Characters / Fallout: New Vegas - Dead Money

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Ghost People

See Fallout Creatures.

Dog/God

Voiced by: Dave B. Mitchell

"Master, where is master? Did he go away? Dog will be good this time..."

"You think I'm afraid of your collar exploding, killing us? No, I'll leave you breathing, then keep walking until my collar goes cold. I'll prop your broken body in view of the Sierra Madre so you can see what you came to steal... forever out of reach as you die."

Dog/God is a Nightkin suffering from disassociative identity disorder, with two personalities inside of one skull: the subservient, gluttonous Dog, and the ruthless, calculating God. They squabble over having control over one body, and whether to obey or escape the control of Father Elijah.

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• Ambiguous Ending: Unlike the other options, the Split-Personality Merge ending says nothing about what the nightkin's new self goes on to do or what his mental state has become, only implying that he had moved on to parts unknown, and only thought of the Courier again when he heard about the battle in the Divide between two couriers, praying for his savior's safety.
• Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain: The other voice "God" is a Nominal Hero. He has a semblance of morality and honor, but is still brutal, cruel, and self-interested. Dog, on the other hand, is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, whose loss of purpose with the Master's death, along with the trauma from the FEV transformation and the toll of the split personality disorder, left him a ravenous beast who's easily manipulated by people like Elijah.
• All in the Manual: The script notes for the character backstory reveals that Dog attacked and killed a girl who needed his help in the past. While he wouldn't stop himself from doing it and is frightened at the memory, it's noted that deep down, he'd like to do it again.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The only weapon in the entire DLC that a Nightkin can equip is a single Sledgehammer, so Dog/God is forced to whale on enemies with his bare fists most of the time. Dog mentions that he sometimes uses the bear trap that he clamped onto his own arm to hit things with, but of course that isn't shown in-game (even though Ghost People are shown using bear traps of their own as gauntlet weapons).
• Berserk Button: Because of his treatment of Dog, Elijah's mere existence stomps hard on God's Button.
• Brutal Honesty: God never sugarcoats his dialogue.
  The Courier: I have a question.
  God: You're a brave one. Are you sure you want the answer?
• The Brute: Dog is incredibly violent and lacks God's strategic intelligence. Regarded as little more than Elijah's lackey, he's mostly used as muscle.
• Cold Ham: God is the only Nightkin in the entire game that doesn't shout all the time, but he's still pretty dominant when he speaks, and his calmess makes him even more creepy.
• Control Freak: God. It's part of the reason why he threatens the Courier if they try to let Dog out of the cage, and why he despises Elijah so much, for luring Dog away from his control.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Roughly equal to Legate Lanius in terms of health. If all 4 add-ons are installed, and the player is upwards of level 40 to 50, he has nearly as many hit points as a Super Mutant Behemoth.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: After the death of The Master a long time ago, Dog/God wandered across the wastes looking for a new master since they really didn't know what to do on their own. Too bad the master they found was Elijah.
• Desperately Needs Orders: Dog's time in The Master's army has left him with a need for a 'Master' figure in his life, which makes him slavishly loyal to Elijah.
• Didn't See That Coming: The personality born of the Split-Personality Merge is left with Laser Guided Amensia regarding the events in the Sierra Madre and asks you where he is. If you pick the Brutal Honesty response and tell him that the two of you are "trapped inside a casino in the middle of a poisonous city", he says that he was really not expecting that answer.
• The Dragon: To Elijah, sort of. Since after all...
• Dragon with an Agenda: Dog may be complicit, but God is not. He wants to free them both from Elijah's shackles and kill the 'Old Man'.
• Driven to Suicide: Dog eventually attempts suicide just so he doesn't have to hear God hectoring him anymore. Unfortunately, his suicide method involves blowing up the entire casino. If you sided with God, he will desperately tell you to convince Dog to kill himself more precisely (and God by extension) to prevent the more explosive suicide.
• Dumb Muscle: Dog. While God knows that Dog will always be like this, he still hopes to make sure that he does not attach this role to the likes of Father Elijah.
• Establishing Character Moment: God's lengthy monologue when you first meet him serves to establish his characteristic traits. Intelligent and eloquent, but cold, distrustful, and mean-spirited.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • God, who is a smug and possessive Jerkass, utterly disapproves of Elijah's treatment of Dog.
  • God has no interest in the treasure of the Sierra Madre, and will openly mock both the Player Character and especially Dean for giving into greed rather than staying away (the Courier) or escaping when they had the chance (Dean).
    "It's your own fault you're here. Couldn't leave well enough alone."
  • Of all your companions, God is the least likely to turn on you of his own volition. In fact, he's the one who tries to stop his other personality from destroying the casino with you in it.
• Extreme Omnivore: Dog eats whatever he can fit into his mouth when he's hungry, including his own slave collar. And according to God, if he can't eat it whole, he'll make it fit. It's rather useful when Dog shows he can finish off the Ghost People, which can only be killed by dismemberment. Relying on Dog comes back to bite one's ass hard. If Dog is the only remaining personality at the end, he goes on an eating spree in the wasteland, chewing up every living thing that is unfortunate enough to cross his path.
  "Always yell at Dog. Yell at Dog because he gets hungry. Can't stop it. Always need more."
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: God doesn't get why you're so nice with him if you let him out of the cage. He says you don't belong in the Madre.
• Freudian Trio: An intersting case where the "trio" are the different personalities of one entity. Dog is the Id, God is the Superego and their merged personality is the Ego.
• Funny Schizophrenia: Completely averted. The nightkin's condition is terrifying, pitiable, and unnerving. For Intelligent and Perceptive players, it leads to intriguing and deep dialogue trees about how the two personalities feel about their condition and having to share their body with someone they cannot see nor feel, only hear.
  • Most tragically, if the nightkin is convinced to commit suicide and kill only himself, the wall between the two personalities finally falls and in their last moments, they behold the truth of one another and the "chain between them", that hunger and control were twin greeds that they'd never realized before.
• Genius Bruiser: They both count in different ways. God leans more to the "genius" part, being much more cunning and intelligent, but he claims he lacks the control over their body Dog does. Dog meanwhile is more into the "bruiser" part, ripping enemies apart with his bare hands, but he also understands where to hit the Ghost People to break their spines/necks and kill them permanently, and he can show the player to give them the Ghost Hunter perk.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: In the case of the add-on's companions. Christine is the good, Dean is the evil, while Dog/God are in-between. Dog when left unchecked is dangerous and violent, but this is due to his animalistic urges and child-like mentality rather than any sadism or malice. God is threatening and unpersonable, but he's also shown to be the "conscience" of the two, bemoaning and attempting to prevent Dog's inclination for savagery. If God's the only one who survives, all he wants is to look for others like him.
• Horror Hunger: Oh, poor Dog. As All in the Manual reveals, in his past, his hunger compelled him to devour a young girl who had helped him. As traumatic as the memory is for Dog, deep down, he still feels the urge to do it again. And again, and again...
• Hulk Speak: In keeping with his Dumb Muscle nature, Dog's sentences are stilted and simple, and he talks in third person. Averted with God, who speaks very eloquently.
• The Jekyll Is a Jerk: God, the apparent Jekyll to Dog's Hyde, is much more intelligent and at least somewhat honorable compared to Dog, but that doesn't stop him from being a cold, cruel, and thoroughly self-interested Control Freak.
• Jerkass:
  • God oozes disdain for everybody, and both privately and openly talks about dismembering the Courier for his own ends.
  • When left at the fountain with either Dean or Christine, he will engage with them. While he's right in calling Dean out on his greed and obsession, he has no reason to insult Christine for the mutilations she had endured, other than just being a dick.
• Jerkass Has a Point: It's difficult to gain God's trust; he prefers the term "mutual need". He's witnessed so many visitors to the Sierra Madre seeking its fabled treasures, and the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder that their own greed inflicts upon them (up to and possibly including you). It's an understandable precaution.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being a massive jerk, God cares for Dog, and you can even get him to admit that with a high speech check. He'll even start to hold some respect for you if you're nice enough to him and help him sate Dog's hungers. Especially seen in your last confrontation with him, wherein he pleads for Dog to stop trying to blow himself up instead of ordering him around, and desperately resorts to asking you to kill them both rather than destroy the whole casino if you favored him over Dog.
• Made of Iron: Dog has badly wounded himself just to stay in control and neither personality acts like they care. Dog says he doesn't like the pain, but he likes God even less. Meanwhile, God is simply too pissed off that Dog would go to such extreme lengths to stay in control to be bothered by the pain. If persuaded to accept a Split-Personality Merge, the unified personality is shocked at how wounded he is, particularly the presence of a bear-trap clamped on his arm, and says he needs to lie down for a bit.
• Meaningful Name: The loyal Dog and God the Control Freak.
• Morality Pet:
  • Fittingly, Dog is for God.
  • You can function as this to both personalities by not exploiting Dog's loyalty and being overall respectful and trustworthy to God.
• Noble Demon: God may be wrathful, ruthless, and selfish, but he can be reasoned with, he's rather honorable, and he doesn't indulge in more violence than he needs.
• No Fourth Wall: Upon meeting God, he indirectly refers to your Pip-Boy as a quest guide.
  You can't have been an idiot to figure out how to release from my cage... or perhaps you are, with that leash on your arm...
• No Name Given: Incidentally, "God" is never directly called by that name out loud, only by subtitles. The epilogue refers to him as "the other voice raging inside Dog". He coyly refers to it a couple of times, though, when he mentions that he can see his name when he looks at himself in a mirror (the "DOG" scratched on his chest reads "GOD" in a mirror). Some of his graffiti reads "Find goD in the Simplest of Beasts", and some of the letters are mirrored in his writing. Last but not least, after inducing a Split-Personality Merge of the two, you can listen to the Nightkin's collar broadcast and hear the merged personality discover the name on his chest and try to read it, only to read it backwards.
• Not So Stoic: God is stoic for the most part, except when you threaten to release Dog and when he desperately begs Dog not to blow up the casino.
• Oh, Crap!: God will throw epic ones if you tell him you have the means to let Dog out of the cage and you intend to use it.
  You! DON'T PLAY IT! I'll MURDER YOU! I'll twist your legs and arms until...
  No! NO! I'll get you for this! I PROMISE YOU!
• Pet the Dog: With a high enough speech skill, you can get God to admit to caring for Dog. He also states that he tries to act as a conscience, trying to make him avoid hurting others. And then, in the last confrontation, he breaks down and begs Dog to not kill them both.
• Shout-Out: Given that Chris Avellone had a lead role in Dead Money, it's probably fair to say that God has an awfully "practical" outlook on things, although he is far less evil than Practical himself. Dog may be Paranoid. You can also merge their personalities together, which is similar to how the Nameless One can deal with his numerous incarnations. Hell, Dog even has quite a few physical similarities to the Nameless One, mostly his dark skin, heavy scarring and relative muscle.
• Split Personality: They're essentially the Id and Superego of a functioning personality. Dog is a hulking, violent brute with all the powers you'd expect of a Nightkin, but is as smart as a vegetable and has a desperate need to have an authority figure to please. God, his alter ego, is rational, independent and intelligent, but also extremely cold and utilitarian, and notes Dog is a better fighter since God can't control their body as well. Eventually, they can either be combined or one can destroy the other.
• Superpowered Evil Side: In a way, Dog. God comments that Dog, while he is very dangerous and unstable, has better control over their body and is therefore better in combat.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • The merged individual is much more even-tempered and calm.
  • If God wins the Split-Personality Takeover, he will apparently become much nicer and speak very highly of the Courier in his travels searching for other Nightkin.
• Tragic Keepsake: God does care for Dog, and if he is the only remaining personality at the end, he patches up all of the wounds and scars that Dog inflicted on himself in his attempts to keep God quiet, except for the name "DOG" that he had carved onto their chest.
• Tragic Monster: If your Speech skill isn't up to snuff, then you'll have no choice than to fight and kill both Dog and God. If you were kind to the former, he'll wonder why you're hurting him.
• Tranquil Fury: God's dialogue oozes hatred even when he doesn't raise his voice.
• Trigger Phrase: Not any specific phrase, but Dog comes out when he hears Elijah's voice while God comes out when he hears his own voice. You play holotapes off your Pip-Boy to bring out the personality you want.
• Undying Loyalty: Elijah comments he doesn't even really need an explosive collar to keep Dog in line (though he still prefers him to have one anyway). Just the sound of his voice is enough to cause the Dog personality to become dominant.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: At some point you must kill or subdue Dog. You can take the evil way and have him break his own neck.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Both played straight and then inverted. At first Dog seems like a kind but stupid mutant while God is a cold and murderous bastard. Talking to them at length and finding out their backstory reveals Dog is mindlessly violent and brutal with no thoughts beyond his own hunger, while God tries to keep Dog under control and help him learn to be independent without relying on a master for orders. It says something that of the three potential endings where they live, the one where Dog becomes the only remaining personality is the worst of the three; should God be the only personality, the ending is more hopeful.
• Walking the Earth: Should God be the surviving personality, the epilogue describes him traveling west in search of other mutants who've suffered like he has, in the meantime speaking fondly of the Courier who gave him his new lease on life.

