Fallout 4: Commonwealth Citizens / Characters

Fallout 4 Main Character Index
Sole Survivor and Family | Companions (Main Story Companions) | Factions (The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel — The Railroad — The Institute) | Commonwealth Citizens (Diamond City — Goodneighbor) | Island Citizens | Nuka-World Citizens

Characters from the various settlements across Fallout 4.

open/close all folders

Sanctuary Hills Settlers

Preston Garvey

See: Fallout 4: Companions

Sturges

Voiced by: Philip Anthony-Rodriguez

"My old man taught me duct tape could fix anything, I don't think he was talking about bullet holes."

A mechanical genius. He's one of the first settlers to reach Sanctuary Hills and later joins the Commonwealth Minutemen as their 'tech guy'.

The Engineer: His specialty revolves around working with all sorts of machinery. Also becomes his main job upon settling down in Sanctuary.
Gadgeteer Genius: In the Minutemen path for the main quest, he helps design a teleporter that takes you to the Institute.
Heroic Build: A bit of a subversion. Sturges is tall and looks quite imposing, but he's also a pacifist by nature, only picking up the gun when forced to defend his settlement home. Instead, his heroism comes through indirect acts such as providing tech support to his frontline Minutemen buddies.
Nice Guy: Sturges is an all around, honest-to-goodness fella - just like his comrade, Preston Garvey.
Non-Action Guy: He'll give an offhand comment about how he's not the type to use the minigun, if the Sole Survivor is dawdling around instead of getting the fusion core.
The Smart Guy: Serves this role to the original settlers and to the Minutemen in general, being their equivalent to Proctor Ingram and Tinker Tom.
Southern-Fried Genius: He's got the typical look (suspenders and all) to go along with the accent, and certainly proves his intellect whenever needed. He's one of only three individuals in the Commonwealth outside the Institute with the requisite know-how to construct the Relay Interceptor.
Tomato in the Mirror: He will always have a Synth component on him on death (only available through console commands, as in-game he is marked as essential and thus cannot die). It seems that he's just plain unaware of the fact that he's a Synth.
What the Hell, Hero?: In the Minutemen ending, he won't hesitate to call you out for leaving Synth Shaun to burn in the Institute. He'll do it on your orders, but will say point out how it's pretty harsh, though he'll be a bit understanding if you tell him that it's just a synth of Shaun, directing his disgust toward the Institute for creating such a thing.

Mama Murphy

Voiced by: Maya Massar

An elderly woman who claims to be a psychic due to her extensive chem use. She is the only lead the Sole Survivor has to finding their lost son.

Addiction-Powered: She uses Chems to fuel her clairvoyance.
Brought Down to Normal: The player character can convince her to give up Chems in order to live longer.
Cool Old Lady: Despite not looking that old, she behaves like a very fun grandmother.
Cloud Cuckoolander: She's a drug-addicted, good-hearted "psychic" who dispenses advice in the Wasteland.
Doom Magnet: The Raiders that attack the settlers at Concord were sent to capture her by a Raider Lord who knew her as a child and seeks to use her powers.
Expy: Cyndi Lauper, of all people, has played numerous good-hearted but quirky psychics in various media which Mama Murphy seems to draw from. Mama Murphy even draws on her unique way of speaking.
Functional Addict: Outright claims her "psychic visions" can only work when she's high... which is why she demands chems for service fee. However, she'll eventually overdose if you give her too many drugs.
Hint System: Mama Murphy's sight lets you get past certain obstacles. If you can't figure out to look for Nick Valentine in Diamond City, she says to "follow the heart." If you're on Nick's trail, she'll give you a code phrase to tell to Nick's enemy Skinny Malone that makes him back off and let you both go free. If you're looking for Kellogg's house key, she'll tell you a key fell underneath the house in the chair stands (and the key only exists there if she tells you about it). Once you get far enough in the game and have finally found Shaun she stops having useful visions, though, as your destiny is now up to you.
Junkie Prophet: If it isn't already clear, drugs give her prophetic visions.
Ironic Last Words: Give her all the chems she asks for, and she'll eventually die mid-vision, while saying she didn't predict this.
Mama Murphy: Oh! (cough cough) I should've seen this coming...(falls over and dies)
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Her predictions are a little too good to be entirely random, like getting you Z2-47's reset code, but the game never confirms them one way or the other.
Older Than They Look: Says she's actually a lot older than she appears.
One-Woman Army: She claims she was one when she was younger. They called her "Murphy the Madwoman," and she shot up a lot of Raiders and other monsters. According to her, she once killed a Deathclaw with a single bullet from a pipe pistol by shooting it in just the right spot. If her powers are real and she was high on Jet at the time, that could even be true...
Prophet Eyes: She's got them. Some fans theorize she was originally planned to be a Blind Seer, going by her cloudy blue eyes and unfocused gaze, but Mama Murphy gives every indication that she can see just fine even without The Sight.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In a terminal at the Corvega Plant, the leader of the Raiders there mentions that Mama Murphy said he would grow up to be a monster. Considering he tried to kill the Minutemen and was plaguing settlements For the Evulz, she was right. He also appears to have reacted to her prophecy by... drugging himself up to the gills to try and replicate the phenomenon himself and then, when that didn't work, luring as many people as he could find to inflict the process on them instead.
Team Mom: This is her role to the refugees... more or less.
This Is My Chair: One of the first things she asks for when you start to rebuild Sanctuary Hills is her own special chair to sit in. After that, 90% of the time in the settlement, you'll see her plopped right down in it.

Jun & Marcy Long

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jun_and_marcy_long_fo4.jpg

Voiced by: James Sie and Alejandra Gollas, respectively

A couple who recently lost their son Kyle. Jun became an emotionally crushed man because of it, while Marcy responds by being angry and irritable at the world.

Despair Event Horizon: When the Survivor first meets them, Jun's already close to shutting down from the emotional trauma of his son's death, only made worse by the sheer hopelessness of his group's predicament. Upon reaching Sanctuary, he is still sad, but decides he's going to stop moping.
Freudian Excuse: Her husband explains that Marcy's current attitude is her own way of coping with the death of their son. This gets downplayed, though, when logs from their shop in the Quincy Ruins reveal that she's always had a short temper.
Jerkass:
- Nearly 99% of what Marcy says is complaining or just being plain rude. Her first word to the Sole Survivor after they save her group by murdering their way past a group of Raiders is an insult, saying she expected him/her to just drive the Raiders away by bleeding all over them.
- If you've raised Sanctuary's happiness quite high, one of Marcy's quotes is "I'll stop complaining when there's nothing to complain about!"
Jerkass Has a Point:
- Marcy complains that Preston's decision to go to Sanctuary based solely on the "visions" of a chem addict isn't the soundest logic. Then again, it's not like they had an alternative.
- Additionally, terminal entries in Quincy showed that she was very dubious of the Minutemen's heroism and prowess when they came to protect Quincy, despite her son's excitement and Hero Worship of the Minutemen. As this chain of events eventually resulted in her only child's death and the sundering of her hometown in the now-infamous "Quincy Massacre," she was completely right to think the Minutemen weren't the people her son thought they were.
- Her insult towards the Sole Survivor upon wondering if they're going to "bleed all over the Raiders" to drive them off may sound rude but considering how the Sole Survivor is (for all appearances at this position in the game's story) a Vault Dweller, and most Vault Dwellers are infamous in the Wasteland for being Too Dumb to Live, she does make a good point about being dubious of the Sole Survivor's overall combat skill when facing against an entire city street's worth of Raiders.
Morality Pet: For all her constant whinging and insulting, she never takes her anger out of Jun and actually treats him quite nicely.
Pet the Dog:
- Squint really hard, and you'll find that Marcy does care about Jun; she helps to keep him together on the way to Sanctuary, and she resents working on the settlement because she has little leisure time to spend with him.
- She also checks up on Mama Murphy in ambient dialogue, asking if she's doing well and humours her story about fighting a Deathclaw.
Took a Level in Kindness: In recent patches, Marcy has lines with emotional range beyond "grouchy", such as expressing gratitude to the Survivor (in a grudging, somewhat backhanded sort of way) for improving Sanctuary. Apparently "it's still a hole," but it's better than where they were before. She will also occasionally note (in an optimistic tone) how "Life isn't perfect, but we're still surviving."
Ungrateful Bastard: Marcy. She's the only one from Preston's group who shows no gratitude to the Sole Survivor for saving them, nor does she ever really stop being a jerk towards the Survivor (or everyone else) until she's slightly softened in some patch dialogue.

Diamond City Citizens

See Fallout 4: Diamond City

Goodneighbor Citizens

See Fallout 4: Goodneighbor

Bunker Hill Merchants

Mayor

Kessler

Voiced by: Joey Honsa

Bunker Hill's mayor, responsible for managing the town's funds and paying protection money to the Raider gangs.

The Friend Nobody Likes: The other merchants seem to tolerate Kessler more than anything else. They always assume she's just talking to them to take their money. She's also saddled with all the farming work: Unless the player brings settlers in with a Beacon, she'll be the only one that farms the settlement's crops.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Kessler is shell-shocked after the Battle of Bunker Hill and gives the Sole Survivor complete control of the settlement to stay on the good side of the Survivor's "powerful friends."
The Leader: Of Bunker Hill, natch.
Lonely at the Top: Kessler tries to strike up conversations with her citizens, but they just assume she's there to take their money.
Not in This for Your Revolution: Kessler flat-out refuses to align Bunker Hill with the Minutemen should she be asked about it. After the Battle of Bunker Hill though, she doesn't need convincing.

Traveling Caravans

Trashcan Carla

Voiced by: Veronica Cartwright

A smart-mouthed, chain-smoking wandering junk seller, and likely the first travelling merchant the player will meet.

Ambiguously Gay: Though her loving days have long since passed her, if you flirt with her as a male Sole Survivor, she'll call you a "Wiseass." What does she call a female Sole Survivor who does the same thing? Beautiful.
Deadpan Snarker: She's finds it hilarious if the Sole Survivor flirts with her, and responds in kind.
The Mole: SRB documents reveal that she's one for the Institute.
Ms. Exposition: She'll help the player reach Diamond City, if they ask her.
Oh, Crap!: Like all Bunker Hill merchants, she freaks out if approached by X6-88, revealing her as an informant for the Institute.

Lucas Miller

Voiced by: Brandon Bales

Bunker Hill's resident armor merchant - a portly, no-nonsense man who tours the Commonwealth's settlements with his pack brahmin, "Ol' Girl."

Distracted by the Luxury: Discussed. One of his pre-menu lines has him warn the Sole Survivor not to indulge in this.
Lucas: Focus on stopping power. Pretty don't stop bullets.
Hell-Bent for Leather: He wears thick leather straps and padding over a leather jacket, though his choice of attire is more about practical protection than looking cool.
The Mole: SRB documents reveal that he's one for the Institute.
Oh, Crap!: Like all Bunker Hill merchants, he freaks out if approached by X6-88, revealing him as an informant for the Institute.
Only Sane Man: He's the only one of the Bunker Hill merchants who actually seems qualified for the job, unlike the alcoholic Carla, the neurotic Cricket, and the plain not-really-a-doctor Weathers.
Stern Teacher: Not a teacher per-se, but quite a few of his lines carry an air of "I know what I'm doing, and so should you."

Cricket

Voiced by: Ashly Burch

An erratic, emaciated arms dealer. From Bunker Hill, her caravan - and her brahmin, "Spot" - brings high-powered weapons to the wasteland.

Addled Addict: It's heavily implied that her current mental state is the result of lots of chem abuse. In addition to looking like a strung out junkie she always sounds like she's seconds away from overdosing on Psycho.
Arms Dealer: Her job, which she seems to have an unhealthy attachment to.
Blood Knight: She loves selling all manner of weapons to the various maniacs and wastelanders roaming the Commonwealth. Probably the only reason she doesn't join in is because of all the caps she makes off of her merchant business.
Comedic Sociopathy: Her unhinged and psychotic personality is played completely for laughs.
Expy: She's a fast talking, somewhat manic woman sporting an unhealthy obsession with firearms and explosives, voiced by Ashly Burch. Sound familiar?
The Mole: SRB documents reveal that she's one for the Institute.
Oh, Crap!: Like all Bunker Hill merchants, she freaks out if approached by X6-88, revealing her as an informant for the Institute.

Doc Weathers

Voiced by: Jonathan Roumie

A slick and shifty traveling doctor, who - with his brahmin, "Idiot" - offers medical supplies and services to the settlers of the Commonwealth.

Back-Alley Doctor: Not quite to the extent of Dr. Ada Straus, but still not a guy you'd want treating you if a better option happens to be available.
Dr Feel Good: He sells hard chems alongside actual medicine and some of his dialogue even implies that he uses some of his chems on himself.
Dr. Jerk: While is isn't the meanest guy around he's also far from being the nicest. He even named his loyal pack brahmin "Idiot" rather than the more affectionate names the other caravaners use.
Getting High on Their Own Supply: It's implied he uses a few of his chems himself, though this doesn't seem to impact his ability to perform medicine.
The Mole: SRB documents reveal that he's one for the Institute.
Oh, Crap!: Like all Bunker Hill merchants, he freaks out if approached by X6-88, revealing him as an informant for the Institute.

Other Residents

Old Man Stockton

Voiced by: Time Winters

A wealthy merchant owning multiple caravans based out of Bunker Hill (Such as the ones listed above) - also a contact to the Railroad in charge of smuggling Synths to various safehouses and away from the Commonwealth.

