Mustrum Ridcully

Mustrum Ridcully is the Archchancellor of the Unseen University in Ankh Morpork, he is also known as Ridcully the Brown.

At the time he became Archchancellor, he had not been seen at the University for forty years. The wizards, knowing he lived in the country, assumed he would be a "roams the forests with every beast his brother" type, and easy to deal with. In fact, Ridcully turned out to be more like a typical country squire, fond of huntin', shootin' and fishin'.

He is not stupid, but finds it very difficult to deal with unexpected information, and generally ignores it until it goes away or becomes someone else's problem. He holds the view that if someone is still trying to explain something to him after about five minutes, it must be worth listening to. Usually, the person doing the explaining is Ponder Stibbons.

He has stabilised the structure of Unseen University (which used to be based on killing wizards more powerful than you) by being impossible to kill. It is interesting to note that not only is he the first Archchancellor to last more than a few terms, he seems to have increased the survival rate amongst all senior wizards. They do not seem to appreciate this, however, due to Ridcully's exhausting personality. In particular, the Bursar has become a nervous wreck since Ridcully's arrival.

Oddly, the faculty member he gets on best with seems to be Ponder Stibbons. He never understands what Ponder is saying, and Ponder never expects him to, but at least the young man is doing something, which is more than can be said for the rest of them.

His brother is Hughnon Ridcully, High Priest of Blind Io, and Ankh-Morpork's religious spokesman. While priests and wizards are traditionally at odds due to philosophical differences, neither Ridcully is of a particularly philosophical frame of mind, and they tend to ignore this.

Reliable sources suggest that he had a relationship with a young Esme Weatherwax, some fifty years before becoming Archchancellor.