Christine Royce

Voiced by: Laura Bailey (Dead Money), Veronica Belmont (Old World Blues audio logs)

"Love makes people do strange things. Won't argue that. It can drive you crazy sometimes if you can't... connect."

Christine is a Circle of Steel (a splinter faction of the Brotherhood of Steel with an interest in taking a more active role in politics) Knight who was sent to find Father Elijah and the Sierra Madre after he went missing and was captured and mutilated by him. Later her vocal cords were torn out by a berserk Auto Doc, which is where the player finds her. Also appears in Old World Blues in holotapes, speaking with her original voice.

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• Action Girl: She been trained in energy weapons, explosives, melee weapons, firearms, and hand-to-hand combat.
• Ambiguously Bi: It's implied that she is Veronica's ex-girlfriend, but she may also show some affection (although not explicitly romantic) towards the Courier, regardless of gender.
• And I Must Scream: A relatively mild version (by the standards of this trope anyway). She was trapped in a berserk autodoc constantly tearing her vocal cords for two weeks - the anesthetics ran out after a few hours.
• Anti-Hero: She will do anything to get Elijah, even if the player's life or her own is the cost. The player can talk her down to a more moderate level though.
• Badass in Distress: She gets captured a lot.
• Bald Head of Toughness: She's an Action Girl member of the Circle of Steel, trained in energy weapons, explosives, melee weapons, firearms, and hand-to-hand combat. Even after being lobotomized and mute, she is dead-set on going after Elijah to the point that she can turn against you to pursue her revenge. If asked about her baldness, she'll tell you that she did it by choice to mark her joining the Circle and solidifying her resolve to kill Elijah.
• Berserk Button: Don't ever state you can reason with Elijah or talk him down without killing him.
• Body Horror: Relatively light by Fallout standards but still noteworthy. First, she was taken to the Y-17 Medical Facility after Elijah set her up as a distraction so he could escape. Once there, she was subjected to lobotomy via electrodes. The brain damage made it close to impossible for her to read or write, though she can still do mathematics just fine. Luckily, Ulysses broke her out before anything worse could happen. Later, Dean Domino locked her in the Auto-Doc you find her in to have her vocal cords removed to later be replaced with a simulacrum of Vera Keyes'.
• Broken Bird: Because of the torture she has endured.
• Butch Lesbian: To Veronica's Lipstick Lesbian.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite being an Action Girl, a lot of bad things happen to her. She gets captured in Big MT and partially lobotomized. Then she goes to the Sierra Madre, where she's quickly captured by Dog/God, then gets captured again by Dean Domino and put in the Auto-Doc.
• Chekhov's Gunman: It's not directly stated, but it's heavily implied she's the girlfriend Veronica mentions in the base game.
• Claustrophobia: Came down with this due to being locked in the Auto-Doc.
• Cute Mute: While not conventionally cute, or particularly feminine, she is one of the most moral member of the Dead Money cast. If the Courier can treat her nicely they can share some very sweet moments.
• Determinator: It doesn't matter if she was lobotomized in the Big MT, or had her vocal cords cut by a malfunctioning Auto-Doc; she still has her sights set on ending Elijah. Deconstructed because it can lead her to turn on you.
• Establishing Character Moment: Outside of what she outright tells the Courier in their first conversation, her weathered attire, the way she manages to communicate fairly easily without use of her voice, and her injuries indicate that she's much more experienced than your two other companions and has been through a lot.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Comes with being a member of the Brotherhood. Her passive skill mitigates the radio disruption from broken loudspeakers and radios that can set off your bomb collar.
• Handicapped Badass: Lobotomized and mute, still kicks ass and can survive in the Death World of the Sierra Madre.
• It's Personal: If she was Veronica's girlfriend, that means that it was Elijah who broke them up. It's also Elijah's fault she got lobotomized in the Big Empty.
• Jack of All Trades: As a companion, she's pretty competent with all manners of weaponry, being a Brotherhood Knight/Circle of Steel assassin.
• Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: If you convince Christine to let go of her revenge, she'll spend the rest of her life in the Villa, protecting the casino from people like Elijah... and protecting the outside world from the casino.
• The Nth Doctor: Her voice change between in-person conversation Dead Money and recordings of conversations in Old World Blues is caused in-universe by her vocal cords being surgically altered. After they were torn out by a malfunctioning Auto-Doc, Christine's vocal cords were repaired by Vera Keyes Auto-Doc; as it was programmed specifically for Vera, Christine's new vocal cords cause her to speak with Vera Keyes' voice.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Ulysses states that Christine is similar to Elijah in their inability to let go of the past.
• Only Sane by Comparison: Christine is downright obsessed with taking down Elijah (to be fair to Christine, Elijah is not just evil but dangerous, and she has been ordered to take him out), but her sanity hasn't gone down the drain like Dog/God, and her obsession is not as bad as Dean's.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: If the Courier acted like an ass around her, she'd arm the hallway with traps before your final confrontation with her.
• Ship Tease:
  • It's possible for Christine and The Courier to build up an affectionate chemistry, and they can share a rather tender moment when she's left to her post before the Gala Opening (regardless of the Courier's gender). Nothing ever comes of it, however, and these interactions don't necessarily have to be interpreted as romantic.
• Silent Snarker: Were it any other person, Christine would verbally destroy anyone talking to her. However, you're you, and you can give as good as you can get, if you so choose. She's not quite as snarky when she starts to speak again, since her throat's still pretty torn up from the surgery.
• The Speechless: For obvious reasons.
• Suddenly Voiced: When encountered in the hotel, her surgically-altered vocal cords heal, giving her the voice of Sierra Madre's previous female caretaker, Vera Keyes.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: If you threaten to shove her back into the Auto-Doc she came from, she'll threaten to do the same thing to you before you confront her.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed.She has her dark depths, but compared to Dean, Dog/God, or Elijah, she's a paragon of virtue, as she's the only one of them to have a selfless motivation.

Dean Domino

Voiced by: Barry Dennen

"Get up without my permission, I'll blast your ass so far through your head, it'll turn the moon cherry pie red."

A pre-war lounge singer of some renown turned ghoul, he has apparently been around the Sierra Madre for longer than even Elijah. When Dog finds and collars him, he reluctantly lends the Courier his experience.

