Randolph Fox

Randolph Fox is a mysterious traveling showman who appears when a boy named Will complains that he wants to trade God for a different one. Fox offers a collection of replacement gods, including Affirmus, who praises every desire, and Otto, who promises ambition and control. Each purchase draws Will farther from his family and gives the new idol more power over him. Fox eventually reveals that Will has been listening to a cautionary story rather than living through its events. Calm, perceptive, and difficult to categorize, he uses the strange marketplace to expose what self-made gods become. His lesson helps Will see that an idol shaped to satisfy him will finally resemble and enslave him.