Death's manservant & formerly 'Alberto Malich the Wise', Founder of the Unseen University.

Albert, previously known as Alberto Malich - one of the most powerful wizards of his time and founder of the Unseen University, tried to gain immortality by performing the Rite of AshkEnte backwards - he reasoned that a spell designed to bring Death to you, performed backwards, would keep him away from you.

It worked, in a way, since Malich was sent to Death's Domain, where Time does not flow the same as it does on the Discworld. Death decided to spare Albert and employs him now as his manservant.

At the time of his acceptance of the position, 'Albert' had 91 days, three hours and five minutes of life left to live on the Disc, most of which he has subsequently used up on jaunts back to Discworld for shopping trips and holidays.

In appearance, Albert is a small, hunched old man. This merely shows that first impressions can be misleading. Second impressions suggest quite a tall, wiry man who merely walks like the third illustration along in the 'How Man Evolved' diagram. He has a red nose, which drips so much that people talking to him blow their own noses out of sympathy.

As Death's trusted servant, he has to ensure Death gets away with the most difficult job on Hogswatch night, otherwise the sun may never shine tomorrow.

The defeater of Empires, the Swallower of Oceans, the Thief of Years, the Ultimate Reality, the Harvester of Mankind, the Assassin against Whom No Lock Will Hold, the only friend of the Poor and the best doctor for the mortally wounded.

A seven-foot-tall skeleton of polished bone, in whose eye sockets there are tiny points of blue light. He wears a robe woven from absolute darkness, and carries a scythe - He smells, not unpleasantly, of the air in old, forgotten rooms.

His face is frozen into a calcareous grin. His voice is felt rather than heard. He is seen only by cats, professional practitioners of magic and those who are about to die, or are already dead.

Despite rumour, he is not cruel. He is just terribly, terribly good at his job. It is said that he doesn't get angry, because anger is an emotion and for emotions you need glands: however he does seem to be capable of a piece of intellectual disapproval, which has a very similar effect. He is a traditionalist who prides himself on his personal service, and, despite the absence of glands, can become depressed when this is not appreciated.

Humanity intrigues DEATH. He is particularly fascinated by mankind's ability to complicate an existence, which, from DEATH's point of view, is momentary. He appears to spend a lot of time trying to learn, by logic of deduction, the things that humanity takes for granted. In the process he seems to have developed what can only be called preferences and likings - for cats, for example, and curry. He has tried to take up the banjo but lacks any skill with such a living thing as music.

Archchancellor of the Unseen University

Mustrum Ridcully, also known as Ridcully the Brown, became a Seventh Level wizard at the incredibly young age of 27 (there are eight levels of wizardry on the Discworld). He then quit the University to look after his family's estates in the countryside, and it was to be another 40 years before he would return to the Unseen University and become its Archchancellor. A jolly fellow known for liking a drink or two and a game of darts, he even takes a glass of beer for breakfast with his kidneys and black pudding.

Ridcully has a powerful intellect, but it is powerful like a locomotive - it runs on rails and is impossible to steer. He finds it very difficult to deal with unexpected information, and generally ignores it until it goes away or becomes someone else's problem. He holds the view that if someone is still trying to explain something to him after about 2 minutes, it must be worth listening to, and if they give up earlier, it was not worth bothering him with in the first place.

He is brusque and rude to almost everyone and never wastes time on small talk. Economy of emotion is one of his strong points.

The Assassin's Assassin

Mr Teatime is a student at the Assasins Guild, he prefers his surname to be pronounced TEH-AH-TIM-EH

Jonathon Teatime was taken into the Guild as a child because the administration took pity on him after he lost both his parents at an early age, they died in a tragic accident that occurred whilst leaning over his playpen. In any other case this might have been considered prescient.

He is boyishly handsome, with blonde curly hair and a ready smile, but these features are hampered by his eyes; one of which is black glass, and the other is off-white, with a tiny, pinhole-sized pupil.

Mr Teatime is, undoubtedly, a genius, but also sociopathic to an astonishing degree. His main problem seems to be that he sees things differently from other people, in that he sees other people as things.

He truly possesses a brilliant mind, but its brilliance is like that of a fractured mirror; all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, something that is broken.

Daughter of Mort and Ysabelle and Granddaughter of DEATH.

A self possessed and somewhat chilly woman, Susan has surprisingly inherited a few traits from her Grandfather, Death. Possessing a real knack for crowbars and monsters, she is attractive in a skinny way. While still young, she has an indefinable air of age about her, with her pure white hair that features a black streak down the middle.

In Hogfather she works as a governess - a very effective one, due primarily to her rather special upbringing (her parents, although very caring, avoided the whole 'magical childhood fantasy' business in an ultimately useless effort to shield her from the influence of her Grandfather, Death). She tends to treat children as inconveniently small adults and, to her amazement, finds this approach works very well.