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• Acquired Poison Immunity: Centuries of living in the Sierra Madre has granted him resistance to the Cloud. Through the Unclean Living perk, he hands some to you.
• Action Survivor: A lounge singer who ended up becoming a 200 year old Crazy Survivalist (see below). Can have 100 Guns skill depending on how good you are.
• Affably Evil: He's a friendly and polite guy, but it conceals the arrogance of a patient and greedy schemer.
• Alliterative Name: Portmanteau of Dean Martin and Fats Domino.
• And the Adventure Continues: If he survives, after exploring as much of the Sierra Madre as he can and learning about what happened to Sinclair and Vera Keyes, he decides to seek his fortune in the Mojave.
• Anti-Hero: He's a Nominal Hero, only aiding you because of the collars, and, unlike God, would be a pure villain if he was your enemy. If not for the collars, he'd have you doing all the work as his sniveling minion, if he even felt like helping you at all. He's notably the hardest of the three to talk down once you confront him inside the casino, as any shows of disrespect in the past sour his perceptions of you and he will eventually go hostile.
• Badass Boast: If you end up fighting him, he makes one:
  "I can take a chump like you even if I didn't have eight lives lined up behind me, and a rising soundtrack. So put your dancing shoes on - let's go."
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He retains his old lounge clothes, rotted though they may be.
• Badass Normal: Between the schizophrenic Nightkin, the Brotherhood of Steel member and, well, YOU, is a lounge singer tempered into a survivalist by the Villa.
• Bald of Evil: He lost his hair thanks to his ghoulification, but doesn't go feral or lose his past traits (such as his voice), unlike most ghouls. Even before his ghoulification, he was narcissistic and manipulative, and was determined to ruin another man's life for living a happier life than him.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Sorta, if players decided to be as extremely nice as possible, avoid the Barter check in his first conversation and not threaten him in any way, he'll do his best to help the player character stay alive at the theater. Also if the PC is on good terms with Dean Domino when dealing with Elijah in combat, he will aid them by deactivating the speakers giving the Courier more ground to walk on without having to worry about their collar exploding.
• Berserk Button: He cannot stand anyone who acts like they're better than him and absolutely despises anyone who get the upper hand on him. This has interesting gameplay ramifications: if you take a Speech check option during your first interaction with him, he notices, thinks you're trying to play a fast one on him, and will betray you at a critical moment.
• Best Served Cold: He can be incredibly patient when it comes to taking revenge against those who he believes have wronged him. Including the Courier, unless they treat him very nicely.
• Blackmail: He coerced Vera Keyes into going along with his plan to rob Sinclair by threatening to expose her secret chem addiction and destroy her career. It turns out Vera was Secretly Dying, and the chems were used for palliative care.
• Celebrity Survivor: Before the war he was one of the biggest stars of the stage. He often talks about how he used to pack stages.
• Cool Old Guy: He is an over 200-year-old Affably Evil ghoul singer who developed the survival skills needed in order to survive the Sierra Madre.
• Cool Shades: Wears a click pair of sunglasses, a holdover from his human life.
• Crazy-Prepared: Has stashes of weapons, ammo and food across the Sierra Madre (marked by glowing hand prints) so wherever he is in the villa he will have supplies ready in case of an emergency. Stumbling across one of his caches when you arrive is a godsend.
• Crazy Survivalist: He pretty much became one of these by necessity, since the Sierra Madre and surrounding environs are even deadlier than the Wasteland in general. He can handle the toxic air in small quantities, has hidden item stashes all over the region, and can even scrape some poison off a wall and make it into an extremely foul (but potent) cocktail.
• Deadpan Snarker: Oh very much so.
• Death by Irony: If Dean dies, the ending notes that he failed by once again underestimating the strength of his partner in relation to his own ability.
• Demolitions Expert: The only follower in the entire game who's proficient with explosives. Unfortunately, since access to explosive weapons is limited during the DLC, the only time he'll display this proficiency is when he tricks the Courier with a pressure sensitive mine, in order to gain the upper hand over them.
• Determinator: He's still trying to get into the vault, after over 200 years. In dialogue, Dean implies that the reason he survived ghoulification with his faculties intact, not to mention the hazards of the Villa, is that he's just that focused on getting into the casino one day.
• Dirty Coward: Much of Dean's dialogue is to warn you that the Ghost People aren't quite dead, to keep him away from speakers and radios, and generally talk about how he finds the current area dangerous and he wants to leave. Although, considering the state of the Sierra Madre and that he knows more about it than you do, this is less cowardice and more Properly Paranoid.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He's the same Dean Domino on the poster on the loading screens in the original game.
• Easily Forgiven: If the Courier asks Christine if she's upset that Dean locked her in a malfunctioning Auto-Doc for two weeks to tear her vocal cords out, giving her claustrophobia, all so he could alter her voice for the audio-lock, she replies:
  I've... done worse. Much worse... and for more hopeless causes, and I will again.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his introduction, he politely asks you to sit next to him, speaks rather amiably with you, and casually reveals that he's put explosives in your chair.
• Evil Brit: He speaks with a smarmy British accent that just oozes contempt for you and everyone around him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He interpreted Sinclair's happiness and optimism as self-righteousness. Similarly, if he survives, he feels remorse over what he did to Sinclair and Vera, but does not understand why he feels the way he does and simply brushes it off.
• Evil Is Petty: You honestly can’t get any pettier than trying to ruin a man’s life simply because he’s happier than you.
  • He'll turn on you eventually and try to kill you if you do anything to bruise his ego, like succeeding a skill check when you first meet him.
• Face–Heel Turn: A possibility when you encounter him at the theater, if you tried to one-up him or threatened/insulted him in dialogue. However, if he decides not to betray you, he'll try to do what he can to help you, even shutting down a few speakers when you face Elijah.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: He mentions in-story that he's The Load; Dog/God has physical strength and Christine has intelligence, he's just the odd-man out left to hold some wires together. However, in gameplay terms he's the most useful of the three, as his companion perk allows for easier survival in pockets of cloud, and he's the only one with his own gun (default companion weapons have infinite ammo). He also has neutral karma despite being a rather nasty person.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of a sort. He's where all the troubles of the Sierra Madre began. Big MT provided the experimental technology that went awry, but Dean Domino manipulated Vera into seducing Frederick Sinclair to build the casino and store all his money in its vault, with Vera's voice as the key, so on the day of its grand opening, they could just walk into the vault and grab it all. The bombs fell first. Even afterwards, Dean's actions have influenced your mission: he was the one who put Christine in the Auto-Doc to change her voice, and the dozens of booby-traps you've found around town are almost all likely his. If not for that bomb collar, he'd probably have been the Big Bad and not Elijah.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Why did Dean sabotage the construction of Sinclair's casino, blackmail a woman into pretending to love him, and plan to rob him of everything he owns? Because Sinclair was happier than him!
• Had to Be Sharp: Before the Great War he was just a lounge singer who occasionally headed out to a rifle range to shoot a pistol. 200 years in the Villa has forced him to learn how to scrounge up food and supplies from the rubble, and how to arm traps and explosives.
• Heel Realization: He goes through a momentary one in the ending where he survives, when he finds out what happened to Sinclair and Keyes. A very momentary one, but seemingly enough for him to let go of the Sierra Madre.