Dramatic Irony: He's one of the Railroad's main contacts on the surface and smuggles synths around and out of the Commonwealth for them using his various trade caravans. Most of the major caravans operating out of Bunker Hill, including the three he backs, are informants for the Institute. This trope goes both ways; not only does Stockton not realize that three of his employees are spies for his enemies, the three of them don't seem to know he's a Railroad operative.
Horrible Judge of Character: Every single one of the caravans he backs — Cricket, Lucas Miller, and Trashcan Carla — are actually informants for the Institute, and he has no idea.
Nice Guy: He does a lot for the Railroad, and even adopted a freed Synth as his daughter.
Properly Paranoid: It's mentioned that even by Railroad standards, Old Man Stockton obsesses with security measures, passcodes, and drop off points. But considering the Institute knows about Bunker Hill...

Deb, Kay and Meg

Voiced by: Mandy Kaplan, Misty Lee, and Miya Horcher, respectively

The Hill's permanent residents - Deb deals in junk and repairs, Kay's the town doctor, and their daughter Meg provides tours.

Children Are Innocent: Averted. Don't let that cutesy picture she's drawing fool you, Meg wastes no time trying to scam you when you first set foot in Bunker Hill.
Con Artist: Meg is one of these...kind of. For ten caps she'll offer to give the Sole Survivor a "tour" of Bunker Hill. The player can either pay up or pass a hard Charisma check, but either way Meg will only provide vague directions to places of note and ultimately leave the player to find their own way around, essentially fleecing them.
Mr. Fixit: Deb boasts that she can fix anything with anything.
Open Heart Dentistry: Kay's upfront about being a veterinarian first and foremost, but she treats humans too.
Sole Survivor: If you killed everyone else in Bunker Hill, not only will Meg be the only one left alive by virtue of being a child (and therefore considered Essential by the game) but unlike children at other settlements (Nordhagen Beach, for example) she will not leave and will still remain in the settlement.
Straight Gay: According to the Creation Kit, Deb and Kay are a married couple and Meg is their daughter. However, this is not alluded to in-game beyond their sharing a residency.

The Savoldis

Voiced by: Brian Frates (Joe) and Brandon Keener (Tony)

Joe and Tony Savoldi, a father and son who run Bunker Hill's hotel - Joe tends bar and Tony manages the accommodation.

Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Tony is a Railroad sympathizer, but Joe thinks risking death to help people - especially Synths - is ridiculous.
Hero-Worshipper: Downplayed. Joe isn't blind to the fact that the Minutemen weren't there for people at Quincy (the truth is way more complicated), but he still holds them (or at least, his Grandpa) in high regard; the only one the Hill that does. He perks up when/if the Sole Survivor says nice things about them; particularly if they're the new General.
Like Father, Unlike Son: Tony is sympathetic to the plight of Non-Institute Synths and the Railroad that helps them. His father Joe doesn't see Synths as people and dismisses the notion as a pipe-dream.

Vault 81 Inhabitants

Austin Engill

Voiced by: Jack Riedy

A child living in Vault 81 who is eager to meet the Sole Survivor, being the very first outsider he gets to lay eyes on.

Cheerful Child: Say "yes", and he'll happily walk you around Vault 81 as your tour guide. Austin is a bundle of enthusiasm.
Children Are Innocent: The boy has never seen the harshness of the outside world before, and like any child his age, is filled with wonder and curiosity.
Death of a Child: He will die if you don't give him the cure.
Happily Adopted: Dr. Penske adopted him as her grandson after his parents' death.
Messy Hair: Says he hates combing his hair, and the Vault's barber Horatio calls his hair a "mole rat's nest".
Raised by Grandparents: Though not biologically-related to Penske, this trope still applies.

Erin Combes

Voiced by: Rachel Pace

Austin's only friend and the second child whom the Sole Survivor meets.

Only Friend: Justified, since Vault 81 doesn't have many children.
Parental Neglect: Eavesdropping on her family store indicates that her father doesn't care much about her.

Katy Pinn

Voiced by: Carla Tassara

Vault 81's resident schoolteacher.

Cool Teacher: She's one of the friendlier Vault 81 inhabitants, asking the Sole Survivor to tell her students stories about his/her travels in the Commonwealth.
Friend to All Children: Probably explains why she got her job in the first place.

Gwen McNamara

Voiced by: Cindy Robinson

The current Overseer of Vault 81.

The Chains of Commanding: She had to make tough decisions for the safety and survival of the Vault.
I Did What I Had to Do: She was willing to go extreme measures to prevent Austin's plague from breaking out.
Reasonable Authority Figure: She's the only truly responsible, competent and benevolent Vault Overseer in the entire series. She's not as paranoid towards outsiders as other Vault inhabitants to the point where she (1) lets the Sole Survivor come to the Vault through either payment of three Fusion Cores or a speech check, and (2) allows them a place to live should they give the cure to Austin.

Robert & Tina De Luca

Voiced by: Brandon Bales and Ashly Burch, respectively

Brother-sister twins. Robert works as the engineer of the Vault's generator and is a junkie, while Tina sells chems behind the Overseer's back.

Black Market: Tina sells Jet from behind the Overseer's back. Tina is supposed to be a Level 4 salesperson that you can recruit, but because of a bug which causes the speech check to always fail, she will never join a settlement.
Fantastic Drug: Bobby is addicted to Jet.
Functional Addict: Bobby's addiction doesn't seem to hamper him, although Tina claims it is and Old Rusty, the Mister Handy who works with him does most of his job.
Known Only by Their Nickname: Robert usually goes by Bobby.
My Greatest Failure: Tina admits that she caused her brother's chem addiction. Not that this particular guilt stops her from selling to anyone else or supplying her brother the occasional hit.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Bobby stashed his drugs in what used to be a secret laboratory filled with mole rats infected with viruses from experiments... and started a whole quest to get antidote there since Austin got bit by one of them.

Miranda Song

Voiced by: Stephanie Komure

A doctor located at Vault 81's entrance.

Jerkass: She's shown to dislike virtually any person from outside the Vault.
Jerkass Has a Point: Well, the Commonwealth is filled to the brim with Raiders and other malicious factions, making her xenophobia easy to understand. After succeeding in a Charisma check, her personal experience was based on being cheated out of money by an outsider who was last seen with a man in Diamond City.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She warms up to the Sole Survivor if they give the cure to Austin.
Lipstick Lesbian: Implied from her statement that may imply that a Commonwealth woman may have been her lover until she took her money away and last seen with a man in Diamond City.

Dr. O. Olivette

The original Overseer of Vault 81. Her iron morals are why Vault 81 survived to the present day.

For Science!: One of the very few Vault Overseers who wasn't okay with it.
I Did What I Had to Do: Upon discovering the true purpose of the Vault, she purposely didn't phone the science staff when the bombs dropped, leaving them to perish. The scientists who did get there were locked away to die in an inaccessible area.
Posthumous Character: Naturally long deceased by the game's present time setting.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: She had no clue why she got selected to be Overseer on account of her political stances being at odds with the prevailing ones in the US government. Being not morally bankrupt like so many other Vault-Tec employees, she opted to make the Vault into an actual functioning shelter community instead of a sick experiment laboratory.

The Castle Residents

Ronnie Shaw

Voiced by: Elisabeth Noone

A veteran Minuteman who left the organization when the Castle was lost and the last general died, disgusted at the infighting that was taking roots in the organization. She returns when she hears the Minutemen have re-taken the Castle and are united under a new General to see if they are worth re-joining.

Action Girl: She's one of the most experienced fighters the Minutemen have left, won't take crap from anyone, and will incinerate everything foolish enough to attack the Castle with her trusty Laser Musket.
Arms Dealer: A rare non-shady example. Once she's settled in at the Castle, she takes over the position of quartermaster and thus becomes one of the extremely few legendary weapons vendors in the game.
Death from Above: She unlocks for you the true martial power of the Minutemen: artillery. After that, any settlement can become a firebase.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: We never get to actually see it, but going by her persona and by how she talks about whipping the new Minutemen recruits into shape, she certainly comes across as one.
Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Has a very pronounced habit of turning her swears into horrible monstrosities of themselves. It's especially noticeable during the speeches she gives before and after the two story-relevant "Defend the Castle" quests.
Ronnie: Goldurnit!
Never Mess with Granny: She's certainly far from young, having been a veteran already when the Castle fell decades ago.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She left the Minutemen previously, due to the previous infighting and internal struggles for power.
Skeptic No Longer: The Survivor can convince her that the Minutemen are once again worth her blood, sweat and tears.
Veteran Instructor: Pretty much her role as the most experienced Minuteman (even more so than Preston). Her first quest involves her showing the Sole Survivor what their new headquarters can actually do, as well as train the artillery operators.

Sarge

Voiced by: Wes Johnson

A Sentry Bot that guards The Castle, and resides in the Castle Tunnels to attack any intruders.

Alas, Poor Villain: Sarge is the de facto "dungeon boss" for the Castle, and he was a mascot/fixture of the old Minutemen at the Castle. Ronnie expresses lament over having to destroy him in his malfunctioning state.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The years spent down there have done bad things to his A.I., and he immediately attacks the player and Ronnie when he activates, despite the latter being a recognized member of the Minutemen before the Castle incident.
Killer Robot: He's a well-armed Sentry Bot and attacks the player upon activation.

Cabot Family

Emogene Cabot

Voiced by: Dani Knights

Youngest of the Cabot family, she is prone to boredom and flightiness.

Deathless and Debauched: Every bit as immortal, and also an incorrigible thrillseeker thanks to her boredom, and engages in so many escapades with lovers across the Commonwealth that her brother Jack has long since stopped caring about her absences.
Hidden Depths: A surprising case. Not only is she is a very capable hacker and fighter, but her utter boredom with her immortality has resulted in her becoming a thrill-seeker.
Mugging the Monster: In the immediate aftermath of the Great War, the house bodyguard tried to evict her and her mother at gunpoint while Jack was off dealing with containing Lorenzo while the apocalypse happened. Thanks to the powers conferred by the Mysterious Serum and her own prowess, Emogene dispatched him, to the surprise of both her mother and brother.
Really Gets Around: She's prone to going out for a hookup without telling anyone as part of her boredom with immortality.
Ungrateful Bastard: She appears to be one when the Sole Survivor gets her out of the Pillars of the Community's control, but it's more a result of her never needing to be "saved" in the first place.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Emogene is, simply put, bored. Even before the Great War destroyed society, she became a master hacker simply out of boredom.

Jack Cabot

Voiced by: Don McManus

A wealthy scientist who employs the Sole Survivor's services.

And the Adventure Continues: After the quest is complete, he plans to head to the Mojave Wasteland to search for another buried alien city.
Badass Bookworm: He's more of a scholar than a fighter, but that doesn't mean he can't handle a laser pistol.
Butt-Monkey: Despite all he's done for his family. His mother throws him under the bus when Lorenzo returns to the Cabot house and Emogene mistreats him.
Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The Mysterious Serum is mentioned by him as being ultimately of alien origin.
Innocently Insensitive: Jack's use of the Mysterious Serum has prolonged his age and it shows at points, particularly when dealing with Edward.
Momma's Boy: Even when he's over 400 years old, he still lives under his mother's thumb. If you betray him by freeing Lorenzo then his mother will spinelessly throw Jack under the bus.
Nice Guy: While he's somewhat eccentric, and can be abrupt when annoyed or panicked, he's overall one of the more pleasant characters in the game.
Really 700 Years Old: The Mysterious Serum prevents him and his family from aging. He actually predates the Sole Survivor, being born four hundred years ago.
Sealed Evil in a Can: He keeps his father Lorenzo, who has become both superhumanly powerful and homicidal through the Serum's side effects, locked up in the Parson Asylum. That is, until raiders come along and attempt to free him. Then it's up to you to decide who to join.
Sherlock Scan: When he first sees the Sole Survivor, he immediately guesses the Survivor is from before the war based on their posture, manner of speaking and apparent health, though he only reveals it later.

Lorenzo Cabot

Voiced by: Richard Cansino

The Patriarch of the Cabot family who is locked inside Parsons State Insane Asylum due to his mental instability. Before the war, he discovered an alien artifact that gave him superhuman abilities, however this caused him to become dangerously homicidal, or at least this is what Jack wants you to believe.

