Rhys Rhysson
| Low King Rhys Rhysson | |
 | |
| Name | Rhys Rhysson, aka Blodwen |
| Race | Dwarf |
| Age | middle aged (for a Dwarf) |
| Occupation | Low King |
| Physical appearance | Somewhat akin to the Hogfather |
| Residence | Schmaltzberg |
| Death | |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | |
| Children | on the way |
| Marital Status | recently m. to Aeron |
| Appearances | |
| Books | The Fifth Elephant Thud! Raising Steam |
| Cameos | Making Money Unseen Academicals |
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. Coming from Llamedos, his is a softly-spoken clan, look you, with a hint of Welsh in the spoken language.
Described as short even for a dwarf, he commands the respect of Sam Vimes (whose respect is legendarily in short supply, especially for kings) 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! It is strongly implied that Rhys is, in fact, female himself...er...herself? - when he/she mentions to Cheery Littlebottom that there may well be further custom for her dressmaker from the King him-her-self.
She finally "comes out" in Raising Steam, announcing that she is not only female, but pregnant. She will rule henceforth as Queen Blodwen. (Dwarfs traditionally don't have sex-appropriate names, either, but there's a point to be emphasised.)
And trolls are enemies immemorial. "Troll" bloody well EQUALS "enemy", irrefutably Q E bleeding D! But not now; as of Thud!, Rhys and Mr Shine, the Diamond King of the Trolls, have a truce by which at least many of the heads of the major dwarfish and trollish clans abide. Mighty mountains may be ground down by the passage of soft water, and these two deep thinkers - natural enemies but allies in their peaceable intentions - may well have set the seal for the eventual ending of hostilities between the two races.
The truce is - at least in part - based on the newly-discovered translation of the Things that Tak wrote.