Dunwich Building

The Dunwich Building is the Southwestern-most point on the map, and is a dark, mazy set of interior ruins populated by various types of feral ghouls. A number of audiologs and computer terminals provide visitors with background on the building and an unfortunate wastelander named Jaime. In addition to the building itself, two levels lie underneath. The deepest level is a cavern with an eerie obelisk - a woman emerging/reaching out from the obelisk; vines entangle the obelisk and skulls run up its back. Several Feral Ghouls appear to worship it.

The building is broken up into three parts: the Dunwich Building Entrance, the Forsaken Dunwich Ruins, and the Virulent Underchambers. The deeper you go into the Dunwich Building the darker it becomes, and eventually requires the use of the Pip-boy light. Persistent explorers will be rewarded with the Bobblehead - Melee Weapons near the end of the levels. There is a convenient one-way exit from the Virulent Underchambers to an area quite near the entrance, and the Bobblehead can be found on the ground just before the exit.

There are several 'supernatural' moments within the building itself: doors opening on their own, objects being thrown across the room without explanation, and a 'flashback' moment that briefly shows the building as it once was. The flashback also includes a male figure standing some distance away who, after the flashback has ceased, turns into a Glowing One.

In the Virulent Underchambers, the player can actually discover the creator of the increasingly demented audiologs (who has now fully mutated into a ghoul) and a handful of Feral Ghouls worshipping the obelisk. Interestingly enough, killing Jaime, who is armed with a Chinese Assault Rifle, counts as a positive Karma act (if the player previously chose the Lawbringer perk, Jaime will also drop a finger). The obelisk in the center is irradiated about half way up, and emits levels of radiation that max out at 15 rads/s. As a side note, once the player crosses the threshold of the doorway into the cave with the obelisk, an "eerie voice" can be heard if the volume is up high enough (along with the "effects part" of the sound setting).

Background
In happier times, the building was owned by Dunwich Borers, LLC. A locked computer terminal midway through the building contains audio transcripts of a company executive. The transcripts function to both praise the release of a new drill, as well as capture the sounds of bombs dropping.

Near the entrance, you find a set of five audiologs left by an unfortunate visitor named Jaime. As you proceed further inside the building, you find four additional audiologs documenting his transformation into one of the building's deranged inhabitants. The final audiolog found within the building, though mostly rambling by an insane, mutated Ghoul, mentions the name "Alhazred" several times.

There is also a log on a terminal made by an unnamed scavenger who wandered into the ruins, hoping it to be abandoned. Upon finding the ghouls he holds up in the room with the terminal and as paranoia sets in he remembers his friend 'Billy' coming with ammo and grenades. Using this cheerful optimism he logs off the computer and for how long he survived is unknown, but the skeletal remains in front of the computer and the second set of remains just inside the entrance to the Dunwich building accompanied by a box of ammunition and a box of grenades seems to fill in the missing details with horrific finality. This "Billy" is not to be mistaken for "Billy Creel" the NPC in Megaton, as the "Billy" whom the scavenger is talking about is dead.

Holotape Story
Jaime, a traveler, set out searching for his father who left him alone in a hospital and "went crazy" after getting a mysterious book. Jaime followed his father south from an unknown location across vast distances. He fell in with another group of travelers who, as it turns out, were violent Raiders (why they did not immediately attack is unclear, but if they were to kill everyone they came across, they would never recruit new members.) However, they are identified as having killed another group of travelers for a "sack of rotten vegetables." Jaime secretly resolved to get away from this dangerous group as soon as possible. The opportunity to escape presented itself when the raiders prepared to attack a group of traders. Jaime turned on the Raiders -- earning the thanks of the traders. Grateful, the trader group told him the direction they last saw his father head off. Jaime followed his father's trail (marked by snares his father had set for food) to the Dunwich Building. He noted that he had heard the raiders tell "spook stories" about "zombies" inside, which were apparently true (Jaime had somehow never encountered a Ghoul before this point, possibly indicating the events transpired shortly after the bombs dropped). He eventually found his dead father who had seemingly mutated into a ghoul before expiring. He picked up a strange book his father had been keeping and decided to rest for a bit, sleeping against an unusual obelisk in the bottom of the building (The book's ultimate whereabouts are unknown). When he awoke, he had begun the process of mutating into a ghoul due to the strong radioactivity emitted from the obelisk.

The whole story in Jaime's Personal Journal.

Notable Loot

 * Bobblehead - Melee Weapons located in the Virulent Underchambers, right at the end of the zone (at the shortcut door leading back to the Dunwich Building).
 * Dean's Electronics located in a side room with cleaning/maintenance supplies in Forsaken Dunwich Ruins. When you head up a set of stairs in a long hallway, the room is to your right. It was big pipes in the wall. The book is located next to the toolbox to your right on the shelf.
 * Bottle of Nuka Cola Quantum located at the bottom of the stairs to the right of the main entrance.
 * Jaime's Personal Journal entries #1-5 on the table to the left when entering the building. Entries #6 and #7, individually, are also located in this first section of the building (before you reach Forsaken Dunwich Ruins).  #8 is in the Ruins section, and #9 is in the Virulent Underchambers.
 * A Nuka-Cola Vending Machine is located just inside the main entrance, which has the standard 10% chance of containing a Nuka-Cola Quantum.

