Vault Dweller In a general sense , a vault dweller is any person who lives in one of the Vault - Tec vault s . When capitalized as a proper noun , the Vault Dweller is the player character in " Fallout " , most famous for defeating the Master and his super mutant army , helping Shady Sands grow into the New California Republic , founding the small village of Arroyo and fathering its elder ( who too would bear a child ; " the Chosen One " ) . Background . Regardless of which gender is chosen and how old the Vault Dweller is chosen to be on a scale of 16 to 35 ( making the Vault Dweller born around 2126 to 2145 ) , the Vault Dweller is canonically male as shown in the Book of the Elders , and is implied to canonically be Albert Cole due to Interplay ' s concept - art for the Vault Dweller and his appearance in " " , suggesting that the Vault Dweller is twenty - seven years old at the beginning of " Fallout 1 " ( making the Vault Dweller born in 2134 ) . The Mission . Vault 13 ' s overseer , Jacoren , sent the Vault Dweller out on a mission to find a replacement for the vault ' s broken water chip . After striking a deal with the Water Merchants of the Hub and obtaining a water chip from Vault 12 in the ruins of Bakersfield , the overseer told him that the amount of super mutants located in the area did not match up with natural rates of mutation . Believing that someone must be artificially creating the super mutants and fearing for the safety of the vault , he ordered the Vault Dweller to find and destroy the source of the mutants . The Vault Dweller soon found an old military base where humans were being dunked into vats of Forced Evolutionary Virus in order to be converted into super mutants . He destroyed both this base and the Master of the super mutants beneath the Cathedral in the Boneyard before returning to the vault , only to be told that he saved the lives of the vault and maybe even the human race but is forced out because of Jacoren ' s fear that everyone in the vault would want to leave . In Exile . After leaving the vault for a final time , the Vault Dweller wandered the desert , but never moved far from the mountains that shielded the vault from the rest of the world . Some other members of the vault , upon hearing of what happened , decided to leave the vault and join the Vault Dweller , following him soon afterwards . The Vault Dweller eventually found and rejoined this small group of former vault dwellers . Knowing little of the outside world , the group would almost certainly have died had it not been for the Vault Dweller ' s assistance . Two months later , the Vault Dweller headed north , to the great canyons , with a small group of vault dwellers and wastelanders and founded a small village . Initially , they would send scouts back towards the vault , to help others who thought like themselves , but that slowly came to an end . The Vault Dweller taught the others the skills they would need to survive and grow strong . Hunting , farming and other skills to feed them , engineering and science to build their homes , fighting to protect what was theirs . Slowly , they took the knowledge that the Vault Dweller had learned on his adventure and together , they learned to thrive . Over time , their rag - tag group had turned into a tribe . The Vault Dweller fell in love with one of them , named Pat , and they raised a family , like all of their tribespeople . The construction of Arroyo was completed on August 18 , 2167 . The Vault Dweller and Pat led the tribe which grew larger and stronger . In 2188 , their daughter , who would later become the village elder , was born . Eventually , she and the other children became the leaders of the community . Departure . On January 16 , 2208 , several years after Pat ' s death , the Vault Dweller wrote his memoirs . Soon after that , he vanished from Arroyo and was presumed dead . The Vault Dweller left the vault suit behind , folded on the bed , later to be placed inside the Temple of Trials . Some say the Vault Dweller was taken by the sky spirits , others say that the Vault Dweller felt it was time to move on and leave the elders to guide Arroyo to its destiny . After the One - Moon ( Month ) Cycle of mourning for the Vault Dweller ended , activity in Arroyo began to return to normal . Years later , the Vault Dweller ' s grandchild , later called the Chosen One , was born . After leaving Arroyo the only known place where he was spotted was the town of Carbon , where he is known simply as the Wasteland Stranger . There , he helped some of the people to hide from raiders and also helped the Initiate trace the remnants of the Master ' s army and some Brotherhood of Steel paladins , directing him to Los . What became of him afterwards is unknown , but it is certain he left Carbon and continued his travel in the Wasteland . Interactions with the Wasteland Stranger during his stay in Carbon can result in the Initiate receiving from him a . Additionally , the Initiate may find a Vault 13 flask in the Carbon Mill , at which the Wasteland Stranger remarks at being a " sentimental old fool " and offers a trade for it . Legacy . Besides Arroyo and the Chosen One , the Vault Dweller ' s journey lived on to the extent that he is still revered by a fair portion of the people in the Wasteland . His statue is prominently displayed in the New California Republic capital , Shady Sands . He is remembered under several names , including " the Vault Dweller " and " the Stranger " ( used by those who - while believing in his greatness - doubt he ever could have come from a vault ) . He refers to himself as " the Wanderer " at the end of his memoirs . Children who heard of his story would often play at finding Vault 13 , some of these children even grew into adults obsessed with proving the Vault Dweller ' s former home existed . For a time , President Tandi would even sponsor such adventurers , until giving up after many years of failure . Appearances . The Vault Dweller is the player character in " Fallout " . Aside from the original game , he also makes a cameo appearance in " " as an unlockable player character . Although he only personally appears in two games out of the " Fallout " series , the Vault Dweller has been mentioned in every other " Fallout " game up to date , except for " Fallout 4 " . Behind the scenes . He was also to appear in the canceled " Fallout " movie ( referred to as " Hero " in the story treatment ) , accompanied by three other people from Vault 13 - the Female Officer , Techy and Scholar .