Terry Pratchett owns all Discworld things.
Oh, boy. I'm doing this, aren't I?
EDIT 07/07/12: The Clan of Igors plays a more detailed role in this revision. Pay attention. It'll show up later.
People of the Disc are familiar with Igors these days. They had come out in ones and twos from their great Clan in Uberwald early on, but as internal pressures (like mad werewolf overlords) and external opportunities (Ankh-Morpork somehow lured millions to its teeming, steaming avenues. Accidents happen. So do Assassins. Body parts were just about everywhere.) arose, the trickle of migrating Igors became a steady flow. This had caused non-Uberwaldians some concern for many years, but a person tends to change his mind when his heart's beating robustly not all that long after it had just stopped from fright at seeing a greenish little man sewn together from several different body parts.
Most are helpful little meddling beggars, weird as all hell but decent enough overall. When someone was injured, an Igor would put him back together unless there was something horrendously wrong or if the patient subscribed to one of the more finicky religions. When that person couldn't be patched up, an Igor came to claim parts that could be passed on to someone who had a better chance of survival. It was a matter of fairness, of justice, of share-and-share-alike. If you refused, however, no Igor would help you or your family or, in the case of the more traditional Igors, your town until the debt was paid with a proper donation.
Unfortunately, some Igors latch on to some very bad sorts indeed – they do so like being helpful – and the rare one is a bad egg all his own. He has got Ideas and a Sense of Enterprise, and one of these Igors shows up every century or so and makes things very interesting for a specific percentage of the population (That percentage usually includes the brains and entrails of the population in question.). The other Igors tend to weed these fellows out; they make a bad name for Igors everywhere, and that makes it hard to get jobs in Ankh-Morpork.
Humans tended to be surprised to find that Igors had inviolable boundaries, but such existed. For instance, Igors were not to harvest from sapient beings willy-nilly; one of the Clan couldn't just walk up to a fellow, say, "Nithe weather, ithn't it, thir?" and lop off his ear. Permission was necessary, from the subject prior to death or from the family immediately afterward.
Another restriction governed pay for the Clan's skills. Back in Uberwald, the grateful patients were supposed to demonstrate their gratitude by paying back the favor upon their decease; it was considered polite, but not strictly necessary, to offer the attending Igor some food like bread or a particularly lively coney that could stand some experimentation before becoming hasenpfeffer. Now that more Igors had gone abroad and had to pay rent, they charged close-to-market prices for healing services, or they went into good, old-fashioned service with any Master who would have them.
Buying body parts was particularly frowned upon. It was not unknown, especially when demand outstripped the supply of dying bastards who refused to be harvested. Sometimes, an Igor had to bend the rules a bit; this tended to involve paying a modest commission to a student Assassin, but it didn't do to let one's friends know that one had taken this route. Killing in cold blood was not approved of, but the Clan dealt internally with that if they could; when they couldn't, the killer faced civil justice, like everyone else. The truly stupid who killed in Ankh-Morpork faced Commander Vimes. The Clan pitied such a one but were thrilled to have those genes scooped from the pool.
Only one thing was outright forbidden: To teach the Clan's secrets to one who is not of the Clan. Gods help the Igor who transgressed so.
"I finally had to throw the thwitch on Grandfather," one Igor said as he entered his crypt in Ankh-Morpork. It was small, just the basement level of a two-story, working-class sort of place, but he owned it outright. He was rather proud of it. Just inside the door, he shook the rain from a broad-brimmed oiled leather hat. He groaned when he leaned over to pick up the finger, coil of gold wire, and squishy thing that fell to the floor when he did so.
"Oh, that'th a shame," a voice said from beside a clicking, whirring monstrosity of brass plate, copper wires, and rubber tubes.
There was a grunt, and the crypt went dark, leaving only crackling trails of light to show Igor where he was stepping. Another grunt preceded the return of proper light, and a smell issued from a metal dome on the slab in the center of the room. Smoke wisped up around two wires attached to a pair of complicated knobs on the sides of the dome.
"But cheer up. Here'th dinner done," his wife Igorina said, patting him on the shoulder with the hand he'd picked up for her just last month. "Should thtill be twitching if you belly up to the thlab quickly."
He kissed her, minding the seam between cheek and ear – she was ticklish along the old stitches. "You alwayth know what cheerth me up, love. And I need it after thith latht row with Grandfather. He wath alwayth a bit independent, you know." He said the word as if someone would whap him with a rolled-up newspaper for saying it. "But he wath really preththing me to leave the Marthter and thart up my own thpare partth shop!"
"Well, Igor ith doing a brithk buthinethth across from the Tanty," Igorina reminded him. "The Clan'th tho conthentrated here that we have to branch out a bit, surely."
Approaching the slab with a sidling shuffle, just as his father Igor had taught him to do ages ago, Igor frowned and answered, "Don't tell me you're getting modern, darling. Thervithe ith in our boneth – goeth back for generationth! Bethideth, you don't hear the thort of thingth Grandfather getth to talking about. Damn near blathphemy!"
Curiously, Igorina asked, "What kind of thingth?" He'd never elaborated before.
"Paying for partth! Getting an aththithtant! An Igor hiring help! I athk you!" Igor mounted a stool and then flapped his hands up in the air. "Anyroad, I couldn't bear it, tho I told him I'd dump hith head out of the jar and how would he like that, eh? He thaid, 'I'd like to see you try it, you incompetent! You'd miss and I'd end up attached to you!'" Igor thumped the slab, causing whatever was under the dome to skitter in a panic against the platter beneath it. "Without the lithp, even! He knowth how that getth up my nothe!"
Igorina casually moved a wristwatch with wires and probes on both ends of it from the slab to the console that doubled as her stove, saying, "There, there, dear. It'th over with now, tho don't get exthited. We don't have any thpare heartth around jutht now." Just as casually, she tossed a towel over little mechanical mess. "Now eat up. There'th plenty of children in Muntab who've not theen a combination platter like thith before and would have been happy to have it!"