Harold < section begin = " CXGamesSummary " / > Harold ( who goes by many names : The Lord , Him , The One Who Grows , Gives , and Guides , and The Talking Tree ) is an FEV mutant - originally a human from Vault 29 . He was born in 2072 , five years before the Great War . During an exploration of Mariposa Military Base , he was exposed to FEV . Initially , he mutated into what appears to be an ordinary ghoul , but was later distinguished by a tree growing out of his head some years later . Harold left Vault 29 in 2090 , and lived in the Hub around 2096 , in its Old Town around 2161 , in Los around 2208 , in Gecko in 2238 , and in Oasis around 2277 . < section end = " CXGamesSummary " / > By 2277 , he is a gnarled face in a tree growing in the Oasis Grove . During his many adventures , he has encountered such influential people as Richard Grey ( later the Master ) , the Vault Dweller , the Initiate , the Chosen One , and the Lone Wanderer . Background . Early life . Harold was born in 2072 and was only five years old when the Great War began ( 2077 ) . He was forcibly locked in Vault 29 for protection . Harold ' s home , Vault 29 , was initially populated by young children which were brought up by Diana , a human brain connected to a supercomputer , who posed as a goddess to the vault ' s inhabitants . In cases of population unrest , a test subject would be chosen to be released from the vault early . The subject would return and tell the vault dwellers the condition of the world outside , and whether or not it was safe to leave the vault . Of course , the test subjects would never return , and this fact would deter everyone from wanting to leave again for a short time . Harold was one such subject , selected in 2090 . He was released from the vault , stunned by the security system and picked up by a robot to be taken to the Nursery , where Diana resided . At the Nursery he was given the choice of staying with Diana or exploring the outside world . However , if he chose to explore , she would have to ' condition ' him , so that he could not reveal anything about her , or the Nursery to the world . Harold agreed to stay with Diana , but managed to escape . During his travels he kept the Nursery a secret because he felt it was his duty to the world to keep such a future ' gift ' intact until the world was ready for it . Merchant career . After leaving his home vault when it opened and its inhabitants made their way out into the wasteland , Harold began a successful career as a merchant , venturing across the wastes . Eventually he became an important player in the Hub . He began to notice the increasing frequency of mutant animals attacking his caravans . Frustrated , he decided to deal with this by leading an expedition to Mariposa . Expedition to Mariposa . In the year 2102 when Harold was 30 years old , he and a group of other adventurers — among them a man named Richard Grey , who was a doctor living in the Hub who was equally perplexed by the strange mutants — tracked the mutant population and eventually found its source : an old military base that seemed to be spawning mutant creatures . Inside , most of them were killed by the mutants that littered the base as well as by its automated security systems . Harold , Richard and a few others made it fairly deep into the base , where they found immense vats filled with a strange thick , green solution ( FEV ) that seemed to be mutating the animals . A large robotic arm knocked Grey into a vat , where Harold assumed he died ( when actually , he became the Master ) . Harold himself was knocked unconscious . He awoke some time later out in the desert , already starting to mutate . A caravan eventually found him and brought him back to the Hub , where he settled into a destitute existence . A mutant down on his luck . He is now very old , sick , and he tends to ramble on a lot . Some of his information may be out of date . He can be cranky at times , but he likes to tell stories . The Vault Dweller first meets him in the Old Town section of the Hub , where Harold makes a living begging for spare change . In exchange for some money , Harold provides the Vault Dweller with a great deal of information , mostly dealing with the Mariposa Military Base , and Richard Grey , as well as some tactical information on the deathclaw that lives near the Hub , which Butch Harris , leader of the Far Go Traders , requests the Vault Dweller to deal with , as he is losing his caravans to it . Sometime between 2162 and 2241 , a small tree ( which he calls Bob , although he likes to joke that his name is Herbert ) began to grow out of the side of Harold ' s head . It is an entirely new species of tree - unique