The current Low King of the dwarfs, Rhys Rhysson is from a small coal-mining clan in Llamedos, who won his election because his clan was too unimportant for the others to hate, see. The more obvious candidates ruled each other out as so many would have voted against them.

Described as short even for a dwarf, he commands the respect of Sam Vimes (whose respect is legendarily in short supply) for being a hard-working king who cares deeply enough about his people to avoid wars even though he thought the cost would be that of his own kingship.

Softly spoken, he nevertheless acts out immense shifts in dwarven thinking. With two handshakes (in The Fifth Elephant) he declared dwarven femininity to have the royal seal of approval, and trolls to be possible friends. Both of these things should naturally have destroyed the unity of all dwarfs as gender is unspeakable - and certainly unshowable! - and trolls are enemies immemorial. "Troll" bloody well EQUALS "enemy", irrefutably Q E bleeding D! But not now.

Dwarf Constable Brakenshield is first found struggling furiously in the arms of Corporal Nobby Nobbs and Constable Haddock who are lifting him in the air and stopping him swinging his axe at Troll Constable Mica who is being restrained by Constables Bluejohn and Schist after an altercation in the Watch House mess during the troubles leading up to the annual re-enaction of the Battle of Koom Valley.

According to his card, he's : "Giamo Casanunda, World's Second-greatest Lover (We Never Sleep!), Finest Swordsman, Soldier of Fortune, Outrageous Liar, Stepladders Repaired"

...and three-feet-nine in his high-heeled boots. He is the most unusual Dwarf on the Discworld, including Carrot Ironfoundersson. Casanunda rejects the work ethic, the reserve, the conformity of the Dwarfs and dons a character built on Dick Turpin, Casanova and Pépé Le Pew. He has immense confidence in his abilities as a highwayman and all kinds of swordsman, and sometimes it's even rewarded (the Queen of Skund made him a Count; just ask him). Count Casanunda walks tall, dreams big and rides a big horse... with the aid of his trusty stepladder. He even tried to seduce Nanny Ogg with such haute cuisine as could be found at the Goat and Bush. This is pretty much like throwing rocks at a tank, but as he says, he may be only the second-greatest, but he tries harder.

Technically a dwarf, Carrot Ironfoundersson was adopted by dwarfs but is in fact human. This made growing up difficult, especially since dwarves are smaller than the typical human (Nobby Nobbs, as always is an exception to this rule) and Carrot is taller then the typical human. Carrot's adopted father sent him to Ankh-Morpork to join the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. He is an exemplary policeman, but can be seen by others as too polite. In anyone else it would be suspicious; with Carrot however it is sincere.

First, and for quite some time the only, member of the forensics department in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Originally trained as an alchemist, Cheery left the Alchemists' Guild to join the Watch after an incident which forced her to leave the guild (she blew up the entire leadership of the guild - people tend not to forget such trivia...). Cheery came from Überwald, got Angua as the first friend in the city, and as a result became the first openly female dwarf member of the Watch and, for that matter, of the whole dwarvish race. This caused a cultural revolution and a notable degree of unrest among the dwarfs. Another non-dwarvish trait is her relative indifference to gold, seeing it as just another, not especially reactive or intrinsically interesting, chemical element.

Later she is promoted to sergeant. Commander of the City Watch Sam Vimes thinks an awful lot of her - which is more praise than you could believe.

She causes all kinds of grief when she goes back to Uberwald as an open female. Imagine shouting obscenities whilst naked in a church during the Victorian times and you have some idea of what wearing a skirt in traditional dwarf areas is like. However, she begins a cultural revolution and introduces two new pronouns - "she" and "her" - to the dwarfish language. Many detest her, but many are beginning the journey to "coming out" (this is really not too far-fetched a comparison) as a woman thanks to her.

She pronounces her name "Cheri".

Grabpot Thundergust is a dwarf who wears fearsome "Clang" (whereas our icons wear bling they wear Clang as it clanks, seeing as it's basically arms and armour), but who has a dreadful secret that he fears other dwarves will discover: he runs a cosmetics factory!

