The Wild Wasteland: #1 The Wendigo(Part of The Boston Bugle Issue #22)

Hey there everyone, I hope you’re enjoying the new issue of the Boston Bugle, of which I’m proud to say that I am on the editor team! This Wild Wasteland appeared in this months installment, but can be found here specifically.

I hope you all enjoy, yours truly,

-Valentine Detective Agency.

◤ The Wild Wasteland ˊˎ˗

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❝ Few creatures, real or imagined, terrify West Virginians quite like the Wendigo. Possessing alarming speed, razor sharp claws and an insatiable hunger for raw flesh, it is truly the stuff of nightmares. ❞

—A Fallout 76 Loading Screen Tip

Hey there Wastelanders, it’s the Valentine Detective Agency, here to share a tidbit of Fallout Universe Lore in the Boston Bugle, a column called, The Wild Wasteland. This piece of lore is very much centered around a real world belief, that of a creature that is as mysterious as it is evil.

This creature is, the Wendigo.

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In the real world the Wendigo is an Algonquian Native American Belief. It is said that the Wendigo inhabits the forests in much of Eastern and Central Canada, the East Coast of the United States, and certain areas within the Midwest of the United States. Tribes that majorly believed in the Wendigo are, but not limited to, the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu. This creature is associated with famine, death or murder, winter, greed, and destruction(both literally and of cultural norms).

Wendigos are seen as either a monster with the characteristics of a human, or a human that has been made into a monster by an evil spirit. These evil spirits that are or create the Wendigo are cannibalistic in nature, feeding off of the peoples of the Northern Woods.

It is said that people are possessed by a Wendigo spirit when they are desperate for food, and, when no other option presents itself, their fellow man becomes their next meal. They will undergo a transformation, becoming a monstrous shadow of their former self.

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In the Fallout universe the Wendigos are created from humans that were mutated by radiation, into the deformed, man-eating creatures you encounter around Appalachia. They appear to be unnaturally lanky, with a distended stomach and long claws. They spawn in every region except The Forest. So now you can feel a tad safer as you roam around in The Forest among the hordes of killer robots, ferals, and scorched; just peachy. But, getting back on topic, there are five different variations of the Wendigo that appear in Fallout 76:

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Wendigo - 390 HP

Ravenous Wendigo - 525 HP

Progrenitor Wendigo - 650 HP

Glowing Wendigo - Unknown HP

And

The Scorched Wendigo - 900 HP

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Special Loot that is dropped is fairly dynamic, so you’ll never get the same thing twice, but the base loot that is dropped is the junk item called Wendigo Teeth, which appears as the lower jaw of the creature, and the junk item Loose Screws. Since screws are a precious commodity, it would make sense that they would spawn on a relatively dangerous and elusive creature.

There is also a location known as Wendigo Cave, which is within the Savage Divide, East of the Autumn Acre Cabin, South of the Atlas Observatory. In the Wendigo Cave you can find a Wendigo, as well as find a note titled “Soldier’s Story,” a bobblehead, a random plan, a power armor frame, a holotape titled “Morris’s End,” Edie’s Note, and a Raider’s Note. Power armor, the bobblehead, and the plan will be randomized, so you never know what you’re going to get out of it.

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Fact or Fiction, the Wendigo is a very real, very encounterable creature in Fallout 76, and one not to be taken lightly, especially in groups. For now, that does conclude my column in this months Boston Bugle publication, but I hope to see you in the next installment of,

The Wild Wasteland