Roland is the fledgling of the vampire Baudwin. Roland befriends Rhoshamandes, the ancient vampire from the time of Akasha in ancient Egypt. Rhoshamandes sends Roland away. Though the parting is difficult, they both understand that their division will be best for their ultimate unity and friendship. Roland never holds the decision against Rhoshamandes and often keeps in close contact with him.
They reunite in the twenty-first century, after Amel seduces Rhoshamandes into killing Maharet and Khayman. Since then, Rhoshamandes has been in self-exile in his fortress castle, hiding away from other vampires and loathing the vampire Lestat for treating him so unfairly. Roland reveals to Rhoshamandes that he has captured a strange being named Derek. Initially, Roland was simply hunting Derek one night at the opera house in Budapest. Upon capturing him, Roland realizes that this Derek creature is neither mortal nor immortal, neither human nor vampire. Roland imprisons Derek beneath his palatial home a few blocks from the Budapest opera house. To his great delight, one of his first discoveries is that no matter how much blood he drinks from Derek, this creature regenerates more blood after about an hour, making Derek an unending fount of food, whose blood is thicker and sweeter and has greater nutrients than human blood. Roland shares Derek’s blood with other vampires, including Rhoshamandes and Avicus. In the blood, they can sense a very ancient history, more ancient than that of vampires, extending all the way back to the city of Atlantis. It turns out that Derek is an artificial life-form called a Replimoid, created on the planet Bravenna.
Roland holds Derek as a prisoner for more than a decade, until Derek escapes and reunites with his Replimoid companions, who have by then befriended Lestat and his vampire coven. The Replimoids ask the vampires to enact vengeance against Roland for his injustice to Derek. Lestat and the vampires send Flavius, Teskhamen, Gregory, and others to Roland. With the Fire Gift, they utterly immolate him, with flames beginning in Roland’s heart and expanding outward, until Roland is a swirl of fire and cinders, and nothing remains but a scorch mark on the carpet.
Roland appears in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016). For more perspectives on Roland’s character, read the Alphabettery entries Derek, Replimoid, and Rhoshamandes.