by Bev Vincent
SMACK, ARDELIA (WIDOW) (4.5)
Teacher of reading and mathematics in Tree Village. She is smart and takes no guff from her students, who usually come to love her. Formerly a great lady in the Barony Estates, she wears a veil to cover the damage to her face caused by blood sores from a degenerative disease. Prone to fugues, shakes and migraines. She gives Tim Ross her late brother’s pistol, which proves valuable on his quest, along with food and other items. Bern Kells murders her after she watches over Nell Ross during the starkblast.
SMASHER (L)
One of the slow mutants in Eluria. He gives Roland’s guns to Sister Mary.
SNIP (4.5)
A pokie who works at the Jefferson Ranch and survives the skin-man attack because he was out rounding up strays with Arn and Canfield.
SOONY (4)
The former owner of the hut in the Bad Grass where Roland and Susan Delgado meet. He painted the door red after a religious conversion and went off to join the Manni.
SPANKERMAN (3, 4)
Leader of the Pubes until he drew the black rock in their lottery and was executed.
SPEAKING DEMON (1, 3, 6, M)
A demon that can be compelled to prophesize. They often live in Speaking Circles.
SPLINTER HARRY “OLD SPLINT” (4.5)
An old man who works part-time in the Destry sawmill in Tree Village. He’s prone to babbling nonsense that he claims is High Speech and loves nothing more than talking about gunslingers. Tim Ross uses what he learns from him to greet the mudmen in Fagonard Swamp.
STOCKWORTH, RICHARD (4, 7, M)
Alain Johns’s alias in Mejis. He is supposedly a rancher’s son.
STOKES, DUSTIN “HOT” (4.5)
Blacksmith in Tree Village who also serves as the undertaker and funeral director.
STOUTHEART, TIM (4.5)
See Timothy Ross.
STRAW (7)
One of the low men present during Mia’s birth. The first person Susannah kills after she gets Scowther’s gun. She then relieves him of his Walther PPK and half a dozen extra clips.
STREETER, BILL (4.5)
Bunkhouse cook at the Jefferson Ranch in Debaria. The skin-man killed him beside his stove with his bloodstained apron thrown over his face like a shroud.
STREETER, YOUNG BILL (4.5)
A thin boy, eleven years old, son of the cook at the Jefferson Ranch. He took care of the bunks, bedrolls and saddles for the proddies. He was also responsible for setting the gate at the end of the day. He survives the skin-man attack because he’s camping on the advice of his father. It was a way of evading Elrod Nutter, who tormented him. Roland consoles the boy by feeding him candy and telling him the tale of “The Wind Through the Keyhole.” He identifies the skin-walker from among the salties brought back from the mines. Roland leaves him in the care of Everlynne of Serenity.
STRONG, GARRETT (5)
A smallholder in Calla Bryn Sturgis with a pug-dog face and a receding hairline. He has only one farmhand, named Rossiter.
STROTHER (4.5)
One of two not-so-good deputies in Debaria. A fat man who wears a black hat with a gaudy rattlesnake band.
STUTTERING BILL (7)
An Asimov robot stationed at Federal Outpost 19 on Tower Road. His jobs include keeping the roads plowed, cleaning houses, maintaining generators and delivering supplies to residents of Westring. He can also provide minor medical attention. Official designation: William, D-746541-M, Maintenance Robot. Many Other Functions. A fried circuit makes him stutter, but he is able to fix this when Roland suggests he do so. He’s at least eight feet tall and resembles Nigel from the Fedic Dogan. He has rudimentary emotions. He assembles a new cart for Roland to haul his supplies and an electric golf cart for Susannah to ride.
Crossover to Other Works: Bill Denborough in It is known as Stutterin’ Bill.
TAHEEN (1, 5, 6, 7, M)
Sometimes known as the third people. They have the heads of animals or birds, and human-shaped bodies. Creatures neither of the Prim nor of the natural world, but misbegotten things from somewhere between the two. Low men are hybrids of taheen and humans. The taheen have no interest in becoming human and consider humes to be an inferior race, so they generally remain in Mid-World. They speak perfect English and some have limited psychic abilities. They are also immune to mind reading. Their sharp vision suits them for working in the guard towers at Algul Siento. They are less susceptible to dermatological problems caused by the poison air of Thunderclap, but even minor wounds are prone to potentially lethal infections. They consider mucous and pus to be sweet delicacies.
