Discworld (world)
A flat world on a turtle swimming through space.
The Discworld is the fictional setting of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels, a planet-sized disc carried on the backs of four elephants atop the world turtle Great A'Tuin. It serves as a humorous reflection of Earth, populated primarily by men, dwarfs, and trolls, with other races such as dragons, elves, goblins, and pixies appearing later. The concept of a disc-shaped world was first explored in Pratchett's novel Strata.
Quick Facts
- Creator
- Terry Pratchett
- First
- The Colour of Magic (24 November 1983)
Facts from the source article.
Great A'Tuin
Great A'Tuin is a Giant Star Turtle of the species Chelys galactica that travels through space carrying four giant elephants—Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen—who in turn support the Discworld. To protect the Disc, Great A'Tuin frequently rolls onto its belly to avoid asteroid and comet collisions and snatches projectiles from the sky, causing severe seasickness in anyone watching the night sky during such events. The turtle's sex is unknown to the Disc's inhabitants but is a subject of intense speculation among its scientists, as it is central to competing theories about the turtle's destination. One theory, analogous to the Big Bang, holds that Great A'Tuin moves from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating; if so, the Disc's civilizations might be crushed, slide off, or the world might end when mating occurs. This hypothesis suggests all stars are worlds carried by giant turtles that will eventually meet and mate, birthing new turtles for new worlds. An alternative steady gait theory posits that Great A'Tuin came from nowhere and will swim perpetually; the novel Eric shows the turtle being made from nothing, seemingly supporting this view. In The Light Fantastic, Great A'Tuin attends the hatching of eight baby turtles, each with four elephants and a discworld, which appears to support the Big Bang hypothesis. A small sun and moon orbit Great A'Tuin, each initially described as 1 mi in diameter, though later chronicles increase this to at least 80 mi. The moon, slightly closer to the Disc than the sun, has one half covered with silvery glowing plants that feed lunar dragons and the other half burnt black by the sun. It rotates fully in about a month, with the full moon occurring when the luminescent side faces the Disc and the new moon when the dark side is visible. The sun's orbit is so complex that one elephant must cock its leg to allow the sun to continue its path.
Magic
Magic is the principal force on the Discworld, operating similarly to real-world elemental forces like gravity and electromagnetism. The Disc's standing magical field represents a local breakdown of reality, enabling the existence of a flat planet on a turtle's back. Magic functions as a function of the relative absence of reality, analogous to coldness as the absence of heat, and warps reality much as gravity warps space-time. Performing magic involves telling the universe what form it must take in terms it cannot ignore, which is draining to users due to the Law of Conservation of Reality: magic and mundane methods require the same energy expenditure, leading most wizards to store magic in a staff as a capacitor. High-level background magic occurs when a powerful spell creates particles that distort reality; entering such regions is extremely dangerous, as an individual may not remain the same species, shape, or level of sanity. Medium levels cause odd effects like coins landing on edges or objects transforming into caterpillars. Areas with large quantities of background magic display unusual qualities, and high quantities can knock a hole in Discworld reality, allowing invasion by Lovecraftian monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions or, almost as bad, the world of the Elves. Magic is broken into elementary particulate fragments, with the basic unit being the thaum (from the Greek thauma, marvel), equal to the mystical energy needed to conjure a small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls. SI-modifiers such as millithaum and kilothaum are used, and magic can be measured with a thaumometer, a black cube with a dial that measures up to a million thaums; beyond that, reality begins to break down. Later novels introduce the newer unit, the Prime, defined as the magical energy required to move a pound of lead one foot, to avoid arguments over standard pigeon sizing.
More in Fictional Planets
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced