Detritus (Discworld)

Detritus is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. He is a troll who started off as a thug hired to beat other people up. He then became a bouncer, or rather splatter, at the Mended Drum.

In Moving Pictures he was used by Dibbler as hired muscle in his takeover of Century of the Fruitbat Pictures. While in Holy Wood Detritus met and fell in love with another troll called Ruby who insisted that he get a better job than hitting people for money.

As a result he joined the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and made friends with the dwarf Cuddy in Men at Arms. When we next see Detritus in Feet of Clay, he is a Sergeant. He accompanied Samuel Vimes to Überwald for the negotiations in Bonk.

Detritus is following the convention of trolls (a geological race) of adopting geological names.

While Detritus does not have much imagination, he is fairly intelligent, by troll standards, especially since the end of Men At Arms, when he acquired a clockwork cooling helmet, that reduces the effect heat has on the conductivity of his brain. His lack of imagination results in an interesting interogation technique; while he cannot think of any questions beyond "It was you what done it, own up", he never gets bored of asking it. He can, however, be thrown completely by a simple denial. He has started a personal crusade against trading in Slab, which is a narcotic (to trolls only), that "melts troll brains".

In contradiction to his species preference, his weapon of choice is not a club, but rather a converted siege-crossbow. Originally this fired a blunt but enormous metal bolt, but after further modifications he made it to shoot a large bundle of wooden bolts at once and renamed the bow as the "Piecemaker"(a pun on the Colt S.A.A. "Peacemaker" Revolver), due to the incredible destructive power of the new configuration. Due to the various different forces they are under, the bolts, once fired, quickly become an expanding cloud of high-speed burning wooden shrapnel. It has been known to remove several archery targets, the bunker wall behind them, the gulls above them, the gates of von Überwald castle near Bonk, an entire chimney, a weathercock, large parts of roofing, sundry pigeons that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and practically all of Sir Samuel Vimes' shrubbery. It has on occasion been fired at people, but Vimes has generally forbidden this except in special circumstances (such as during the initial attempt to catch Carcer in Night Watch). He prefers to allow Detritus to use it when trying to get into a building, as it is able to open both the front and back doors at the same time.