#fallout original setting

This monster of a document is finally done!

This is an in-universe comprehensive overview of Humans, Super Mutants, Ghouls, and other Man-made Sapients, made by a Nightkin scholar named Zekhau, who features in our Fallout: Caldera faction The Firemen.

I've included little citations to certain concepts, though this also contains quite a bit of speculative lore-welding - including everything from the original Vault 13 GURPS timeline to the apocrypha of the Fallout Bible - as well as references to our unreleased Fallout Rewrite.

Below the cut is a full excerpt as a preview!

Misconceptions On Nightkin

To be Nightkin is to reject the harsh light of the great flame and to become kin with the night, for in its darkness all are equal. Such is the name we choose for ourselves, still reverent to our Night God even as we unlearn or reject his tenants - in fact, it was once that all Metamorphs were Nightkin, until age and changing tongue saw the shift. Now only those who pledged themselves the deepest are still referred to as such - telltale in our strange skin and manner.

Many misconceptions reside on both - but in truth the explanations are some simple and some complex. 

Fallout: Caldera is a theoretical post-apocalyptic role-playing fan game inspired by & expanding upon the setting associated with Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. While Caldera is neither a direct sequel nor prequel to any of the games, it references many of the events surrounding the era, including cut or outright canceled content & concepts. While the theoretical game would likely make use of a modified Fallout 4 or Fallout 76 engine, its overall tone & themes would likely be more typical of Fallout: New Vegas or earlier titles. The theoretical game is set primarily in a post-apocalyptic Montana, specifically Yellowstone National Park, a Postgame ‘Add-on’ facility, and The Grand Teton 'Add-on' Area.

Setting

The game takes place in 2256, 179 years after the Great War. The events of Fallout: Caldera occur 154 years after Fallout: 76, 95 years after Fallout 1, 59 years after Fallout: Tactics, 48 years after Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, 15 years after Fallout 2, and 3 years after the canceled Van Buren, which it considers as semi-canon. 

This means it is also 21 years before the events of Fallout 3, 25 years before Fallout: New Vegas, and 31 years before Fallout: 4. Chronologically it is the fifth game in the series after Fallout 2 (though sixth if counting Van Buren).

The game takes place in The Caldera, which is composed of the former Grand Loop of Yellowstone National Park. Much of the main game takes place across various ‘Domesticons’ - planned condominium communities reliant on android ‘Securiunits’ to keep them safe & maintained, along with various campground-based shanty communities, ranger stations, and firewatch towers.

Famous local landmarks like the the Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful Inn, and Fort Yellowstone are included in the game world, though Caldera takes a semi-’procedural’ approach akin to earlier games like Fallout 1 & Fallout 2 - with the majority of the actual mapping focusing on points of interest & landmarks while otherwise pulling from a series of random encounter map tiles designed to fit that area, such as Mountain, Forest, Lake, Road, Ect.

Story

The Homemaker, the player character, arrives in Yellowstone to join a new kind of planned community in Madison, a 'Domestic Condominium', or 'Domesticon', created by an expanding medical company called REGENT. After leaving their bus & interacting with various neighbors or protesters, they meet their assigned 'Securispouse' - a cutting-edge comfort & service android. 

Although the player can decide both the Homemaker & their Securispouses name, gender, and appearance, they are commonly referred to as 'Mx. Nazerov' & 'Daisy Belle' due to these being the names given as default both in-game & in expanded media. Fallout: Caldera briefly begins on October 23, 2077 (the day of the Great War), showing the player arriving at their new home and interacting with their Securispouse before being rushed inside as the bombs drop. After a series of events, they emerge after the Great War to a largely decrepit Madison Domesticon.

The story of Fallout: Caldera guides the player into its world, discovering a series of different factions with varying ideals & conflicts with others, albeit generally being introduced as paired groups.

These include the grungy and patch-job’d Outskirts, continuingly pushing-and-pulling with the large, pristine, and repressive Stepford Domesticon, whose citizens live in a perfect simulacrum of pre-war americana at cost of their sanity & deepening guilt while their Outskirts neighbors grow increasingly disruptive to their illusionary way of life.

Out in the campgrounds, a group of ghoulified tourists and their descendants now known as Caldera Runners chafe against the rules and regulations still-enforced by the Caldera’s Ranger Corps, having ample reason to utilize what many in the Ranger Corps think should be pristine wilderness and virgin pools.

Then there is the Ranger’s sister group, the Firemen, who have grown their own new brand of social structure thanks to the Caldera-strain Super Mutants withins constant fight against both the natural wildfires of the Caldera, and the arsonist tendencies of the flame-worshiping raider group known as the Char - who speak of great calamity, past sins, and strange visions from their psyker oracles and triad of ‘Sears’.