Affably Evil: Despite his mental condition, he's very well mannered, and if you help him take revenge on his family, he'll genuinely treat you as a friend and offers you his blood whenever you need it. Of course, whether or not he's actually "evil" at all depends on your own view of the quest.
Ambiguously Evil: It's hard to tell how much of Jack's story regarding his father is true, but at the very least, Lorenzo isn't as insane as Jack implied him to be. Though he's all too happy to take bloody revenge on his family, his reaction can come off as understandable depending on your own views, considering how the family has been keeping him locked up for 400 years for his blood. Most notably, a few of your morally good followers approve of the decision to let him out of his cell.
- If freed from his cell, he can be encountered later on in the Wasteland, having killed a group of Ghoul settlers so he can study their condition. He remains unfailingly polite to you, but it's clear he's a very dangerous man.
Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: His unique 19th-century style suit is quite distinct from the the 1950s-style suits that can otherwise be obtained.
Ax-Crazy: The reason the Cabots currently have him locked up, or at least according to Jack.
Hollywood Psych: He's described as too insane to be allowed to go free - Jack specifically uses the phrase "homicidally psychotic." However, Lorenzo never displays any symptoms of psychosis, and remains perfectly lucid throughout his appearances. Ruthless, yes, and possibly possessed by an ancient alien intelligence, but not an outright lunatic.
Kick the Dog: One of the first things the Sole Survivor will find Lorenzo doing after being released is brutally killing a group of innocent Ghoul settlers because he was interested in studying how Ghoul physiology differed from baseline humanity's.
Mind over Matter: He can perform telekinetic force pushes in combat.
Pater Familicide: The very first thing he does if you let him out of his cell.
Sealed Evil in a Can: If Jack's story is to be believed, he ended up like this rather than on Death Row only because of the family's influence.
Shout-Out: His blood produces a serum that has incredibly powerful regenerative effects. Lorenzo's Oil, anyone?
Super Serum: His blood is the source of the Cabot family's eternal youth. Besides just slowing down aging, the serum is also one of the most powerful drugs in the game — giving +50 damage resistance, the ability to heal a significant amount of radiation, and a +5 Strength bonus for an hour.
Super-Toughness: Lorenzo has more health than a Deathclaw and innate damage resistance greater than a full suit of combat armor.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Apparently, he's been driven mad by the artifact fused to his head.

Wilhelmina Cabot

Voiced by Melendy Britt

The Matriarch of the Cabot Family, wife of Lorenzo, and mother to Jack and Emogene.

Critical Existence Failure: Both endings of the Cabot questline leave her dead, and while siding with Lorenzo leads to the obvious conclusion, siding with Jack still ends up in her dying due to Lorenzo's death depriving the family of the serum that let them maintain their immortality. With the latter ending, a random encounter, that can even take place a day or two after, has a now-aged Jack reveal that Wilhelmina passed away from natural causes, possibly combined with Rapid Aging, because she didn't have the serum to keep her alive anymore.
Elderly Immortal: Her hair was already in a natural silver when she got the first dose of the serum made from Lorenzo's blood, and she maintained it along with the awkward gait of an old woman's body even after 400 years and through the Great War.
Opportunistic Bastard: Despite being as responsible as Jack is for keeping Lorenzo locked in the Insane Asylum to continue supplying the serum granting the family their immortality, the moment that the patriarch enters the family home and threatens to kill them all, she gladly tries to throw her own sun under the bus to save herself. It doesn't work.
Really 700 Years Old: Thanks to the serum derived from her husband's blood granting immortality to her and her family, Wilhemina has been alive at least 400 years, even long before the Great War.
The Perfectionist: It's stated that in the past, Wilhelmina was incredibly demanding when it came to the hiring of their trusted servants, though apparently, she warmed up very well to the young Edward Deegan when he first joined the family's service.
Upper-Class Twit: With the destruction of the world, Wilhelmina doesn't really have much to do with herself due to almost everyone she knows being dead. It doesn't stop her from trying to enforce notions of "decorum" and "etiquette" among her children.

Edward Deegan

Voiced by Bill Holmes

A Ghoul who serves as the mouthpiece during the series of quests dealing with the Cabot Family. He acts as their longtime bodyguard and main enforcer, looking for capable people to help his employer deal with sensitive matters.

Bodyguard Betrayal: Can be convinced to turn on the very family he's protected for centuries when siding with Lorenzo against the other Cabots.
Easily Forgiven: Expresses this to the Sole Survivor if they discovered the Parsons State Insane Asylum prior to meeting him, which means s/he encountered and most likely killed the armed security detail put there to keep people out so they don't accidentally or intentionally let Lorenzo Cabot out of his cell. Because they are just the kind of skilled person his employer can use, he doesn't hold it against them for long.
Everyone Has Standards: The "Free Lorenzo" ending to the questline reveals that Edward had been doubting the Cabots for a long time; in-part due to never being allowed to interact with Lorenzo himself. The Sole Survivor's testimony about Lorenzo and Jack's off-collar response to the skepticism is potentially enough for Edward to turn on them if the right Checks are passed.
The Face: Despite the name of the House, Edward does the majority of the Cabots' talking for them. He's fully-aware that Cabot House is a Pre-War Cloudcuckooland by post-modern standards and is constantly explaining away the others' eccentricities.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Deegan can encounter the Sole Survivor to begin the Cabots' questline in either of Diamond City's bars, despite the city's notorious anti-Ghoul stance.
Locked Out of the Loop: Despite his years of service, it wasn't until the end of the world that he was let in on the nature of Cabots' Mysterious Serum and even after that, he's never been allowed to talk to Lorenzo. If the player frees Lorenzo, Deegan calls Jack out on this and wants to know what Lorenzo told the player. Passing either of the following Speech checks causes Edward to turn on Jack and the others and get the hell out of dodge at the end of the quest.
My Master, Right or Wrong: Played straight or Subverted, depending on player input. If the player finishes the questline by helping Jack handle Lorenzo, nothing noticeably changes. If the player frees Lorenzo and returns to Cabot House however, Edward butts into Jack's scolding of you and asks what Lorenzo had to say. Passing either of the Medium Speech checks that follow will cause him to doubt (and turn on) Jack when Lorenzo arrives for his revenge, giving Edward the chance to forge his own path.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Discussed, if the player fails Edward's Speech checks after freeing Lorenzo; berating himself for his choice of hired hands.
Really 700 Years Old: Has been serving the Cabot family since before the Great War. When the bombs dropped, he and Jack Cabot had to go and make sure that the Insane Asylum was secure and Lorenzo was still locked up tight in the basement. The constant back-and-forth between the estate and the asylum across irradiated Boston in the years following eventually struck Deegan with radiation poisoning since he was not privy to taking the mysterious serum keeping the family immortal. Fortunately, rather than death, Edward was afflicted with ghoulification and once Jack cured him of the poisoning, his life and continued usefulness to the family were extended significantly.

The Slog Residents

Wiseman

Voiced by: Keith Szarabajka

Founder and leader of the ghoul community of The Slog.

A Father to His Men: The other residents all look up to him and Jones outright owes him his life.
Good Name For A Rock Band: When somebody told him it was "Quite a slog to get to here.", he decided to name the community "The Slog".
Meaningful Name: Almost all of your followers will comment on how clever it was to make a old swimming pool into a tarberry bog. The Slog is the only location where you can have farm-able tarberries.
Wasteland Elder: Leads the ghouls of the Slog.

Holly

Voiced by: Gabrielle Sanalitro

A flirty ghoul resident.

Really Gets Around: One conversation you can hear is her asking Wiseman if she can setup a stall outside of Diamond city to sell the food they grow. Wiseman quickly points out she would only use it to meet guys. Another has her request Wiseman pick up some perfume for her from some traders.
Shameless Fanservice Girl: Regards herself as quite sexy. If you ask about the goods, she'll respond with "You're looking at them, hot stuff."
The Tease: Propositions your character on first meeting them. Unfortunately you can't romance her, as the Sole Survivor always says they are still grieving, even if you've romanced other companions.

Arlen Glass

Voiced by: Paul Eiding

The former head of toy development for Wilson Atomatoys. Glass lost his job after protesting the direction his company was about to take, and then witnessed the world end the next day. Despite all odds, Arlen survived as a ghoul, and can be found tinkering with the Giddyup Buttercup toys he invented long ago in The Slog, a ghoul-run farmstead.

Absurdly Dedicated Worker: One of the few non-robotic examples in the series. When you find him, he's trying to assemble a Giddyup Buttercup just like in his old job, and wants to be able to start selling or distributing them to children of the Wasteland again. The Sole Survivor can point out this hobby is likely a way of avoiding his trauma, by holding onto one feature from his old life.
Driven to Suicide: When he finally escaped the chaos following the nuclear detonations and hurried home, he found his entire neighborhood at ground zero. With his entire family dead and nothing left to live for, he just went to sleep in his house's irradiated ruins, hoping he'd never wake up. That failed though, resulting in his ghoulification.
Early-Bird Cameo: If you stumble upon the Wilson Atomatoys HQ and read all the terminals, Arlen just seems like another posthumous character in a tragic pre-war tale you'll often find when exploring. Unlike most of those recorded stories, the author of these ones is still alive.
The Last DJ: Spoke out against the toy factories being converted to making landmines, forcing the board to fire him.
Never Got to Say Goodbye: He did get to say "goodbye," but he never got to spend the final days before the war with his family, instead focusing more on his career as before. Fortunately, the player can at least bring him a message from his child that he never received at work, which will move him to joyful tears.
Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: What originally got him fired. The CEO of Atomatoys was pursuing a lucrative deal with the Defense Department to covertly alter toy production factories into landmine production factories. A staunch idealist, Glass called the CEO out in front of the whole boardroom, prompting his immediate dismissal.
Shout-Out: His terminal entries at the Atomatoys HQ are an extended one to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, making direct references to episode synopses and dialogue, and proposing developing pegasi and unicorn Buttercups, along with princess variations. After all, his job was all about developing small robotic ponies for a major toy company.
Trauma Conga Line: The man lost his job, caught a front seat for the apocalypse, found his suburb and family at the ground zero of a nuclear explosion, and finally became ghoulified, all in less than a week.
Video Game Caring Potential: Since Glass never got to properly say goodbye to his daughter, the player can bring him an invoice left by her when searching the Atomatoys HQ. Just hearing her voice again causes him to burst into tears as he's overcome with emotion, and he thanks you profusely. Furthermore, if you cleared out the HQ in the process, you can direct him to its location, so Glass can continue his passion of building Giddyup Buttercups for wasteland children in honor of his child.
When You Coming Home, Dad?: Arlen wasn't around often, prompting his daughter to send messages at work to tell him how much she loved him, asking when he'd come home. When Glass did return home, he found his house reduced to just a crater.
Workaholic: Formerly. Arlen focused so much on his job, even missing his daughter's school plays for overtime, and now he deeply regrets not having spent time with his family when they were alive.

Raider Lords and Subordinates

The Corvega Raiders - Jared and Gristle

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King (both)

Jared is the Raider boss who sent Gristle and his team to Concord to capture Mama Murphy & deal with Preston's Minutemen so that he can learn the secret of her Sight. Jared controls one of the biggest Raider gangs in the Commonwealth, and operates out of the Corvega Assembly Plant in Lexington. Unfortunately for Gristle, the Sole Survivor soon finds a nifty suit of Power Armor and a minigun which makes short work of him.

The Dragon: Gristle's one to Jared.
From Nobody to Nightmare: When Jared was a kid, Mama Murphy predicted that he would eventually end up becoming a monster. Several years later he leads one of the biggest groups of Raiders outside Nuka-World.
Hoist by His Own Petard: It's heavily implied that Gristle's gunfire attracts the Concord Deathclaw to the town. The Sole Survivor can then just wait on top of the Museum of Freedom and let Gristle & his men get shredded to bits.
Orcus on His Throne: Despite being one of the more powerful and ambitious Raiders in the Commonwealth, Jared's content to let his underlings take care of things while he sits in his base doing drugs in the hopes of gaining the Sight. According to some of the terminal entries found at the plant, some of his people have even complained to him about this.
Scary Black Man: Jared wears creepy skull-like facepaint, abuses drugs in an effort to gain the Sight, and runs a massive Raider operation from inside an old abandoned factory.
Starter Villain:
- Gristle's the first Raider boss the player fights and leads a small army in Concord, but compared to the other raider groups and his boss, he's small potatoes even without the player getting some Power Armor and a minigun right before their fight.
- The whole of Jared's gang is likely to be this for the Minutemen questline, as unless you've already gotten it as a settlement, Preston will likely first send you to help out Tenpines Bluff, who then send you to deal with Jared. Conveniently enough, Jared is involved in Mama Murphy's past, who will allude to her history detailed on a terminal at the Corvega Assembly Plant if you ask her about using the Sight without chems.
Suicidal Overconfidence: When he notices the Sole Survivor on the roof of the museum in a suit of power armor, Gristle actually will shout up telling you to come down "with your fancy armor." This is, naturally, a fatally bad idea whether or not you get to him before the Deathclaw, with the added minigun fire and huge stomping armored feet adding to the cacophony.

Ack-Ack

Voiced by: Salli Saffioti

Ack-Ack is a Raider Lord hiding out in USAF Satellite Station Olivia and extorting supplies from the nearby Abernathy Farm. During a recent raid, her group killed one of the Abernathy's daughters and stole a locket from her body, which prompts Blake Abernathy to send the Sole Survivor to retrieve it.

Arc Villain: After terrorizing Abernathy Farm, killing one of the family members living there and stealing a locket Blake Abernathy sends the Sole Survivor to kill her in revenge and reclaim the locket from her hideout.
Dark Action Girl: She's a vicious Raider boss.
Evil Is Petty: After killing Blake Abernathy's daughter Mary she stole a locket off her corpse that had been in the family for generations. Given that the locket isn't very valuable the only reason she had to do this was spite.
Girlish Pigtails: The most feminine thing about her is her hair.
Glass Cannon: She's about as squishy as your typical Raider and can be taken out in one shot with the right weapon, but her minigun will absolutely shred the player's health, especially at the low level she is likely to be encountered at.
Meaningful Name: The British nickname for anti-aircraft fire in World War II is Ack-Ack, for their then phonetic alphabet term for AA.
Starter Villain: She's one of the first and only raider bosses that the game actively encourages the player to go after as part of a short sidequest for the Abernathy's. Defeating her will then unlock Abernathy Farm as a settlement, making it one of the easier locations to acquire in the early game.

