Fallout Bible

The Fallout Bible is a collection of documents containing background material for the first Fallout games. They were compiled, written, and released by Chris Avellone in 2002 on Black Isle's homepage on a semi-regular basis, as a collection of "background material and hijinks".

The studio has used the Bible as a source in Fallout 3 production, and many parts of it have been used in games released since by both Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment.

Emil Pagliarulo spoke about the Bible's status within canon in August 2020. He stated that the writers of Bethesda's Fallout games often use the Bible as a supplementary source, secondary to the games themselves. Writers investigate the Bible after they look at what is in the games first. However, they do not assume that everything in the Bible is canon; instead, they take it step-by-step to include what makes sense. In his own words, "it's a judgment call."

Background
The idea, initially elaborated by community veteran Dan Wood, was to create a document that would serve as a total guide to Fallout: the history of the setting, the elements that compose it, the things that define it, and the rules that guide it. It would also serve to tie off loose ends left by the games and to provide details on questions previously raised, important due to the prospect of someone who wasn't Black Isle making Fallout games grew ever more real.

However, instead of being a definitive, unambiguous guide to Fallout, Avellone's Fallout Bible became a sort of long question and answer session with fans emailing a multitude of queries to him and receiving answers. Avellone would frequently toss in interesting bits of information about the games and original design documents, including the official Fallout timeline. Avellone made some mistakes here and there, many of which were corrected in later issues of the Bible thanks to fan feedback. The whole project was cut short when Avellone left Black Isle.

"For those of you who haven't seen these before, the Fallout Bible is just a collection of all the background material and hi-jinks from Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 compiled into one document so the fans can take a look at it. The term "Bible" is misleading, since it's not supposed to start some religion or be the word of some holy power – it's just a term I stole from Chris Taylor (Fallout 1, Fallout Tactics), who apparently stole it from some guy named Dan Wood who called me at work once. Dan Wood's Bible and this Bible aren't the same thing. This is just for fun. It is also not a marketing ploy to drum up Fallout sales, since this is for fans who already snagged the game and wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about what went on behind the scenes or what material never actually made it in. Please feel free to take this paragraph and formulate whatever conspiracy theories you want."

- Chris Avellone, Fallout Bible 6

Installments
There are nine main installments of the Fallout Bible and Fallout Bible 0, a compilation of the first three with various corrections.


 * Fallout Bible 0 (released March 8, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 1 (released January 15, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 2 (released February 2, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 3 (released February 11, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 4 (released February 25, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 5 (released March 11, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 6 (released July 10, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 7 (released July 29, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 8 (released October 2, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 9 (released November 7, 2002)

Behind the scenes

 * Chris Avellone refers to it as non-canon, i.e. not binding for Bethesda Game Studios.