Lovecraft Connection
Much of the Dunwich Building refers to H.P. Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos".
 * The area, especially the company Dunwich Borers, is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's masterpiece "The Dunwich Horror", although many of the other references are from other Lovecraft works.
 * The Alhazred mentioned in the final audiotape is the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred -- author of the imaginary book Kitab al-Azif (the Necronomicon)
 * The obelisk underneath the building is not taken directly from Lovecraft, but would not be out-of-place in one of his short stories (could be related to Robert E. Howard's short story "The Black Stone").
 * The mysterious book that drives its holder/reader mad has been used as a plot device; both as the fictional "Necronomicon" as well as in stories contemporary to Lovecraft (particularly "The King in Yellow").
 * Lovecraft used a type of radiation as the villain in one of his most famous stories, "The Colour Out of Space", foreshadowing the radiation induced transformations of the Ghouls in the Dunwich Building.
 * A computer terminal talks about Ug-Qualtoth returning, whose name would fit well in the way Lovecraft named his creatures.The name Ug-Quagloth is reference to H.P. Lovecraft's creature Yog-Sothoth which is released using ritual in the Necronomicon.
 * At the one-way entrance to the underchambers (from the ruins), there is a desk set in the center of the room like some kind of altar, below a huge circular hole towards the sky.
 * The final audio tape also mentions G'yeh which may be a reference to R'lyeh, an undersea city where Cthulhu sleeps in H.P. Lovecraft's stories.
 * Finally, the entire location seems like a test what the Bethesda-published RPG Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth could be like in the Fallout 3 engine. And while the story is clearly too "off" to be a quest or even DLC, this building may have been left in a "dark corner" of the game as a tribute.

Ghoul Mask

 * Those that wear the ghoul mask so that ghouls do not attack (and thus appear as green bars on the perception indicator) may decide to kill the ghouls anyway. If you attack a ghoul while wearing the mask, all other ghouls within the immediate vicinity will turn hostile and attack.
 * Curiously, ghouls which were once green to you and turn red (hostile) will not trigger frag mines.
 * When you encounter Jaime at the bottom of the building, he will attack you whether you are wearing the ghoul mask or not, announcing "There you are!".

Bugs
Some glitch or error appears to prevent any humaniod companions from entering the building with you. When you zone in, they are not there. When you zone out, they have run around the west side of the building, perhaps seeking to enter through the secondary exit mentioned above. This bug first identified on the PC version after the patch released on 1/14/09. Dogmeat is also affected. (could not get this bug to duplicate post patch with Star Paladin Cross or Dogmeat) This editor solved it by using the console command "moveto player" while inside the building. After that the affected followers could follow through the door as normal.

On the PS3 version, you may be able to enter the building with Charon and/or Star Paladin Cross as your followers. When you exit however, they will not be able to leave and after a short period of time it will tell you they have died. In order to save them you must fast travel to another location and they will appear there with you.

This editor has had no issues with companions in two separate play-throughs on the 360. One I had Dogmeat and Charon with me, and the other I had Dogmeat, Charon, and Sydney. All of them entered and exited just fine.

This editor experienced Charon not exiting the building once taken inside on the 360. I was able to solve the issue by dismissing Charon and later picking him back up in Underworld.

This editor can confirm the death of a companion. I entered with Dogmeat and got through the entire building fine. Upon exiting, Dogmeat got trapped inside and the entire building and area shook along with making destructive sounds. Once that had stopped and silenced, it informed me that Dogmeat had died.

This editor entered with Dogmeat and Star Paladin Cross with no problems on the PC, patched game. Dogmeat followed through every level of the building, and Star Paladin Cross caught up in about 10 seconds after being separated by a drop through the floor before the bottom area.

Companions seem to spawn a bit south of the building as you exit it, which could explain why many people are experiencing companion deaths. It could possibly be because they are attacked without the player noticing it or because they somehow cause the cars to explode as they pass the corner of the building.

I had Charon reported as dead almost immediately after exiting the building. After a few reloads, I figured out that he'd fallen off the cliff south of the building, then gotten finished off by a Deathclaw. I was able to avoid this fate by fast traveling, but I couldn't do so immediately due to the presence of enemies - the trick was to run away from the building (and the deathclaw) far enough to fast travel before Charon was killed.

X-360, patched as of February 23 09 - Charon was semi-behind me on exiting the building, but disappeared. He came running from the SW around the building a moment later.

Appearances
appears only in Fallout 3.