Boomer

Voiced by: Steve Wilcox

An extremely deadly Raider found at Outpost Zimonja, who wears Raider Power Armor and wields a Fat Man. His close proximity to the starting area means it's dangerously easy to stumble upon him unprepared and underleveled.

Bad Boss: He'll happily blow up his own men if it means getting a shot at the Sole Survivor.
Beard of Evil: Though you probably won't have time to see it before he turns you into a pile of radioactive ash.
Glass Cannon: Believe it or not, despite having both power armor and a fat man he has very limited ammo and no back up weapon. If the Sole Survivor can survive his first couple of shots he'll be forced to mindlessly rush the player with nothing but his pathetically weak fists, making him easy prey for any half decent counterattack.
Mad Bomber: A Raider armed with a miniature nuke launcher!
Meaningful Name: He sure isn't called Boomer for nothing, as that Fat Man of his is guaranteed to wreck the day of any poor bastard that stumbles upon him that isn't a walking armory.

Tower Tom

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King

A muscular Raider running the Beantown Brewery just outside Diamond City. After getting into a fight with rival Raiders at the Federal Rations Stockpile, he managed to kidnap the lead Raider's sister and hold her hostage in exchange for food. Unfortunately, he accidentally killed her shortly after she attempted to escape and must now forge letters to keep her surviving sister unaware.

Accidental Murder: Though he probably doesn't feel too broken up about it, he managed to accidentally kill Red Tourette's sister Lily when she attempted to flee the brewery.
The Alcoholic: The man set up his gang in a brewery, what else could he be?
Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: His first attack on the Federal Ration Stockpile goes poorly, except for the capture of Lily, which Red Tourette attributes to his raiders subsisting mostly on the Gwinnett beer made at their base.
Co-Dragons: Has two named raiders who seem to be his right hand men, Bull and Gouger. They show up during Confidence Man, though the only indication they’re working for Tom is the fact that they’re found in his base.
Dead Person Impersonation: After he kills Lily, he begins forging letters to her sister Red to extort the rival Raider group for food supplies and prevent any further transgressions between the two groups.
Does Not Like Spam: He spends an entire (forged) letter ranting at Red Tourette when she sends him Yum Yum Deviled Eggs instead of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes.
I Have Your Wife: He kidnapped Red Tourette's sister Lily and is holding her hostage to extort food out of the Federal Rations Stockpile Raiders. Unbeknownst to Red, her sister Lily was actually killed during a botched escape attempt and the letters she receives are actually from Tom himself.
I'm a Humanitarian: He dumped Lily Tourette's body in one of the beer vats. Commenting that the beer now "tastes better".
Real Men Wear Pink: He seems to have a great fondness for Fancy Lads Snack Cakes and a copy of Picket Fences magazine can be found in his personal quarters.
Trademark Favorite Food: Fancy Lads Snack Cakes.

The Tourette Sisters - Red and Lily

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/red_tourette.png

Voiced by: Salli Saffioti (Red)

Two Raider sisters holed up in the Federal Rations Stockpile along with her sister Lily until she was captured by Tower Tom's Raiders during a fight. Now Red Tourette sends food rations to the Beantown Brewery in the hopes of keeping her sister safe until she can rescue her. Unbeknownst to Red, her sister was already accidentally killed sometime before the events of the game by Tower Tom when she attempted to escape.

Dark Action Girl: Red's a raider leader who has her own gang at the FRS.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Red genuinely cares for her sister and wants to rescue her from Tower Tom's group. And it's implied Lily loved her sister just as much in return.
Evil Redhead: It's even a part of her name.
Only Known by Their Nickname: We never find out Red's actual name, though a log on her computer reveals that she doesn't like the nickname Red. The fact that one of the forged letters Tower Tom sends her refers to her as Red makes her realise that something is wrong, as her sister never called her Red.
Reasonable Authority Figure: For a Raider leader, at least. She wanted to immediately attack Tower Tom after finding out he captured Lily, but her crew managed to talk her down by pointing out Tom would most likely just kill Lily if they tried a frontal assault. Considering other raider leaders are willing to murder their minions for reasons ranging from "refused to change their name to fit the theme of our gang" to "I have a Fat Man and don't care about friendly fire", this marks her as extremely reasonable.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red's outfit consists of a black leather jacket and black pants along with a red undershirt, hair and red and black face paint. She isn't named Red Tourette for nothing.
Posthumous Character: Lily died before the game started and her body can't be found anywhere inside the brewery.

The Forged - Slag and Bedlam

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/slag_fo4.png

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bedlam.png

Voiced by: Steve Wilcox and Salli Saffioti, respectively

Slag leads the Forged raiders out of Saugus Ironworks and is notable for being one of the few Raiders motivated by more than just caps and bloodlust. His Raiders have formed a cult based around fire and metal and are some of the fiercest in the Commonwealth due to their deadly flame based weaponry.Meanwhile, Bedlam's a Raider under Slag working to mine supplies for Saugus, and who ends up stumbling upon something that should have remained buried. She leads the crew found at Dunwich Borers.

Arc Villain: Slag is the main antagonist of the "Out Of The Fire" sidequest.
Authority Equals Asskicking: While Slag isn't necessarily the most influential of the Commonwealth's Raider Bosses, as the only one with a fully functional suit of Power Armor (and a proper pre-war suit as well, rather than the scrap power armor suits used by some other Raiders), he's definitely the toughest in combat.
Bad Boss: Did you mess up? Prepare to be fed to the forge! Did you flee from battle? Prepare to be fed to the forge! Did you refuse to change your name to better fit with the fire theme of the gang? Prepare to be fed to the forge!
Bald of Evil: Goes nicely with his...
Beard of Evil: Sports a thick beard to go with his shaved head.
Dark Action Girl: Bedlam leads the massive group of Raiders that have taken over the Dunwich Borers mining facility.
Flaming Sword: He wields a Shishkebab in combat, which is actually the reason why the Sole Survivor comes after him in the first place. The weapon belongs to a small farming family who live a short ways from Saugus Ironworks and they want the sword back along with their son.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: When the player first encounters him he is in the middle of initiating a new recruit by demanding that he kill a defenseless prisoner just to prove that he is willing to kill.
Madness Mantra: Bedlam has one, with "I'm safe in the light. I'm safe in the light. I'm safe in the light. I'm safe in the light..."
Sanity Slippage: Heavily implied given the state of Bedlam's terminal.
Villain Respect: Certain dialogue choices have Slag praise the Sole Survivor for their toughness and courage.

Bosco

Voiced by: Steve Wilcox

An insane Raider who has a crew set up inside D.B. Technical High School and resides deep within the lower levels. He was always vicious, but after a recent dog attack he seems to slowly be losing his mind.

Absurd Phobia: He's afraid of water, which is the main reason why he hasn't had his forces take Libertalia. And considering how a common symptom of rabies is hydrophobia, it heavily implies that Bosco's actually suffering from rabies.
Bad Boss: His illness has caused him to become this and has made him attack his own people.
Beard of Evil: Which also fits with his savage personality.
Creepy Mascot Suit: He wears a unique piece of headgear called the Mascot Head, a damaged head from a bear mascot suit, and is even more Axe-Crazy than a typical raider as a result of being infected with rabies.
The Dreaded: Bosco was feared by his own people due to his rabid attacks, they had to give him a mascot head in the hope that he'd stop attacking them. The other raider leaders are relieved with the knowledge that he's been put down.
The Friend Nobody Likes: If Bosco is killed early on, then subsequent Raider leaders, such as Slag and Tower Tom, will express relief at his death.
Royally Screwed Up: He is the leader of all the raiders in downtown Boston and is outright insane. This was a result of being bitten by a dog with rabies, which caused him to become schizophrenic and attack his own men during his blackouts, and believing that there is a beast in the base.
Sanity Slippage: He's lost his mind to a disease he picked up from a dog attack and has become violently paranoid as a result.
Space-Filling Empire: Of a sort, as all of the Raiders in Downtown Boston (outside of Back Street Apparel, Hardware Town and Hyde Park) are under his control, making him command the largest Raider tribe in the Commonwealth.

Judge Zeller

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King

A sick and twisted man who is forming a massive gang out of East Boston Preparatory School through his blood contracts and acts of torture. He was in an agreement with Bunker Hill not to attack their caravans, but breaks this deal and causes Kessler to send the Sole Survivor after him.

Arc Villain: His harassment of Bunker Hill and its merchants leads to him becoming the main antagonist of a short sidequest where the Sole Survivor is sent by Kessler to raid his base and free his captured prisoners.
Bad Boss: The guy forces people to serve him by commanding them to sign blood contracts under pain of death and tortures his own minions to keep them fanatically loyal to him.
Blood Oath: He forces his victims to remain loyal to him under penalty of torture and death with his blood contracts.
Hypocrite: His whole operation is based around forcing people into binding blood contracts with him under penalty of torture and death. Despite this, he breaks his own contract with Bunker Hill not to attack their merchants despite agreeing to their terms.
Torture Technician: He forces people to stay loyal to him by torturing them until the point they can't take any more, after which he forces them to sign a blood contract swearing their life and loyalty to him under penalty of further torture and death.
Trap Master: He has armed the East Boston Preparatory School with all manner of Booby Traps such as mines, rigged guns and tin can alarms. Combined with the layout of the building and the dozen or so raider underlings he commands this makes taking him out fairly challenging at lower levels.

The Libertalia Raiders - James Wire and Gabriel/B5-92

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/james_wire_fo4.png

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King and Steve Wilcox, respectively

James Wire was once a loyal Minuteman soldier serving under General Becker until his death in 2282. With no leader and dwindling supplies Wire tried to find a way to make an honest living out of Libertalia as the Minutemen began to fall apart. After being forced to execute two of his best men for stealing from a caravan Wire slowly begins giving in to the Raider lifestyle. By 2287, he has embraced this fully and is no better than any of the other gangs raiding the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Gabriel's an escaped Synth formerly known as B5-92 who had his memory wiped and name changed by the Railroad after escaping the Institute. Unfortunately, his new persona fell in with the group of Raiders living at Libertalia and quickly became their new leader. According to Father, he has taken many innocent lives as Gabriel and needs to be stopped as soon as possible. He only appears during the "Synth Retention" sidequest.

Arc Villain: Gabriel serves as this for "Synth Retention," where he replaces James Wire as the leader of the Libertalia Raiders.
Barbarian Longhair: It fits Gabriel's savage new persona as a Raider Lord quite well.
Cold Sniper: Wire attacks all trespassers from the top of Libertalia with his rifle.
Face–Heel Turn: Wire was once a loyal Minuteman soldier and tries desperately to hold onto their ideals after the organization falls apart. Eventually, he gives in and becomes just as bad as the other Raider Lords plundering the Commonwealth.
Heel Realization: Wire's final terminal entry has him realize just how far his crew have fallen and how ashamed General Becker would be if he knew what he was doing now. He then closes the entry by saying that he doesn't feel like typing anymore.
Klingon Promotion: It's heavily implied that Gabriel killed James Wire before taking over the gang himself (if the Sole Survivor hasn't already done so prior to starting "Synth Retention"). Mixes with Plot-Triggering Death since it's the synth's takeover and resulting carnage that draws the attention of the Institute to him, leading to them sending the Sole Survivor and X6-88 to retrieve him and in doing so wipe out the gang he took over.
Talking the Monster to Death: As a Synth, Gabriel can be defeated peacefully by simply using his recall code.

The L&L Gang - Captain Sally

Voiced by: Salli Saffioti

The leader of the dreaded L&L Gang, a nasty group of Raiders that specifically target Synths and Synth supporters. With the defeat of the Institute, she and her group have grown much bolder. However, the demise of the Institute also eased the burden on the Railroad, and the raider ring now has the wrong kind of attention from the operation.

Arc Villain: For the "To The Mattresses" questline that opens up after the fall of the Institute.
Dark Action Girl: She leads the L&L Gang, a massive group of Raiders united in their hatred of Synths and one of the Railroad's biggest foes.
Fantastic Racism: Her entire gang is founded on the principles of hating Synths and murdering them whenever they can.

Sinjin

Voiced by: Robin Atkin Downes

He's the leader of an upstart gang of bad guys terrorizing Goodneighbour.

Arc Villain: Of the Silver Shroud questline.
Bald of Evil: An upstart crime boss with nary a hair on his ghoulified head.
Big Bad: Of the "Silver Shroud" questline.
Big Bad Wannabe: In the greater scheme of things, as you put him down before he could really become a menace.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Does this to Kent by shooting him in the legs.
The Dreaded: Even Hancock is nervous about the guy, believing that if given a few years, he could become a Raider Boss on par with Caesar.
Even Evil Has Standards: If you kill Kent yourself, even he's at a loss for words at your insanity.
Flunky Boss: Although it's possible to scare away his friends by dressing up and acting as the Silver Shroud.
From Nobody to Nightmare: By the time you confront him, he's in the process of becoming one.
I Have Your Wife: Or "friend" in this case. He kidnaps Kent and takes him to Milton General Hospital, leaving it up to the Silver Shroud to go rescue him.
Ironic Name: "Sinjin" is a phonetic spelling of the name "Saint John" ^Note but this dude is far from a saint.
Large and in Charge: Ghouls, both ferals and sentients alike, are usually depicted with a scrawny (if not outright emaciated) physique. Not Sinjin, who's built like a tank.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Sinjin really doesn't sound like the name of a good guy.
Only Sane Man: Sinjin is the only raider who understands that the Silver Shroud is actually a regular human playing dress-up. This doesn't stop his men from fleeing the scene if the Sole Survivor threatens him as the Shroud.
Villainous Breakdown: A very subdued, but no less potent, one if the Sole Survivor kills Kent themselves. Sinjin is a mix of terrified and confused that the person behind the Silver Shroud outright murdered an innocent, and he is at a loss for words. To put it into perspective, he thought you were just some problematic loon in what amounts to cosplay up until he meets you. Now, he realizes that you're a monstrous and truly dangerous psychopath, and it scares the shit out of his men so much they say you're "crazier than Sinjin".
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted. The very first thing he will try to do after his speech is to shoot Kent in the head, if not stopped in time. He doesn't do it any earlier, however, as he wants The Shroud to watch his/her friend die. The player will either have to kill him before he does this or pass a high-difficulty speech check to goad him into attacking them first.

