Raul (Fallout: New Vegas)

Raul Alfonso Tejada is a ghoul mechanic, gunslinger and potential companion from Mexico, imprisoned at Black Mountain

Hidalgo Ranch
Born in 2047, Tejada was living at Hidalgo Ranch outside Mexico City before the war. He was a good shooter and mechanic, both of which occasionally got him in trouble with the law, although his family mostly kept him in line. The ranch survived the war due to its distance from the city, but the stream of refugees from more heavily affected areas proved difficult to deal with. The Tejada family was as accommodating as they could be, but they soon began running out of food and lodgings, and had to start turning people away.

The situation at the ranch eventually became so violent and unstable that Raul and his father had to drive off the refugees with their guns. Later that night, after the Tejadas had gone to sleep, a group of two dozen men arrived, barred the doors, and set the house ablaze. Raul and his younger sister Rafaela managed to escape out a window, but his parents, grandmother, two brothers, and two other sisters died. Raul and Rafaela ran from the ranch being pursued by the group that attacked their home.

Mexico City
After the fire, Raul knew that they could not stay at their ranch anymore and the refugees wanted him dead so badly they put a bounty out on him. Despite his sister's fears, he convinced her to come with him to Mexico City by promising to take her to see the vaqueros. They thought they should go to Mexico City to look for help, not understanding the true danger of atomic detonations. Though it wasn't hit as hard as other places, by the time the Tejadas reached Mexico City, it could only be described as a "radioactive ruin." The people inside the city got by through looting, already forming the area's first raider tribes. The Tejadas were living like scavengers, constantly searching for both food and medicine for Raul's burns. This is the time Raul believes that his ghoulification began.

One day Raul found a novelty costume shop looking for something to slice up and bandage his burns with. He found an old vaquero costume inside, still untouched on the rack, and wore it back to their camp. Rafaela loved it; it made her laugh for the first time since the bombs fell.

Sick and weak from radiation exposure, Raul eventually found himself too ill to go out scavenging with his sister. One day, after she failed to return from scavenging for food, Raul went in search of her only to find her murdered and so badly mutilated by raiders that she was only identifiable by a tiny scar on her knee. Raul tracked down the raiders responsible and killed them.

Two-Sun
Leaving every aspect of his former life behind - including, as Raul often jokes, "his face" - he wandered to the Gulf Coast and inhabited an unclaimed Petró-Chico refinery. He spent a long period of time here, thinking about his life so far. He found a Petró-Chico jumpsuit and began to wear it, taking the name "Miguel" from the suit's sewn-in nametag. He eventually arrived in the city of Tuscon, Arizona, now known as Two-Sun. He settled there, becoming a mechanic and a general handyman, his guns stashed away where they could do no further harm. After 75 years of relative peace, he met Claudia - a prostitute working in a local brothel who bore a striking resemblance to Rafaela. Spurred by this reminder of what he lost, he took the time to look out for her – though, for obvious reasons, he never visited her.

This peace was not to last. Arizona, overrun with raiders and tribals before the rise of Caesar's Legion brought stability to the region, brought Dirty Dave and his six brothers to town looking for bullets. Raul sold them ammunition, hoping they would leave now that they had what they wanted - instead, they decided they wanted the brothel. Once in the brothel, Dave and his brothers killed four girls and took Claudia for their own use. Raul gave chase, and after a three-day pursuit across the wasteland, Raul caught up with them. By the time he found Claudia, she was already dead. Enraged, Raul charged in and killed all of them in the resulting showdown. Youth, however, was not on his side anymore and the battle left him severely injured; he only stayed alive out of pure spite for Dirty Dave and his brothers. Having taken several bullets, Raul stayed at their camp until he got the strength to get up and walk back to Two-Sun and recovered.

Black Mountain
Feeling dejected, Raul wandered west to the Mojave Wasteland, found a small shack in a relatively quiet corner of the desert east of New Vegas, and settled down there, spending his days listening to the Black Mountain Radio. One day he lost the signal being transmitted and decided to wander up to Black Mountain to investigate. There he offered his services to Tabitha, the nightkin who broadcasted there, and fixed the transmitter, but Tabitha decided to imprison him for his efforts. She threatened him into working for her, mostly with repairing broken toasters for the super mutants as well as performing repairs to her broken Mr. Handy, Rhonda. After being held for several years, he will join the player out of gratitude if freed. A new taste of adventure reminds Raul of his tumultuous past, prompting him to consider if he should embrace his old gunslinging ways, in which case he will be forced to decide between two different ways of life.

He is not affected by the Legion's presence on the wasteland and comments on the security and order brought by the Legion. He feels a similar indifference to the New California Republic, acknowledging both their successes and failures, like most pre-War governments had. He also has quite an insightful amount of knowledge about Mr. House, as Raul knows of House's pre-War exploits.

Comments
He comments on a variety of locations throughout the Mojave Wasteland:

Appearances
Raul Tejada appears

Behind the scenes

 * The character was written by Travis Stout.
 * Tejada was also featured in the Meet the Companions Playstation Blog, written by Jason Bergman. The transcript appears below.


 * The unused note Ghoul in trouble can be found in the game files.

Bugs

 * When asked to go to the Lucky 38, a notification will pop up saying he has gone there. When you go looking for him in the Lucky 38 later, he's nowhere to be found. It turns out that he stays at the last location you asked him to leave.
 * Unlike other companions, Raul won't walk around while in the Lucky 38, merely standing in the main room to the right of the door until spoken to.
 * After fast-traveling to a location, Raul will occasionally start running away, and cannot be interacted with. Loading to a new area or simply waiting for him to turn around will correct this. This also happens with Cass as a companion.
 * When Raul awakens after being knocked unconscious, he will sometimes claim to have had a nightmare of Petro Chico Boy "stealing his chicharrones (Spanish for pork rinds)", but the subtitles will incorrectly use the word "chitlins" instead of "chicharrones".
 * Sometimes if the player speaks to him in the Lucky 38 presidential suite, a generic Great Khan will spawn.
 * By pressing "Take All" when pickpocketing Raul, the caps will still appear in the player's inventory despite being caught. To repeat this again, take him outside of his shack and dismiss him as a companion. This means you can get infinite free repairs.
 * When leaving a casino, if Raul is given a weapon, the weapon's weight will be present, but no item can be seen.
 * His voice will change if given a stimpak.