TAMRA (L, M)
One of the Little Sisters of Eluria. A lovely lass of one and twenty, according to Sister Mary, though she perhaps means a hundred and twenty years old instead of twenty-one. Even in disguise she looks like a thirty-year-old matron. In the Marvel comics, she is called Tamara.
TASLEY, HOWARD (4.5)
Constable of Tree. Every time the Covenant Man comes, he finds some reason to make himself scarce from the village. Sometimes he goes hunting, or up to Tavares, where he has a woman.
TASSA OF SONESH (7)
Pimli Prentiss’s houseboy at Algul Siento. A willowy young man who wears lipstick and a kilt. He and Tammy Kelly, the housekeeper, hate each other.
TAVERY, FRANCINE (5)
A girl from Calla Bryn Sturgis who, along with her brother, Frank, assists the ka-tet by drawing a map of the town. She has a crush on Eddie. Like her brother, her hair is black, her eyes are dark blue, her skin creamy pale and her lips startling red. They have identical, faint spatters of freckles on their cheeks. Bright, quick, beautiful and eager to please. They are also one of three sets of twins who take the opopanax feather around to call the town meeting before the Wolves arrive.
TAVERY, FRANK (5, 6)
A boy from Calla Bryn Sturgis who, along with his twin sister, assists the ka-tet by drawing a map of the town. He also helps Jake scatter toys to confuse the Wolves, but breaks his ankle after he steps in a hole and panics, which endangers Jake and Benny Slightman.
TELFORD, GEORGE (5)
Owner of Buckhead Ranch in Calla Bryn Sturgis. He’s silver-haired, tanned and handsome in a weather-beaten way. Has a white mustache and shaggy white eyebrows. A smooth talker who knows how to work an audience. Too old to have to worry about the Wolves taking his children. He reminds Eddie of Pa Cartwright from Bonanza. He is dead set against the plan to fight the Wolves and speaks his mind even when it’s clear the tide has turned against him.
THOMAS (2)
One of two desperate yet grim young men Roland encountered while they were pursuing a demon named Flagg who looked like a man.
Crossover to Other Works: In The Eyes of the Dragon, Thomas was the younger son of King Roland of Delain.
THONNIE (6)
One of the Manni of Calla Redpath.
THORIN, CORAL (4, 7, M)
Younger sister of Mayor Hart Thorin of Hambry and owner of the Travellers’ Rest saloon and whorehouse, where she also keeps a large bedroom. She also owns a great deal of land along the Drop. She appears morose and has a hard streak and was a wild child. Sallow and skinny but not as thin as her brother, whom she considers an idiot, and good-looking in a large-eyed, weasel-headed way. She drinks too much as a way of dealing with the town’s treachery. After she starts sleeping with Eldred Jonas, who sees that she’s as cold-blooded as he is, she becomes a coconspirator in the murders of her brother and her former lover, Kimba Rimer. She locks Susan Delgado in the pantry at Mayor’s House after she is captured. After Jonas is killed, she takes up with Clay Reynolds and is killed during a bank robbery shoot-out in Oakley.
THORIN, HARTWELL “HART” (4, M)
Lord High Mayor of Mejis and Chief Guard o’ Barony, though he is actually a puppet to his chancellor, Kimba Rimer, who convinced him to hire the Big Coffin Hunters as bodyguards. Husband to Olive and older brother to Coral, as well as majority owner in the Travellers’ Rest saloon. A skinny, twitchy man
with fluffy white hair rising in a cloud around the bald spot on the top of his head. Fat hairy knuckles. His build is peculiar: a short and narrow-shouldered upper body over impossibly long and skinny legs like a marsh bird. He’s roughly sixty-five years old and underneath he’s backcountry, a rancher. A bit of a fool, apt to blabber. Fond of low comedy and puzzled by anything highbrow. He won’t let anyone call him Excellency. A knuckle-cracker, a back-slapper, a dinner-table belcher. His best asset is his speaking voice, which is strong and high, carrying and pleasant. Fond of strong drink and young girls. When his wife proves barren, he arranges with Cordelia Delgado to turn her niece Susan into his gilly, using a long-standing law that allows for him to have a male heir, though he really just lusts after the beautiful young woman. He pays for Susan with gold, silver, horses and gifts of clothing. He doesn’t know that everyone in town is laughing at him. He wants nothing to do with the business with the Good Man except for his share of the profits, thinking he’ll be too busy in bed with Susan to feel guilt over what he’s allowed in his Barony. Roy Depape stabs him to death.