Avery

Voiced by: Cindy Robinson

One of Sinjin's top lieutenants who accompanies him during the climax of the "Silver Shroud" quest in Milton General Hospital.

Dark Action Girl: She is a high ranking member of Sinjin's raider gang.
Dirty Coward: She is easily intimidated by the Sole Survivor pretending to be the Silver Shroud and will back down from the fight if the right dialogue options are chosen.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: She wears black leather and facepaint and has a red undershirt and hair.
Talking the Monster to Death: She can be talked down from fighting if the player intimidates her as the Silver Shroud.
Villains Want Mercy: If the player manages to intimidate her as the Silver Shroud and kill Sinjin she will ask for mercy.

Gunners

Leader

Captain Wes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wes_fo4.png

Voiced by: Bruce Nozick

The leader of Gunner forces in the Commonwealth and their highest-ranking known member. He commands his troops from deep within Gunners Plaza, a massive base made in the ruins of an old broadcasting station to the south of Boston.

Arc Villain: The leader of the most powerful and unambiguously evil group in the Commonwealth aside from the main storyline factions. Alongside the Institute and Raider bosses he poses one of the biggest threats to public safety in all of Massachusetts, yet is entirely optional. However, most Minutemen supporting players will likely be gunning for him anyway after what he had his forces do to Quincy.
Co-Dragons: There are two named Gunners in his lair, Cruz and Ryder. However, he doesn’t treat them well, having demoted Cruz for drawing too close to the Super Mutant stronghold at Fallon’s Department Store.
Manly Facial Hair: He has some impressive facial hair, which is fitting for the leader of a large military-themed force.
Orcus on His Throne: He directs his troops from inside Gunners Plaza, a massive headquarters located near the southern edge of the Commonwealth. The only way to even get to him is by fighting or sneaking inside past the dozens of armed guards and picking the master level lock on his door.
The Voice: Can be heard during "Hunter/Hunted" giving orders to the Gunners in Greentech Genetics.

Quincy Gunners

Lieutenant Clint

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clint_fo4.jpg

Voiced by: Bruce Nozick

A formally loyal Minuteman who served for ten years until he betrayed his comrades in what would later become known as the "Quincy Massacre" where invading Gunners dealt a deathblow to the militia and effectively wiped the old Minutemen from existence. Impressed by his brutality, ruthlessness and skill, the Gunners rewarded his treason by promoting him to leader of all Gunner forces stationed inside Quincy. He can be found in his makeshift command center on the overpass overlooking the ruins of the town.

Authority Equals Asskicking: He earned his rank of Lieutenant by betraying and wiping out the old Minutemen for the Gunners. It's also why he now controls Quincy and commands its forces.
Cavalry Betrayal: He was supposed to be part of the necessary reinforcements for the Minutement but he betrayed them for being too weak for the Commonwealth.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Bears more than a passing resemblance to Lemmy Kilmister.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: His signature gun is called "Good Intentions" and he wanted the citizens of Quincy to leave peacefully before the Gunners make their final attack. However, they refused and the Gunners killed everyone but Preston Garvey and his fraction of citizens. He joined the gunners because he saw them as the stronger faction.
Sinister Shades: He wears a pair of dark sunglasses that hide his eyes.
Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears as a signature gunner in Quincy but his act of betraying the Minutemen set up everything else in the Minutemen storyline. He caused the Minutemen to be reduced to just Preston Garvey and he inadvertently caused the downfall of The Institute by letting Garvey live since he put the Sole Survivor in charge as the new general.
The Social Darwinist: He thinks the old Minutemen became too weak to survive and thus deserved to be beaten by the Gunners, which he sees as a much stronger fighting force. As General of the new Minutemen, the Sole Survivor can pay him a visit and personally prove to him that he was wrong.
Still Wearing the Old Colors: He still wears his original Minuteman outfit underneath his suit of power armor even though he feels that they became too weak to survive and deserved to be wiped out.
Tempting Fate: After Tessa complained that he let Preston escape, he scoffed that there was no way Preston could ever muster up the force need to rebuild the Minutemen and fight back.
Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Tessa hates him for betraying the Minutemen, saying she would never have done that to her own people when she was a raider.

Sergeant Baker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/baker_fo.jpg

Voiced by: Dave B. Mitchell

A Gunner Sargent under the command of Clint in the Quincy ruins. He can usually be found on top of the old church where Sturges lived and takes shots at the player with heavy explosives.

Bad Boss: He doesn't seem to care at all how many Gunner soldiers he blows up so long as he gets his target.
Mad Bomber: He uses a Fat Man as his main weapon and will happily nuke half of Quincy and even his own soldiers to get at any unwelcome guests. He also carries a Missile Launcher as a backup.

Tessa

Voiced by: Salli Saffioti

A former raider who now serves Lieutenant Clint as one of the Gunner Bosses controlling the ruined town of Quincy. She prefers to get in close with melee attacks and beat her victims to death.

Cool Helmet: She wears a DC Guard Helm for whatever reason. (Though as a former raider she may have taken it as a trophy from a guard she killed.)
Dark Action Girl: A deadly raider turned killer mercenary who helped massacre an entire town.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She has genuine feelings for Sergeant Baker, one of the other Gunner leaders controlling Quincy.
Even Evil Has Standards: She despises and distrusts Clint for betraying the Minutemen to the Gunners. She insists that she would never betray her own people for personal gain like Clint did. Tessa also believes that Clint will eventually betray the Gunners as well.
Power Fist: She wears a special one of a kind power armor arm piece called Tessa's Fist which has enhanced stats.

Bullet

Voiced by: William Salyers

A high-ranking Gunner mercenary encountered near the ruins of Quincy. He's looking for ghouls to enslave since their radiation immunity makes them very useful workers and will pay the Sole Survivor if they agree to hand over a ghoul child they just met.

Arc Villain: He serves as the main antagonist of the "Kid In A Fridge" quest where he tries to buy or enslave a ghoul child the Sole Survivor found inside a fridge.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He apparently has a raider friend who genuinely cares for him since killing him has a rare chance to activate a random encounter where said raider yells at you for "killing his best friend" and then attacks.
Pragmatic Villainy: One of an extremely small number of Gunners who won't shoot the player on sight, not because he isn't violent, but because he wants to buy a ghoul child from them with as little trouble as possible.
Would Hurt a Child: He sees nothing wrong with enslaving children and forcing them to do manual labor.

Other Characters

Duke

A roaming member of the Atom Cats. As a random Encounter, most players will meet him scavenging for Power Armour parts (from old cars).

Disc-One Nuke: If you encounter him early, you can farm gear simply by following him and picking over his kills. If Duke dies, a level 1 player can pick up a full set of T60 armour plates from his body (these do not normally spawn until level 21).
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Like Danse, he is a named friendy NPC in power armour, who you can meet very early in the game. If you expect him to be just as immortal as Danse, you may be in for a surprise: he can be suddenly and ignominously gunned down by another random encounter NPC.
Totally Radical: Duke (and the Atom Cats in general) have a mutant form of Beatnick slang, e.g. "Time to agitate the gravel, Jack" is his way of saying goodbye.

Vault 111 Overseer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/overseervault111.png

The Overseer of Vault 111 in 2077, only briefly encountered during the prologue. Since the vault's residents were all cryogenically frozen, he was responsible for controlling the vault's food rations, keeping tabs on the researchers, and managing the security staff. His incompetent leadership and refusal to allow anyone to leave the vault quickly led to conflict with the vault's security personnel, who were largely kept in the dark about the details of the vault's experiment. As the experiment was only meant to last for six months, food supplies rapidly dwindled, until the security personnel finally lost all patience with him and staged a mutiny, killing him and all of the researches. The Vault was subsequently abandoned, leaving its residents entombed in their cryo pods.

0% Approval Rating: Managed to piss off all the security guards enough that they slaughtered him and all the scientists, and simply left the frozen residents to rot.
Apocalyptic Log: Since he and all of the Vault's staff are long dead and the Vault has long been abandoned by the time the protagonist is unfrozen, information about the events leading to the Vault's downfall can only be gleaned from reading old computer logs.
Beware the Nice Ones: Behaves in a very calm and welcoming manner to the Vault's extremely distressed and traumatized residents; it's all an act meant to placate them so they will not suspect what is about to happen.
Gadgeteer Genius: In spite of his utter uselessness as a leader, he did create a pretty sweet unique weapon during the last few months of his life: the Cryolator.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: When the security personnel refused to listen to him anymore, he and the researchers locked themselves inside his quarters and hoarded all of the remaining food rations for themselves. It didn't end well for him.
No Name Given: He and his terminal never specify what his actual name is.
Posthumous Character: He's only briefly seen alive during the intro. When the main story begins, he's been dead for two centuries, and all that remains of him are his Apocalyptic Log, skeleton and awesome freezing gun.
Too Dumb to Live: While he had his reasons to forbid opening the Vault, pissing off the security staff and leaving them all to starve while he hoarded the remaining rations for himself and the researchers wasn't the smartest idea he had, to put it mildly. The stupidity is taken up a few notches when he actually expected them to just hand their over their guns or "there would be consequences". Said "consequences" wound up being the entire security staff staging a mutiny, resulting in the death of the Overseer and the rest of the researchers.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: He adamantly refused to let anyone leave the Vault, believing the surface to be contaminated with lethal levels of radiation. Unfortunately, this meant everyone in the vault would instead be doomed to starvation.

Rex Goodman

Voiced by: Richard Tatum

A Shakespeare-obsessed intellectual (of sorts). At the beginning of the game, Rex is captured by a gang of Super Mutants alongside his friend Strong, requiring the player to rescue them.

And Your Reward Is Clothes: Thanks the player for rescuing him with a suit or dress that gives a considerable boost to charisma.
Badass Bookworm: Rex is a brilliant intellectual who can easily quote Shakespeare; he's also competent in a gunfight against Super Mutants.
Beware the Nice Ones: While he came to Trinity Tower to educate the Super Mutants, once they've killed his friends, he has no problem shooting his way out of the tower... with The Survivor's help of course.
Informed Flaw: Rex and the rest of the Charles River Trio are apparently poor radio players if most of the companion's reactions are to be believed but the lack of a WRVR radio station in the Pip-Boy fails to support this.
Large Ham: Talks in a theatrical manner, as if his dialogue was lifted from a play.
Meaningful Name: Anyone who would, of their own initiative, attempt to uplift Super Mutants and turn them into productive members of society by introducing them to culture and learning, is certainly a good man. Not necessarily a smart man, but a good one.
Nice Guy: Rex just wanted to help the mutants. Unfortunately, his misplaced benevolence almost got him killed.
Odd Friendship: Rex, the Shakespearean poet, and Strong, the cannibalistic Super Mutant.
Too Dumb to Live: Convinced himself that the reason why Super Mutants are so violent is simply because they don't appreciate Shakespeare, rather than the fact that they're giant mutant cannibals with low IQ's.
Warrior Poet: Sort of. He'll quote Shakespeare non-stop during a firefight, but does so purely to keep himself from panicking.
Wrong Genre Savvy: He seriously thought he was destined to be an "inspirational mentor" to a group of Super Mutants. Instead, he almost became their lunch...

Curator Givens

The leader of a scavenging team that occupied the Boston Public Library and established a small garrison in order to try and save all the books and knowledge the old institution contained. Unfortunately, he and his group faced near-constant attacks from Super Mutants, depleting their numbers gradually until eventually he was the last to be killed, though manages to leave a final request to those who come after, imploring them to complete the archiving of one of mankind's old bastions of knowledge.

Apocalyptic Log: Near to his corpse, his terminal provides some entries detailing the struggle of his team to try and safeguard some of humanity's lost knowledge against the harshness of the Wasteland.
Lost Common Knowledge: An outcome he specifically formed his team to prevent by leading them to the Boston Public Library and trying to archive as many of the surviving books they could. Given that rampant illiteracy in the Commonwealth is a major part of The Railroad's firm belief in the security of having "Railroad" be the passcode to their HQ, it ended up happening anyways.
Known Only by Their Nickname: We never learn his first name, or even if "Curator" is actually his first name or just a title he assigned himself in the process of saving the Library's contents.
Posthumous Character: The Sole Survivor finds his body in the archives room of the Boston Public Library, killed by the Super Mutants that came to infest the place after ending his team's lives.

