Eleanor Bennett

Eleanor "El" Bennett is a ghoul living in the Manhattan Wasteland in the 2280s.

El is a pre-war ghoul, having survived the Great War within the walls of Vault 215. She was a founding member of the town of The Battery, and one of the most prominent citizens in the region of Atom's Drop.

## Background

Before the war, El was a New York City native. She grew up in The East Village in New York City. She was the only child of a single father. In her childhood, she spent a lot of time in her father's pawn shop and her grandfather's repair business. She was always a quick thinker and was good with her hands. She entered the workforce at fifteen so that her father could retire from his shop in the face of rapidly failing health. Her father died just shy of her 18th birthday, and she lived with her grandfather for some time until his death in 2072.

### David & Luke

After her grandfather's death, El was able to spend all of her time working. She worked in a repair shop during the day, and in a bar most nights. One evening, she met a stock exchange worker named David in the bar she was working in. The two had little in common, but they ended up going home together. After a very brief relationship, El fell pregnant. David married her, and the pair welcomed a son named Luke in 2073.

David didn't live the idea of his wife working, so El spent most of her days at home reading books or tinkering with broken appliances she'd pick up at second hand shops. She'd come from a lower class family and hadn't been able to go to college, so she took whatever opportunity she could to learn. She dreamed of divorcing David and taking her son Luke to live up near Central Park. She wanted to open her own shop like her father's or grandfathers.

Although she didn't truly love David, she adored being a mother, and she loved her son Luke more than anything. And it was because of this that she agreed to try for a second child with David. She fell pregnant for the second time in August of 2077. During a routine ultrasound appointment, David spoke with a Vault-Tec Representative located outside of the hospital. El didn't love the idea t first, but she eventually agreed to it on the grounds that she and Luke could move in immediately, while David stayed in their own apartment so he could stay close to work.

El and Luke moved into Vault 215, located in Battery Park. They were early admissions, moving in just after the first of October in 2077. El quickly adapted to Vault Lifestyle. She made new friends, bonding over the fact that they were all expectant mothers. Upon moving in, she and Luke were also assigned a Mr. Handy Robot, who El designated as Hogarth. He quickly became a member of their family. David came and stayed in the Vault on weekends, and spent the week in the office above ground. El found this arrangement very agreeable, since she could be away from David, as well as take a few classes about post-nuclear living within the Vault.

### The Great War

On Saturday, October 23rd 2077 at 9:42 am, the first nuclear strikes of the Great War landed on the island of Manhattan. Vault 215 was immediately sealed. The Vault immediately sprung into action, with more robot units being deployed to help guide the inhabitants into their new life sealed underground. El never spoke of David again, knowing him to be dead. Even though the New York Stock Exchange was closed on Saturdays, she knew that David was at the office that day. While other inhabitants around her went into mourning, she stepped up as something of a leader among the expectant mothers.

### Vault Life

Over the course of the next few months, routine sets in. With her son starting pre-school in the vault, it left her a lot of time to herself. She read more books, starts tinkering with her appliances and fixing her neighbors things. She quickly established herself as something of a handy-man, though this couldn't last as she progressed in her pregnancy. She also spent a lot of time talking to Hogarth, her assigned Robotic aid. They became very good friends.

As her own due date drew near, El started to notice something odd within the vault. Babies were starting to be born, and something was happening to the mothers. Within the vault, mother mortality rates seemed to be very high. After her neighbor Lynn went into labor, she never came home- But her daughter Penny did. Only now, Penny was simply in the care of Lynn's Miss Nanny Bot, Delia. When El pressed Delia for information, all she learned was that Lynn had simply died in childbirth.

El started keeping a list of all of the expectant mothers in the vaults, and their due dates. She also kept record of their husbands, who seemed to be vanishing at similar rates. It didn't take long for El to realize that something really wasn't right in her home. She would talk about this with Hogarth, who sympathized with her worries.

### Revolution

When there were only fifteen women left in the vault, El decided that she wasn't going to let whatever's happened to her friends and neighbors happen to her. She starts organizing with the others, mapping out where any potential weapons and things could be. The plan was to go to the Overseer and get to the bottom of things. This proved to be difficult, since the overseer seldom left her apartment after the birth of her own child.

While in the planning phase, Hogarth was taken in for servicing after he faked malfunctioning. It was in this servicing that he learned the truth about the vault. As soon as El's baby was born, she would be killed and he would be replacing her as Luke and the new baby's parent. He immediately told El about this upon being returned and she decided that they had to spring into action before the lost any more people.

The remaining women and many of their robots squared up for a fight, arming themselves with kitchen tools and improvised weapons. They stormed the Overseer's office, confronting her on what's really going on in their home. It's revealed that the overseer not only killed her own child, but also had a hand in killing other mothers, fathers, and even a few children within the vault. In the ensuing argument and fight, the Overseer in a fit of post partum rage and psychosis, prematurely opened the main door to the vault, flooding the vault with radiation. El took initiative and took out the Overseer, and with the help of the others, the door was eventually closed.

### Ghoulification

Within hours of the door opening, people started to fall ill from radiation poisoning. Two days after the uprising, El went into premature labor and gave birth to a stillborn daughter who she named Evelyn. Over the course of the next few weeks, El and the others slowly were transformed into ghouls. They did their best to care for the children and infants with the help of the robotic aids, but the children did not fair well. Within a week, all of the children including El's young son Luke, had perished.

Most of the mothers managed to maintain their humanity, though a few of 215's inhabitants eventually fell feral and needed to be dispatched. Those who went feral as well as all of the other deceased victims were cremated.