Penelope Hornwright

Penelope "Penny" Hornwright is a ghoul scientist in Appalachia in 2103. Before the Great War, she served as the senior operations executive at Hornwright Industrial.

Background
Born March 4, 2048, to Daniel and Evelyn Hornwright, Penny attended Vault-Tec University, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 2070 with a double major in Business Administration and Geological Science.

She held two internships prior to her graduation: one in the operations department of Hornwright Industrial in the summer of 2068 and one in the automation department of Atomic Mining Services (AMS) in the summer of 2069, where she helped to establish business agreements between AMS and Hornwright Industrial.

After graduation, she was immediately placed at the head of Hornwright Industrial's operations department. She pursued a ruthless policy of automation at all costs like her father. She supported her father's automation policies, stopping only when it came to actually physically hurting people, such as during the 2077 protests when she was forced to hire strikebreakers to deal with rioting miners. When her father realized that she detested the job, he commissioned a robotic solution the problem, rather than force her to toughen up. However, when it came to cleaning up the damage, she showed a tenacity worthy of her father. After the Rockhound was recovered by the National Guard, she instituted 24-hour shifts, demanding that the workers accelerate the repairs to improve the company's bottom line.

Penelope was also responsible for perverting the original purpose of the air purifiers supplied by the Clear Skies Alliance, turning them into ash forges capable of extracting heavy minerals from the polluted air. The fact that setting the old coal veins on fire filled the air with mineral-rich particulate that could be harvested that way, leading to even worse ecological devastation than before the purifiers' deployment led to a rebellion in the tech department, with the lead researcher on the project quitting in disgust after sabotaging his work station.

When her mother succumbed to cancer in 2076, Penelope moved on quickly, realizing that the alternative was slowly withering away, eaten alive by the cancerous cells. Despite her father unraveling and slowly succumbing to paranoia and obsessions centering on the Motherlode project, she still cared for him.

She was planning to marry Bryce Garrahan, son of the owner of Hornwright's business competitor, Garrahan Mining. The two had known each other since they were children and had fallen in love despite the divide between their wealthy families. She and Bryce were planning to tell her father about their plans but it is uncertain if they succeeded in doing so before the bombs fell.

Sometime after the war, she left Appalachia and had a daughter between 2083 and 2084. She came upon a vault with a faulty door and negotiated with its residents to allow entrance for her family in exchange for repairing the vault door, knowing that she would be stuck outside. The repairs were successful, saving the vault's residents from outside radiation in the process, but she was dosed and became a ghoul. She adopted a habit of wandering and avoiding settlements and large groups, knowing that most tended to shoot ghouls on sight no matter whether they were feral or not. At one point, she traveled with a survivor group through Charlotte and passed herself off as human by wearing a balaclava to cover her face; however, she was eventually found out and forced out of the city.

Returning before 2103, she began being chased by an unknown creature, and decided to head to her family's former estate to hide from it - not knowing it was actually the Motherlode, recognizing her senior Hornwright Industrial credentials. She was eventually contacted by a Vault Dweller from Vault 76, looking for assistance in using the Motherlode to enter Vault 79, and claim the treasure it contains.

Quests

 * Trade Secrets: Penelope is found in the safe room under the Hornwright Estate, tasking the residents with recovering several components in order to control the Motherlode.
 * Division of Wealth: Penelope is kidnapped by Hijack and his crew of raiders and must be rescued. Afterward, she sends the residents through the Cave in order to recalibrate the Motherlode.
 * All That Glitters: The residents help Penelope and the Settler heist team raid Vault 79. She eventually becomes concerned for her safety, and the residents can choose to have her stay with the crew or have her return to Foundation.

Appearances
Penelope Hornwright appears only in Fallout 76, introduced in the Wastelanders update. Before the update, she was only mentioned in the game.