Some of the best-known inhabitants of the Discworld include:

• Wizards and others at Unseen University, the principal seat of magical learning on the Disc:
  • Mustrum Ridcully, or Ridcully the Brown; the current Arch-Chancellor of the University
  • Galder Weatherwax; the 304th Chancellor of the University
  • The Librarian; transformed by a magical accident into an orangutan
  • Rincewind the Wizzard (sic); after a lifetime of running away that has taken him to the far regions of the Disc, he is now the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography
  • Ponder Stibbons; formerly a postgraduate student in the High Energy Magic building, now the Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic
  • Windle Poons; the Disc's oldest living wizard (and then, for a brief time, the Disc's most mobile dead wizard)
  • The Bursar; at some remove from reality, subsists on dried frog pills
  • Modo, the dwarfish gardener of the Unseen University.
  • HEX, the most powerful (and possibly only) computing machine on the Disc

• Witches:
  • the Lancre coven:
    • Granny Weatherwax; possibly the most powerful witch on the Disc
    • Nanny Ogg
    • Magrat Garlick; Queen of Lancre
    • Agnes Nitt
  • others
    • Tiffany Aching
    • Miss Tick

• Members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (which has an active policy of recruiting amongst ethnic minorities):
  • Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
  • Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, the Disc's tallest dwarf (by adoption), Captain of the City Watch
  • Sergeant Fred Colon, a human
  • Corporal Cecil "Nobby" Nobbs, probably human
  • Sergeant Detritus, a troll
  • Corporal Angua, a werewolf
  • Corporal Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf, and the Watch's forensics expert
  • Dorfl, a golem
  • Igor, an igor

• Anthropomorphic personifications:
  • Death (the Grim Reaper; resembles a skeleton in a black robe, carrying a scythe)
  • Time
  • Ronnie Soak, the milkman
  • War (and possibly also Mrs. War and their children Terror, Panic, and Clancy)
  • Famine
  • Pestilence
  • The Auditors of Reality
  • The Hogfather
  • The Tooth Fairy
  • Old Man Trouble

• Associates of Death
  • the Death of Rats (the Grim Squeaker; resembles a rat skeleton in a black robe, carrying a scythe)
  • Binky (Death's steed)
  • Quoth the Raven (steed of the Death of Rats)
  • Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter
  • Mort, Death's apprentice
  • Susan Sto-Helit, Death's granddaughter (i.e. the daughter of Ysabell and Mort)
  • Albert, Death's manservant; formerly a wizard, the founder of Unseen University

• Ankh-Morpork society
  • Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork
  • Lady Sybil Vimes
  • The heads of the various guilds

• Other inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork
  • Foul Ole Ron, Coffin Henry, the Duck Man ("what duck?"), Arnold Sideways, and Altogether Andrews; five beggars even the Beggars' Guild will have nothing to do with
  • Leonard of Quirm, mad inventor
  • Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, entrepreneur and seller of street food ("For you, two dollars - and that's cutting me own throat!")
  • Chrysophrase, troll gangster
  • Mrs Cake, a small medium in a large hat

• Animals
  • Great A'Tuin, the gigantic turtle that carries the four elephants that carry the Disc
  • Gaspode the Wonder Dog (Foul Ole Ron's Thinking Brain Dog)
  • Laddie (the Disc's first canine film star)
  • Greebo (Nanny Ogg's cat)

• Gods and other similar shady characters
  • Blind Io, leader of the gods
  • The Lady, not really a goddess, but very powerful, disappears when one says her name; not in any sense the patron goddess of gamblers
  • Fate, rival of the Lady
  • Nuggan
  • Om
  • Offler, the crocodile-headed god
  • Bilious, Oh-God of hangovers
  • Sweevo, God of Cut Timber

• Other characters
  • Verence, King of Lancre
  • Cohen the Barbarian
  • Twoflower the imperturbable Tourist
  • Casanunda the dwarf - highwayman, liar, and the Disc's second-greatest lover ("I try harder.")
  • various bogeymen
  • The Luggage
  • Lu-Tse, the Sweeper, and other monks