Raiders (Wastelanders)

The raiders are a faction in the Fallout 76 update Wastelanders.

Background
This group is a resurrection of the original raiders of Appalachia, after the original groups were wiped out by the Scorched. After these raiders, composed of survivors of the original groups who fled Appalachia and new members picked up along the way, caught wind that people were returning to the land they once claimed for themselves, they and their leader Meg decided to come back and put a stop to anyone who would take their territory.

They set up a formidable base of operations at the crashed space station, which they renamed the Crater. It is inevitable that outsiders who drop by unannounced will not receive a warm welcome.

Several smaller groups unrelated to the Crater faction also entered Appalachia at the same time as them, leading to tense interactions between their members, if not open hostilities. Most notable among these groups are the Blood Eagles, whose violence and sadism has led to their being declared monsters by many of the Crater raiders. Other groups include the Free Radicals, Edwin's gang, and Sargento's gang.

Interactions with the player character
Meg and the raiders initially encounter the player character in the quest Strange Bedfellows when Rose wishes to contact them as part of a request by the Vault 76 overseer to protect them from the threat of the Scorched Plague. Upon meeting the Vault 76 residents, Meg is not too keen on having her Raiders inoculated and only will agree to it if the resident aids her lieutenant Aldridge with an attack on the Scorched west of the Philippi Battlefield Cemetery. This is only if she can't be convinced that she is making the same mistakes that David Thorpe and the old raiders did with not cooperating with the other factions in the Responders, Free States, and Brotherhood of Steel to combat the Scorched and scorchbeasts. Aldridge is found wounded inside a semi-trailer, his team wiped out, and a scorchbeast corpse lying on top of the trailer.

After deciding whether to kill him or allow him to go out on his own terms, the residents return to tell Meg what happened, and she agrees to have the raiders inoculated to protect them from the Scorched Plague. With the raiders now safe from becoming more of the scorchbeast queen's minions, the residents soon have to decide which faction they are going to join to get to the riches hidden within Vault 79, as they can either join Meg and the raiders or go against them by allying with Paige and the Settlers. This will affect the residents' relationship with the two factions depending on their actions from then on.

Various raider patrols may be randomly encountered throughout Appalachia fighting off threats such as super mutants, Scorched, or feral ghouls. Should the residents choose to help them, they may speak to them afterward and receive a small boost in reputation with the raiders, but only once Strange Bedfellows is completed, making the Raiders non-hostile to the residents after getting in Meg's good graces.

Appearances
Raiders appear only in Fallout 76, introduced in the Wastelanders update.