I do not own Fallout. If I did, this is how I'd do it.

Fallout: Orleans

Companion Characters

Neutral Companion

Jack: The Masquerade

Jack is the neutral companion from Vault 365, a Vault whose experiment revolved around… festive costumes. Given too few jumpsuits and reams and reams of festive costumes of various quality and the supplies to make more, this Vault experiment was not a failure, but certainly strange. Status within the Vault is measured and reflected by the quality of one's costume: while everyone is issued a costume as a child and a new one by lottery once they reach adulthood, the quality of one's costume determines how desirable or liked someone is. Those who win great costumes, or can make their own, are the 'elite': those with poor, worn down costumes are tasked with the worst jobs. Everyone wants to be a good with a needle, since making one's own costume can mean the difference between menial labor in the lower parts of the Vault and relative ease in the eternal party atmosphere at the top. The best gift a person can receive is a quality costume piece made by a parent or friend.

This is, in other words, the Halloween Town of Vaults. Everyone is trying to out-do everyone else in effect, and everyone's costume tends to reflect their role or nature. The Janitors wear slave-costumes. Vault Security wears monster suits. Socialites try to dress as sophisticated royalty or vampires: scientists as MAD scientists. The only person in a Vault Suit is the Overseer… who wears the most-prized 'Overseer Costume', and a Pipboy (or Pipgirl) mask.

Jack (sexually ambiguous: lack-of-armor 'underwear' is actually an under-costume that still hides gender) is the Vault Dweller who wants to leave. A mid-level person with a modest costume, Jack neither has it bad or great, but Jack wants to leave. In the course of the Vault Quest (in which the Navigator, upon making contact with the Vault, realizes what's going on and resolves a potential lower-caste revolt), Jack will be exiled from the Vault and can only return once Jack has brought back a thread dye chip and a hundred new costumes for the Vault, which should supply the Vault's costume needs for another century at least. Upon being kicked out, Jack is available for recruitment.

Jack isn't particularly bummed out about this exile, and is more interested in seeing the Bayou. Karma-neutral, Jack also doesn't care about the war or any of the groups in particular. What Jack does like is seeing all the different types of clothes people wear, and how the Vault rules don't apply when a dirty-dressed person can get away with telling off a frightening person in power armor.

Jack's companion quest really is part parody quest of FO1 in the search of a Dye Chip, and part the collection of costumes, a new semi-common (if not prevalent) type of clothing/armor across Orleans. More specifically, the player is supposed to turn over different types of clothing/armor to the Vault 365: every 'new' type of equipment (pre-war business wear is distinct from pre-war casual wear is distinct from etc.) is worth +5 for the first, +1 for duplicates, while Costumes (an armor class in itself: light, medium, heavy, costume) are worth +5 always, and the player is supposed to give 250 points worth to the Vault. This is a reward quest of the player's own volition, with new equipment is rewarded with caps/items, but Jack doesn't particularly encourage this.

As the quest goes on, however, Jack opens up more to the player for going through this effort. At the stages of 25%, 50%, etc, Jack gives inner thoughts: about how Jack dislike the extents of the costume-caste system within the vault, how Jack really wanted to leave, how Jack loves how even more diverse the outside world is, but also how Jack also loved the theatrics and atmosphere within the Vault, and how much love people put into their costumes. Jack's dilemma is balancing wanderlust to explore the variety outside the Vault with a love for the Vault.

Once you collect enough costumes, Jack will receive information about the location of the thread dye chip, stuck on oil platform off the coast. Upon retrieving and returning to the Vault with it, Jack is faced with a choice.

Persuading Jack to embrace and explore the diversity outside the Vault leads to post-game Jack starting a notable clothing caravan that tours the Bayou and Wasteland, showing and gathering exotic costumes and clothes for all to see. Jack returning to the Vault after wanderlust fades leads to Jack becoming a costume-maker in his own right, using Jack's needle skills to balance out the disparity within the Vault by making exceptional costumes for those stuck with the worst.

In case it needs to be blatantly obvious, Jack is something of a nod/parody of the traditional Vault-hero... complete with Epic Quest and gender ambiguity.

Jack's companion bonus is 'Festive Dress': it provides significant combat bonuses to the player and Jack when wearing costume-type armors, making normally poor pieces of equipment viable or even superior. At the same time, however, it reduces the effectiveness of non-Costume equipment. Persuading Jack to embrace the diversity of the Wasteland leads to a variation called 'Diversity' in which the costume bonus is increased but all equipment gets a gradually accumulating penalty that is reset by the player switching costumes. Convincing Jack to go back to the Vault and use Jack's costume-skills there provides the 'Creation' perk: Jack now helps you with equipment maintenance, effectively giving you the jury-rigging perk for all clothes (but not weapons). If Jack's companion mission is never completed, Jack is one day killed for his/her shoes.

As a companion, there's one other special asset that Jack brings to the player. As long as Jack is wearing a costume, the festive-themed raiders known as the Masquerade Raiders in Orleans won't attack when encountered, and the player can enter the Masquerade home without paying an entry fee.

Author Note:

Jack is my favoritist companion. Pretty much a hommage to wasteland heroes everywhere, with ambious character, the quirky Fallout sense of humor, and the post-apocalyptic hero's journey. I honestly don't know if Jack inspired Vault 365 or vice versa, but Jack is one of a kind.

The gameplay concept of costumes will be gone into later. Short version is, it's a chance for visual experimentation and variation in the wasteland, a sort of accessory or replacement armor system that you can wear instead of (or, sometimes, over) regular equipment for extra visual flair and status effects. Jack makes wearing costumes rather than combat armor a much more viable build.

Secret of the Bayou:

Vault 365 is an open vault but relatively closed society. The Vault opened during the era of the First Consul, but despite positive trade relations (clean water for clothes and dyes, mostly) the Vault had a culture that defied assimilation into Orleans. The Vault dwellers, enjoying the Vault more than the Bayou, continue to live within it. While some vault dwellers occassionally go out to visit Orleans, and tourists are allowed into the Vault, there are no beds or rooms to rent. All outsiders stay and sleep at the trading post/old boarding house outside the Vault.

In the current war, Vault 365 is stubbornly neutral. It trades with whoever can make it to the trading post, but it doesn't provide any strategic resources or military manpower to one side or the other. Content to close the door and keep the party going inside if it any faction gets any ideas.

There are no factional quests to break in or take over the Vault, and prompting a player massacre of the Vault will see the outside survivors enter after you leave and seal the door for another century or two.