THORIN, OLIVE (4, M)
Wife of Mayor Hart Thorin of Hambry. She is the daughter of a fisherman named John Haverty and grew up north of Hambry, where she used to play in the caves. A plump woman. She is barren and, though she still loves her husband, she hasn’t shared a room with him for ten years or a bed for five. She is humiliated by her situation and knows the people of Hambry are laughing at her husband’s infatuation with Susan Delgado. She is the only person in high society whom Roland likes in Hambry and, after seeing her situation, he understands his mother better. She tries to come to Susan’s rescue after Clay Reynolds takes her, planning to go west because there’s nothing left for her in Mejis, but Reynolds shoots her after she tries to draw an ancient pistola that misfires.
THOUGHTFUL, RANDO (7)
The Crimson King’s minister of state. He appears first as Fimalo, Stephen King’s superego. He is an old man who is dying slowly. His hair is dirty gray and his skull is covered with eczema. His face is covered with pimples and sores, some bleeding. He tells Roland and Susannah about the last days of the Crimson King in Le Casse Roi Russe. Mordred eats him after the Castle Rooks tear out his eyes while he’s still alive. See also Austin Cornwell.
TICK-TOCK MAN (3, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7)
Real name: Andrew Quick. Leader of the Grays faction in Lud and great-grandson of David Quick. So large and heavily muscled that he reminds Jake of a cross between a Viking warrior and a fairy tale giant. Has green eyes and long, dirty gray-blond hair that reaches the middle of his back. He wears only leather breeches, high boots and a silver band around one bicep. Carries a knife scabbard on one shoulder. Wears a coffin-shaped glass box that contains a gold clock face on a silver chain around his neck. His touch repairs Jake’s watch. Jake shoots him in the thigh and in the head and Oy scratches him in the face, but he survives, only to be taken over by Richard Fannin. He reappears with Fannin/Flagg in the Green Palace, playing the part of the wizard from The Wizard of Oz. When Oy discovers him behind the curtain, he grabs a machine gun, intending to shoot the ka-tet. Oy attacks him, and Eddie and Susannah shoot him to death.
TILLY (3)
One of Tick-Tock Man’s Grays. The only person to survive when Roland infiltrates their headquarters. Presumably killed when Blaine the Mono poisons Lud.
TIRANA (6, 7)
A plump low woman wearing a silver lamé gown in the Dixie Pig. Susannah rips off her mask, revealing the head of a huge red rat with yellow teeth growing up the outsides of its cheek.
TOMAS, MARIA (4, M)
Susan Delgado’s maid at Mayor’s House in Hambry. A small, dark-haired girl, eighteen or nineteen years old, with an innate penchant for creating drama. She can’t bring herself to call Susan by her given name but becomes her ally, getting her out of Mayor’s House the morning after the murders and helping Olive Thorin free her when she’s captured by the Big Coffin Hunters. She had three aunts who died of cancer. Her father works at the Piano Ranch.
TOOK, EBEN (5)
Owner of Took’s General Store in Calla Bryn Sturgis, as well as the boarding house and restaurant. He has a half interest in the livery and loan papers on most of the smallhold farms in the Calla. He, Eisenhart and Overholser are the three “big bugs” in Calla Bryn Sturgis. The Wolves burned the store on a previous visit when the folken put up token resistance, and he’s determined to make sure that never happens again. He is the biggest opponent of the gunslingers’ plan, but when it is successful he offers to outfit them from stem to stern for free. He has a high, almost womanish voice. Eddie thinks he’s a shithead.
TOPSY THE SAILOR (3, 5, 6)
A former member of the Pubes in Lud who took his boat and went off downriver.
TORRES, MIGUEL (4, 5)
An elderly, bearded, toothless servant at Mayor’s House in Hambry. He is usually as neat as a pin, and looks askance at people he deems beneath him.
TOTAL HOGS (4)
A desert tribe of slow mutants who supposedly possessed the blue crystal from the Wizard’s Rainbow until it slipped from their sight within the past fifty years.
