Vault 44

Cyratis - Wyoming is no stranger to some of the more primitive aspects of humanity but even among true savages there are a few who strike the gravest fear into the hearts of even the most hardened warriors and veterans.

These few whose names are etched into legend are known by many names, though the most infamous and vile is that of "Skintakers". Some believe them to be vile demons risen from the bowels of whatever hell these tribes believe in, other that they are the vengeful spirits of the fallen dead come to exact vengeance. The truth however is far more disturbing....for in the few years after the Great war many civilians survived in the local Vault 44. What went on in that Vault over the centuries would be considered one of the gravest crimes imaginable if there had been someone to hold those responsible accountable for their actions though the time for such justice has long past.

These people were subject to an experiment that would involve exactly half of Vault 44's residents to be very slowly subjected to mental torture that would twist their views of reality and push them ever closer to sheer insanity whilst the other half was left untouched. This test was to see how the unaffected residents would deal with and contain those afflicted by the madness. For a long while the Vault and it's populace were able to barely cope but the boiling point was reached in the year 2187, when an error in the system maintaining the test malfunctioned and subjected 80% of the Vault denizens to the horrific mental destruction. Those still sane 20% were lucky enough to escape the vault with their lives though the terror of what they had seen in those metal halls would scare them forever and even be handed down to their ancestors, the tribe known as the Braves.

Today the Braves regard Vault 44 as the entrance to their faiths version of hell and believe that all who go in will never return and that everything that comes out is demon spawn. That is not to say that they are wrong however, as the system that maintains the vaults terrifying illusions is still active and the descendants of those less fortunate still roam the wasteland to this very day. Nobody knows for sure what they do to their victims, but those remarkably lifelike human masks they like to war must come from somewhere right?

Atlas - Perhaps we could say that the goal of the vault experimenters was to eliminate fear from the human brain and thus use it for military purposes like creating super soldiers. Madness was an unexpected consequence which affected almost all of the participants and led to the downfall of the vault. Despite the overwhelming failure of the project, there was some limited success with a select few, the ones that would escape the vault and eventually emerge into the wasteland as the Braves. Truly and absolutely fearless warriors interested only in proving their mettle by hunting large predators. Leaving the vault with a handful of power armors and weapons (military experiment vault, thus some military equipment was present) and locking within the depths of the vault their mad kin.

However, the Braves would be forever haunted by their old and not so fortunate kinsmen from the vault. The ones whose minds were warped beyond return from the experiments. Trapped in the locked but severely damaged vault (leaking radiation) for centuries, the inhabitants changed mentally and physically.

Sit in a fire with old Caravaneers near western Wyoming and you will hear rumors that speak of demons wearing human skin, that emerge in the night to savagely kill or kidnap wastelanders, never to be seen again. Could it be, that these Skintakers have finally found a way to escape their prison?

Calderiaän - Looks like we've also found one of the main quest for the Braves " Seek the truth inside vault 44" ^^

Cyratis - That is actually a very good idea, and it does fit in very well with the lore considering what was going on before the bombs fell...

And maybe the reason the Skintakers do what they do is because they eventually turned into ghouls and since they were already crazed maybe that counteracted the effects of going feral and so still retained some of their more civilized traits. As a result they couldn't stand looking at each other and resorted to wearing people-masks to hide their appearance and give the illusion that they were unchanged...