Discworld_gods Discworld_gods

Discworld gods - Definition and Overview

The Discworld gods are the fictional deities from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. They live in a valhalla-like mountain-top kingdom in the centre of the Discworld called Dunmanifestin (a pun on the traditional British house name Dunroamin).

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.

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The Auditors of Reality

The Auditors of Reality are supernatural entities and celestial bureaucrats. They make sure that gravity works, file the appropriate paperwork for each chemical reaction, and so forth. The Auditors hate life, because it's messy and unpredictable, which makes them fall behind on their paperwork; they much prefer barren balls of rock orbiting stars in neat, easily predictable elliptical paths. They really hate humans, who are much more messy and unpredictable than other living things.

Fortunately for living things, the Auditors can't simply wipe out life, because that's against the Rules; the Auditors can't break the Rules because, in a certain sense, they are the Rules. Unfortunately, a loophole exists in the Rules which allows the Auditors to influence humans into doing what they cannot do directly; in several of the Discworld novels, the Auditors hire humans to perform tasks that will make the world less "messy", paying them with the gold they created out of thin air using their abilities to manipulate reality.

Being personifications of a concept, the Auditors have no fixed shape. When they manifest in the world, however, they almost always appear as empty grey cowled robes, an appearance which conveys drabness and dullness rather than danger.

The Auditors have no discerning characteristics among themselves and function as a collective; when one speaks, it speaks for all of them, and each Auditor works uniformly with countless numbers of other Auditors. In the rare cases when an Auditor appears to develop an individual personality (such as using a personal pronoun to refer to itself or experiencing an emotion) it spontaneously ceases to exist. This happens because, as far as the Auditors are concerned, to have a personality is to be a living being with a beginning and an end, the intervening time between which seems infinitely small to entities who have experienced eternity. This does not seem to have any impact on the rest of the Auditors except maybe as an example to be avoided, because another Auditor immediately takes the place of its vapourised colleague.

Interestingly, the primary opponent of the Auditors' plans for eliminating life is Death. Death does not see himself as the enemy of life, but rather an integral part of it, giving rest to the old and weary, and ensuring that the world doesn't become completely stuffed with life. He has also, over the millennia of performing his function, developed a certain fondness for the humans he ushers into the world beyond.

The Auditors of Reality have appeared in the Discworld novels Reaper Man, Hogfather and Thief of Time.

Bilious

The "oh-god of hangovers". His reason for being is to feel the after-effects of drinking, instead of the god Bibulous (the Discworld's Bacchus). He is one of the characters who appears during the events of Hogfather.

Thanks to the wizards of the Unseen University Bilious' symptoms are reversed for a time and he is able to help Susan on her quest. 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) 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.

Blind Io

Blind Io is the current king of the gods. Io means "I See", and in nature he is seemingly an amalgam of Odin and Zeus, with elements of Thor — seen primarily in his use of a number of different hammers (seventy, actually, as detailed by Om in Small Gods). He is completely blind 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.

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 lightning, as detailed by Om in Small Gods, who stated that thunder was allowed for common use by all deities but lightning was strictly regulated.

Bel-Shamharoth

Bel-Shamharoth is also known as The "Soul-Eater", the "Soul-Render", or the "Sender of Eight". He is completely lacking in vitality so therefore cannot even be considered Evil. He is the opposite of Good and Evil. He is likely one of the creatures of the Dungeon Dimensions who has survived in our world. 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 (note that this should be impossible, as octagons do not tessellate) 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 alter 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 Cultist of the Ichor God Bel-Shamharoth Association.

The Creator

The Discworld Creator appears in Eric. He is a little rat-faced man with a put-upon voice made for complaining with, who created the Discworld while the main universe was being built, and it was obviously on a budget. It is clear that World Creation is purely a mechanical function and doesn't call for godlike attributes.

He was not responsible for creating of the rest of the Universe, and is somewhat disparaging of it, describing the Big Bang as "showy". After creating the Discworld, he left behind his personal grimore, the Octavo. This was, apparently, typical absent-mindedness; he says he once created a world 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.

Two other Creators are also introduced in Pratchett's The Last Continent. One is an old aborigine man with a sack, who draws his designs out carefully and is busy creating the continent of XXXX (which resembles Australia). The other, in the same novel, is the god of evolution. He sticks each animal together individually, piece by piece and then commands it to adapt to the most useful form. His greatest and most pleasing creation is the cockroach.

Rincewind is believed to have had a hand in creating humans on the Discworld, as described in The Last Continent, on one of his trips back in time he dropped a prawn sandwich into a rockpool, and he believes that this may have kick started evolution, and isn't happy about it. This actually seems to happen in Eric, but the sandwhich is of a different type.

Nuggan

Nuggan is the locally worshipped monotheistic and omnipotent god of Borogravia, but elsewhere he is in charge of paperclips and unnecessary paperwork. Usually sports a fussy little moustache.

He first appeared in The Last Hero, at which time he prohibited the eating of chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic by his followers.

His existence is the basis for Monstrous Regiment. His holy writ is the only known Living Testament, into which more material is, if not magically, then religiously added on a regular basis. All believers regularly add pages to the clip-binder Appendices, which regularly fill with more commandments, usually Abominations unto Nuggan. By the time of Monstrous Regiment, his commandments were becoming rather nonsensical. Very opposed to the clacks system, as it intereferes with the prayers of the faithful. Among his ever-growing list of "Abominations" are cats, the colour blue, Dwarfs, oysters, babies, cheese, the smell of beets, and ears.

He is thought to be either insane or dead.

Offler

Offler is a six-armed crocodile 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. Offler speaks with a lisp because of his crocodile mouth which is not ideal for human language.

His followers are called Offlians. Also the first month of the Agricultural year, Offle, is named after him.

Om

Om is an omnipotent, omnipresent god in the country of Omnia. His Temple resides in Kom, presumably the capital, and his followers are known as Omnians.

Unlike the major discworld gods, who exist as a panatheon, Om is a monotheistic deity whose followers insist that he the one and only true God. This may be a reference to the real world religion of Christianity in its early days. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Omnians insist that the world is round.

Omnianism used to be an intolerant religion, not because Om was an intolerant god, but because he was largely an indifferent one. After spending some time trapped in the shape of a tortoise his perspective was changed, and he allowed Brutha to turn Omnianism into one of the Discworld's more tolerant religions, although they still insist Om is the only real god (Although there is some conflict here - in the book "Jingo", Constable "Washpot" Visit notes that "There's a god on every side.") Visit's full name is 'Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets'; many modern Omnians are given similar names, such as 'Smite-The-Unbeliever-With-Cunning-Arguments'. This in contrast to older Omnians, who were given bloodier names.

The Book of Om says that witches shall not be allowed to live, although this may be a typo since it also says that they may be caught in traps of treacle. This has led some to believe the word may in fact be cockroaches.

The Quisition uses the Torquus Simiae Maleficarum (The Monkey Wrench of Witches) to identify witches.

God of Evolution

The paradoxical God of Evolution appears briefly in The Last Continent, where he is found 'sculpting' animals. Since he hasn't figured out reproduction yet, he makes every animal unique.

He briefly takes on Ponder Stibbons as an apprentice.

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