The Interloper

The Interloper and the Firstborn of the Wood are titles which may refer to a large creature worshipped in Appalachia.His birth The being writhes listlessly within the deepest chamber of the Lucky Hole Mine, an abandoned mining operation on a cliff overlooking Watoga, where it is cared for by the Followers of the Winged One.
==Background==
===Lucky Hole Mine===
At some point before the war, a strange old woman visited the closed mine, and was turned away by the security team when she asked for a tour. Shortly thereafter, the mine's parent corporation sent the order to cease operations permanently. Immediately following this, the woman returned with a larger group, asking again for a tour. After this, people were spotted lurking around the premises at night, and locks were found smashed. Before long, the understaffed security team fled Lucky Hole Mine, explicitly surrendering it to this unknown group.Lucky Hole Mine terminal entries 
Following the mysterious woman's first visitation, a guard telephoned Allegheny Asylum to inquire about missing patients. This detail places these events no later than March of 2061, when the Asylum was shut down.Herald editorial on Allegheny Asylum
===Omen===
On October 22, 2077, the very eve of the Great War, the Cult of the Mothman set out from faraway Point Pleasant to take shelter in the Lucky Hole Mine.
The cult had conducted a ritual to summon the Mothman, a harbinger of calamity.Sermon: Summoning the Mothman Brother Charles experienced a vision of flood, and proclaimed that the Mothman issued a warning to the cult: seek high ground or perish.Sermon: Impending doom The preacher declared that the cult must stand on their rooftops and wait for the flood to pass, and that to disobey these instructions was an offense to the Mothman. 
Then, for uncertain reasons, the group abruptly travelled across the state to the Lucky Hole Mine, and began to live there as the surface world was torn asunder by nuclear war.Exodus Decades later, the Enlightened would present the narrative that it was Charles who guided the group to the safety of the mine in a tome titled Exodus, but no contemporary evidence of this has been found.
===Jeff is summoned to the mine===
An apparent mothman cultist, Jeff Lane, remained in Point Pleasant after the war. He left one holotape at his home in Point Pleasant, and one near the entrance of the Lucky Hole Mine. In the former, Lane declares his fascination with a being he calls "the Interloper." He felt he had previously harbored the notion as a "false memory," until he was told of this being "made real, deep underground" by a mad storyteller. Lane disregards the Mothman as a mere mortal creature, more similar to the human race than the Interloper and the "unknowable horrors" hidden within the subconscious mind.Interloper
Jeff Lane arrived at the Lucky Hole Mine after the War, separate from the rest of the Cult of the Mothman. He made camp at the entrance of the mine, and assessed that although he sees abundant evidence that others have also heard the Interloper's call, the entity has summoned him alone in the end. He believed the Interloper had called to him the previous night, "in visions more real than the senses." Lane further stated that the Interloper had chosen him as the "conduit of the unknowable," and declared "together the hidden reality becomes manifest at long last."The Chosen 
After recording this tape, he disappears from history.
===Darker worship===
As the cultists waited for the fallout to clear, some members "turned to darker worship," in a great schism which split the cult in twain. One group left the mine, ostensibly to serve the Wise Mothman. They began to call themselves the Enlightened, and founded a church called the Lantern somewhere outside the state.
However, most remained at the mine, and continued to revere the same red-eyed "holy" mothman icon they had before the war. They were guided by a woman known as the First Priestess of the Wood in communion with entities such as the "Great Moth" and the "Firstborn of the Wood."His Priestess This sect have been known to refer to themselves as servants of the WoodCultist's final pleas and the Followers of the Winged One.Steven Scarberry's dialogueAccording to the series of notes spread throughout the mine, supernatural events occurred as the cultists inhabited the location, including the formation of a spring from which the cultists could drink.His springs The notes mention that blood "wept" from His branches, and that He taught the cult to share. The being supposedly also told His worshippers that the faithless would deny them entry into the mine three times, before He would open the way.His home
===Current history===
By 2102, the dwellers of Lucky Hole Mine had all fled the state or died. The creature lay untended in the bowels of the mine, which was infested with various vermin. 
In 2103, the cult returned to the mine, where they continue their inscrutable rituals to this day. They kneel before the Interloper and praise him with arms raised high. The being itself rests in an obscure chamber, littered with jars, which possibly serve as a means to render blood unto its branches.His blood
Across Appalachia, these "Followers of the Winged One" built new shrines and fortified old ones. The feral red-eyed "holy" mothmen do visit them, and large clutches of mothman eggs can be seen at many of these sites. Cultist locations are instantly recognizable by the totems they build, fashioned primarily from roots and bones, identical to those found in the lair of the Interloper. 
==Characteristics==
=== Physicality ===
The Interloper is a large dormant plant-like creature, with skin resembling stripped bark. Most of its biomass is in its tangle of "branches," and the furled pair of misshapen legs at the opposite end of its being. Its midsection appears to be an oversized humanoid torso, and it has several hand-like appendages protruding from its head and back. The place where the branches connect to the midsection resembles a mouth.
The creature will bleed if struck by the player character. Its tendrils, although rigid, occasionally move as a group, like a bush blown by wind. They seem to clench weakly and brush against the dirt.