She can walk through walls when she really has to, and uses a tone of voice that somehow reaches inside of people and operates all the right switches - one of the many skills she's going to need if she's to have a chance of successfully saveing the Hogfather and all things Hogswatch.

A raven.

A friend of Death of Rats and Susan, he's a Quirmian Raven who doesn't do the 'n' word and has a fixation with eyeballs. He's multi-lingual too - speaking both human language and rat language.

Student Wizard

Down-on-his luck wizard Sideney attended Gammer Wimblestone's Dame School, where he was mercilessly bullied for having ringlets. Having failed at every spell he has ever performed, Sideney now owes Mustrum Ridcully a large amount of money, although the amount he has to pay back is unclear.

Faced with chronic debt, Sideney joins Teatime's merry band of assassins in order to pay off his debts as quickly as he can.

Head of the Assassins Guild

The current head of the Assassins' Guild, Lord Downey is a kindly looking, distinguished older gentleman with white hair, and seemingly unflappable demeanor. However, evidence suggests that he is not quite as intelligent, or as in control as he appears - he was a bully at school, for instance.

Allegedly, Lord Downey's preferred method of inhumation is poisoning (poisonous peppermints are believed to be his specialty), although no deaths have ever been attributed to him. But it is suggested that this is probably due to the fact that he is very good at his job.

Member of Teatimes gang.

Image: Crop from H1692

Along with Banjo, Chickenwire, Peachy, Mr. Sideney and Catseye, Medium Dave is part of the band of hoodlums assembled by Mr. Teatime to do away with the Hogfather. As he says: 'I didn't sign up for world domination. That sort of thing gets you into trouble.'

Member of Teatimes gang

Although he is as slow of thought as he is large, Banjo's heart is in the right place. He has great respect for his mother, beaten in to him at an early age, and never hits girls or pulls their hair. He believes in things like the Tooth Fairy, and enjoys books about dogs called Spot. Banjo bashes his way (respectfully) through life.

Member of Teatimes gang

One of a number of criminals employed by Mr. Teatime. Got his nickname from his habit of encasing bodies in chickenwire before dumping them in the sea, to prevent bits floating to the surface. A small but considerate action, on the whole.

Owner Crumley's Toy Store

Vernon Crumley owns the largest toy store in the Maul (a shopping centre in Ankh-Morpork). During Hogswatch, he's congratulating himself on a particularly fine Hogswatch grotto. But it suddenly explodes and is replaced by Death, Albert, and four pigs that pull the sleigh. He becomes even more alarmed when Death magically pulls everything the children ask for from his sack.

The Oh God of Hangovers.

Billious has the appearance of a young male human with a prominent Adam's apple and a crown of vine leaves that he wears on his head.

He owes his existence to a collection of magical circumstances that arose from an attempt made to kill the Hogfather. Whilst the God of Wine spends his entire existence partying and drinking to excess, the Oh God spends his entire existence in the depths of the supernaturally bad hangover which in justice ought to be suffered by the God of Wine each morning. What goes down, as it were, must throw up. It is possible that he now does temporary stand-in work for gods who need to take time off.

A Tooth Fairy

With an abundance of red hair and a smiley disposition, Violet is one of the Tooth Fairies' many franchise holders. As such, she is usually, to be found toting a ladder, whilst sporting a bag of coins and a pair of pliers, keen to complete her nightly duties of collecting the Discworld children's discarded teeth, whilst leaving, a small, but well received amount of cash to make up for their loss.

This young fairy's disappearance is one of the mysteries that surround the events, as they unfold on Hogswatchnight.

Locksmith in Ankh-Morpork.

A neat, elderly skinny man with a little voice and properly polished shoes. He was a very skilled locksmith - a skill, which lead inevitably to his unfortunate demise.

Death, of Rats.

About six inches high, the Death of Rats wears a black robe and holds a small scythe in one skeletal paw or, when he needs to hurry and wants to use all four legs, his mouth. He has a bone-white nose with brittle great whiskers protruding from his shadowy hood. As his name suggests, he specialises in rats but also does gerbils, mice, and hamsters if it is Death's busy time. In a sense he is a sub-Death, and it appears in the books that Death allows him to show those traits, like humor and mischievousness, that Death himself could not decently employ.

Thieving corporal in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

Cecil Wormsborough St. John "Nobby" Nobbs is a corporal in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Nobby Nobbs is the kind of person who joins the Watch to loot corpses. Despite his kleptomania, he is honest about the big things (at least, the ones too big to steal) and is described as someone that you cannot trust with a dollar, but can trust with your life. He is untidy, smelly, and despite being human - about the same height as a dwarf - he carries a certificate to prove that he's a human being.