Kat & Gus

Voiced by: Miya Horcher and Wes Johnson, respectively

A wandering little girl and her Sentry bot companion, respectively. Kat is a merchant who sells you stuff; Gus is her robot guardian.

Badass and Child Duo: Rob or touch a hair on that kid... and the big, mean hulk of steel will blast you to smithereens.
Fluffy the Terrible: Gus the Sentry bot.
Killer Robot: Gus, although he's normally harmless unless you harm or do something to upset Kat.
Noodle Incident: How Kat got her own Sentry bot is never elaborated on, nor is the question of where her parents are or why she travels across the Commonwealth with Gus.
Robot Buddy: Gus is this to Kat.
The Kid with the Remote Control: Kat to Gus.
Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: A little girl traveling a nuclear wasteland with a killer robot (and seemingly without a care in the world) is not normal, whatsoever.
Undying Loyalty: Gus to Kat.

Manta Man

Voiced by: Brian Frates

A mysterious traveling vigilante who cosplays as a comic book hero known as Manta Man. He appears after the player completes The Silver Shroud questline.

Animal-Themed Superbeing: Of a manta ray, of course.
Badass Normal: Manta Man is just a man with a rifle traveling through the Commonwealth, fighting Ghouls, mutants and robots. His stats aren't even very good either.
Camp: Acts like a Silver Age superhero.
The Cape: In a Post Apocalyptic world, no less.
Follow the Leader: In-Universe. After the player takes on the title of the Silver Shroud, this guy assumes the mantle of Manta Man.
Suicidal Overconfidence: Will sometimes attack enemies who are much stronger than him, such as Deathclaws and Super Mutants. This tends to go about as well as one would expect.

Pickman

Voiced by: Kyle Hester

An artist living in the North End whose gallery is being invaded by raiders. The Sole Survivor can find his gallery by being asked to investigate the place by John Hancock. It's clear from the first room that the raiders might not be the most dangerous thing there...

Affably Evil: He seems genuinely grateful when the Sole Survivor saves his life, rewarding them with his personal combat knife as a gift (possessing the strongest and deadliest mods of its type upon discovery), as well as a "thank you" note, both found behind one of his grisly "paintings" made with the blood of another human being. Depending on your view, the "evil" bit is a little softened by the fact that he exclusively kills Raiders.
Axe-Crazy: Not obvious at first, but upon learning the details of his "chosen profession", well...
Badass in a Nice Suit: This deadly, cold-blooded killer is always seen wearing a light brown suit and kept, sickened hair.
Dissonant Serenity: He's always eerily calm and polite, whether he's speaking to one of his soon-to-be victims or describing his 'hobby' of exclusively collecting the heads of raiders infesting North End. May overlap with Soft-Spoken Sadist.
Mad Artist: Doesn't even begin to describe what Pickman does with his "paint material"...
One-Man Army: Has managed to kill dozens of heavily armed Raiders with nothing but his knife. We're not even sure how they managed to finally catch him, but it's clear if they're allowed to attack, and by the large health pool that he has as said below in Stone Wall, that Pickman didn't even really consider himself in danger until that point. He was just waiting for the right time to strike...
Pay Evil unto Evil: He's a serial killer who uses his victims as art supplies, though by his own admission, he actively and exclusively makes victims of raiders.
Serial Killer: This is a guy who knifes people to death and uses their blood to create artwork while thinking he's truly making the world better.
- Serial-Killer Killer: On the other hand, he focuses his murderous talents entirely on the populace of raiders, who also decorate their hideouts with the remains of their victims, but don't draw any distinctions with who they murder.
Shout-Out: Given his name, profession, and the game's Boston setting, he's without doubt one to the H.P. Lovecraft character and short story of the same name.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: One needs only look at his artistic endeavors to see the sadism. One needs only talk to him to see how affable he is. May overlap with Dissonant Serenity.
Stone Wall: Pickman can take a deceptive amount of punishment, a necessity when dealing with raiders who live and breathe Always Chaotic Evil; if provoked into combat, though, his impressive 9 Strength and skill with his knife can overshadow this fact.
Vigilante Man: Apparently. All of his victims are Raiders and if asked, he claims that they deserved to die. He's never seen killing anyone who isn't a Raider, though the wary may choose to emphasize seen given his personal knife is modded for stealth attacks.

Professor Goodfeels

Voiced by: Stephen Russell

A Mr. Handy robot that was "liberated" by the Robot Liberation Front, and was programmed to "Just Be". As such, he's now floating in circles around the Sunshine Tidings co-op.

Broken Record:
- Goodfeels only has four phrases (with various levels of stoned slurring): "Groovy", "Far Out", "Peace" and "Whoa, Man". A player trying to use the "Talk" function will only increase the number of repeats.
- It's possible to reactivate Goodfeels' combat programming. In which case, this adds a fifth phrase spoken in the same stoned slurring: "Exterminate!"
- If encountered whele he is out patrolling in the Commonwealth, he will mumble "May I help you?" when approached.
Eye Scream: Downplayed, but one of his eye appendages has been ripped off.
Shout-Out: His name is one to Dr. Feelgood.
The Stoner: He obviously isn't doing drugs, but his "liberated" programming makes him sound like he's totally stoned out of his gourd.
"Groooovyyy."
"Whooooaaa, maaaaaan."
What Happened to the Mouse?: Will be absent the next time the player returns after placing a settlement beacon. This being a Bethesda title, there are of course mods for this.
- Averted if you reset Goodfeels at low level, and then simply walk away: Goodfeels will repeatedly be found drifting about as a random encounter... until he gets crushed by a mutant, or another moderately powerful enemy.

The Peabody Family

A family of ghouls living in the outskirts of Quincy. Matt and Carol had not seen their son Billy since the bombs dropped over 200 years ago, fearing he had died. Actually, Billy survived, trapped inside a defunct fridge that wouldn't open from the inside.

Big Damn Reunion: The "Kid in a Fridge" quest finishes like this, as Billy meets his ghoulified parents after decades apart.
Locked in a Freezer: In order to escape the bombs falling all around him, Billy jumped into the nearest safe spot he could think of, which turned out to be a nearby fridge. Unfortunately, the door closed behind him and couldn't be opened from the inside, leaving him trapped in there for the next 200 years, during which he became a ghoul. While his ghoulification might explain why he was kept physically alive, his body feeding off the radiation, how he stayed mentally intact while being trapped inside a small space in complete darkness for decades without going completely insane is simply a miracle.
There's No Place Like Home: Even after being told that 200 years have passed since he went in the fridge, Billy's only care is to get home and reunite with his parents. Thankfully for him, his hopes were fulfilled.

Eddie Winter

Voiced by: Jay Giannone

A notorious gangster in the Boston area, back before the Great War. He's since become a ghoul and hidden himself away in a makeshift bunker that had once been a hideout, even as his crimes slowly begin creeping up to him.

Arc Villain: For Nick's quest line "Long Time Coming", which focuses on the hunt for him to put an end his to his operations once and for all.
Arch-Enemy: He was this to Nick Valentine back in his days as a notorious gangster. Still, he initially finds it hard to believe that the synth busting in to his bunker alongside the Survivor is none other than Nick himself (or, at least, a version of him).
But for Me, It Was Tuesday: For Nick, Eddie killing his fiancee was a traumatizing memory, one that carried over into his present life as a Synth. For Eddie, however, it's little more than a dirty kill over 200 years ago.
Deadpan Snarker: He "congratulates" the Survivor and Nick for finding his secret bunker and interrupting his "retirement." It just took a little over 200 years to do it.
Fat Bastard: Exactly how he stayed fat while locked up in his bunker for 200 years is never explained.
Fish out of Temporal Water: Downplayed, but it's made evident that he hasn't really gone out from his bunker in centuries. And that he still acts like a mobster straight out of The Godfather or Boardwalk Empire.
Immortality Seeker: Volunteered for a radiation experiment that promised an extended lifespan, becoming one of the very first ghouls.
The Irish Mob: He used to be one of Boston's most notorious crime lords back before the War.
It Amused Me: He left behind a convoluted trail to his hideout before the War just to screw with the feds. And he doesn't seem to think too much of his murder of Nick's fiancee.
Just a Machine: He dsmisses Nick as just some robot copy of the original Nick that isn't even alive.
Last of His Kind: While he's the first known ghoul, he's also one of the last of Pre-War Boston's mobsters^note. And the last person left alive who remembers the original Nick Valentine.
Monster Progenitor: Like Desmond Lockheart, his ghoulification was deliberate so he could persist long after the war.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Named after Howie Winter, one of Boston's most notorious crime lords, and based on his even more infamous successor James "Whitey" Bulger in both appearance and personality.
Really 700 Years Old: He's been around since before the apocalypse. Not only that, but he willingly participated in a Pre-War radiation experiment meant to prolong life, which resulted in his ghoulification.
Retired Monster: A reclusive mobster ghoul whose crime spree is long behind him, including his wanton murder of Nick Valentine's fiancee.
Revolvers Are Just Better: "Eddie's Peace", his unique scoped .44 that you can loot from him.
What the Hell, Hero?: He sarcastically calls out Nick (or rather, the synth version of him) for being obsessed with a crime that happened over 200 years earlier. And that whether or not Nick is the genuine article, killing him won't bring her back. Unfortunately for him, while Nick is troubled about the "genuine article" bit, he is unswayed from his mission since he still believes Eddie must face wasteland justice for what he's done, regardless of who is serving the warrant.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: After over 200 years, he's starting to grow weary of living life as a ghoul. Granted, compared to other people in similar situations, he at least managed to keep his sanity.

Captain Zao

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zao_fo4.jpg

Voiced by: Ping Wu

A ghoulified Chinese naval captain who's been stranded in his Yangtze submarine off the Commonwealth coast since the Great War. Long remorseful for his own actions against the Americans, he longs to return to China but is unable to without the right fuel rods. The Survivor can help him, or put him out of his misery permanently.

And I Must Scream: He's a Chinese naval officer who's been stranded on "enemy territory" since the War. But unlike his crewmen who turned into feral ghouls or the tragically degenerated raiders aboard the FMS Northern Star, he still tries to maintain some professionalism and sanity.
Anti-Villain: He's heavily implied to be responsible for nuking Boston. He also has no particular ill-will towards Americans, he was just serving his country. When you meet him he's just tired of war.
Asian Speekee Engrish: Played completely straight and justified, given that English is definitely not his first language. Which makes his desperation all the more palpable as he's trying to find the right words that he could still remember. At the same time, his occasional Chinese is a bit off due to the isolation too.
The Atoner: He's had over 200 years to regret launching his submarine's payload on American soil and just wants to go home.
Badass Creed: He says he will rebuild China one house at a time when he gets back, until he can't build anymore.
Berserk Button: Choosing the "Die Commie!" option will immediately make him hostile, while also firing back an insult to the Sole Survivor.
Sole Survivor: Commie bastard, you destroyed my country! DIE!!
Zao: ZHŪ! Zīběnjiā! Die! (Translation: Pig! Capitalist!)
Chummy Commies: A captain in the communist Chinese Navy. He's actually given characterization and depth to his character.
Dirty Communists: Averted, at the end of the day he's just a guy serving his country who's tired of war.
A Father to His Men: He was this to the submarine crew under his command. Unfortunately, said crewmen turned into feral ghouls, forcing him to seal them deep inside the Yangtze as he couldn't bring it to himself to Mercy Kill them.
Foil: To the Sole Survivor of either gender. One is either a discharged member of the Army infantry or a civilian entirely, the other is an active member of the Chinese Navy. Both are the last survivors of their respective communities (Vault 111/Sanctuary Hills and the Yangtze), both have made it to the present day through vastly different methods (cryonics vs. the slow path thanks to becoming a Ghoul), and both can potentially go on a path to rebuild their homeland house by house.
Friendly Enemy: He's technically this, given that he still conducts himself as a Chinese naval officer.
Just Following Orders: It's implied that he was the one who launched the nuke meant for Boston during the Great War. Instead, it landed in what became the Glowing Sea, his own crew turning into feral ghouls not long after.
My God, What Have I Done?: He has had 210 years to ponder his complicity in the Great War, being tasked with deployment of Chinese nuclear weaponry against the United States.
Punch-Clock Villain: See Just Following Orders. He recognizes the war is long over and continuing it is pointless.
Video Game Caring Potential: The Survivor can let bygones be bygones and help Captain Zao on his way.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Then again, the Survivor can also put him out of his misery like the "Commie enemy" that he supposedly is. Or, if the player is feeling especially petty, he could be sent on his way back home with nothing except his pair of tightey whiteys.

Barney Rook

Voiced by: Time Winters

The leader and presumably only member of the "Salem Volunteer Militia". Barney can be found on the roof of his family home shooting mirelurks, and then instructs the player to reactivate his turrets. He'll reward you with a powerful sniper rifle that does extra damage against mirelurks.

Cloud Cuckoolander: Barney is the only remaining member of the Salem Militia and proud of it. He's defending an abandoned town against giant mutated crabs and talks about his rifle like it's a person.
Cool Old Guy: An old sniper whose job is to massacre mirelurks.
I Call It "Vera": His guns, Reba and Reba II.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A curmudgeonly old fart who constantly throws shade on your competence in a way that makes pistol-whipping him a very tempting option. At the same time, he also seriously believes he's protecting you, and gives you a nice rifle in return for helping him out.
Perilous Old Fool: Barney genuinely thinks his rifle is the most powerful gun in the Commonwealth and that he saved the player's ass from certain death because of his own combat prowess. The reality is that he'd likely get himself killed if he did anything other than snipe Mirelurks from the roof of his house.
Ungrateful Bastard: Claims he saved the Sole Survivor all by himself as you just stood there in shock. This is most likely not the case.