and special , just like Harold . Traveler of the Wasteland . After the destruction of the Master ' s Army , Harold left the Hub and became a traveler who visited various places around the wasteland . It ' s known that he traveled in Texas to Carbon where he had a sexual encounter with Carbon ' s prostitute , , and the ghoul - city of Los around 2208 . He wanted to have a good time in Los after leaving Carbon but the arrival of super mutants and the loss of his hand , his toe and his eye in the city changed the deal . The Initiate helped Harold to recover his parts so he could leave the city before its destruction . Harold ' s travels ended in Gecko in 2238 . Leader of Gecko . In 2241 , Harold is a very old but still spry - looking ghoul . The Chosen One runs into Harold in Gecko , the ghoul town not far from Vault City . After the destruction of the Necropolis following " Fallout " , most of the ghoul population of the town migrated far to the north to form a settlement around an old nuclear power plant built by Poseidon Oil before the Great War . Anyone else would likely be killed by long term exposure to radiation , but the ghouls just find it pleasant . When Harold arrived , the plant was being run dangerously and stupidly . Harold quickly took over from the well - meaning but inept leaders of Gecko and got the reactor into some kind of working order . When the Chosen One arrives in Gecko , Harold asks him to help powerplant problem . The Chosen One still heard mention of Harold from time to time . Apparently , the tree growing from his head has gotten larger , and if rumors are to be believed , fruit is growing from it . The seeds are said to be remarkably tough , and several of them have taken root even in the most barren stretches of the wasteland . Back home . By the 2250s , Harold was ill . The tree in his head developed an unknown disease and was dying . Much to his surprise , Harold found himself affected as well . He didn ' t think he was going to die , but , he just didn ' t feel right in the head . So , he set out on a quest for a cure . Naturally , he didn ' t have an easy time of it either . People just didn ' t seem to want a mutant around any more . But , Harold didn ' t let that stop him . He persisted in his quest until he came upon the Twin Mothers tribe , which originated from his home , Vault 29 . Much to his surprise the tribe took him in and accepted him as he was . He explained his quest to the tribal leaders and was told that they would consult their goddess . Days later , Harold was approached by the tribal shaman and given a potion to drink . It was a foul concoction , but it worked . Bob , the tree , got better and was happy again . Harold couldn ' t let such a good deed go unrewarded , so he offered to help the tribe in any way that he could . They smiled at him , and thanked him , but declined his help . " The goddess will provide , " they always said . Harold said that he would like to pay his respects to the goddess , and was taken to the tribal shrine to be granted a private audience . He wasn ' t really surprised when the projected image of a woman appeared before him , but he was taken aback when she told him where he could find her . His return to the Nursery was a moment of joy for Diana and a ' new experience ' to him , as much of his early memories faded with age . Harold traveled to the Nursery and spent considerable time there , He even considered settling down and spending the remainder of his day in the tranquility of the gardens . However , eventually he left and traveled even further east . If the Prisoner gives Diana the information on the FEV and the New Plague from the Boulder ZAX , Diana will be able to create a cure to the New Plague virus in the form of a small fruit , by genetically engineering it from Harold ' s tree . Oasis . Harold eventually found himself overwhelmed by the growth of Bob , and he became rooted to the ground during his travels in the northern Capital Wasteland region . Here , he was discovered by several people who began to worship him as a god , forming a small and exclusive cult , known as the Treeminders . Bob began to blossom , and many plants grew in this area , which became green with life . During this period , Harold developed a mutation which enabled him to " see " the area around Oasis , through the very trees that came from Bob ' s seeds . He would use his new found ability to bring in wanderers , all the while hoping one of them would put an end to his troubles - unfortunately , the Treeminders ' strange ways , and insistence on using an intoxicating , potentially poisonous " sap " ( as a " purification " ceremony ) drove off most of the wanderers , many in worse mental shape than they were prior . His persistence may pay off should the Lone Wanderer come into view . On Harold ' s orders , the Treeminders can allow the Wanderer safe passage into Oasis . If the Lone Wanderer meets Harold , he reveals his true identity and begs for a merciful death after being stuck in the same position for decades . Although commanding the Treeminders to perform questionable deeds for his own amusement provided some entertainment , it did not last . The other dwellers of Oasis either ignore or misinterpret Harold ' s wishes as a moral and spiritual test , much to Harold ' s chagrin . Thus , his only recourse is to ask the Lone Wanderer to take his life . However , two members of the Treeminders ( namely , the leader of the cult and his wife ) can be found arguing about Harold . The leader of the cult wishes for Harold ' s gift of plant life to be kept safe and confined to Oasis , while his wife wishes for Harold ' s gift to be shared and spread throughout the wasteland . They could ask the Lone Wanderer to accomplish their own wishes , and the Lone Wanderer can decide whether to carry out Harold ' s wish of death , the cult leader ' s wish of keeping Harold ' s spreading growth confined to just the Oasis or the wife ' s wish to spreading his glory across the wasteland . Through granting Harold ' s wish , the Lone Wanderer ' s skin will be as hard as Harold ' s . If the Wanderer chooses to keep Harold alive , they can tell Harold that he has been given a gift and must stay alive to save the lives of others . Harold , finding a new reason to live , replies that he was selfish to want to kill himself , and then asks Bob if he agrees . Harold finally says that he is at peace with himself and , for the first time in a long time , Harold is finally happy . Nature of Harold . To the untrained eye , Harold appears to be an ordinary ghoul . This is not so , however . Ghouls are the result of massive and / or long - term radiation damage to a human body ; Harold is a product of the Forced Evolutionary Virus . Unlike most people who are exposed to FEV , Harold did not become a super mutant , but is the result of a unique combination of radiation damage from constant low - level environmental exposure , indirect exposure to FEV ( it is unclear how Harold was infected with FEV as he blacked out for a while during his exploration of Mariposa ) and a fair amount of random chance . Thus he ' s not a ghoul , and certainly not a super mutant . To quote Tim Cain , " Harold is special . " Furthermore , Tim Cain has this to say on the subject : " " As for contact [ with FEV ] , any contact at all will infect the subject , but the amount of contact determines the result . For example , I imagine Harold had some contact with the virus , but he was not fully immersed in it , so he became a different mutant than the Master ' s subjects . Full immersion , of course , is the preferred method of infection , as it provides the virus a large surface area for infection . " " Another similar FEV - created , ghoul - like mutant is Talius . Harold ' s unusual behavior is treating Bob as if the plant were actually sentient . Although at no point does the plant indicate that it can convey feelings , Harold certainly is not stupid , and perhaps only crazy in the humorous sense — yet he still insists on hearing out the plant ' s opinions on certain matters that he might otherwise take seriously . Given Harold ' s new found ability to " see " through the trees that are descended from Bob through the use of extreme concentration , it may not be much of a stretch to suggest that both are deeply linked in some unknown way , almost certainly as a result of FEV exposure . Because of his mutation , it is no surprise that Harold is afraid of fire . Despite his appearance , Harold is a kind - hearted soul with a comical personality . He has made many friends throughout his travels , potentially including the Vault Dweller , the Chosen One and the Lone Wanderer . He is also good with kids , as evidenced by his friendship with Sapling Yew in Oasis , of whom he is particularly fond . Notes . In " Fallout " , Harold ' s " Tell - Me - About " on vaults leads to his explaining that the vault he originated from failed , due to an overabundance of vault dwellers , and a lack of food to sustain their numbers . This actually corresponds to the description of Vault 27 in " Fallout Bible " , which is not canon material . This vault was to be deliberately overcrowded by twice the sustainable amount , as opposed to Vault 29 as it ' s described in " Van Buren " , not canon either . This means the official fate of Harold ' s home is the one he tells .