Point Lookout (location)

Point Lookout is a swampland that was once Maryland's Point Lookout State Park before the Great War.

Pre-War
Point Lookout is said to be one of the most haunted locations in Maryland. Before the European colonisation period, the region was discovered by Captain John Smith, an English explorer who arrived on a shallop in 1612. In 1634, two English settler ships, the Ark and Dove, landed near Point Lookout, an achievement which assisted the founding of the Province of Maryland. Thousands of Confederate prisoners of war died near Point Lookout in the later years of the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865.

Point Lookout remained very rural and isolated until the mid-21st century, when in 2058, despite local criticism and resistance, the Isla Negra real estate company purchased land and began developing new homes and attractions, after a deal with Constance Blackhall, a member of a wealthy family that had lived in the area for several centuries, owning a Victorian-style mansion. The Calvert family was highly influential within the US government, and according to Desmond Lockheart, owned half of Maryland. Their family home was located in Point Lookout.

During the Resource Wars, the United States Armed Forces and the public and private defense sector had heightened their presence in the region. Notable holdings included the Turtledove Detention Camp keeping individuals such as Chinese prisoners, a Naval recruiting center operating in the area, the St. Aubin medical facility owned by General Atomics International dedicated to the research of robobrains and bio med gel, and a disaster relief outpost that provided information to the populace about the New Plague, in order to trick citizens into registering their details with the government. During the Sino-American War, the People's Liberation Army sent the SSN-37-1A submarine to Point Lookout, in order to patrol and spy on the area and its surrounding waters. The vessel sank for unknown reasons in an unknown year, and the US Army made plans to recover it. This alarmed the Chinese, who sent two spies to Point Lookout in an attempt to destroy the submarine. However, they were too late, and Agent Jiang died as a result of the Great War, through unknown methods, and Wan Yang had already recently been captured and held at Turtledove for interrogation.

Post-War
Unlike much of the Capital Wasteland, Point Lookout's rural location shielded it from direct impact during the Great War of 2077, but the resulting fallout irradiated the area in the years that followed. Even though it was not directly hit by nuclear bombardment, the water of Point Lookout's bogs and the surrounding bay is irradiated, having been contaminated by the Potomac River that flows out of the Capital Wasteland. The unchecked forces of erosion carved sinkholes and grottoes throughout Point Lookout, as well as swamps rich in natural gases, which manifest on the surface as explosive methane bubbles, caused by a biogas that accumulated in the area's soil because of the radioactive contamination of the mass Civil War-era graves in the area. The decomposing bodies buried in these water-logged graves were irradiated and slowly decomposed into methane because of the radiation's effects on the normal process of decay.

The area is home to the swampfolk, a crazed, mutated, highly deformed, inbred people who live all around the swamps of the region. Swamp ghouls and swamplurks are a common sight here as well, as they are drawn to the area's radioactive swamp waters. Other forms of wildlife include mole rats, bloatflies, and vicious wild dogs. Smugglers also roam Point Lookout, hoping to find their fortune scavenging this relatively undisturbed desolation.

Point Lookout is almost devoid of any organized society or signs of civilization. Other than Tobar the Ferryman, Haley of Haley's Hardware, Madame Panada, Marguerite and the Point Lookout tribals, it is extremely difficult to find someone to trade with. The area became known to outsiders from the Capital Wasteland thanks to punga fruit, a unique fruit known to grow only in the local bogs, and many legends about the supposed treasures hidden there.

Locations
There are 31 marked locations within Point Lookout as well as a few unmarked ones.

They are as follows (unmarked locations in italics):

Appearances
Point Lookout is the eponymous location in which the Fallout 3 add-on Point Lookout takes place.

Interactive map
