The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger characters

Appears from the start

The last gunslinger, a lawman and knight-errant from the fallen land of Gilead, in a world that has moved on and is slowly coming apart. Hard, patient, and deadly with his revolvers, he crosses a vast desert in single-minded pursuit of the man in black, a chase that is only the first leg of a lifelong quest for the Dark Tower. He speaks little, endures much, and has trained himself to sacrifice nearly anything to keep moving forward.

Also known as Walter

Appears from the start

A dark sorcerer whom the gunslinger has hunted across the desert for years. He travels always just ahead, leaving traps, corpses, and corrupted people in his wake, and seems able to bend minds and cheat death. Mocking and elusive, he lures Roland onward with the promise of answers about the Tower and the shape of the world.

Appears from the start

A woman who runs a saloon in Tull, a dusty desert town Roland passes through. Weary and lonely, she takes the gunslinger to her bed during his stay. She carries the town's fear on her shoulders, especially its dread of a local man the man in black had raised from the dead as a cruel trick.

Appears from the start

A large, fervent preacher in the town of Tull whose revival sermons have whipped the townsfolk into a religious frenzy. The man in black passed through before Roland and left his influence on her, turning her fanaticism against the gunslinger.

Appears from the start

A border-dweller who farms a hard patch of ground at the edge of the desert and keeps company with a talking raven named Zoltan. He gives the passing gunslinger food and shelter, and listens as Roland recounts what happened in the town of Tull.

First appears in chapter 2

A boy Roland finds tending the pump at a long-abandoned way station in the desert. Quiet and frightened, he has no clear memory of how he came to this world, recalling only fragments of another life in a great city and a sense that he died there. He attaches himself to the gunslinger, who grows to care for him even as the quest pulls them both into danger.

First appears in chapter 3

A spirit that haunts a ring of standing stones in the foothills below the mountains. It can seduce and devour a man, but it can also speak prophecy. Roland risks an encounter with it to learn what lies ahead on his road.

First appears in chapter 4

Roland's boyhood teacher in Gilead, a scarred, brutal master-at-arms who trains young apprentices in combat and discipline. In Roland's memories he is the harsh proving ground every would-be gunslinger must pass to earn his weapons and be counted a man.

First appears in chapter 4

A powerful sorcerer and counselor at the court of Roland's father in Gilead. In the gunslinger's memories he is a schemer who betrayed the household and helped push the boy, while still young, into an early and dangerous trial.