Fallout : Warfare background " The following document is compiled from parts of the " Fallout Warfare " rulebook , available as part of the " " bonus disc . " It ' s the past . It ' s the future . It ' s a little of both . The " Fallout world " is not quite our own . Somewhere along the way , it diverged . It ' s still recognizably our world , but with some changes . One of which was World War III , which lasted a very brief amount of time , but was unbelievably destructive . More energy was released in the early moments of that war than all previous conflicts combined . Also released was a mutated form of FEV - the Forced Evolutionary Virus . A combination of the FEV and the radiation in the air , earth and water caused all sorts of havoc among the survivors . Mutant creatures , mutant humans , plague , death and despair — it was a really bad time . Not everyone struggled in the wasteland s . . . A few , a lucky few , survived deep in the underground Vault s , built previous to the war at great expense to the taxpayer ( and great profit to Vault - Tec ! ) This , however , is not their story . Many years after the devastation of WWIII , humanity ( and the mutant scum that appeared ) slowly began to crawl back out of the gutter of life . Of course , not everyone was particularly pleased about this . Many factions developed , and these factions moved into conflict with each other . This is a little closer to our current story . Wars in the " Fallout " world are no longer fought with ICBMs , large armies , directed particle beam weapons , navies , air forces and other implements of civilized warfare . It has been reduced to men ( and women ) armed with whatever is available , perhaps a knife or an ancient rifle , and fought with small numbers . Bands of combatants , little better than gangs in the worse cases , fight for territory , salvage and , of course , for blood . The Brotherhood of Steel is one of the few factions devoted to making the world safer for everyone ( even if everyone doesn ' t want it safer ) . The Mutant hordes , remnants of the huge super mutant army of the Master and the Unity , struggle to find peace amongst the very people they were designed to replace . Raiders , and their technological savant brothers called Reavers , fight over the scraps of civilization . The strange Beastlords roam the wastes , enslaving the will of mutant critters . And a new menace , one that truly puts the Steel into the Brotherhood , has been recently discovered . Is this robotic plague the bane of humanity or a key to the reconstruction of a better time ? Across the battered remnants of America , and around the world , factions fight over the scraps of their ancestor ' s folly . Survival is a constant way of life for those that still care . The War is long over , but the battle continues . . . Brotherhood of Steel . The Brotherhood of Steel ( BOS ) is a techno - religious organization , with roots in the US military and government sponsored scientific community from before the war . The BoS is mostly composed of the descendents of those military officers , soldiers and scientists , but it is starting to admit more outsiders to its rank as it grows . The BoS is divided into different ranks . Initiates are trainees who are expected to perform well enough in the training process to be promoted to Squires . After proving themselves , Squires are promoted to Knights . After many years of service and experience , the best Knights are promoted to Paladins - the pinnacle of the Brotherhood military . It is also possible to serve the Brotherhood as a Scribe . Scribes are responsible for copying the ancient technologies , maintaining the current technology and even experimenting with new weapons and other useful devices . Scribes rarely leave the safety of the BoS bunkers , but they are sometimes called into the field to examine a piece of technology or perform a task beyond the skills of the Brotherhood soldiers . The Mutants . The FEV combined with the radiation , more than the radiation itself , caused multiple mutational strains within the human species . The two most prevalent strains are ghoul s and super mutant s . The Master , a FEV mutated genius , was able to adapt the FEV virus to create the super mutants , while the ghouls are more of a " natural " mutation . Both ghouls and super mutants have fallen on hard times ( well , that ' s not technically true , actually ghouls are better off than they were 10 years ago , but they are still pretty brahmin slime to most people ) . They will occasionally work with each other to promote the Mutant Platform . Raiders & Reavers . The wastelands of Fallout are an unhappy place . Some people try to improve their happiness by lowering the happiness of other people around them . Others are there because they have a Cause . Both raiders and Reavers roam the ruins , challenging those that would threaten them . Rarely do you see raiders and Reavers in exactly the same tribe or gang . It ' s not completely out of the ordinary , however . Both lead similar lifestyles . Both have been known to make arrangements . Still , of all the factions in Fallout , you can very easily see raider versus Reaver battles ( or even raider versus raider , more often than you would think - it ' s sort of a self - balancing raider population control ) . Beastlords . Other mutations are more subtle . It is said that some mutants have the ability to reach within the minds of the easily impressionable ( animals , politicians and marketing personnel ) to control their very thoughts . This has not been proven by the Brotherhood Scribes , but the activities of those known as the Beastlords certainly lends some credence to these tales . Probably the most fearsome thing about the Beastlords is their control over the beasts . Secondly , they are fond of poison , which can cause problems for even the most stalwart of bands . A typical Beastlord wears armor made from animals . They don ' t shower very often , either . Robots . Very little is known about the Robots . They do seem to be a new type , perhaps of new construction . They are organized by function , and that implies a higher authority controlling them or at least rationing the types of robots available in any one theatre of conflict .