Rincewind

\nCategory:Discworld characters\n\nRincewind is a fictional character appearing in the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, several of which feature him as the central character.\nHe is a failed student at the Unseen University for wizards in Ankh-Morpork, often described by scholars as "the magical equivalent to the number zero", and spends just about all of his time running away from various bands of people who want to kill him for various reasons. He starts out, in The Colour of Magic, the first book of the series, as a guide for the tourist Twoflower, who hails from the Counterweight Continent, a continent across the disc from the 'hub' continent where Ankh-Morpork is situated. He and Twoflower wander around for quite a while, and get chased by everything from the personification of Death to a necronomicon-esque creature named Bel-Shamharoth. The first book ends with a literal cliff-hanger when he and Twoflower are thrown off the edge of the Disc by astronomers who want to know the gender of Great A'Tuin, the turtle upon which the disc rides, and have designed a space-ship (bronze and shaped like a fish) to do so. They both survive, for rather complicated reasons involving the structure of the universe, and Rincewind becomes a recurring character in the series. Rincewind is most frequently seen with his hat with the word WIZZARD emblazoned across it in sequins (this may be a reference to Roy Wood's rock band Wizzard) and his Luggage, which has hundreds of little legs and follows him everywhere. He is widely believed to be an elderly man, but the first two books describe him as being young - although he must have aged some in the course of the series. Rincewind appears in:\n*The Colour of Magic\n*The Light Fantastic\n*Mort (Cameo)\n*Sourcery\n*Faust Eric\n*Interesting Times\n*The Last Continent\n*The Last Hero\n*The Science of Discworld and sequel(s) Pratchett seems to have derived the name from "Churm Rincewind", a fictitious person referred to in early Beachcomber columns in the Daily Express.