipping the nose and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, and...

, although this does not appear to be the case. Possibly Jack Frost is a subordinate, or an avatar of some kind, or merely formed from the extraneous belief like the Verruca Gnome).

Other personifications

In the novel Hogfather

Hogfather

the "demise" of that personification led to the uncontrolled random generation of a number of anthropomorphic personifications as the excess belief that would have normally gone into sustaining the Hogfather sought other outlets. Some, such as Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers- whose entire role in life was to have the headache while the God of Wine had the party-, appear to have survived the Hogfather's return to power. The fate of the rest is unknown, though they are likely to simply have vanished. These personifications included the Cheerful Fairy, a kind of motivational speaker

Motivational speaker

A motivational speaker or inspirational speaker is a speaker who makes speeches intended to motivate or inspire an audience. In a business context, they are employed to communicate company strategy with clarity and help employees to see the future in a positive light and inspire workers to pull...

with a whistle and a tracksuit, the Blue Hen of Happiness, a pun on the "bluebird of happiness" that accompanies the Cheerful Fairy, the Scissor Man (a play on the "great, long, red-legged scissor man" from Shock-Headed Peter

Struwwelpeter

Der Struwwelpeter is a popular German children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the...

), the Hair Loss Fairy and the Eater of Socks, which lives near washing machines and has an elephant's trunk. The Verruca Gnome was created by Mustrum Ridcully when remarking about his own opinion that a gnome to hand out verrucas has just as much probability of existing as a tooth fairy. The first of these personifications to be created was the Glingleglingleglingle Fairy, which makes the jingling sound that occurred whenever one of the new personifications manifested, and thus, as Pratchett notes, could be considered a kind of "meta-personification".

The Old High Ones

These are beings far more powerful than gods (who are, from their point of view, only slightly more troublesome versions of human beings) who control the workings of the multiverse

Parallel universe (fiction)

A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

. There are eight of them, according to The Discworld Companion

The Discworld Companion

, and they are not worshipped on the Discworld

Discworld (world)

, the general populace being unaware of their existence. They are only very ambiguously

Ambiguity

Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...

referred to in some of the Discworld religions and the most that Discworld scholars have learned is that eight 'entities' exist.

There is no single word that can effectively explain their role, which seems to be to observe in a dynamic way, in order for the observed events to actually be able to happen (think of the old Berkeleian

If a tree falls in a forest

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality.-History:...

question "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?"). It might be simpler to say the multiverse exists because they believe in it.

Virtually nothing is known about their role in Discworld affairs, except that, in prehistory, they substantially reduced the amount of magic on the Discworld and made humans smaller, owing to the strain the Sourcerers

Sourcery

were putting on the fabric of reality in their war on the gods and each other.

Death

Death (Discworld)

is their servant, and it is likely that The Creator and Time are as well. They are also the apparent employers of The Auditors of Reality

Auditors of Reality

, although they seem to ignore the Auditors' recent tendency to break their own rules. Presumably they have their reasons.

They may be derived from the Great Old Ones in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

.

Only one has been mentioned in the books so far, Azrael. The other seven – if they have names – have not been revealed.

Azrael

Azrael, also known as the Great Attractor

Great Attractor

The Great Attractor is a gravity anomaly in intergalactic space within the range of the Centaurus Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass equivalent to tens of thousands of Milky Ways, observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated...

and the Death of Universes, is apparently not a worshipped god on the Discworld, but he exists nonetheless, and is an entity of enormously unthinkable scope and size. While there are many 'Deaths' for different worlds (who are themselves divided into Deaths for different creatures) in the Discworld novels Azrael is their ruler. All other Deaths are aspects of him (a similar relationship as the Discworld Death

Death (Discworld)

has to the Death of Rats).

