Sullivan Knoth

"Give them the knife, the club, the fist if it's all you got! God rejoices in the spilling of wicked blood!"

- Knoth about outsiders in their midst

Sullivan Knoth is a central antagonist in the 2017 video game Outlast 2.

Knoth is the founder and leader of the Testament of the New Ezekiel, a fanatic group of cultists who have made their home in Temple Gate, a remote town in the desert of Arizona. When journalist Blake Langermann arrives with his wife Lynn to investigate a murder, they arrive at Temple Gate where they eventually cross paths with Knoth and his fanatical followers.

He is voiced by Vlasta Vrána.

Past
Knoth was born in 1933 and eventually became a shoe salesman in Albuquerque. However, he assembled a lot of debts and was about to lose his home. Seeing no way out of his problems, Knoth at some point started listening to an evangelical radio station but did not find it comforting or consoling at all. Nevertheless, he kept listening to the station and eventually started hearing a different voice coming from the radio, claiming to be the voice of God.

From this voice, Knoth learned that "God" was not content with the religious situation on Earth, claiming that a new prophet was needed in order to satisfy God and to bring balance. Believing himself to be said prophet, Knoth then experienced an apocalyptic vision with a terrible creature in it. Witnessing this vision, Knoth believed that the end of the world was nea and was informed by the voice that the apocalypse would indeed arrive during Knoth's lifetime. He was informed that it was up to him to lead a group of a chosen few towards paradise instead of eternal damnation. Fueled by his new calling, Knoth started preaching to the people of Albuquerque, having abandoned all his possessions with belonged to the bank anyhow. Some started listening and within a year, Sullivan had amassed a group of followers which were fanatically dedeicated to him. They also donated all their worldly possessions to Knoth's newly-founded "Testament of the New Ezekiel". Knoth kept receiving messages from "God" which he recorded in the "Gospel of Knoth".

One of his followers was the wealthy woman Lydia Degan who owned a luxurious ranch. Knoth made that ranch to the comunal headquarter of the Testament of the New Ezekiel. Living on the ranch with his followers, Knoth encouraged sexual intercourse between his followers, even "donating" his own semen to the course. He personally delivered each baby, knowing that one of them would carry a secret pivotal to the salvation of humanity.

However, the police, who were after Knoth for some time, used the home births as a reason to finally take down the Testament. They swept down onto the ranch and arrested several cult members but Knoth and a handful of his most loyal followers evaded capture. Despite their escape, the assets of the Testament were frozen which almost destroyed Knoth's church for good. In the most dire hour, Knoth went onto a mountain to receive guidance of God in a similar fashion of Moses and Abraham. Indeed, after wating in the wilderness naked for some time, Knoth heard the voice of God which demanded an eyeball in exchange for true vision. Knoth cut out his left eye immediately.

Immediately after his eye was pierced, Knoth received a hallucination of a town hidden in the wilderness which would be the "gateway to the true temple of the Testament of the New Ezekiel". Thus, Knoth prepared his remaining followers and decided to built the town he saw, deep in the desert of Arizona - far away from prying eyes. In the winter of 1969, Sullivan and over hundred of his followers left civilization for good and headed into the desert, to the town that Knoth would name Temple Gate.

Outlast 2
During the events of Outlast 2, Knoth and the Testament have already lived at Temple Gate for years.

Trivia

 * In a tweet, developers Red Barrels confirmed that Sullivan would not be the main antagonist of Outlast 2.