The last of the gunslingers and the sole surviving member of a knightly order sworn to protect the Beams that hold the multiverse together. Roland has pursued the Man in Black across a dying world for years, driven by a singular obsession with the Dark Tower - the nexus of all realities. Trained from boyhood in Gilead, he is one of the finest warriors alive, possessed of an almost supernatural speed and accuracy with his revolvers. He is also ruthless, willing to put the quest above all else - a quality that defines him across eight books.

The primary antagonist of the early Dark Tower books and one of Stephen King's most recurring villains across his wider fiction. A sorcerer of vast age and power, Walter has manipulated events across countless worlds and centuries. He is the Man in Black whom Roland has been pursuing since the first line of the series. Devious and theatrical, he is a figure of genuine menace.

The weapons master of Gilead who trained Roland and his generation of gunslingers. Brutal, demanding, and deeply traditional, Cort tested each apprentice with a formal combat trial that would either earn them their guns or exile them. Roland defeated him at an unusually young age - the youngest ever to do so - using a trained hawk named David. Cort appears primarily in the Wizard and Glass flashbacks and in Roland's memories throughout the series.

Roland's closest childhood friend and fellow apprentice gunslinger in Gilead. Quick-witted, humorous, and brave, Cuthbert is described as more intelligent and talkative than Roland, with a ready grin and a tendency to make jokes even in dire situations. He trains alongside Roland under Cort and witnesses key events including the hawk David's training, the cook Hax's treasonous plot, and Roland's unprecedented early challenge for his coming of age. He goes to his death laughing, blowing a horn.

A boy from New York who finds himself drawn into Mid-World, where he becomes a companion to Roland and his ka-tet. Perceptive and brave beyond his years, Jake possesses a low-level psychic ability and bonds deeply with the billy-bumbler Oy.