Vault Dweller

In a general sense, a vault dweller is any person who lives in one of the Vault-Tec Vaults.

When capitalized, the Vault Dweller is the player character in Fallout, most famous for defeating the Master and his super mutant army, founding the small village of Arroyo and fathering the Village Elder (who would bear a child; "the Chosen One").

Background
Depending on how old you choose him/her to be on a scale of 16 to 35, the Vault Dweller was born between 2126 and 2145 in Vault 13.

The quest
The Vault Dweller was sent out by the Vault 13 Overseer on a mission to find a replacement for the Vault's broken water chip. After striking a deal with the Water Merchants of the Hub and obtaining a water chip from Vault 12 in the ruins of Bakersfield, the Overseer told him that the amount of super mutants located in the area did not match up with natural rates of mutation. Believing that someone must be artificially creating the super mutants and fearing for the safety of the Vault, he ordered the Vault Dweller to find and destroy the source of the mutants. The Vault Dweller soon found an old military base where humans were being dunked into vats of Forced Evolutionary Virus in order to be converted into super mutants. He destroyed both this base and the Master of the super mutants beneath the Cathedral in Boneyard before returning to the Vault, only to be told that being outside of the Vault had changed him, and he was not allowed to return.

The exile
After leaving the Vault for a final time, the Vault Dweller wandered the desert, but never moved far from the mountains that shielded the Vault from the rest of the world. Some other members of the Vault, upon hearing of what happened, decided to leave the Vault and join the Vault Dweller, following him soon afterwards. The Vault Dweller eventually found and rejoined this small group of former vault dwellers. Knowing little of the outside world, the group would almost certainly have died had it not been for the Vault Dweller's assistance. At this time, the Vault Dweller removed his Vault suit and had it placed in the temple of trials and never wore it again.

The tribe
Two months later, the Vault Dweller headed north, to the great canyons, with a small group of vault dwellers and wastelanders and founded a small village. Initially, they would send scouts back towards the Vault, to help others who thought like themselves, but that slowly came to an end. The Vault Dweller taught the others the skills they would need to survive and grow strong. Hunting, farming and other skills to feed them, engineering and science to build their homes, fighting to protect what was theirs. Slowly, they took the knowledge that the Vault Dweller had learned on his adventure and together, they learned to thrive. Over time, their rag-tag group had turned into a tribe. The Vault Dweller fell in love with one of them, named Pat, and they raised a family, like all of their tribespeople. The construction of Arroyo was completed on August 18, 2167.

The Vault Dweller and Pat led the tribe which grew larger and stronger. In 2188, their daughter, who would later become the Village Elder, was born. Eventually, she and the other children became the leaders of the community.

The departure and end
On January 16, 2208, several years after Pat's death, the Vault Dweller wrote his memoirs. Soon after that, he vanished from Arroyo and was presumed dead. The Vault Dweller left the Vault suit behind, folded on the bed. Some say the Vault Dweller was taken by the sky spirits, others say that the Vault Dweller felt it was time to move on and leave the Elders to guide Arroyo to its destiny. After the One-Moon (Month) Cycle of mourning for the Vault Dweller ended, activity in Arroyo began to return to normal. Years later, Vault Dweller's grandchild, later called the Chosen One, was born.

After leaving Arroyo the only known place where he was spotted was the town of Carbon, where he is known simply as the Wasteland Stranger. There, he helped some of the people to hide from raiders and also helped the Initiate trace the remnants of the Master's army and some Brotherhood of Steel paladins, directing him to Los. We don't know what became of him afterwards, but it is certain he left Carbon and continued his travel in the Wasteland.

Interactions with the Wasteland Stranger during his stay in Carbon can result in the Initiate receiving from him a Red Ryder BB gun. Additionally, the Initiate may find a Vault 13 flask in the Carbon Mill, at which the Wasteland Stranger remarks at being a "sentimental old fool" and offers a trade for it.

He most likely died out in the wastes. But nothing is certain.

The legacy
Besides Arroyo and the Chosen One, the Vault Dweller's journey lived on to the extent that he is still revered by a fair portion of the people in the Wasteland. His statue is prominently displayed in the New California Republic capital, Shady Sands.

He is remembered under several names, including "the Vault Dweller" and "the Stranger" (used by those who - while believing in his greatness - doubt he ever could have come from a Vault). He refers to himself as "the Wanderer" at the end of his memoirs. Children who heard of his story would often play at finding Vault 13, some of these children even grew into adults obsessed with proving the Vault Dweller's former home existed. For a time, President Tandi would even sponsor such adventurers, until giving up after many years of failure.

Appearances
The Vault Dweller is the player character in Fallout. Aside from the original Fallout, he also makes a cameo appearance in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel as an unlockable player character.

Although he only personally appears in two games out of the Fallout series, the Vault Dweller has been mentioned in every other Fallout game up to date.
 * In Fallout 2, he is mentioned by several characters such as Tandi, Marcus and Lenny
 * In Fallout 3, he is mentioned in a terminal of the Citadel.
 * In Fallout Tactics, Latham references him in one of his holodisks in Osceolla.
 * In Fallout: New Vegas, he is mentioned by Ezekiel as being the "hero" who destroyed the Khans.

Behind the scenes

 * He was also to appear in the canceled Fallout movie (referred to as "Hero" in the story treatment), accompanied by three other people from Vault 13 - the Female Officer, Techie and Scholar.