  (endgame narration) During his search, he came across the final records of Vera and Sinclair, and realized what happened the night the bombs fell. He felt strangely sad for a moment, and he had no idea why.
• Hidden Supplies: He's the one responsible for the various hidden caches of food and resources around the villa. If you find one with him around, he'll be a bit miffed but otherwise doesn't really hold it against you.
• Informed Ability: He claims that he's learned how to handle a knife. However, his only tagged skills are guns and explosives.
• Irrational Hatred: He has no real reason to hate Sinclair other than simply believing he was "too happy".
• It's All About Me: Is personally offended by Sinclair's happiness, and even more incensed by Sinclair having the temerity to recover from Dean's sabotage attempts.
• Jerkass: He rants about how he planned everything just because Sinclair seemed happier than him. Oh, and he's the one who rigged Christine's Auto-Doc to tear out her vocal cords. Even if you save him, his ending strongly suggests he has no remorse for what he's done. Or rather, he has remorse, but doesn't understand what it is and why he feels bad, so he just brushes it off and goes on his merry way to be a dick somewhere else.
• Karma Houdini: If you don't kill him, he essentially gets away with destroying the lives of at least two people who didn't deserve it. It's implied he'll go on to New Vegas to do it again.
• Karmic Death:
  • Sinclair planned to do this to him. When Dean showed up at the Sierra Madre to rob everything Sinclair owns and leave him a broke wreck, the vault would trigger a trap and lock him there forever, without any food or water. Dean never made it down there though, so it never happened.
  • If you kill him though, he'll die because he underestimated his partner's strength... like so many years ago.
• The Load: Compared to the other characters, who have specific skillsets (Christine being technologically adept, God/Dog's strength and the Courier being something of a wildcard), Dean has no real skills that Elijah considers useful aside from experience with the Sierra Madre. He even acknowledges himself as a "third wheel" of sorts, which is why his job is to simply stay in one spot and hold some wires. That being said, gameplay-wise he's actually extraordinarily useful, due to him being the only follower to carry a gun as his default weapon, and having infinite ammo for it.
• The Man Behind the Man: He's indirectly responsible for the construction of the Sierra Madre and all the associated horrors it now contains.
• Manipulative Bastard: Through and through. The first time you meet him, he dupes you into sitting on a pressure mine. Later, he reveals that his introducing Vera to Sinclair led to the Sierra Madre's construction, which means that a lot of the unpleasantness in the region can be traced back to him.
• Motive Rant: If the Courier was nice to him (and even if they weren't), he will explain his motive for ruining Sinclair's life after explaining his Evil Plan.
  Courier: What was you problem with Sinclair?
  Dean: Problem? All high-and-mighty. Lording it over everyone. Acting so... self-righteous, like nothing could touch him. He was the one with the problem. Never got mad at anything. Nothing seemed to shake him. Even after... his life kept getting dragged through the dirt. Always kept looking for the bright, shining future in everything. So... I decided to take everything from him.
  Courier: But what did he do to you?
  Dean: Do to me? What, weren't you listening? He thought he was better than me. Don't believe me? Look around. This big casino, this big colossal monument - think it was for some woman? No, all ego, all self-righteous-in-lights, Fit. Him. Perfect. Had to take him down a few pegs, bring him down to my level. "Begin again?" Some things you don't get up from... I was going to prove it.
• Narcissist: He is incredibly self-centered as well as having a very fragile ego. He literally cannot stand the idea of someone being better than him at anything, even if it's just in his mind.
• The Nicknamer: He tends to refer to others by nicknames, such as "The old man" for Elijah, "Doggy boy" for Dog/God and if he likes you, "partner".
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: According to a portrait, he looked much like Cab Calloway before becoming a ghoul.
• Pet the Dog: If you tread eggshells to make sure you don't accidentally offend him somehow, he's actually pretty friendly towards you. He doesn't trust Christine or Dog, and he really doesn't trust Elijah. But you? You're just fine.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Or A Politically Incorrect Nominal Hero if you want to split hairs. He speaks of Vera Keyes almost exclusively like she's an object rather than a person, only good for her looks and nothing else, all but outright labelling her as a Brainless Beauty and only useful to his ambitions as a Honey Trap to manipulate Sinclair. But it's this underestimation of her intelligence and strength that led to his first downfall. Also, on the blackmail tape, he very casually drops an ethnic slur targeting Asian people in the conversation.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While he's a petty asshole with a fragile ego, he's willing to let certain things slide such as looting his hidden caches as well as skill checks in which you demonstrate technical expertise since they involve reasoning with him rather than openly beating him in an argument.
• Psychological Projection: He viewed Sinclair as a self-righteous, egotistical asshole who thought he was better than everyone else. Now, who do you think would better fit that description?
• Really 700 Years Old: He's a pre-war ghoul that is 200 years old, has been living in the Sierra Madre and trying to get into the vault since the war.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: As revealed in the Prime series, Sinclair was absolutely a bastard who was fine with scheming to kickstart the Great War with Vault-Tec without any remorse. Dean himself doesn’t know this, however, and hates Sinclair purely because of his Psychological Projection and envy of Sinclair being a positive person.
• Schmuck Bait: When you first talk to him, there's a fairly easy Barter skill check that convinces him to cooperate on your terms because the both of you have bomb collars. Taking that speech check will ensure that Dean will betray you later on since he sees it as you pulling a fast one on him.
• Shout-Out: His name is a portmanteau of Dean Martin and Fats Domino, and even works for a company with the same name Fats worked with.
• Smoking Is Cool: He's often smoking a cigarette whenever he is idle. Additionally, as soon as you arrive at his apartment, you can see a lit cigar in his ashtray.
• Smug Snake: He's almost always incredibly arrogant and condescending towards others and while he's not stupid, he's also incredibly insecure (to the point that he's obsessed with ruining a man on the basis of being happier than him) and doesn't quite have the control that he thinks he has. His fragile ego also means that he's actually susceptible to the Black Widow perk.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Dean mostly speaks with an elegant tone spiced with musical themes but sometimes adds one or two four-letter words during his worst moments.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: When pushed over the edge, Dean will attack the Courier, even if the latter is equipped with an Assassin suit and sporting the Holorifle with all the mods.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: The reason Dean swindled the resort's construction, set Vera up for a blackmail, and tore out Christine's vocal cords to replace with a simulacrum of Vera's: He was jealous of Sinclair's success and happiness. It's possible for him to develop this with the Courier, who is advised from bruising his ego (i. e. threatening/insulting/expressing resentment towards him).
• Taught by Experience: 200 years has taught Dean how to avoid danger, the habits of the Ghost People, and to leave emergency supplies around the Villa in case he's stuck in a tight spot and needs them.
• Together in Death: If killed, Dean can sometimes be heard telling Vera that he's about to join her in the afterlife.
• Token Evil Teammate: While none of the Dead Money companions are saints, he’s clearly the least moral of the three.
• Trap Master: The rigged shotguns, grenade bouquets and land mines around the Villa are his work, and they're particularly abundant in his home region.
• What Is This Feeling?: In the ending where he survives, he has trouble understanding that he feels sorry for what he's done to Vera and Sinclair.
• You Just Told Me: With a high enough Speech skill, the Courier can dupe him into revealing the way out of the theatre when he tries to sic the holograms on them.