TRAMPAS (7)
A low man at Algul Siento who befriends Ted Brautigan. Unlike most low men, he isn’t jealous of humans, which makes him an outcast among his own people. Ted thinks he is farther down the road to becoming than most of the others. His name is derived from the Western novel The Virginian. He has eczema that causes him to take off his protective hat and scratch his head, accidentally revealing to Ted what the Breakers are doing. Ted also discovers he is considered indispensable, motivating him to escape from Algul Siento. When he is recaptured, he does not reveal where he got his information, earning Trampas’s gratitude. Trampas tells Ted about the Crimson King’s efforts to kill Stephen King and how ka has stopped protecting King. During the battle of Algul Siento, Trampas follows orders, grabbing Earnshaw. Ted uses his mind spear to kill him.
TRAVIS (4.5)
The “enjie” (engineer) of the steam-driven train the people of Gilead called Sma’ Toot.
TRELAWNY (7)
A can toi security guard at Algul Siento.
TRISTUM, GANGLI (7)
The compound doctor at Algul Siento. A squat, dark-complected, heavily jowled can toi who took a taheen name instead of a human one. He runs the infirmary on the third floor of Damli House with an iron fist while wearing roller skates. In addition to providing medical services, he also knows how to short-circuit potential teleports. When Damli House catches fire, he stays behind to gather his papers and is killed in an explosion.
TUDBURY, BILL (3)
Resident of River Crossing. One of the albino twins.
TUDBURY, TILL (3)
Resident of River Crossing. One of the albino twins.
TURTLE, THE (4)
Roland hears its voice when he is inside the grapefruit. It shows him his destiny, but it is a hard, cruel voice that also predicts his damnation.
UFFI (7)
A shape changer. Rando Thoughtful claims he’s one.
UNWIN, AUNT TALITHA (3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Matriarch of River Crossing. More than one hundred years old. She hobbles over a cane like a witch in a fairy tale and has no teeth and eyes as green as emeralds. She knows High Speech. She gives Roland a silver cross to place at the base of the Dark Tower. Roland uses the cross to send a message to Moses Carver and gets it back in time to follow her wishes.
VAMPIRES (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Father Callahan classifies vampires into three categories. There aren’t many Type One vampires, like Barlow of ’Salem’s Lot, but they can cause a lot of mayhem in a short period of time. They live long lives and spend centuries in hibernation. They temporarily acquire the thoughts and memories of those they feed on. Parasitic Grandfather-fleas (little doctors) usually follow Type Ones around, as when they’re dining at the Dixie Pig. Roland says they’re the most gruesome and powerful survivors of the Prim’s recession.
&
nbsp; Type One vampires create Type Two vampires, the so-called undead, and then move on. Type Two vampires can create other Type Two vampires in a relatively small area, but they’re barely smarter than zombies and their hunger undoes them. They can’t go out in the daylight and their life spans are short because their existence is perilous.
Type Three vampires can’t create other vampires, but they feed relentlessly and spread disease, like AIDS. Their saliva causes a selective, short-term amnesia in their victims. They can go out in the daylight and take their principal sustenance from food. They have short attention spans. The vampires Father Callahan kills are all Type Threes, which he calls pilot sharks. He believes that what little blood they have in their bodies is coagulated. They disappear once killed, leaving their clothing behind and sometimes their hair and teeth. Father Callahan believes the vampires have an uneasy alliance with the low men that traces back to Thunderclap.
VANNAY, ABEL (1, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 7, M)
Vannay the Wise. One of Roland Deschain’s tutors—the one who taught from books and saw to his students’ mental training. He taught history, logic problems and the universal truths that enabled them to avoid fights. He called violence the hollow chamber, where echoes distorted all true sounds. He showed them the compass and quadrant and sextant and taught them the mathematics necessary to use them.
He held riddling contests every Friday to teach boys to think around corners. He told Roland his imagination was poor and called him Gabby because he was so close-mouthed. He taught about how the Manni prepared for their travels and about the perils of going todash. He believed that if you woke a person from a deep hypnotic trance too suddenly, the person could go mad. Though others are skeptical about the skin-man in Debaria, he finds the evidence convincing. “When facts speak, the wise man listens,” he said. He knew that skin-men prowl after sundown and that they’re vulnerable to silver, but he didn’t know how fast they could change shapes. He walked with a limp. His son, Wallace, was a gunslinger-in-training but died of epilepsy. In the Marvel series, a turncoat Gilead guard shoots him to death.