Barquentine (Gormenghast) hereditary office of Master of Ritual following the death of his father, and accepts Steerpike as his assistant. In the second book, Gormenghast, he is murdered by Steerpike, who takes over the post of Master of Ritual. Barquentine (Gormenghast) Barquentine is a fictional character in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. He is the son of Sourdust, the Master of Ritual of Gormenghast castle. He is a one-legged, hunchbacked dwarf with a bitter, vicious personality; he never washes, he dresses in filthy rags, and his hair and beard are long, tangled, and dirty. He is frequently taunted by the castle's children, who
Titus Crow Jack Vance's futuristic detective, Doctor Who, Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, August Derleth's Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki and Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin. Lumley doesn't acknowledge any of these as conscious inspirations, saying that Crow's time-clock (which derives from Lovecraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key") long predates Who; that he's never read Peake's "Gormenghast" and that the similarity of names is coincidental; and that he "was never too keen on" Derleth's Shrewsbury. He does admit, however, to having "always had a soft spot" for Bram Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing. Collected in "The Compleat Crow" (1987 Hodder