When he appears, it is as a figure so immense as to make a supernova a mere gleam in his eyes and he takes a whole page to say YES. His size suggests that he may, in fact, be the universe itself. He also appears to be the keeper of what is logically the opposite of a clock, in that it tells Time what it is, and not the other way around. Azrael's connection with the personification of Time (currently the combination of Lobsang Ludd and his temporal double Jeremy Clockson) is unknown. Statements of the clock seem to indicate that it is a measure of the life of the entire universe (the Universe hand only goes around once). The clock also bears a minute hand, a millenium hand, and an eon hand

Particle Man

"Particle Man" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. The song is the seventh track on the band's 1990 release, Flood. It has become one of their most popular songs, despite never being released as a single.- Lyrical content :...

.

In the revised version of The Discworld Companion

The Discworld Companion

, Azrael is described as one of the Old High Ones.

Azrael clearly has a personality and a concept of mercy

Mercy

Mercy is broad term that refers to benevolence, forgiveness and kindness in a variety of ethical, religious, social and legal contexts.The concept of a "Merciful God" appears in various religions from Christianity to...

like his servant, the Death of the Discworld. He appears in an integral role (although not particularly often) in Reaper Man

Reaper Man

and overrules the Auditors' wishes, allowing the Discworld Death to carry out his own merciful bending of the rules for a personal case when he agrees to Death's demand ?

Dark Gods

Although Pratchett never makes the connection explicit, the dark gods of the Necrotelicomnicon are probably creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions that have found a way to survive in the main discworld universe. If that's the case, then they cannot be seen as gods per se, or even as demons, since their existence is not dependent on human belief; nor can they be placed on the same moral spectrum as gods or demons, since, as they are completely lacking in vitality, they are neither good nor evil, but the opposite of both. Rather than being generated by human belief, they instead represent the aspects of reality that are truly unknowable and hostile to the attempts of human belief to shape it into recognizable forms. The names of the Dark Gods are often references to creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos

Cthulhu Mythos

The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...

.

The Necrotelicomnicon itself is a powerful grimoire

Grimoire

. Its name is a portmanteau of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

's "Necronomicon

Necronomicon

The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...

" and "telecom".

Since the "Necronomicon" is sometimes referred to as "The Book of Dead Names" or "The Book of The Dead", "Necrotelicomnicon" could be translated as "The Book of Dead Telephone Numbers" or simply "Phonebook of the Dead". The book is also known as the Liber Paginarum Fulvarum, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

for "The Book of Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...

". It lists all the old, dark god

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

s of the Discworld (i.e. the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions). The First Edition, kept in the basement of the Library of Unseen University

Unseen University

, has been known to eat readers. This is not unusual for library items. It is said that any man who reads more than a few pages will die insane, which works out fine for the Librarian; he is an orangutan

Orangutan

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

and thus, not a "man".

It was written by the Klatchian mystic Achmed the Mad, who apparently preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches, (a parody of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

's mad Arab Abdul Alhazred

Abdul Alhazred

Abdul Alhazred is a fictional character created by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. He is the so-called "Mad Arab" credited with authoring the imaginary book Kitab al-Azif , and as such an integral part of Cthulhu Mythos lore....

) after drinking too much Klatchian coffee. Achmed is also the author of Achmed The I Just Get These Headache's Book of Humorous Cat Stories, the writing of which was said to have driven him mad in the first place.

Grimoires called Paginarum Fulvarum (Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages

) also appear in Good Omens

Good Omens

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a World Fantasy Award nominated novel written in collaboration between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman....

(co-written by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

) and Gaiman's Sandman

Sandman (Vertigo)

The Sandman is a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. Beginning with issue #47, it was placed under the imprint Vertigo. It chronicles the adventures of Dream , who rules over the world of dreams. It ran for 75 issues from January 1989 until March 1996...

comic book. Pratchett calls it a "shared joke", and in the dedication to Equal Rites

Equal Rites

thanks Gaiman for lending him the last surviving copy of the book.

