Master

The Master was the horribly mutated brain behind the Mutant Army, eventually defeated by the Vault Dweller.

The Master was born as Richard Moreau, and was a dweller of Vault 8, later known as Vault City, where he worked as a doctor. In 2092 he was exiled from the city for murder, although the circumstances surrounding the murder are unknown. He changed his name to Richard Grey and headed south, eventually settling in the Hub. In 2102 he became a leader of a team of scientists who mount an expedition to find the source of the mutants which were causing trouble for the traders (ironic, considering his own army of mutants would later cause a great deal of trouble for the hub merchants). Among the team was Harold, who became a good friend of Richard Grey during the course of the expedition. Far to the northwest, they discover an apparently abandoned Military Base.

The Mariposa Military Base was filled with mutated creatures and automated defences that would eventually kill or wound all of the expedition's members except Grey and Harold. They press on into the base until coming to its core. There they found the Forced Evolutionary Virus vats. A crane slams into the two men, sending Grey flying into one of the vats, and knocking Harold unconscious. Harold later wakes up in the wastes, believing Grey to be dead. He is fortunate enough to be rescued by some traders, who then take him to the hub where the player finds him in Fallout.

But Richard had not died. He was one of the very few "lucky" humans to be modified by the FEV without a reduction of his intelligence. It was increased, in fact. Richard's mind and body were supposedly melded with many other personalities of the people and animals he consumes, as he relates in his audio diary. As he begins to feel stronger and more capable than ever before, he comes up with the idea to "unify" the wasteland, to make it as perfect as he believed himself to be. Unfortunately for him, as he begins to dip others in the vats he finds the resulting creatures are not like himself: most often, the dipped just mutated into dumb big soldiers known as super mutants. It becomes apparent that only those with low total radiation count do not suffer this fate.

At times, the Master is referred to as the mysterious Dark God, especially by those opposed to the Children of the Cathedral. By his Children, he is referred to as the New God.

In 2162, a man from Vault 13 known as the Vault Dweller destroyed the mutant army by causing an explosion in the FEV vats at Mariposa, which collapsed the entire base, and later killing the Master with a small nuclear bomb which the Master had earlier managed to acquire.

Related Holodisks
Richard Grey Audio Diary

Appearances in games
The Master appeared only in the first Fallout game. In Fallout 2, it was revealed that he was previously called Moreau and was exiled from Vault City. He is mentioned in all Fallout games.

Master