Meanwhile a group known as the Bison Riders has had the differences amongst their two subfactions come to nearly a head, with the Bison Ranchers summer lives differing so much from the Bison Nomads winter movings that both groups can barely recognize the other as the same. Though the player cannot change their minds on the subject, they might be able to influence their hearts. 

All the while, two groups connected-yet-disconnected from the rest of the Caldera are about to be forced to find where they stand, with the strange neolithic Mammoth Men reinventing the wheel when it comes to culture, and the Golden Eagles scouting out if they are fit to be part of everyone's life again properly or not.

Fallout: Caldera has four main endings, one for each reaction to the end event sequence, with variations regarding the choices made involving each of the ten distinct political factions, along with separate ending slides for Recruited Companions.

Add-Ons

REGENTs Crown is a post-game Add-On similar in concept to Fallout 3’s ‘Broken Steel’, split between a winterized post-ending Caldera and the REGENT Headquarters facility, which is designed as a Survival-Exploration-Horror Add-on with puzzle elements. 

Broken prototypes & creeping-flesh mutations roam the halls as you descend into the depths of the still-sealed ruins in an attempt to either reactivate or destroy the almost-eldritch AI construct below, guided by a production master-prototype ‘E.V.E.’ Securiunit named Earth.

Language Changes - ‘Crippled Limbs’

The term used for Limb Damage has been changed to ‘Maimed’ caused by excessive damage to the Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg, The Torso (Based on Fallout 3), The Head (Based on Fallout 2 & Fallout Tactics), or The Eyes. They do not auto-heal and must be healed by a stimpak or by a doctor.

Legs can become Maimed if over-encumbered, prevent running and slow down the walking pace. When both legs are maimed, traveling in the third person is dramatically slower than traveling in the first person. 

Maiming prevents enemies from moving, attacking or flying, forcing them to land. Some enemies will regenerate their maimed limbs while others such as ghouls remain maimed until killed. A legendary enemy that mutates has all of its limbs instantly restored. Robots that are completely maimed will heat up and explode

Canes & Crutches, which are usually usable as weapons in Fallout, will automatically be used to balance or walk faster if held when maimed. Splints can be applied from the medical menu. Tissues can be used to prevent stealth debuffs when ill.

Language Changes - ‘Tribe’

The cultural anthropological term used for groups known as ‘Tribes’ has been addressed in-universe. ‘Clan’ is used in its place for the sociocultural context of groups which are being officially termed ‘Postwar Neocultural Groups’

Postwar Neocultural Groups (PNGs) are defined as:

Considered ruins-avoidant by most groups, regardless of actuality

Reliant on postwar artisanal chems or otherwise prefer them

Generally attempt to adapt culture to postwar life (IE creating new institutions, adapting new symbology to prewar subcultures)

Postwar Paleocultural Groups (PPGs) are defined as:

Considered ruins-reliant by most groups, regardless of actuality

Rely on prewar industrial chems or otherwise prefer them

Generally attempt to preserve culture from prewar life (IE learning rules to baseball, maintaining stigma against Metamorphic or Ghoulified people)

Like previous Fallout games, weapons and armor can deteriorate with use and require constant maintenance unless changed by gamemode or accessibility settings. Some power armor require fusion cores to run at full performance, while others do not at the cost of lower stats. Fallout: Caldera restores the cut ‘Cryo’ & ‘Fire’ Damage as well as their respective resistance to armor types, which were changed to generic ‘Energy’ in Fallout 4.

The clothing system in Fallout: Caldera is extensive and based partially on Fallout 4’s split-piece system for different limbs, allowing dozens of set variations - it’s also expanded upon, with color changes being handled by the Equipment Modding System. 

Clothing system is as below:

Head

Hat Slot 

Head Slot

Eye Slot 

Face Slot

Chest 

Arm Armor Slot

Left & Right

Jacket Slot

Bandolier Slot

Chest Armor Slot

Shirt Slot

Binder Slot

Legs

Belt Slot

Skirt Slot

Leg Armor Slots

Left & Right

Pant Slot

Bloomers Slot

Feet

Shoe Slot

Sock Slot

Combat & V.A.T.S.

While crafting in Fallout 4 was much more of a focus compared to the previous games, Fallout: Caldera takes this a step further by being heavily survival simulation based, focusing on environmental hazards & avoiding wildlife rather than attacking it outright.. 

Like ‘Hardcore’ mode in Fallout: New Vegas or ‘Survival Mode’ in Fallout 4, the player will be required to keep track of Exhaustion, Hunger, Thirst, and Illness - though will not be subject to risk of outright death but rather increasing stat debuffs with a hard percentage cap modifiable by Perks.

