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Article of the day

Thud game's initial positions. "d" represents the dwarves, "T" represents the trolls, and "X" represents the Thudstone

Thud is a board game devised by Trevor Truran and first published in 2002, inspired by the Discworld novels. It bears a slight resemblance to the ancient Norse games of Hnefatafl and Tablut (and, in Dwarfish, is supposedly called "Hnaflbaflwhiflsnifltafl") but has been radically redefined to be less one sided. The two sides are dwarfs and trolls, the game representing the famous Battle of Koom Valley.

In the game, the objective is to eliminate the opposition's pieces. As mentioned before, the two antagonists are the trolls and the dwarfs, the trolls being few in number (but individually very powerful), while there are a large number of dwarves, but each individual dwarf is very weak and requires support from nearby dwarfs to be of use against the trolls. As in fox games (a variant on tafl games), the two sides have different pieces with different movement and attacking styles. Thud uses an unconventional, octagonal board divided into smaller squares, with only one piece allowed to occupy each square.

The fictional version of the game was first directly referenced in Going Postal, being played by Vetinari, and became a central concept in the immediate sequel Thud!. The release of Thud! led to a special Koom Valley edition of the game. Terry Pratchett has devised a fictional history of how Thud was invented, which bears some similarity to the Shahnama theory of the origins of chess.