Father Elijah

Voiced by: Richard Herd

"Play stupid, play clever, make the mistake of saying 'no'? That collar on your neck'll go off and take your head with it."

The villain of the Dead Money arc. He is the Brotherhood of Steel elder who was once Veronica's mentor and got most of the chapter killed at the Battle of HELIOS One. It is revealed that after that when he went missing he found the legendary long-lost Sierra Madre casino and has gone insane(r) trying to access its vault ever since.

---

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: If you lock him in the Vault and listen to the 743.00Hz ULF radio signal he uses, you get to hear him try and lure you back with promises of all the technology down there, promises to show you the way to Big Mountain, claims that he never really wanted to hurt you, desperately pleading that you can't leave him down there, and so forth.
• Arc Words: "Wipe the slate clean".
• Ax-Crazy: If the fact that he gets murderously enraged at the mere prospect of disobedience doesn't clue you in that he's dangerously off his rocker, then his end goal of unleashing The Cloud upon the Mojave to kill off everyone living there will.
• Ambition Is Evil: Unlike most of the Brotherhood members who wanted to just store technology, Elijah wanted to actively improve it and even construct new things, though Veronica notes that many of his inventions had "ethics questions attached".
• Bad Boss: Slaps slave collars on his minions, blows them up if they refuse to follow his instructions, treats them as disposable pawns, and encourages them to kill one another after they outlive their usefulness. In the final conversation with him in the Vault, he says that in his new world order he'd even slap slave collars on everyone to "ensure compliance".
• Beard of Evil: Sports one.
• Berserk Button: According to Veronica, he did not appreciate people talking back to him. In his opinion, subordinates ought to be like machines; you give them a command, push the button, and off they go to perform without getting chatty. Or questioning his judgement.
• Broken Pedestal: He was Veronica's mentor and she once thought of him as her father figure until he went mad. If you tell her about Elijah, she'll be glad for a moment but acknowledge that the man she admired is long gone.
• Big Bad: Of the Dead Money expansion.
• Blatant Lies: "Do this and I'll let you go. I'll let all of you go." Of course, by letting go he means letting you leave the Sierra Madre by way of leaving your mortal body.
• Breaking Speech: He'll launch into one if you call him out on his crimes, accusing you of being a greedy soul who got tempted by the Sierra Madre's treasures...
  • Kirk Summation: ... and you can respond with "You're nothing more than a killer that aspires to be a mass murderer."
• The Chessmaster: Everything that you and your companions do is in accordance with a plan he has prepared in advance. This trope goes hand-in-hand with his Control Freak status; he's planned the mission out so carefully because he does not want any of you ruining his plans because you can't follow directions.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: For all his grousing about the irrational greed of his previous "volunteers" (who all turned on each other as they got close to cracking the vault), he's just as quick to turn on you and your team once you've finished your assigned tasks.
• Control Freak: Why he uses the explosive collars. He needs everything to go his way, and can very much only see other people as tools to achieve his ends, and gets very angry when they question him, disobey him, or merely do things he didn't expect them to do. His long string of past failures is why he's resorted to enslaving people with bomb collars, as it solves at least a part of the whole "problem" with free will.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: His master plan for the Sierra Madre is to turn all of its technologies into an unstoppable engine of conquest, and it's pretty easy to see how. The Cloud will kill most of his enemies and preserve technology by making tech-sites uninhabitable. The vendors act as replicators that can create whatever supplies he needs. The holograms are invincible warriors perfect for defense, and the bomb collars will allow him to control anyone he lets live. He doesn't even need to personally slap a collar on everyone himself, as "one with a collar may collar another."
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The turrets he turns on have pretty high health (420 health with a DT of 18), and there are 5 of them. As long as you haven't been too wasteful, though, you can burn through them with the automatic rifle or the holorifle fairly easily. When Elijah confronts you in person, he's the exact opposite.
• Darkhorse Victory: If you take the We Can Rule Together route, Elijah unleashes The Cloud and the holograms upon the Mojave, killing everyone there and driving the NCR and the Legion out of the region. The ending explains that no living being ever sit foot in the Mojave for years after, due to rumors of a horrible cloud of death and ghosts immune to gunfire. All that remained was Elijah and the Courier, waiting in the Sierra Madre for the world to begin again.
• Death by Irony: One of the two ways to beat him is to seal him up in the Sierra Madre's vault. This counts double in the irony department, firstly because he spent so many years of his life trying to break into the vault and secondly because it was his plan to kill off everyone in the Mojave so he could be (in his own words) "alone" in a "quiet world."
• Determinator: Despite a combination of arthritis, Mentat addiction-induced migraines, drinking, smoking, and plain old age, Elijah has wandered hundreds of miles across the wastes with a death warrant over his head in his quest to restore the Brotherhood, and he has attempted time and time again to open the Sierra Madre Vault, and he will be damned if some nosy, upstart courier is going to hinder him in that goal.
• Dying Curse: If you successfully trap him in the vault, you can listen in on his radio signal to get this message:
  "You. I know you can hear me. When you die, Courier... I'll be waiting. Your grave's going look just like this vault. (lowers voice to a hissing whisper) When you die... I'll be waiting here... at the Sierra Madre. Waiting..."
• Evil Is Petty: Much of the reason why he wants to kill everyone in the Mojave and strap an Explosive Leash on anyone he doesn't is simply because he hates anyone having an opinion or self-will besides him.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He was mentioned fairly often by Brotherhood members before the DLC was released.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: If you have good karma, he'd rant at length of his own motivations and wonder about your greed, all the while completely oblivious to the fact that you're not there for the gold but to stop him.
  • If you trap him in the Vault he'll try to tempt you with the technologies of the Vault and how they could be used to rule the wastes, raise armies and put collars on people to force them to do the Courier's bidding. He's apparently oblivious to the idea that a good karma Courier (or an evil Courier with standards) would find such actions repugnant.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Owyn Lyons. Both are Brotherhood Elders known for having progressive beliefs that go against the Brotherhood's dogma. However, while Lyons believes that the Brotherhood should protect the people, Elijah simply knew that helping wastelanders would help fill the Brotherhood's numbers.
  • To House. Both seek to harness the power of advanced technology to fulfill their own grand ambitions, but where House has somewhat sympathetic motives and prefers to entice his followers with benefits and rewards, Elijah is a misanthrope who has to force others to do his bidding.
  • To an independent Courier. Like you, he wants to rid the Mojave of outside influence and create something entirely new, without aping the memory of Pre-War America, Ancient Rome, or Las Vegas. He'll rule the Mojave, as an independent Courier is implied to do, using an army of artificial and invincible soldiers. He's the Evil Counterpart to even a Bad Karma Courier, as while the Courier would rule as a despot over the people of the Mojave, Elijah would just kill them all.
• Evil Cripple: He apparently has osteoarthritis. It doesn't really have much effect on the game, though.
• Evil Genius: He's a brilliant engineer, and a capable planner. Checking the G.E.C.K. shows that his Intelligence is 10/10.
• Evil Old Folks: An old man who wants to kill everyone in the Mojave, attaches explosive collars on people he's kidnapped and forces them to penetrate the Sierra Madre's defenses or die trying.
• Evil Mentor: To Veronica, before the battle of HELIOS.
• The Evils of Free Will: When talking to the Courier about his plan to build his ideal society, he mentions it relying on the vending machines to mass produce all of its resources: food, medicine, building materials... and slave collars, which implies that he planned to run with just like he ran the Sierra Madre heist.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's cruel, cold, and without remorse, but is also helpful and talkative, willing to engage you in lengthy conversation. When you talk to him in the depths of the Vault, he's very open with how he found the Sierra Madre and what he plans to do with its technology, even though he's talking about wiping out the Mojave and leaving you locked in the Vault forever.
• Final Boss: Played with, see:
  • Flunky Boss: He lets the "The Vault security turrets" do all the work for him while he hides behind a force field. Once they're dead, he comes after you with a Gauss Rifle. With sufficient melee weapons/unarmed skill, the player can just smash the generator and render the turrets useless.
  • Puzzle Boss: Rather than destroy his turrets outright, you can either get Christine to shut a few of them down, hack the systems and turn the turrets against him, or smash the turret generator, rendering all but two useless. Of course, it is possible to just destroy them before he ever arrives, since they shoot at you for opening the vault.
  • Skippable Boss: Or you can just sneak past him and let him trigger the trap Sinclair left for Dean in the vault.
• Five Stages of Grief: You can overhear him going through them if he ends up being trapped in the vault.
  • Denial:
    "Calm, been in worse situations... find a way out... somehow, then find that Courier..."
  • Anger:
    "Don't you leave me here! You can't do this to me!"
  • Bargaining:
    "Ha, now, come on, you open up... Open the vault... I can make it worth your while, think about what you're throwing away. I have other weapons, other technology I can share with you. And the Big Empty? I know the way there, I know some of its secrets, if... The collars... the collars were a mistake, I-I see that now. Why would I kill you? After all you've done... after all we've done together. Are you listening to me?! Everything down here... I swear... so much you could see! You could rule the wastes with what's down here... make your own army, re-shape the world, and if others disagree... put collars on them, I can show you how."
  • Depression:
    "No way out. Can't... can't end like this."
  • Acceptance:
    (cold, firm, clearly addressed to the player as his final words) "You. I know you can hear me. When you die, Courier... I'll be waiting. Your grave's going look just like this vault." (lowers voice to a hissing whisper) "When you die... I'll be waiting here... at the Sierra Madre... Waiting."
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Before he became elder he was just a Scribe, the most mild and least aggressive caste in the Brotherhood.
• Gadgeteer Genius: As cruel as he is, he's a genius. You know that one of a kind Holorifle that can disintegrate Deathclaws with a single sneak critical? He built it. And he Jury-Rigged a semi automatic Tesla Cannon, which is one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Checking the G.E.C.K. also reveals that his Repair, Energy Weapons, and Science skills are all 100.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite being an Omnicidal Maniac and perhaps one of the most callous characters in the entire series, he has neutral karma. This is most likely because he has to be taken out one way or another to complete the DLC, so it wouldn't make sense for the player to gain karma from killing him.
• General Failure: When he was elder, because of his absolute obsession on technology more than anything else, Elijah often wouldn't understand the importance of battlefield losses. He also didn't understand that maybe letting the NCR have HELIOS was a better alternative than most of the Brotherhood getting slaughtered.
  • Justified in that unlike other Elders of the Brotherhood of Steel, Elijah was a Scribe, which is classified as a civilian and has little military training beyond the basic self defense learned prior to choosing to pursue becoming a Knight or Scribe during training. Also, he obviously doesn't value the lives of his subordinates when it comes to pursuing technology, a trait that has only worsened since Operation: Sunburst.
• Glass Cannon: Played with. That Gauss Rifle packs a hefty punch in comparison to his armor's DT of 2, but he has more HP than any companion in the game that isn't a super mutant.
• Gone Horribly Right: Ulysses let Elijah get away to the Sierra Madre because he thought he was going to a special kind of hell. Ulysses was right. Problem was, Elijah started spreading his hell to other people...
• Greater-Scope Villain: In addition to being the direct main antagonist of Dead Money, Elijah is responsible for the state of the NCR-Brotherhood War in the Mojave, as it was he who insisted they come into conflict over HELIOS One out of his own greed and pride. This had big effects in the long term, not only because of the near-slaughter of the Mojave Brotherhood, but because the conflict left the local NCR expeditionary force far reduced in its fight with the Legion, which might otherwise have been an easy victory. He also rampaged in Big Mountain, jacking some of its technology and contributing to the state of the Think Tank as we see them in Old World Blues, in particular their awareness of the outside world.
• Hate Sink: Selfish, condescending, impatient, and ultimately genocidal, there's nothing but contempt to have for this character. Even Veronica admits that the Elijah she once knew is long gone.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He uses slave collars to force people into doing his bidding. Such people can be incapable of doing said bidding because they are too busy blowing up due to a flaw in the collars.
• Hypocrite: In sooo many ways:
  • Goes on at length about how baffled he is over the hysterical greed that eventually consumes his "volunteers," leading them to slaughter each other over the treasure of the Sierra Madre. After all, it means he has to enslave a new crowd of people so he can claim the treasure of the Sierra Madre. He's probably drawing a distinction between monetary greed and his own, more ambitious ends, but still.
  • He talks down to the player for using a Pip-Boy, despite the fact that you can clearly see him using one to activate the vault's security systems.
    Elijah: That thing on your wrist - it's a convenience. It tells you where to go, what to do, dulls the brain.
  • He dismisses the Holorifle he gave you as an obsolete version, only to complain that he didn't bring it with him over the radio. Then again, it's not like he had the upgrades you got.
• It's All About Me: At the end of it all, Elijah is an intensely selfish man who wants to kill everyone in the Mojave but himself, create a nation loyal only to him and his ideals, and erase any memories of his failure at HELIOS One from living memory.
• Jerkass: Even before you discover what he plans to do with the vault in the Sierra Madre, he's incredibly rude and condescending to everyone. He treats you and your allies like idiots that have to be hand-held and shows almost no gratitude for the dangerous things you're forced to do for him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: If you inform him that you know of his name from Veronica, he will briefly seem overjoyed, but only because he's simply surprised she survived and not because he finally gets great news that his former daughter figure is still around. He quickly changes the topic to his bitterness over losing Helios One and hatred of the NCR.
• Kaizo Trap: You may think you have him beat after you've destroyed his turrets and taken down his forcefields, as Elijah himself is just an old man in a robe. You may be surprised then that he has a Gauss Rifle and an Energy Weapons skill of 100, which, combined with him being a surprisingly good shot and quick reloader, means he can kill an unprepared Courier in 2-3 hits.
• Karmic Death: You can kill him in normal combat, or trick him into locking himself inside the vault. The latter outright qualifies as Laser-Guided Karma.
• Kick the Dog: Almost literally: if you bring up Dog to him, he'll laugh about how easy it was to enslave the mentally handicapped Nightkin since he swallowed his own collar.
  • He was the one responsible for Doctor 8 becoming The Unintelligible.
• Kicked Upstairs: The reason why he was selected to head the Mojave expedition in the first place, was because he was constantly butting heads with the other, more conservatives Elders over their orthodox adherence to the Codex. Sending him to establish a new chapter in the far frontier was basically their way to get him out of their hair.
• Knight of Cerebus: Dear lord, does he ever manage to pull this off! As the Arc Villain of the first New Vegas DLCs, Father Elijah manages to bring an amount of severity and intense bleakness not seen in the main campaign, impressively taking the darkness of an already harsh tone to the next level.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: His comment about how the Pip-Boy tells you where to go and dulls your mind is partially aimed at players who just follow compass markers from place to place.
• Light Is Not Good: Thematically, via his association with HELIOS One, the Holorifle, and the Holograms. God compares Elijah's behavior at HELIOS One to Icarus, calling him arrogant for trying to control the sun, and Elijah describes the Holograms as "holding light in your hands".
• Load-Bearing Boss: When he is defeated either way, all his turrets explode, and the player's collar begins to beep, leading to an escape sequence.
• Manipulative Bastard: Manipulates people into getting him what he desires.
• Meaningful Name: His Biblical namesake had the power to call down fire from heaven to destroy his enemies. Elijah himself sought much the same thing at HELIOS One.
• Misanthrope Supreme: He really, really hates people, with their free will and their opinions and beliefs that differ from his own. That's why he needs to wipe the slate clean, you see...
• Mission Control: Acts as mission control up until the very end.
  • Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: And likely a literal example since Old World Blues indicates that he's a Mentats addict.
• Modern Major General: Elijah was a brilliant Scribe with a natural understanding of how technology worked and how it could be used. As an Elder, he was terrible - not just for his lack of leadership experience and skill, but because he had literally no idea of how humans worked, preferring to treat them as resources and tools to be used and discarded. During the battle at Helios One, he threw away dozens of Brotherhood lives just to try to hold the place a little longer, despite the fact that the Brotherhood had only a handful of members while the enemy had thousands in reserve. It was only because the remaining survivors pulled a coup and retreated that any of them survived. When you encounter him in the present day, he's clearly learned nothing from the experience.
• Morality Pet: Is genuinely relieved and proud to hear that Veronica survived the battle at HELIOS.
• Motive Rant: Bring up the subject of HELIOS, and he'll launch into his desire to "wipe the slate clean," so that there will be no one remaining to steal "his" technology, and to erase his defeat at HELIOS from memory.
  • He'll drop an impressive one in the Vault when asked what his plan is with the Sierra Madre. It's a way to create and destroy nations: the Cloud and Holograms can clear technologically important sites like HELIOS One or the Hoover Dam of life and "preserve" them. The vending machines can get him anything he wants: weapons, ammo, medicine, food, clothes, building materials. The slave collars force people to do his bidding, one person with a collar can put a collar on someone else.
• My Greatest Failure: HELIOS One. Doubles as Berserk Button. Also taken to its extreme in that this fuels most of Elijah's present day madness and obsessions.
• Never My Fault: Elijah is furious that the NCR has taken Hoover Dam, comparing to "children playing with a bomb". The Brotherhood had originally sent Elijah's chapter into the Mojave to claim Hoover Dam, but Elijah insisted on investigating HELIOS One first.
• Omnicidal Maniac: His ultimate plan is to conquer the Mojave by killing everyone there. If you side with him at the end of Dead Money, he takes it a step beyond: the Cloud continues to drift west over NCR land, killing thousands of innocent people and forever destroying any chance the world has of salvation.
  Elijah: I'll kill them until it's only me, me alone in a quiet world.
• One-Man Army: As horrible as he is, one has to be impressed at how he managed to solo Big MT, destroying dozens of combat robots sent after him by the Think Tank, braving all of its traps and hazards, and presumably fighting his way through the Lobotomites just as the Courier did.
• Parental Substitute: He was this to Veronica before he went insane.
  • Cut dialogue found in the game's files reveals he was actually meant to be her adoptive/foster father.
• The Peter Principle: As an Elder, he was a poor military commander because he was a Scribe promoted for his technological genius and thus lacked the military training and experience that the typical Brotherhood Knight or Paladin would have.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Given that he needs you to carry out his plan, he's not just going to drop you in the Villa and let you wander blind — he carefully explains the objectives, if asked will offer advice on moving about the area, and will routinely pop up to warn you of dangers his scanners have picked up specific to the Villa's sub-areas.
  • This was also the reason why he believed in gathering beneficial technologies and going against the Brotherhood's isolationist stance. He knew that currying favor with wastelanders would gain them allies, and thus more pawns for him.
• Pet the Dog: For all his faults, he does seem to genuinely care about Veronica, who sees him as a father figure. He also had her separated from Christine due to his own homophobia. You can even find a message on his terminal intended as a goodbye note to her and as a gift (teaching her a new fighting technique).
• See You in Hell: Trap him in the Sierra Madre's vault, and his last radio broadcast will be a desperate plea for the Courier, or anyone at this point, to come back and release him. When it dawns on him that he's never leaving the vault again, he settles for some parting words for the Courier instead (see Dying Curse).
• The Sociopath: Even in his time as an (actual) elder in the Brotherhood of Steel, he cared little for the lives of others. By the time the Courier encounters him in the Sierra Madre, he has degenerated into a truly wicked, sadistic puppetmaster, throwing away his pawns' lives without a second thought at the slightest hint of pushback.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: For all his descent into villainy and growing madness, he still looks like a Brotherhood of Steel elder in his robes and equipment. Despite for all intents and purposes having long since been shunned in absentia by his brethren in the Mojave, and even marked for death by the Circle of Steel.
• Stupid Evil: After the Gala Event, he encourages the Courier to murder their former companions, explicitly saying that it's because they have outlived their usefulness. It doesn't seem to occur to him that this might tip the Courier off that the same fate is in store for them once he gets into the vault.
• Taking You with Me: "You can't escape! I'll bring the whole Sierra Madre down on your head, bury you here with all the others!"
• Tranquil Fury: His final Dying Curse is declared in a cold, firm voice dripping with nothing but undying hatred.
• The Unfettered: He has no qualms about doing what he has to do to get what he wants. Whatsoever.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Not really. You can see his futile attempts to justify the tremendous sacrifices he made is actually a desperate gambit to restore his own status in the Brotherhood.
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a very impressive one if you opt to seal him inside the Vault forever.
  Elijah: What... alarms? What's goin- you. Think you can run? Think you can trick me!? This entire structure is mine to command! Security, weapons, all this technology, mine! Now, you will die. You think you've outsmarted me? You're the one on a leash, you always were! (sprays Gauss rifle fire everywhere then activates your collar) Escape? No. That cold hand on your throat is mine. It always was. [...] You can't outrun me! You were always under my control! Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"
  • He also has a similar breakdown if you just destroy all his turrets, he'll completely lose it and come charging out of his forcefield with a gauss rifle.
  • If he is trapped inside the vault he goes through yet another one, starting with trying to bargain with the Courier over his radio signal, then trying desperately to find a way out somehow, before finally losing all hope as the vault generator stops and the lights go out. It is ultimately subverted as he uses his last words to calmly and defiantly curse the Courier.
• Visionary Villain: He plans to use the invincible hologram enemies, the matter replicator vendor machines and the Cloud to take over the Mojave so that he can bring about his tribe's restoration and ascendancy.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: He communicates with you throughout most of Dead Money with a hologram projector (that displays a static image) and your Pip-Boy. Your character can lampshade this near the end, upon which he'll explain why he's limited to such communication.
• Walking the Earth: After the Brotherhood's defeat at HELIOS, he journeyed all across the post-war world with nothing but his Gauss Rifle and the clothes on his back. He ended up travelling throughout the Mojave Wasteland, spending time among the Ciphers, pillaging Big MT, and even going to the Divide before finally finding his way to the Sierra Madre.
• We Can Rule Together: A possible ending, in which Elijah and the Courier (if he/she has a bad rep with the NCR) use the Cloud and the holograms to chase out the NCR, the Legion, and just about everyone else from the Mojave.
• We Have Reserves: Deconstructed.
  • In the beginning Elijah had this mindset with regards to cracking into the Vault, but as he used more and more "reserves", the more insane and desperate he became.
  • The way he insisted the Brotherhood keep fighting the NCR, despite the fact that it was pretty obvious they didn't have enough numbers to defeat them in spite of the Brotherhood's technological advantage is what nearly destroys the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood.
• World of Silence: What he aspires to, and the reason why the Sierra Madre is important to him. The Cloud and the Holograms could "wipe the slate clean" by killing his opponents and preserving technology that he could later study. The vending machines would let him get useful things like food, drugs, building materials, weapons and ammo, but most importantly Slave Collars, which he could put on people to make them do his bidding and if they ever disagree, he can just have them killed and move on.
• Wrong Line of Work: He got promoted to the role of Elder by the Brotherhood, despite being a scribe and the role normally being reserved for former paladins. At Helios One, his lack of respect for his subordinates' lives and limited military training resulted in him ordering the Brotherhood to hold a tactically disadvantageous position against a numerically superior foe, resulting in a humiliating defeat.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After breaking into the Sierra Madre, he encourages you to kill Dog, Dean, and Christine. And after you penetrate the Vault, he'll try to pull this on you. Unless you can prove otherwise.

Vera Keyes

Voiced by: Laura Bailey (normal voice), Stephanie Dowling (singing voice)

"Love. Life. Family. Those to care for and those who will care for you. To those who know these joys, the Sierra Madre holds little they don't already have."

One of the tragic figures related to the Sierra Madre. She was a pre-war starlet who was Frederick Sinclair's true love and main reason for building the Sierra Madre.

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• Broken Pedestal: Sinclair built the entire Sierra Madre as a shrine to his love, and as a bomb shelter to protect her. He later finds out her true intentions and turns it into a deathtrap.
• Femme Fatale: She seduces Sinclair so her and Dean can take the Sierra Madre`s treasure although she is being blackmailed by Dean and does a Heel–Face Turn in the last minute. Its also Deconstructed in that she hates having to be one, and feels heavy regret for doing it, and its implied she might have genuinely felt feelings for Sinclair. At the very least, her guilt over it had her admit to the truth.
• Driven to Suicide: You later find her corpse in her hotel room, surrounded by a large number of chems. Given how the security holograms were killing everyone around her, she was screwed either way.
• Hidden Depths: Vera's conscience was a little stronger than Dean gave her credit for, as she eventually went to Sinclair and confessed the whole plot to him.
• Leg Focus: According to Dean, she had some impressive legs.
• Meaningful Name: Vera Keyes' voice is the very key to unlock the Sierra Madre vault.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The only reason she worked with Dean is because he blackmailed her, threatening to expose (amongst other things) her crippling chem addiction
• Satellite Love Interest: She appears to be this way, with the entire Sierra Madre being built as a shrine to her. She is actually an unwilling pawn of Dean Domino, and pulls a last minute Heel–Face Turn when she confesses to Sinclair.
• Secretly Dying: She has some unspecified terminal illness and she uses Med-X and Super Stimpaks as palliative care. Dean uses her addiction as blackmail to get her to come along with his plot, though he doesn't know why she's using those chems in the first place.
• Skeleton Crew: By the time you find her she's a skeleton wearing a very nice dress. You can keep the dress.
• Stage Names: According to Dean, Vera Keyes is just her stage name, noting that "Vera" was a common name used by entertainers during his time.

Frederick Sinclair

Portrayed by: Michael Mulheren (Fallout (2024))

"Know that on the night of the Gala Event I shall raise my glass and whisper, 'Fortunato'".

The owner of Sierra Madre. He was introduced to Vera Keyes by Dean Domino and fell in love with her at first sight, building the Sierra Madre as a shrine to her. He used his immense wealth to commission new technologies, such as Holograms and Dispensers, to ensure that Sierra Madre would survive the apocalypse.

He also appears in the TV series, and spoilers from it will follow.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: In the logs around the Sierra Madre, he's described as kind, generous, and much to Dean Domino's annoyance, optimistic. By contrast, the TV show portrays him as curt, sour, and quite willing to accept the prospect of a nuclear war and nightmarish experiments - while even Robert House suggested that a nuclear war might still be averted. It's still not certain if this is a change in characterization, an indicator that Sinclair's pleasant nature was just a mask, or that being forced into a partnership with Big MT and having his heart broken just ended up bringing out a really nasty side of him.
• Adaptational Ugliness: In contrast to the dashing image seen around the ruined Sierra Madre, the TV show portrays Sinclair as older and decidedly fatter.
• Affably Evil: What his characterization in Dead Money and the Amazon Prime series adds up to: the former depicts him as a nice guy that tried to keep up with everyone and paid well for the services, and the latter shows he was one of the men that orchestrated the Great War.
• Asshole Victim: The Prime series reveals that he was complicit with Vault-Tec in kickstarting the Great War. This makes Dean’s plot against him oddly karmic and his death all the more deserving.
• Buried Alive: He plotted this for Domino and Vera, planning to lock them in the vault with the gold they cheated him for.
• Deal with the Devil: The costs for commissioning Big Mountain to develop Hologram and Dispenser technologies almost bankrupted him. To compensate, he permitted Big Mountain to conduct some experiments in the Sierra Madre Villa. And that is how the Cloud and the Ghost People were born.
• Empty Shell: Apparently, he became this after discovering Vera's duplicity. At least according to people around him.
• Fat Bastard: Shown to be a fat old man in the Prime series when he was still alive and perfectly fine with scheming to kickstart the Great War with the rest of Vault-Tec.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Prime series reveals that alongside House, Vault-Tec and other pre-war corporations he was one of the architects of the Great War.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He was blind to how truly terrible of a person Dean was, simply because he introduced him to Vera. In fact, he was noted to be really bad at this, to the point where he just trusted Dean's judgement on the villa, not even being aware of how terribly made it was.
• A Lighter Shade of Gray: Somewhat. While he was part of the conglomerate that kickstarted the Great War in the first place, his characterization in Dead Money establishes at least he has loved ones and somewhat of a conscience, although one that by all accounts developed too late.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Its noted that his love for Vera blinded him heavily to Dean's clearly wrong actions, and the construction of the villa.
• Mouth of Sauron: He was Big MT's representative in the meeting between corporations where they were discussed how to set off the Great War, though it's not clear this meant that he was the actual head or merely their voice at the table.
• Nice Guy: For all his faults with Dean and Vera, it was noted by many people who were serious about working for him that he was a really nice guy. He would often check on people, see how they were doing, and it was noted he paid really well. Even his refusal to allow contraband items came from a place of good intentions. Subverted with the reveal in the Prime series that he was well aware of the Great War due to being one of its architects.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Within the TV show, he's only addressed as Freddy-boy.
• The Pollyanna: Sinclair was noted to never get mad at anything, and kept looking at the bright side in everything, no matter how many hardships he had to go through. This was one of the reasons Dean Domino envied him and decided to ruin him.
• Posthumous Character: Like Vera, he died the night the bombs fell.
• Puppet King: The 2024 TV show reveals that he was Big MT's main representative, suggesting that he has some authority over the scientists running Big Mountain. As Dead Money highlights however, he was about as much a tool for Big MT's experiments as their actual test subjects, and was evidently left in the dark on the true extent of said experiments.
• Redemption Equals Death: Sort of, within the context of Dead Money alone - On the night the bombs hit, he realised he couldn't kill Vera, who confessed to her role, and went down to the vault to disable the trap. He died trying.
• Rich Recluse's Realm: Originally built the Sierra Madre as a wartime shelter for Vera Keyes. For good measure, Sinclair organized the Sierra Madre according to laws of his own devising, with a long list of contraband to be confiscated by teleportation and payment for workers delivered exclusively in casino chips redeemable at the Matter Replicator vending machines scattered about the area. Unfortunately, Sinclair was also in the habit of leasing the the place out as a proving ground for Big MT's Think Tank so he could make ends meet, hence why the place is so messed-up today.
• Same Character, But Different: New Vegas and the TV series were released over a decade apart, and Sinclair's characterization and appearance are drastically different between them.
• Schmuck Bait: In the terminal where he leaves his trap, he leaves a message for Vera warning her not to trigger said trap. The Courier can still do so, and in one potential outcome Father Elijah can set it off.
• Too Clever by Half: As it turns out, House's chiding in the TV show about Sinclair's inability to run a casino proved prophetic, given that nearly everything to do with the Sierra Madre and his connections with Big MT come back to haunt him, one way or another.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It’s doubtful that he knew what Big Mountain had in store for the Villa. Possibly subverted with the Prime series revealing he was far closer to Big MT than indicated.
• Unwitting Pawn: Twice. Once by Dean Domino and Vera Keyes. The second time by the scientists of Big Mountain, who hid from him the extent of the experiments they would conduct on the Villa and have been observing the area for the whole period. However, the TV series portrays him as Big MT's representative at a meeting between the various corporations of the time, implying that he actually did have some level of authority over them.
• Walking Spoiler: He's both an important figure in Dead Money and a part of the TV show's reveal, and it's nigh-impossible to discuss him without spoilers.
• Who's Laughing Now?: His quote above. It was left in the vault for Domino to read. Of course, Dean never makes it down there, so only the Courier and Elijah could end up reading it.
• You Don't Look Like You: The glass art in Dead Money depicts him as a slim suave type, but in the TV show he's shown as both much older and overweight, though it's not known if the art is meant to be current depiction or of him in his younger days.

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