He starts out, in The Colour of Magic, the first book of the series, as a guide for the tourist Twoflower, who hails from the Counterweight Continent, a continent across the disc from the 'hub' continent where Ankh-Morpork is situated. He and Twoflower wander around for quite a while, and get chased by everything from the personification of Death to a Lovecraftian creature named Bel-Shamharoth.

The first book ends with a literal cliff-hanger when he and Twoflower are thrown off the edge of the Discworld by astronomers who want to know the gender of Great A'Tuin, the turtle upon which the disc rides, and have designed a space-ship (bronze and shaped like a fish) to do so.

They both survive, for rather complicated reasons involving the structure of the universe and the necessity of Rincewind's continued existence in order to save the world, and Rincewind becomes a recurring character in the series.

Rincewind is most frequently seen wearing his hat with the word WIZZARD emblazoned across it in sequins (this may be a reference to Roy Wood's rock band Wizzard) and his Luggage, which has hundreds of little legs and follows him everywhere, generally attacking anything it perceives as a threat to Rincewind.

Rincewind is widely believed by readers to be an elderly man, although the first two books describe him as being young. This is further complicated by cover paintings on some of the books themselves (one showed Twoflower with four biological eyeballs) and comments made by Death about Rincewind's life-timer. Every living being on the Disc has an hourglass, usually kept in Death's home, that gradually records his life from birth to death. Rincewind's life-timer is described as resembling something created by a glassblower with the hiccups in a time machine; most likely as a result of his constant mishaps involving magic, the nature of reality, and shiftings into alternate dimensions. This represents something of a curiosity to Death who keeps the hour-glass on his desk. As such, even Death himself is unaware of how old Rincewind is supposed to be or when he will die, likening such an exercise as trying to find the starting point on a roll of really sticky clear tape. However Death does tend to show up when Rincewind is in extreme danger, but this has happened to many Discworld entities who have been heavily involved in magic. Death and wizards have many complicated rules and Rincewind, technically, is a wizard.

Over the course of his adventures, he has turned his cowardice into a fully fledged philosophy of life. He believes that, when running, "to" is never important, what matters is "from". When it was pointed out that running just lands him in more trouble his response was "Yes, but you can run away from that, too." By The Last Hero he's started describing running away as a religion in the valid belief that no one will take it seriously; it might not give you eternal life, exactly, but it certainly gives you more life. Very few of his various travelling companions (who, at various times, include watchmen, barbarians, a tourist, a teenage demonologist, a female member of a female impersonation troupe and a magic kangaroo) take him seriously. This is partially because Rincewind has an unusually pessimistic outlook on life, and partially because bad things seem to single him out for misfortune. Many of his companions have noticed, however, that Rincewind manages to survive everything that happens to him, and suspect that there's a deeper purpose behind this, although he himself insists it's just a coincidence. Rincewind apparently believes in karma, however. From his point of view, he has pre-emptive karma--if it even looks as if something good will happen to him in the future, his karma will ensure that something bad happens immediately, and continues happening so that the good things never come around.

A good illustration of Rincewind's pre-emptive karma takes place while he was stranded on an island. He had managed to eke out a comfortable and boring existence, and some Amazon warrior-females found him. Apparently, they needed a man for breeding purposes, as all their menfolk had died from a highly selective plague. Rincewind never seems to grasp what is expected of him, but forms the impression that he was getting "potatoes for life." Just then, the wizards of Unseen University transported him to Ankh-Morpork, so they could send him to the Agatean Empire. There he was chased, knocked out, and nearly killed several times. Rincewind has theorized that in order to balance out the universe, there must be, somewhere, someone to whom nothing but good happens. Someone who saunteres from one comfortable place to the next. Rincewind still hopes to meet him some day, hopefully while carrying a weapon.

In fact, Rincewind has the dubious privilege of being the Chosen of the Lady, the Discworld's most mysterious goddess. It is for this reason that he is constantly finding himself embroiled in unpleasant situations and coming out more-or-less on top. However if he ever realised this, much less acted as though nothing could seriously harm him, then she would instantly lose interest. Besides, having the favour of the Lady, in addition to being unreliable, also means having the very reliable enmity of Fate.

He has also developed an obsession with potatoes, which is implied to be a result of misplaced sexual feelings. Interesting Times states that later on in his life he will have to undergo therapy for this affliction, involving a pretty woman, a plate of potatoes and a large stick with a nail in it.


[edit] Rincewind's titles
Rincewind has received the following[1] titles during his stay at the Unseen University; some of them because nobody else wants them, others to keep him busy doing work unrelated to magic:

Egregious Professor Of Cruel And Unusual Geography
Chair of Experimental Serendipity
Reader in Slood Dynamics
Fretwork Teacher (apparently the result of some 1200 year old curse from a dying Archchancellor, sounding very much like 'May you always teach fretwork!' )
Chair for the Public Misunderstanding of Magic
Professor of Virtual Anthropology
Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy
Assistant Librarian
These titles and their accompanying tenure include the condition that he cannot have any salary, influence, or opinions. They do, however, include meals, his laundry done, and (as a result of all the impressive-sounding but essentially meaningless titles that have been bestowed upon him) up to eight buckets of coal a day during the winter.

However cumbersome or dangerous the adventures that befall the unwilling Rincewind, it is strongly suggested throughout the novels that he might be one of the few on the Discworld who do not lack common sense or intelligence. Supporting this position is his ability to pick up the essentials of foreign languages quickly (the essentials being how to scream for help, or, in point of fact, how to scream) and fluency only slightly less quickly, as well as the fact that, during The Colour of Magic, when he was projected into a universe that may or may not have been our own, where he assumed the role of a nuclear physicist. In keeping with his nature, the role was as a physicist who specialized in the 'breakaway oxidation phenomena' of certain reactors - or, to put another way, what happens when those reactors caught fire. In addition, Rincewind is considered fairly streetwise. He is often depicted as a harsh critic of the selected stupidities surrounding him, even though he can't help but comply with whatever absurdity that arises. He also seems to display, despite his apparent failure as a wizard, a fairly extensive magical knowledge, recognising various spells, magical artefacts and concepts throughout his escapades.

Some of Rincewind's talents once stemmed from a semi-sentient and highly destructive spell that had lodged itself inside his mind and scared off all other spells (mentioned in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic).