In Stephen King’s novel The Stand, the supernatural villain leading forces in Las Vegas is Randall Flagg.
Randall Flagg is a recurring embodiment of evil in King’s fiction. In The Stand, he gathers followers in Las Vegas after a plague devastates most of the world’s population. He presents himself as a powerful leader while using fear, punishment, and authoritarian control to organize the surviving community.
The novel was first published in 1978 and later expanded into an uncut edition in 1990. Its plot follows two broad survivor communities: one centered in Boulder, Colorado, and the other under Flagg’s influence in Las Vegas. The conflict gives the book a mythic structure, contrasting cooperation and democratic decision-making with coercion and worship of power.
Flagg should not be confused with Lloyd Henreid, one of his human followers, or with Harold Lauder, a troubled survivor associated with the Boulder group. King also uses names and versions of Flagg in other works, including the Dark Tower series.