

The pair are reunited when Rincewind escapes into the temple through the portal, and they encounter Hrun the Barbarian, a parody of heroes in the Swords and Sorcery genre. The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, a being said to be the opposite of both good and evil, while Rincewind ends up imprisoned in a dryad-inhabited tree in the woods, where he watches the events in Bel Shamharoth's temple through a magical portal. The pair are separated when they are attacked by a mountain troll summoned by Offler the Crocodile God. Rincewind and Twoflower travel towards the city of Quirm, unaware that their adventures on this journey are actually the subject of a boardgame played by the Gods of the Discworld. Rincewind and Twoflower escape in the chaos. Before this, Twoflower convinces the Broken Drum's landlord to take out a fire insurance policy the landlord subsequently attempts to burn down the tavern to claim the money, but ends up causing a fire that destroys the whole of Ankh-Morpork. After Twoflower is kidnapped by a gang of thieves and taken to the Broken Drum tavern, Rincewind stages a rescue alongside the Luggage, an indestructible, enchanted and sentient chest belonging to Twoflower. Initially attempting to flee with his advance payment for agreeing to be Twoflower's guide, Rincewind is captured by the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, who forces him to protect Twoflower, lest the tourist's death provoke the Agatean Emperor into invading Ankh-Morpork.


Thanks to the abundance of gold in his homeland, Twoflower, though only a clerk, is immensely rich compared to inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork. The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind, who is hired as a guide to naive Twoflower, an insurance clerk from the Agatean Empire who has come to visit Ankh-Morpork. The story begins in Ankh-Morpork, the biggest city on the Discworld. The surface of the disc contains oceans and continents, and with them, civilisations, cities, forests and mountains.

The story takes place on the Discworld, a planet-sized flat disc carried through space on the backs of four gargantuan elephants – Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen – who themselves stand on the shell of Great A'Tuin, a gigantic star turtle. Pratchett has described it as "an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns." Plot summary Setting The first printing of the British edition consisted of only 506 copies. The Colour of Magic is a 1983 fantasy comedy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the Discworld series.