Bel-Shamharoth

Bel-Shamharoth is also known as the "Soul-Eater," the "Soul-Render," or the "Sender of Eight." The inner dimensions of his eight-sided temple disobey a fairly basic rule of architecture by being bigger on the inside than on the outside, like many other Discworld buildings. It is quite disgusting, full of tunnels covered with unpleasant carvings and disjointed skeletons, and lit by a violet light almost black. The eight-sided crystals set at intervals shed a rather unpleasant glow that does not light the room, rather emphasizing the darkness. The floor is covered with eight-sided tiles (impossible with regular octagons, which do not tessellate

Tessellation

A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a pattern of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art...

, but possible for some irregular eight-sided figures, and hyperbolic octagons) and the walls slope to create eight-sided corridors. Even the stones can sometimes be seen to have eight sides. All routes lead to the centre, where an intense violet light illuminates a wide room with eight walls and eight passages. In the room, there is a low, eight-sided altar and a huge stone slab, also eight-sided, and slightly tilted. Under that is a black tentacled creature with an enormous eye and thousands of suckers and tentacles and mandibles: Bel-Shamharoth.

The temple is long since abandoned, worship of the Sender of Eight being a decidedly short term prospect. These days he is mostly remembered in the name of the Young Men's Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God Bel-Shamharoth Association. His likeness is etched on the cover of the Octavo.

Terry Pratchett is well known for his references to, and parodies of the works of other authors, and indeed Bel-Shamharoth is one such- he bears many similarities to Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...

of H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

's Cthulhu Mythos

Cthulhu Mythos

. Yog-Sothoth

Yog-Sothoth

Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity of the fictional Cthulhu Mythos and the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. Yog-Sothoth's name was first mentioned in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward...

is another of Lovecraft's entities, who is referred to as "the eater of souls" in Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus!. Also in that work Yog-Sothoth is imprisoned in a castle of five sides, not eight. With these, along with the hyphenated name, one could suggest that Yog-Sothoth is also a partial inspiration for Bel-Shamharoth.

Another, possibly better, source might be the name Shemhamphorasch

Shemhamphorasch

The Shemhamphorasch is a corruption of the Hebrew term , which was used in tannaitic times to refer to the Tetragrammaton. In early Kabbalah the term was used to designate sometimes a seventy-two Letter name for God, and sometimes a forty two Letter name...

, one of the alternate Hebrew names of God, which has over the centuries acquired occult significance and was adopted by Anton LaVey for rituals of his Church of Satan.

Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures (novel)

Moving Pictures is the name of the tenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1990. The book takes place in Discworld's most famous city, Ankh-Morpork and a town called "Holy Wood"...

, however, also lists a more direct parody of Yog-Sothoth — the "outerdimensional" entity Yob Sodoth, recognisable by his distinctive cry of "Yerwhatyerwhatyerwhat!" The latter is a famous football (soccer) chant, indicating that the opposing fans are barely audible; in this context Yob Sod Off is a more likely derivation. (In England the word 'Yob' is a term for a person of rude and disrespectful behaviour.)

Other

Other Dark Gods mentioned in the series include The Insider — a parody of the Lovecraft short story "The Outsider

The Outsider (short story)

"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious man who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search...

", and C'hulagen (likely a portmanteau of Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...

and hooligan), both of which are mentioned in Equal Rites

Equal Rites

. The computer game Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir

features a parody of Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep, also known as the Crawling Chaos, is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos fictional universe created by H. P. Lovecraft. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem of the same name, he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers and in the tabletop...

, the Crawling Chaos, named Nylonathetep, the Laddering Horror. Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with a Million Young, who according to Victor Tugelbend tortures his victims to death by showing them pictures of his grandchildren until their brains implode, could be a reference to Shub-Niggurath

Shub-Niggurath

Shub-Niggurath, often associated with the phrase “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”, is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft...

, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, and possibly also Tsathoggua

Tsathoggua

Tsathoggua is a fictional supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. He is the creation of Clark Ashton Smith and is part of his Hyperborean cycle....

, often described as "toad-like".

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