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A Discworld fanfic by A.A. Pessimal which can be found at Fan Fiction Net.

A comedy thriller in which a confidence trickster is hunted, brought to book, and made to repay money he has blagged.


This fan work contains examples of:

  • Amoral Afrikaner: Balthazar Smith-Rhodes.
  • Adventurer Outfit: Balthazar. It's part of the image presented by the legendary Balgrog Hunter.
  • Ascended Extra: Howondaland Smith is referenced in passing in the canon. He gets a story to himself here.
  • Bilingual Bonus: There is a little Dutch/Afrikaans spoken. French is used in the casino scenes.
  • Chatty Hairdresser: Conina Cohensdaughter-Harebut, who having retired from being an active Barbarian/Thief to run a hairdressing salon, keeps her ear to the ground and provides information to a clientele of professional ladies, whose hair can get a bit mussed up in the course of normal work as a thief, Assassin, Barbarian Heroine or Teacher. She trades information with Emmanuelle over a styling session.
  • The Chief's Daughter: Sissie - but this is her form of grifting. She is a Genuan who has never been near Howondaland in her life.
    • Ruth N'Kweze, who is genuinely a Zulu Paramount Princess. Do not call her a kaffir. She's a proud trained Assassin...
  • Cool Big Sis: Johanna. Her younger sister is introduced, who wants to grow up to be just like her. As she has been selected to go to the Assassins' Guild School in faraway Ankh-Morpork, her wish may be granted.
  • The Dutiful Niece: Johanna Smith-Rhodes, even knowing her uncle is a disreputable cheating rogue and con-man, still feels a family duty and is compelled to do right by him, even though she knows he won't give up grifting and she'll never see her money again. This is family.....
  • Embarrassing Old Photo: Balthazar Smith-Rhodes has kept in touch with his family over the years. Thanks to Johanna's mother, he has a deadly weapon. Lots of iconographs of Johanna Smith-Rhodes as a cute, appealing, child. Shortly before tapping her for money, he expressed pride in his niece and offered to show off the pictures to anyone who cared to look. As a proud uncle should.
  • The Exile: Balthazar, through past crime. Also a subtext of Johanna becoming a self-imposed exile as her politics diverge from those of her homeland.
  • Freestate Amsterdam: The laid back and libertine culture to be found in the city of DamHamster.
  • Gambler's Fallacy: Subverted and exploited by Emmanuelle.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: the flipside of the Bilingual Bonus coin.
  • Land of Tulips and Windmills: This fic is set mainly in the Discworld equivalent of Holland. As might be expected in an Original Flavour fic taking its cue from Terry Pratchett's parodies of real world countries and (more importantly) states of mind, all the associations of Holland are dropped in the bag, shaken up, and tipped on the table to see what comes out. Windmills, clogs, tulips, canals, a national tendency to smoke strange tobaccos in smoky coffeehouses, a language described by the unkind as the product of an untreated throat infection, and that bland tasting cheese with the chewy red rind (which nobody ever tells you that you aren't supposed to try and eat). They're all there. Oh, and a semi-misunderstanding relationship with colonial cousins in, er, "Africa", who speak broadly the same language, and in that time and place have somewhat illiberal social ideas. Next door to "Sto Kerrig" is a strange border region where "sto helit sprouts" are cultivated and a related language called "Phlegmish" is spoken.
  • Maligned Mixed Marriage: Balthazar Smith-Rhodes was exiled from Rimwards Howondaland not for being a rogue and a confidence trickster, but for repeatedly offending against the Racial Separation Acts. He has left one officially unacknowledged mixed-race member of the Smith-Rhodes family behind him, to further embarrass the whole family. Based in Sto Kerrig, he further appalls his countrymen by setting up home with Sissie, who claims to be a Zulu Princess. Neither they nor their more liberally minded Sto Kerrigian hosts give a damn about this, but expat White Howondalandians have their eyebrows more than raised.
  • Museum of Boredom: Emmanuelle encounters several when looking for something interesting to do to pass the time in Sto Kerrig. In swift order, the local museums deal with tulips, windmills, cheese and clog-making. She is just about to give up when she discovers De SexMusee.
  • National Stereotypes: "Sto Kerrig" especially. Holland, with all the knobs turned up well past eleven.
  • Quirm The major protaganist of this story is Quirmian Assassin Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées, a woman who embodies the Discworld France with tous les controles emphasées a l'onze.note 
  • Race Fetish: Balthazar has one. A drawback in Rimwards Howondaland.
  • Sassy Blackwoman: Sissie.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: The affluent and influential end of the Smith-Rhodes family sent out Assassin-trained ninja lawyers to serve a compulsory Change of Name Form on Balthazar Smith-Rhodes. He was ordered to drop the "Rhodes" bit for trading purposes, but it was agreed that "Smith" was nicely vague. Thus Howondaland Smith was born...
  • Snipe Hunt: The search for the Balgrog. The people financing Howondaland Smith's expeditions don't need to know it's completely fictitious.
  • The Netherlands: Sto Kerrig, the Motherland of the Boor people who emigrated to the colonies in Howondaland.

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