=== Lair ===
It stirs, catatonic, on the floor of a foggy lair only accessible through a series of hidden passages. This obscure chamber is littered with jars, skeletons, and corpses. A sickle rests on the ground by the Interloper. Several effigies and totems have been fashioned from roots here. In the ceiling of this cramped space, five art deco face sculptures loom in a semicircle, as if observing the Interloper.The chamber seems to be full of strange sounds, which change depending on where one is standing in the room. Distinct elements include insectoid buzzing, insectoid chirping, rumbling, a droning hum, a ringing chime, and a distant clattering of bells.
One of the totems in this room is a skeleton with the head of a stag mounted on a small obelisk, with moss hanging from it.
==Notes==
* The Interloper is a static object, and does not have any interaction with the player character.
* This creature is never specifically referred to as "the Interloper" in Fallout 76. The name was ascribed to the creature by fans as a logical conclusion of the holotapes Interloper and The Chosen. However, it appears this naming convention was continued in the name of the Visitor, and the name "Interloper" would later be used for this creature when it appeared in Modiphius Entertainment's Fallout: Wasteland Warfare.
** Jeff Lane only seemed to refer to the Interloper as an "entity," ascribing it no physicality whatsoever. In fact, he expressed a fascination with pursuing "great entities" and "the unknowable horrors in the peripheral vision of our subconscious minds." He considered the Mothman a mundane creature, and was disinterested in pursuing it for this reason.
** Jeff claimed that the Interloper is capable of "calling" people through "visions" and mentioned that "the end of the world has awoken... something."
** He also called the being a "watcher." The creature has no apparent eyes or face, but five identical sculptures are arranged in chorus above the creature, as if silently watching it.
* Very few characters have invoked the Interloper by name.
** Aside from Jeff Lane, the supposed "story teller [...] mad by any reckoning" was the only other character to speak of "the Interloper" until the Night of the Moth update.
** The Enlightened, a faction introduced in the Night of the Moth update, briefly acknowledge the Interloper in a book titled False Gods of Appalachia. Wise Nathaniel the Shadowed writes the following: "We who would learn at the chitinous knee of the Wise Mothman, who hear his Truth and Observe the coming and going of him, must speak not of the Interloper. There is no fouler deceit than one garbed in truth. Shun its call, for it can bring only darkness." 
*** They also describe the Interloper in Catechism of Wise Hilary the Scourge as an unknowable thing which turned mortals away from Truth with its "song" or "Call."
** The Vault Dwellers may ask Brother Scarberry, who was born into the Followers of the Winged One cult, about the Interloper. In a hushed tone, he responds: "I- I know not of who you speak. That said... It is in your best interest to drop this line of inquiry. Please. I beg of you. The response will not answer your questions. It only adds more."
* The Interloper's lair is littered with empty jars. Jeff Lane's studio apartment in Point Pleasant is littered with jars of sugar.
* The face sculptures in the Interloper's lair are identical to the buried faces revealed at Tanagra Town and Dunwich Borers. The same faces appear on pre-War architecture at places such as the lobby of RobCo Research Center.
* Many crystal veins can be found throughout the narrow caves surrounding the Interloper and nearby to the Nave within Lucky Hole Mine. From a geological standpoint, this shows the Interloper's location within the mine to potentially be one of the oldest parts of the entire Appalachian range, as the most ancient of all Appalachian geology are crystalline rocks, at roughly 500 Million to 1 Billion years old. Additionally, many lead veins can be found, which suggests at one point in the very distant past there was quite a high amount of either uranium or thorium present in the area.
==Appearances==
The Interloper appears . It is also available as a printable figurine for , where it acts as a terrain piece, and has no rules for game use.
==Behind the scenes==
* The game files define the creature as an actor mesh and designate it "gutpuker."meshes\actors\gutpuker\gutpuker01.nif
* The Interloper shares some characteristics with the Veggieman, an obscure cryptid reportedly spotted in West Virginia in 1968. The creature was described as seven feet tall, made of plant matter, and telepathic. The creature purportedly hypnotized a man with its colorful eyes while it drained his blood with thorns on its fingers. This was the only reported sighting of the Veggieman.
* "Interloper" as a word is commonly understood to mean someone or something that is present in a place in which it is unwanted or not supposed to be present. 
==Gallery==
===Fallout 76===
FO76 Lucky Hole 7.png
FO76 Lucky Hole 9.png
FO76 Lucky Hole 14.png
FO76 Lucky Hole 3 (1).png
FO76 Lucky Hole 5 (1).png
FO76 creature interloper waster01.png
FO76 creature interloper waster02.png
FO76 creature interloper waster03.png
FO76 creature interloper waster04.png
FO76 creature interloper waster05.png
FO76 creature interloper waster06.png
FO76 creature interloper waster07.png
FO76 Interloper watchers.png
===Fallout: Wasteland Warfare===
FOWW,TheInterloper.webp|The Interloper in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare
FOWW,PrintAtHomeTheDeepSet.webp
==See also==
* Visitor
== References==
Category:Fallout 76 creatures
Category:Fallout: Wasteland Warfare creatures
Category:Fallout: Wasteland Warfare terrain
Category:Mythical figures
ru:Чужак (Fallout 76)