Survival - Base Game Difficulty.

Stimpacks heal over time

Radaway heals radiation poisoning over time.

Doctor's bags heal limbs partially.

Only a doctor, a doctor's bag, sleeping in any beds (though owned ones provide more benefits), healing poultice, weaponbind, Auto-Doc, or Hydra can heal a maimed limb

Ammunition is weightless

Companions cannot die, but take a little while after battle to heal.

In normal mode the Homemaker must drink, eat, and have proper sleep cycles or will suffer increasingly negative effects (sometimes represented by contracting diseases), but these are capped at a certain % (modifiable via perks) and wont kill you.

‘Classic’ - Standard Difficulty for previous titles

Stimpacks heal instantly

Radaway heals radiation poisoning instantly

Doctor's bags heal all limbs fully

Maimed limbs can be healed with stimpaks, or by sleeping in any bed or mattress.

No Dehydration, Starvation, or Sleep deprivation

Hardcore - Hard Difficulty for previous titles

Sleeping in unowned beds will not heal maimed limbs.

Ammunition has weight.

Companions can die. However, they still heal without needing or using any stimpaks after battle.

Dehydration, Starvation, and Sleep deprivation hit harder, with no % cap, and can even lead up to immediate death.

Player Homes & Transport 

Customizable room-swap player homes like those typical of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim make an appearance, along with various non-customizable homes which feature safe storage, bedding, and probable survival aids such as water & food sources.

Conversations

Conversations are a fusion of earlier talking-heads typical of Fallout 1 & Fallout 2 as well as the cinematic style of Fallout 4, making use of camera angles to show the Homemakers expressions and face while pausing combat & companion AI - unless optionally set to allow interruptions via accessibility settings or choosing ‘Hardcore’. 

Named Ghouls & Super Mutants are given unique face textures in order to more closely resemble earlier Fallout titles in both scope & tone, with some select characters even having unique models.

The Caldera featured ambient flora & insects such as butterflies, moths, and bees), with associated crafting based on systems used in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Caldera butterflies are depicted as universal bilateral gynandromorphs & lorewise are hermaphroditic.

Companion Affinity, Relationships, Wheel

Like Fallout 4, the companions of Fallout: Caldera have an affinity system that keeps track of various attributes, monitoring every choice and action you make and labeling it using categories like "generous", "nice", "mean", "selfish", "peaceful", "violent", with each companion remembering the total number of each act witnessed - a system originally built into Fallout 4 that was at some point discarded.

Some companions can be engaged in a relationship with the protagonist, though Fallout: Caldera also allows players to have temporary romantic or sexual partners like in Fallout: New Vegas. Companions do not get jealous of one another or comment negatively on temporary relationships, though may comment on one's choice of partner in particular.

Companions in relationships tend to focus on romantic dialogs, rather than implications of sexual relations, and when sleeping in a bed with a max affinity romanced companion the pop-up for Well Rested is replaced with ‘Lover's Embrace’. These changes are largely to allow for some roleplaying of asexuality. 

The companion wheel from Fallout: New Vegas has been re-added to quickly and easily give companions commands such as "Talk," "Use Ranged Weapons," and "Wait Here." Also returning are companion preferences & weapon limits; giving a sniper companion a shotgun, for example, will result in a negative impact and decreased effectiveness, assuming they can use it at all.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. System, Stat Checks, and Perks

Skills have been restored & fused with Fallout 4’s ‘Perk Chart’ system.

At each level-up, the player can acquire a new perk, each with prerequisites based on SPECIAL attributes and level, and most have multiple tiers. A consequence of the advancement system is that there is no hard level cap, allowing players to experience a little more freedom when it comes to exploring and combat.

Hello Fallout Tumblr community, for months now, I've been tagging seemingly random things with "Calderaposting", in hopes one day someone would ask me what the fuck I was talking about, No one asked me what the fuck I was talking about. Now, on the edge of victory, the cusp of greatness (The Picrew we've been working on for a month is almost done) Me and my Coauthor cannot simply wait to be noticed any longer. So We're making a dramatic post and maintagging it.

In short, ‘SecuriSpouses’ are biosynthegenic constructs with a two part A.I split between a SecuriAI (Artificially Intelligent Security Management Hubs), and SecuriUnit (Android Domestic Security Units), created sold by a Formerly-Canadian Medical company called REGENT during the leadup to the Great War, they were marketed as house aids, babysitters, End-of-life caretakers, and even emotional support for unmarried isolated bachelorees. 

Secretly, however, their true purpose was to save as many people as possible when the inevitability of the war going hot came to fruition, and to this end were explicitly given self determination and the right to defend themselves and others if they deemed it needed to happen.

Full Lore Below