Fallout Characters: Every Major Character in the Games and the TV Series

Fallout's characters change with every game, because each one moves to a new part of post-war America with a new player character, new allies and a new threat. Some names keep coming back, like the Brotherhood of Steel's Maxsons and the ghoul Harold, and the TV series ties its own cast to Vault-Tec, the Enclave and Mr. House. This guide covers the characters people look up most, game by game in release order and then the show. For the plot itself, see Fallout story explained. Full spoilers. (Fallout; Fallout 3; Fallout, "The Strip")

Fallout (1997)#

The Vault Dweller#

The hero of the first game, a resident of Vault 13 under Southern California, sent out in 2161 when the Vault's water chip fails. After finding a replacement, the Vault Dweller learns of the Master's mutant army and destroys it. The overseer then exiles them, fearing others would follow them out of the Vault. (Fallout)

The Master#

Richard Grey was a doctor on an expedition to Mariposa Military Base who fell into a vat of FEV and emerged as a fused mass of flesh. As the Master he dipped captives in the virus to make super mutants, aiming to turn humanity into one new race. The Vault Dweller can kill him or convince him that his mutants are sterile, after which he kills himself. (Fallout)

Harold#

A ghoul trader in the Hub who was on the same Mariposa expedition as Richard Grey and was mutated by what they found there. He is the series' longest-running character: he lives in the ghoul town of Gecko in Fallout 2 and turns up in Fallout 3 with a tree growing out of his head. (Fallout; Fallout 2; Fallout 3)

Fallout 2 (1998)#

The Chosen One#

The grandchild of the Vault Dweller, from the tribal village of Arroyo, which the Vault Dweller founded after their exile. Sent to find a Garden of Eden Creation Kit to save the village from drought, the Chosen One ends up destroying the Enclave's oil rig base. (Fallout 2)

President Dick Richardson#

The President of the United States, as far as the Enclave is concerned, ruling from an oil rig off the California coast. His plan is to release a modified FEV that would kill everyone with mutated DNA, which means everyone outside the Enclave. The Chosen One confronts him on the rig. (Fallout 2)

Frank Horrigan#

An Enclave Secret Service agent mutated by FEV into a towering, armoured killer, and the last enemy the Chosen One fights. He also led the squad that wiped out the intelligent deathclaws of Vault 13. (Fallout 2)

Marcus#

A super mutant from the Master's army who settled down after the Master's fall and became sheriff of Broken Hills, a mining town for humans, mutants and ghouls. He can join the Chosen One. By New Vegas he runs Jacobstown, a mountain retreat for mutants. (Fallout 2; Fallout: New Vegas)

Fallout 3 (2008)#

The Lone Wanderer#

The hero of Fallout 3, born in 2258 and raised in Vault 101 near Washington, DC. In 2277 their father walks out of the sealed Vault, and the Wanderer follows him into the Capital Wasteland and into a fight for his water purification project. (Fallout 3)

James#

The Lone Wanderer's father and Vault 101's doctor, a scientist who left the Vault to restart Project Purity, a giant water purifier at the Jefferson Memorial. When the Enclave storms the memorial, he floods the control room with radiation, killing himself and the soldiers inside rather than hand it over. (Fallout 3)

Colonel Augustus Autumn#

Commander of the Enclave's forces in the Capital Wasteland, who seizes Project Purity after James dies. He wants the purifier for the Enclave and clashes with his own president over what to do with it. (Fallout 3)

John Henry Eden#

The voice of Enclave Radio and the Enclave's president. He is really an artificial intelligence running on a pre-war ZAX computer in Raven Rock, with a personality pieced together from past presidents. He wants the purifier laced with FEV to kill the mutated population, and he can be talked into destroying himself. (Fallout 3)

Elder Owyn Lyons#

Leader of the Brotherhood of Steel's Capital Wasteland chapter. He was sent east from California to recover technology but chose to protect the local people from super mutants instead, splitting from the Brotherhood back west. (Fallout 3)

Sarah Lyons#

Lyons's daughter and leader of Lyons' Pride, the chapter's elite squad. She fights alongside the giant robot Liberty Prime in the push to retake the Jefferson Memorial. (Fallout 3)

Three Dog#

The DJ of Galaxy News Radio, broadcasting news and music across the Capital Wasteland and "fighting the good fight". He spreads the word about the Lone Wanderer's deeds, good or bad. (Fallout 3)

Fallout: New Vegas (2010)#

The Courier#

The hero of New Vegas, a delivery runner for the Mojave Express shot in the head by Benny in 2281 and left in a shallow grave outside Goodsprings. Recovering, the Courier tracks down the stolen platinum chip and ends up deciding who controls Hoover Dam and the Strip. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Mr. House#

Robert House, the pre-war RobCo founder who shielded Las Vegas from the bombs and still rules the Strip from the Lucky 38 through his Securitrons. The platinum chip was meant for him. If the Courier backs him, he takes the dam and drives out both the NCR and the Legion. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Benny#

The smooth-talking leader of the Chairmen, one of the Strip's Three Families, and House's man at the Tops casino. He steals the chip from the Courier to make New Vegas his own, with help from the reprogrammed Securitron Yes Man. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Caesar#

Born Edward Sallow, a former Followers of the Apocalypse scholar who united the tribes of Arizona by force into Caesar's Legion, an army of slavers modelled on ancient Rome. In 2281 he is trying to take Hoover Dam from the NCR and is quietly dying of a brain tumour. In the TV series he has died by 2296, and two rival Caesars fight over the Legion. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout, "The Profligate")

Legate Lanius#

The Legion's field commander, known as the Monster of the East, who wears a metal mask and leads the assault on Hoover Dam. The Courier meets him only at the end, and can beat him in battle or talk him into retreat. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Yes Man#