The vaguely masculine side of this is that his range of greasepaints are much sought after by clowns and actors, such as those who grace the stage at Olwyn Vitoller's Dysk Theatre. However, he has just launched "Ladies Secrets", a range of perfumes and cosmetics as used by Lady Sybil Vimes. He dresses in traditional chainmail, a three-horned helmet and has an enormous axe strapped across his back.

He is one of the much-maligned (by Sam Vimes) 'Community Leaders' to whom the City Watch turns to appeal for calm whenever something happens to upset the dwarf community in Ankh-Morpork.

A dwarf Grag, wearing the typical black leather flap robe-and-hood of a grag. His beard is trimmed somewhat neater than other dwarfs.

Bashfull Bashfullsson is an unusually liberal dwarfish loremaster (he shows his face and doesn't even carry an axe) who was of some help to Commander Vimes during that business with the Summoning Dark. Grag Bashfullsson is one of very few leading dwarfs to actively contemplate the future of dwarf society rather than simply relying on tradition.

Boddony is the dwarf-to-be of the dwarf Gunilla Goodmountain (sex - or, rather, gender - isn't discussed amongst dwarves: it's rather assumed that the two of them know which is which...).

The two of them are the owners of the Movable Type Printing Device which enters William de Worde's life rather abruptly.

Pors Stronginthearm is one of the owners of crossbow manufacturing firm Burleigh & Stronginthearm. Considered to be the technical genius behind the weapons. He is rarely seen.

The first Low King of the dwarfs, from whom all subsequent Low Kings have gained their legitimacy. He is also the greatest dwarf folk hero of all time the subject of several dwarf operas and epics especially Bloodaxe and Ironhammer, reputed to be the greatest dwarf love story in history.

He was the leader of the dwarfs at the (first) Battle of Koom Valley, he had journeyed there to seek peace with the trolls. However, in the mist, the trolls thought that the dwarfs were ambushing them. He later managed to leave a message inside a Cube, detailing the whole sad mess.

B'hrian Bloodaxe died shortly after the Battle of Koom Valley. He is fondly remembered by dwarfs everywhere and examples of his battle bread are displayed in the Dwarf Bread Museum in Ankh-Morpork. Mr Hopkinson, the former curator of the Dwarf Bread Museum, believed that the loaf he displayed, which was on loan for a couple of weeks, was the actual Battle Bread that Bloodaxe had personally used to slay fifty-seven trolls at Koom Valley. Given what was later revealed to be Bloodaxe's true part in the battle - he was working with the Diamond King of the Trolls to prevent conflict - it is very likely that this was a later elaboration of the myth. (Could even dwarf bread batter a stone-based troll to death - let alone 57?)However, that loaf of Battle Bread was known to be responsible for one death.... perhaps it would be OK for return to its owners following a bit of sandblasting...

Of course, this particular dwarf is NOT the legendary Bloodaxe, since he's dead for several thousand years, but a young dwarf with a rather heavy name to bear.

Inventor of Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl, the precursor to Thud, at the bequest of Hugen the then-Low King of the Dwarfs. Stronginthearm as a surname is hugely common amongst dwarfs.

As a reward for inventing the game, Hugen asked Morose what he wanted. The inventor is on record as saying: "If it please you, your majesty, I ask for nothing more than that you should place one plk [a small gold piece then in general circulation] on the first square, two on the second, four on the third and so on until the board is filled."

After being threatened with an axe by the King, Morose hastily amended his request to "as much gold as he could carry", whereupon Hugen agreed and merely had one of his arms broken. "For," he said, "all should know that while Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl teaches preparedness, strategy, boldness and quick thinking, it is also important to know when not be too drhg'hgin clever by half."

The dwarf who brought movable type to Ankh-Morpork. He teams up with William de Worde to start the Discworld's first newspaper, the Ankh-Morpork Times.