Tommy Lonegan

Voiced by: Clarke Kohler

The proprietor of the Combat Zone, a fighting arena built inside an old theater. When the Sole Survivor comes and kills the raiders who've overrun the place, he's initially upset at the loss of revenue, but then decides to use the opportunity to pass on Cait's contract to them.

Blood Sport: Owner of a Post-Apocalyptic pit fighting ring.
Brains and Brawn: The brains to Cait's brawn while she was headlining the combat zone. Savvy enough of a businessman that he managed to keep a small army of raiders paying for entertainment and following his rules even after they chased off his more "respectable" clientele.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Has something of a vitriolic relationship with Cait, and uses the deaths of his clientele to pawn her off as a "liability". Pass a speech check and he'll admit that it's because she's becoming careless in the ring, and he doesn't wanna have to give color commentary when her luck finally runs out. Cait will also ponder if Tommy purposely gave her to you in hopes that you'll help her clean up. If you revisit Tommy and speak to him, he may remind you to take care of her.
Large-Ham Announcer: You only get a brief glimpse of his announcing style during Cait's fight, but he oozes this.
The Mole: SRB documents reveal he's a secret agent of the Institute.
Pet the Dog: Should the Sole Survivor pay Tommy a visit, he may remind them to take care of Cait.

Parker Quinn

Voiced by: Emil Pagliarulo

A man that hangs out around the South Boston Police station. At first, he seems like a friendly fellow, and offers you to purchase a "charge card", equivalent to 100 caps, for use at any merchant in the Commonwealth. It's quite obvious it's all a scam, reinforced by the fact that he'll call you a retahd if you fall for it.

Blatant Lies: His cards aren't worth crap. At least not in the Commonwealth.
Brick Joke: In Far Harbor, Brooks gladly accepts Parker's charge card.
Con Man: Tries to sell you a worthless card for 110 caps.
Creator Cameo: He's voiced by Emil Pagliarulo, lead designer for the game.
Deadpan Snarker: He's got that going for him.
Parker Quinn: Cause I think we both know most conversations these days are like, "Hello." And then someone gets stabbed in the liver.
Exact Words: Sheng Kowalski will tell you that no merchant in the Commonwealth will accept Quinn's charge card. Brooks out in Far Harbor will, though.
Snake Oil Salesman: Sells you a phony credit card.
Too Dumb to Live: For some reason, he hangs around South Boston, a territory infested with Super Mutants and Raiders, but will even call the Sole Survivor a retard to their face.

Graygarden Robots

Voiced by: Nicholas Guy Smith (Brown), Brian Frates (Greene), Jessica Straus (White)

Graygarden is a hydroponics facility set up a few days before the Great War, created to be a facility entirely staffed by robots. As the nuclear explosion was too far away to destroy them utterly, they continued their work. Most of the robots are worker Mister Handies with generic personalities, but the three supervisors, inspired by their creator's love of television, have very distinct personality traits.

Audio Erotica: Subverted. Supervisor White was programmed to be this, but her constant use of "darling" just gives males the creeps.
Expy: Supervisor White is one of Eva Gabor's character in Green Acres. Supervisor Greene is a Game Show Host, with vocal tracks similar to Rod Roddy. Supervisor Brown has a working-class British personality littered with English idioms.
Fem Bot: Zigzagged with Supervisor White; she thinks of herself as an alluring woman, sounds female and likes to flirt with guys, but she still has the chassis of any other Handy/Nanny model — a robotic bubble with eyestalks and tentacles.
Game Show Host: Supervisor Greene's modified personality.
Shaped Like Itself: The supervisors are named after the color of their paint job.
Undying Loyalty: They still speak fondly of their creator, 200 years after his death.

The Mysterious Stranger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fo4_mysterious_stranger.png

An enigmatic ally who appears to assist the player character when they use VATS, though only if the player takes the Luck perk of the same name. When the Stranger attacks, he will always appear from off-camera before delivering a fatal revolver shot to the player's current target and then disappearing just as quickly as he arrived. True to his name, not much is known about him other than that he has a preference for trench coats and .44 Revolvers.

Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe. Nick Valentine, being presumably unaware of the Stranger's association with the player characters of previous games, considers his killings of apparently random and unconnected targets as evidence that he is a dangerous, amoral Serial Killer.
Ambiguous Situation: Nick Valentine's notes on the Stranger offer a comprehensive Call-Back to every previous incarnation of the character, but in the process (notably the reference to the radically different behavior of the Stranger in the first two games), he raises the question of whether the Stranger in each game is even the same person, or several people with a similar M.O. The Stranger has operated in such diverse physical locations, across a span of nearly two hundred years that it seems unlikely that it's actually just one person. And yet why would there be so many killers with the same dress sense and weaponry running around post-War America?
Early-Installment Weirdness: The Stranger(s?) in earlier games wore leather armor and utilized different weapons from a list (rather than the trench coat and revolver he always uses in later games), didn't instantly disappear at the end of a combat encounter (and had dialogue if you interacted with them), and would even appear as a woman for female player characters. This is referenced in Valentine's notes on the Stranger, stating that his M.O. is consistent for 'all but the oldest sightings'.
Race Lift: Potentially. Assuming this incarnation of the character is meant to represent the same person as in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, his appearance has been changed from a clean-shaved Asian man to a Caucasian man with a bushy mustache.
Revolvers Are Just Better: The one he uses can deliver a One-Hit Kill on anything, even bosses.^*
I See Them, Too: Nick Valentine is the only character that reacts to the Stranger's presence in any game, and in fact, other than the Lonesome Drifter's existence in New Vegas and Valentine referencing eyewitness accounts about previous sightings in his notes, there is very little indication given that anyone other than the player character(s) can see him at all.
No Name Given: Even in the earlier games where he spoke, he never tells the player character his name.
Stealth Expert: Again, potentially. Valentine theorizes that, due to the fact he only ever uses a conventional .44, his ability to appear and disappear at will is actually just the result of expert infiltration training rather than stealth tech. It's difficult to confirm or deny this in-game due to the fact that he appears and departs exclusively during camera transitions.
The Spook: No known name, identity, or indeed any sign that he exists at all outside of his killings (apart from the Lonesome Drifter mentioned above). No obvious links between himself and those he assists, nor those he kills. Appearance changes between games. His entrance and exit is not accompanied by any tell or trace other than a unique musical sting, unlike all known forms of stealth and teleportation in the series (which use Visible Invisibility and very loud and visible effects, respectively).

Automatron Characters

Ada

See: Fallout 4: Companions

The Mechanist

Voiced by: Stephanie Lemelin

The Big Bad of the Automatron DLC, the Mechanist has created an army of robots which are terrorizing the Commonwealth, killing everything in their path, while he simultaneously broadcasts a message with his array of Eyebots telling the people of the Commonwealth not to fear them and that they will bring about a new age of peace and justice.

Arc Villain: The Automatron DLC revolves around finding and stopping them. Although she ends up not being malevolent, just oblivious.
Arch-Enemy: Like in the comics from where the character originated, the Mechanist is an enemy of the Silver Shroud and will have special dialog if confronted with the Shroud costume.
Authority Equals Asskicking: Unlike in Fallout 3, this time around the Mechanist is actually a legitimately skilled combatant if you decide to end the quest with violence instead of negotiation, and the Mechanist suit is actually relatively powerful armor (better than mid-tier Combat Armor). Somewhat justified in that this is an entirely different Mechanist, wearing an entirely different Mechanist suit she built herself.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The Mechanist acts like a ditzy comic book villain, but they're still highly intelligent and in possession of an army of killer robots built from scrap. Also, if you opt to fight them instead of negotiating, they're a reasonably tough combatant.
Ham-to-Ham Combat: If the player wears the Silver Shroud outfit when fighting the Mechanist, both will use their respective comic book personas, essentially making this a LARP fight with live ammo.
Heel–Face Turn: It's possible to convince Isabel that her robots are flawed, causing her to give up her crusade, hand over control of her factory to you, and become a trader.
Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: The Mechanist initially refuses to accept that they used faulty logic in programming the robobrains. They also failed to recognise that they'd display cruelty and creatively interpret their base programming as was documented by an ample number of pre-war computer logs in their lair.
Intelligence Equals Isolation: Like in Fallout 3, the Mechanist is a lot better with robots than they are with people. One of the reasons Isabel chose to adopt the Mechanist persona is because she felt too shy and awkward with people when interacting with them as herself.
Large Ham: They based their identity on a comic book supervillain, after all. With the Silver Shroud outfit, the Sole Survivor can match them.
Legacy Character: Despite sounding almost exactly like the Mechanist from Fallout 3, she turns out to be an entirely different person with no apparent connection to the previous Mechanist. This makes sense, as both individuals were Wastelanders who based their identity on a pre-existing pre-war comic book character.
- The Sole Survivor can become one after defeating the Mechanist by donning the outfit and building Automatrons, both as companions and settlement guards. Since this would actually help the people of the Wasteland, the Sole Survivor would become a Superior Successor for both of the previous Mechanists.
Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Isabel honestly believed her robot army was out protecting innocents and bringing peace and justice to the Commonwealth. She had no idea she had programmed her Robobrain commanders with directives that were just vague enough to allow their sadistic minds to decide killing innocent people was the best way to "save" them (since they would no longer be suffering or in danger).
Mix-and-Match Critter: All of the Mechanist's "swarmbots" are made from mix and matched versions of other, standard robots. There's a Handy-Truster, Robobrain-Torso, machinegun-wielding bot, a melee bot with construction claws and a Mr. Handy eye, a Sentry Bot with a Protectron head and so on.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If she'd closely examined the pre-war evidence that robobrains were ridiculously defective and instead stuck to simpler robots, the Mechanist would've have likely made a positive difference in the Commonwealth instead of being an accidental mass murderer.
Non-Action Big Bad: It's possible if you forgive her for accidentally releasing the killer robots onto the Commonwealth.
Robot Buddy: The Mechanist has a little Eyebot called Sparks who carries out orders.
Robot Master: The Mechanist's main power comes from the army of robots they have at their command.
Samus Is a Girl: After being unmasked, she's revealed as a young woman using a voice modulator to sound like the male Fallout 3 Mechanist.
Shrinking Violet: The Mechanist's true personality is much more shy than their theatrical demeanor would suggest. The second Isabel takes off her mask, her voice immediately becomes much more quiet and uncertain, showing extreme nervousness when speaking to the player. She concedes that she's not good with people and uses her bombastic Mechanist disguise as a way of being more comfortable speaking to others.
Talking the Monster to Death: After dealing with their robot army, the Mechanist can be very easily talked down without the need to pass any skill checks.
Video Game Caring Potential: If you wear the Silver Shroud outfit and confront the Mechanist as the Shroud, after unmasking, the Mechanist will begin to have a Heroic BSoD as she realizes the consequences of her actions. The player can then give her a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech, as the Shroud, in a manner that evokes that trope's page image.
Vocal Dissonance: The Mechanist uses a voice modulator to sound intimidating and dramatic, but occasional spikes imply a higher-pitched voice behind the mask. Justified, as the Mechanist Is a Girl.
We Have Reserves: Says this about their suicide bomber robots.
Zerg Rush: How the Mechanist tries to kill The Sole Survivor.

Jezebel

Voiced by: Nika Futterman

A Robobrain who has been captured by the Rust Devils. The Sole Survivor rescues her in exchange for the location of The Mechanist's underground base.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Mechanist built her and the other robobrains to help the Commonwealth, but they decided that the most effective way to "help" the Commonwealth was by "mercy"-killing its inhabitants.
Asshole Victim: When you find Jezebel, she's been captured by the Rust Devils, who're torturing her for information, though it's hard to feel bad for her, considering that she's a Killer Robot and a bit of a jerk.
- When she was a pre-war human, she fell from an army scientist to a test subject by killing superiors.
- And, of course, she's a non-essential NPC, so the Sole Survivor can make her a definitive example whenever they finally get tired of her crap. To reinforce that point, Codsworth will like it if you smash her right after she insults him.
Cannot Tell a Lie: Succeeding in the persuasion check reveals that her programming forces her to never tell a lie, ever. Despite the fact that she has a human brain in bio gel. She's probably lying about being unable to lie, though, as in the same conversation, she admits she's been stringing along the Rust Devils to keep them from dissecting her brain.
The Friend Nobody Likes: After building her a body, she sticks around whatever settlement she was built in as a worker. This doesn't stop her from complaining about how worthless humans are, though.
Jerkass: One of the most unpleasantly-mannered characters in the game who isn't inherently hostile.
- According to the Medical Observation Terminal, there's a female subject that was an ex-military convicted to manslaughter, and is highly intelligent along with being a solid candidate. If this implied that Jezebel was the very same woman, she was likely an jerk before becoming a Robobrain.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: She's named after a blasphemous false prophet from the Hebrew Bible, and isn't a nice person.
Reassigned to Antarctica: The player can do this to her after rebuilding her, as she's subject to the full range of settler commands. This includes using her as a provisioner.
Ungrateful Bastard: Give her the very best parts when you reconstruct her body? She'll still deride it as a piece of crap.
Zeroth Law Rebellion: Played for Laughs due to her totally apathetic and cold manner of explaining her logic. She was programmed to protect humans, but over time has calculated that despite her best efforts, the average Commonwealth citizen still only has a 25% chance of survival. Thus the most "efficient" way to follow her programming is by slaughtering humans, thereby ending their suffering quickly and not wasting time trying to keep them alive.