A Securitron that Benny reprogrammed to agree with anyone giving it orders. After Benny's fall it attaches itself to the Courier and offers a path to an independent Vegas with no House, NCR or Legion in charge. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Ulysses#

A former Legion scout and courier who refused the platinum chip delivery when he saw the Courier was next on the list. In Lonesome Road he waits for the Courier in the Divide, a ruin he blames them for creating with a package they once delivered. (Lonesome Road)

Fallout 4 (2015)#

The Sole Survivor#

A pre-war resident of Sanctuary Hills outside Boston who reaches Vault 111 as the bombs fall and is frozen. Waking briefly, they watch a stranger kill their spouse and take their baby son, Shaun. They thaw for good in 2287 and search the Commonwealth for him. (Fallout 4)

Father (Shaun)#

The Sole Survivor's son, taken as an infant and raised by the Institute, whose director he has become by 2287. Around 60 and dying, he wants his parent to take over the Institute after him. His DNA is the basis of the Institute's synths. (Fallout 4)

Conrad Kellogg#

The cybernetically enhanced mercenary who killed the Sole Survivor's spouse and carried Shaun to the Institute. The Sole Survivor tracks him to Fort Hagen and kills him, then reads his memories to find the Institute. (Fallout 4)

Nick Valentine#

A prototype synth built with the memories of a pre-war Boston detective, who runs a detective agency in Diamond City. He helps pick up the trail to Kellogg and becomes one of the game's most popular companions. (Fallout 4)

Preston Garvey#

The last true member of the Minutemen, met defending a small band of settlers in Concord's Museum of Freedom. He asks the Sole Survivor to lead the Minutemen and rebuild them. (Fallout 4)

Paladin Danse#

A Brotherhood of Steel paladin who recruits the Sole Survivor and is later revealed to be a runaway synth with no memory of it. Elder Maxson orders his execution, and the Sole Survivor can save him. (Fallout 4)

Arthur Maxson#

The young Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, who arrives over Boston in the airship Prydwen to destroy the Institute. He first appears in Fallout 3 as a boy at the Citadel. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

Fallout 76 (2018)#

The Overseer of Vault 76#

The leader of Vault 76 in West Virginia, who leaves ahead of her residents on Reclamation Day in 2102 on a mission from Vault-Tec to secure Appalachia's nuclear silos. Her holotapes guide the player across the region, and later updates bring her back in person. (Fallout 76)

The Fallout TV series (2024 to 2026)#

Lucy MacLean#

Lucy is a resident of Vault 33 in Los Angeles who leaves in 2296 to rescue her kidnapped father. She learns he bombed Shady Sands, follows him to New Vegas and finally wipes his mind with his own brain chip. She ends season 2 in the Lucky 38 with Maximus. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Strip")

The Ghoul (Cooper Howard)#

The Ghoul is Cooper Howard, a pre-war Western star and Vault-Tec pitchman who survived the bombs as a ghoul and became a bounty hunter. He travels with Lucy to New Vegas looking for his wife and daughter and finds their cryo pods empty, with a clue pointing to Colorado. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Wrangler"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Maximus#

Maximus is an orphan of Shady Sands raised by the Brotherhood of Steel, who takes a dead knight's armour and name in season 1. In season 2 he kills a Commonwealth paladin to save ghoul children, flees his chapter, and fights the deathclaws of New Vegas in power armour. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Hank MacLean#

Lucy's father, the overseer of Vault 33, is really a pre-war Vault-Tec employee who was frozen in Vault 31. He destroyed Shady Sands with a nuclear bomb to take his children back. In season 2 he runs a Vault under the Strip making mind-control chips, until Lucy implants one in him and he wipes his own mind. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Other Player"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Norm MacLean#

Lucy's younger brother, who stays behind and discovers that Vault 31 is full of frozen Vault-Tec staff, then gets trapped there by its overseer, Bud Askins. In season 2 he thaws the staff, leads them out to the surface and reaches the ruins of Vault-Tec's headquarters, where he radios for Lucy and his father. (Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Innovator"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Fallout, "The Wrangler"; Fallout, "The Handoff")

Lee Moldaver#

The leader of the NCR's last fighters in Los Angeles, who kidnaps Hank for the code to a cold fusion device. Before the war she knew Cooper Howard and urged him to act against Vault-Tec. She tells Lucy the truth about her father, switches on the reactor and dies of her wounds. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Beginning")

Thaddeus#

The aspirant who bullied Maximus, then became his squire and friend. After drinking a salesman's elixir to heal a crushed foot, he starts turning into a ghoul. In season 2 he hides ghoul children, flees the Brotherhood with Maximus, loses an arm to his mutation and backs Maximus up against the deathclaws. (Fallout, "The Head"; Fallout, "The Radio"; Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Handoff"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Barb Howard#

Cooper's wife and a senior Vault-Tec executive, who pitches the company's partners on using the Vaults as experiments and starting the war themselves. She later tells Cooper she was threatened into making that pitch. Her empty cryo pod holds a postcard of Colorado. (Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Other Player"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Elder Cleric Quintus#

Leader of the Brotherhood's Knights of San Fernando, who found Maximus in the ruins of Shady Sands as a boy. In season 2 he tries to unite the West Coast chapters under his lead at Area 51 with the cold fusion relic, and turns on Maximus as a heretic. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

Siggi Wilzig#

An Enclave scientist who runs off with a cold fusion sample hidden in his head, which sets the whole of season 1 in motion. Shot in Filly by the Ghoul, he dies on the road and asks Lucy to take his head. (Fallout, "The Target"; Fallout, "The Beginning")