Sep 23, 2026 · 23 min · 10 segments
Welcome to Season One of Arkham Northside, a retrospective look at Arkham Horror, the Card Game. Today, we'll delve a little too deep into a discussion about Roland Banks, the investigator from the…
Who is Roland Banks? Well, he's not as much of an Arkham mainstay as Harvey Walters or Jenny Barnes.
Roland made his first appearance in 2009 in the Innsmouth Horror expansion for the board game Arkham Horror, not quite a decade before he became one of the most recognizable faces of the LCG.
Roland is a stickler for the rules, and that gets him into a fair bit of trouble.
In fact, it's the reason he's in Arkham in the first place.
In the novella The Dirge of Reason, we learn that Roland was transferred to Arkham when he landed someone important in hot water.
His first assignment is the one no one wants.
All the musicians in an orchestra are killed in a rich person's mansion, insurance is involved, and Roland has to find a rational cause for their deaths.
The Arkham officer assigned to the case, Sheriff Engle, is all too happy to foist the assignment onto Roland's plate.
It's a tidy bit of writing.
Roland ends up tracking down journalists and bootleggers with the help of Leo DeLuca, of all people, and finds himself face-to-face with a creature implied to be the Piper of Azathoth.
The Piper actually makes an appearance in a later campaign.
More interesting, perhaps, is what we learn about Roland.
Roland comes off as being very street smart, even if he's politically naive.
He's secretive, and he has good instincts.
He also struggles to follow the rules, which is built wonderfully into his LCG mechanics.
We'll get to Roland in the LCG in a moment, but I bring up the Dirge of Reason because it is the best backstory we get of Roland, and at this point it's more or less canon.
But there are other mentions of Roland in Arkham lore.
In the book Investigators of Arkham Horror, Roland investigates the Black Cave in Arkham's Rivertown with the help of a police officer, a Tom Mountain Murphy.
Murphy, like Sheriff Engle in the Dirge of Reason, is wary of Roland.
And this is pretty standard.
Roland, to his credit, actually ends up working pretty well with the local police, which is another clue that he might be more savvy than his backstory suggests.
Now, there is a very weird mention of Roland.
In the book The Hungering God, Roland is alluded to for a while and finally found in Arkham Asylum after he loses his mind while on the job.
This gives a very different version of Roland.
In this, he's a star investigator who took the Arkham assignment because it was challenging.
Who is Roland Banks? Well, he's not as much of an Arkham mainstay as Harvey Walters or Jenny Barnes.
Roland made his first appearance in 2009 in the Innsmouth Horror expansion for the board game Arkham Horror, not quite a decade before he became one of the most recognizable faces of the LCG.
Roland is a stickler for the rules, and that gets him into a fair bit of trouble.
In fact, it's the reason he's in Arkham in the first place.
In the novella The Dirge of Reason, we learn that Roland was transferred to Arkham when he landed someone important in hot water.
His first assignment is the one no one wants.
All the musicians in an orchestra are killed in a rich person's mansion, insurance is involved, and Roland has to find a rational cause for their deaths.
The Arkham officer assigned to the case, Sheriff Engle, is all too happy to foist the assignment onto Roland's plate.
It's a tidy bit of writing.
Roland ends up tracking down journalists and bootleggers with the help of Leo DeLuca, of all people, and finds himself face-to-face with a creature implied to be the Piper of Azathoth.
The Piper actually makes an appearance in a later campaign.
More interesting, perhaps, is what we learn about Roland.
Roland comes off as being very street smart, even if he's politically naive.
He's secretive, and he has good instincts.
He also struggles to follow the rules, which is built wonderfully into his LCG mechanics.
We'll get to Roland in the LCG in a moment, but I bring up the Dirge of Reason because it is the best backstory we get of Roland, and at this point it's more or less canon.
But there are other mentions of Roland in Arkham lore.
In the book Investigators of Arkham Horror, Roland investigates the Black Cave in Arkham's Rivertown with the help of a police officer, a Tom Mountain Murphy.
Murphy, like Sheriff Engle in the Dirge of Reason, is wary of Roland.
And this is pretty standard.
Roland, to his credit, actually ends up working pretty well with the local police, which is another clue that he might be more savvy than his backstory suggests.
Now, there is a very weird mention of Roland.
In the book The Hungering God, Roland is alluded to for a while and finally found in Arkham Asylum after he loses his mind while on the job.
This gives a very different version of Roland.
In this, he's a star investigator who took the Arkham assignment because it was challenging.
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