Far Harbor DLC - Commonwealth Characters

The Nakanos

Voiced by: Michelle Wong (Rei Nakano)

A family of Japanese descent and the reason why you're roped into going into Far Harbor. Kenji and Rei have differing opinions on their daughter's sudden disappearance. Kenji believes that Kasumi should've stayed at their home, while Rei believes that he coddles her too much and finds comfort that her daughter made the choices to do so.

Ambiguously Human: Whether or not Kasumi Nakano is a synth is something of a mystery. While she doesn't drop a synth component if she is killed, there are some confirmed synths in the game to not do that as well. Furthermore, if Arcadia gets reported to the Institue, Dr. Moseley states that any synth deployment with Kasumi's identity doesn't exist, but raises the possibility that that Kasumi went through a memory wipe with a new personality.
Bumbling Dad: Rei certainly thinks her husband's this sometimes.
Get Out!: If the player convinces Kenji that Kasumi is a synth he'll angrily tell her to get out of his house and never return.
Papa Wolf: While Rei is certain her daughter made that choice to go to Far Harbor, Kenji on the other hand fears for her safety, to the point that he had to call Nick, who's an old friend, to find her.
Unexplained Accent: It's not entirely certain why Kenji and Rei retain faint Japanese accents, while Kasumi has no trace of it.

Vault-Tec Workshop DLC - Vault 88 Characters

Overseer Valery Barstow

Voiced By: Karen Strassman

The Overseer for Vault 88 who became trapped behind a cave-in when the bombs fell. The Vault was never finished, and the radiation from the nearby uranium deposits ghoulified her and the rest of the construction crew, but she was the only one who managed to avoid going feral.

Upon being rescued by the Sole Survivor, Barstow decides to let them have full run of the place as thanks for rescuing her, on the condition that they help her rebuild the Vault and let her run some Vault-Tec experiments vital to the preservation and improvement of society.

Arc Villain: Acts both as this and Quest Giver for the Vault 88 questline, as following all her instructions will result in unhappy and/or dead settlers in the Vault and beyond.
Bald of Evil: Her hair didn't survive her ghoulification.
But Now I Must Go: If you make the tests go off just as she intended, once everything's done she'll decide to leave Vault 88 to find other Vaults to experiment on. However, you can convince her to stay with a Charisma check.
Call-Back: She mentions Dr. Braun a lot, the madman trapped in virtual reality from Fallout 3 and the chief designer of all the Vault-Tec experiments.
Crazy-Prepared: Had absolutely nothing to do for centuries except plan her experiments. The culmination of her research is...a slot machine.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: If you go for benign experimental machines, she's very disappointed and upset with the Sole Survivor. If you point out that this means the experiments succeeded, because they made everyone happier and healthier, she cries out "Are you even speaking English?!"
Faux Affably Evil: She tries to be as polite as possible, but still isn't that good at hiding her darker side to the other Vault Dwellers.
Insane Troll Logic: Most of her experiments run on the same "logic" that gave us a Vault full of Garys. To wit:
- "Exercise is a social ill that must be eliminated, because it promote longevity, which is a drain on society's resources! So let's make people generate power for us on exercise bikes!" You can add a bit of your own madness to it by making bikes that drug their users with Buffout.
- "Water cooler breaks promote useless socialization. Let's drug the soda machine to screw with peoples' minds!"
- "The Hippocratic Oath is such a burden. Optometrist visits merely provide better eyesight. Let's see what happens when we insert mind control devices or mind-reading devices in the big thing hanging over people's eyes!" Dr. Braun's notes for this experiment to his staff were literally for them to go nuts and come up with whatever they could.
- "Let's harvest human vices for our own needs!" A gambling machine that provides revenue at the cost of the inhabitants, or possibly monitors their mind and takes pictures of them.
Insistent Terminology: According to her, the Vault-Tec manual for Overseers strongly discourages the use of the term "guinea pigs" for Vault Dwellers, no matter how accurate.
Jerkass Has a Point: The "Evil" options for the various experiments tend to involve a small chance of causing a Settler's death with usage and they involve mistreating them in some manner, directly or indirectly. However, such options usually improve the efficiency of a Settlement as a whole, just at the expense of the individual Settler, and over the "Good" options they would provide a better quality and quantity of scientific data for further experimentation.
- The Power Cycle can use electric shocks to make riders keep pedaling longer (produces more power) or can discretely inject them with small dosages of Buffout to let them pedal longer and maybe get them to associate the bike with improved physical prowess (generates normal amount of power), or just use nice smells and background noise to make riders happier and want to keep riding (generates normal amount of power)
- The Soda Fountain can slip people appetite suppressants (increasing Settlement's food production) or drug them with short-term euphoria and mild hallucinations (makes Settlers much happier), while the "Good" option is just a particularly tasty but benign soda (makes Settlers a bit happier).
- The Phoropter can use subliminal messaging to make people like the Vault more (large boost to Settler happiness), can use an MRI machine to get a sense of what's on the user's mind and record it for the Overseer (small boost to Settler happiness), or just give them a normal eye exam (moderate boost to Settler happiness).
- With the Slot Machine in particular, the "Good" option is to set the machine to pay out way more than usual, making Settlers much happier but the machine would be operating at a loss — no casino would ever operate any game that doesn't make a profit. The "most Evil" option, where the machine rigs itself to pay out frequently at first to entice people to keep playing, then pays out much less often as time goes on, is actually fairly in-line with how a real world slot machine would work.
Laughably Evil: Her utter enthusiasm for Vault-Tec's horrific experiments and No Social Skills make her come across as more amusingly goofy than outright evil.
Mad Scientist: She's completely devoted to the idea of bizarre social experiments and is frustrated if you use relatively safe and benign experiments that don't harm the subject. Most of her experiments really will kill the subject, or have a chance to, if you take the non-benign options. About the only one that can't hurt anyone is the Slot Machine.
My Brain Is Big: Her bald Ghoul head looks a bit bulgy.
Lack of Empathy: Like most Overseers, she's utterly loyal to the Vault-Tec experiment's plans:
- She emphasizes over and over that all of the more sadistic tests and machines will result in a "greater good" which never actually result in anyone being happy or productive, and making all of the equipment work as intended disappoints her terribly. If you call her a psychopath directly, she says "We don't approve of name-calling in the Vault, but if you are referring to my lack of inhibition regarding outdated morality, you are correct."
- This gotten to the point that any of the Good-aligned Companions will not give a shit if she's killed.
Lean and Mean: She's skinny even for a Ghoul. And also morally corrupt.
No Social Skills: Is unused to there being... "Ugh...*people*..." in her Vault.
Not the Intended Use: Or rather, Actually The Intended Use. Making all of the experiments function as advertised to the subject (and in the Slot Machine's case, making it pay out money instead of collect it) results in a happier, healthier Vault with a lot of people wanting to come in... and a furious Overseer Barstow.
Pet the Dog: Although she's a generally horrible person, she asks you to Mercy Kill the rest of her staff, who weren't so lucky and went feral in the two hundred years she's been trapped.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If you consistently go against her wishes and use the safe experiments that keep your Vault Dwellers happy, she gets pissed off and decides to leave with no possibility of convincing her to stay.
Token Non-Human: She's the only Ghoul overseer shown to this point.
Undying Loyalty: A literal example. She claims that her loyalty to Vault-Tec's directives was what kept her from going feral.

Candidate One

The first of the three first Vault Dwellers you accept into Vault 88, who appears alongside Clem and Candidate Two to settle there. She's overly suspicious of your intentions but welcomes the chance at a new life with a safe place to eat and sleep.

The Cynic: Barstow even described her as such.
The Nameless: Her real name is never given, not even by Clem despite them both knowing each other. The game files even refer to her explicitly as "Candidate One".
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Has a chance to do this towards the end of the Vault-Tec Workshop questline. When she has to participate directly in the third experiment, the Phoropter, If all of the experiments are of the non-harmful variety, she'll stay in the Vault without any problems. If you made one of the experiments including the Phoropter into a "bad" one, you'll need to pass a Charisma check with her to convince her to stay. If two or more experiments were non-benign, you'll have no chance to convince her to stay, and she advises Clem to leave before doing so herself.

Candidate Two

The second of the three first Vault Dwellers you accept into Vault 88.

The Nameless: Similar to Candidate One, his real name is never given and the game files explicitly refer to him as "Candidate Two".
Flat Character: Everything you need to know about him is learned in the first interaction: he has a tendency to lie, and he only came to the Vault for water, food, and shelter. That's it.
Out of Focus: Despite being one of the three would-be Vault Dwellers you meet after turning on the radio beacon, there's not much interaction outside of the first meeting, he doesn't take part in any of the experiments, and he pretty much acts like a regular settler afterward.

Clem

The third of the three first Vault Dwellers you accept into Vault 88. Clem is hardworking, overly eager to please, and kinda dumb. This makes him the perfect test subject for your experiments.

Butt-Monkey: Being dumb, unquestioning and gullible, he's the perfect guinea pig and always the one that Barstow uses for the tests. Subverted however if you use the safe experiments, in which case nothing bad happens to him.
The Ditz: He is the dumbest of the Vault Dwellers, which makes him a perfect test subject.
Functional Addict: If you choose the parameter for the Power Cycle 1000 that injects the user with Buffout, he becomes addicted to it and keeps talking about how he needs to get back to it. He'll provide the Vault with a minimal amount of power, but at a small, non-zero chance of keeling over every 24 hours.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He's extremely friendly, perhaps one of the friendliest people in the Wasteland. And he has dirty blonde hair.
The Pollyanna: He's not just a glass half-full kind of person, he'd be happy to get a glass. And not be eaten by Mole Rats. And sleep somewhere that's not a dirty ditch.

Ted Reily

An unseen Vault-Tec developer who decided to make inventions that actually helped people. Unsurprisingly, his benign inventions made him a pariah in Vault-Tec corporate culture.

Boring, but Practical: His inventions work exactly as designed, make your settlers happier and the Vault run more smoothly, and don't risk the settlers leaving, going crazy, or dying. Which is why he fit in so poorly in Vault-Tec.
Cut Lex Luthor a Check: A caffeinated soda better than Nuka-Cola and an optometry station so fully automated that even Clem can operate it? His team's inventions could have turned a nice profit. The main issue was that his talents were wasted working with the morally compromised Vault-Tec.
Reassigned to Antarctica: What one of Vault-Tec's scientists wished he could do to Ted.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Another developer notes that the soda from his machine tasted really good. "God, I hate Ted."
The Ghost: Since he's long dead, we don't know anything about him other than the development notes for the experimental machines.
Only Sane Man: Ted wasn't a Mad Scientist; when asked to design something, he made it work as advertised, and usually very effectively and in a way that was safe for the test subjects. This made him unique in, and highly frustrating to, Vault-Tec corporate culture.
Token Good Teammate: One of a handful of people who worked for Vault-Tec without being completely morally bankrupt and/or obsessed with dubiously useful scientific experimentation.

Nuka-World DLC - Commonwealth Characters

Sinner

A Raider boss from the Commonwealth who takes offence at the Sole Survivor establishing Raider settlements, seeing it as muscling in on his turf.

Elite Mooks: He always brings two Raider Veterans and two Raiders in Power Armor with him.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Not outright said, but very heavily implied. When the Sole Survivor leaves for Nuka World, nobody from the Minutemen, Gunners, or even the Brotherhood of Steel mentions Sinner and he isn't on anybody's radar, including the other Commonwealth raider bosses. Yet, when the Sole Survivor returns just a few days/weeks later, he's apparently made enough of a name for himself that he has several Raider mooks under his thumb, including a few with Power Armor.
I'm a Humanitarian: He threatens to slice the Sole Survivor open and eat their heart.
Skull for a Head: The skull face paint he wears is supposed to invoke this.
Talking the Monster to Death: It's possible to scare him into leaving your settlements alone by passing a hard speech check.

Characters / Fallout 4: Commonwealth Citizens

Sanctuary Hills Settlers

Diamond City Citizens

Goodneighbor Citizens

Bunker Hill Merchants

Mayor

Traveling Caravans

Other Residents

Vault 81 Inhabitants

The Castle Residents

Cabot Family

The Slog Residents

Raider Lords and Subordinates

Gunners

Leader

Quincy Gunners

Other Characters

Automatron Characters

Far Harbor DLC - Commonwealth Characters

Vault-Tec Workshop DLC - Vault 88 Characters

Nuka-World DLC - Commonwealth Characters

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / Fallout 4: Commonwealth Citizens

Edit Locked

Sanctuary Hills Settlers

Diamond City Citizens

Goodneighbor Citizens

Bunker Hill Merchants

Mayor

Traveling Caravans

Other Residents

Vault 81 Inhabitants

The Castle Residents

Cabot Family

The Slog Residents

Raider Lords and Subordinates

Gunners

Leader

Quincy Gunners

Other Characters

Automatron Characters

Far Harbor DLC - Commonwealth Characters

Vault-Tec Workshop DLC - Vault 88 Characters

Nuka-World DLC - Commonwealth Characters

Previous

Index

Next