Fiends

The Fiends are a raider gang made up entirely of chem fiends, hence their name, in the Mojave Wasteland and New Vegas area in 2281.

Background
Vault 3 was once an ordinary and happy vault, but the water system started leaking one day and the lower levels were flooded, forcing its people to open its door to the outside to seek help. Unfortunately, the first people they came across were a gang of bloodthirsty, chem-addicted raiders, lead by a man called Motor-Runner, who were loitering in the near vicinity of the vault. The raiders took advantage of the vault dwellers' naivety and conned themselves into the vault, upon which they brutally slaughtered every inhabitant and took Vault 3 as their own. Having firmly rooted themselves in this safe haven, the Fiends have since steadily grown stronger, and they now claim a large part of the southwestern New Vegas conurbation as their territory.

They are unexceptional in every way, but there are a slew of them. The vault itself is wide-open, practically being a feral den for the Fiends and their huge packs of dogs. Whether it is murder, rape, or burning innocents for sport, these bloodshot-eyed Fiends are more than happy to bring their anarchy to this area, which has become a source of growing concern for the New California Republic. The Fiends are erratic and dangerous; their mental stability isn't helped by the fact that they are almost constantly high on chems, most of which are provided by the Great Khans.

Although they are widely hated by the NCR due to their unpredictability and chem addiction stamina/insanity, to the point of having a bounty put on their leaders heads, the NCR unfortunately can't do anything about them, due to the restriction of issued orders to hold the line around the area, along with the vault providing a fall-back point to the Fiends.

Organization
The Fiends have little organization, except for their occupation of Vault 3, often aimlessly roaming the northern Mojave looking for their next chem score or an innocent wastelander to jump. Violet, Cook-Cook, Driver Nephi, and Motor-Runner seem to be the most influential leaders, with Motor-Runner being the main leader that resides in and runs operations within Vault 3.

Outside, they are usually gathered around campfires where much of their scavenged items, such as first aid and ammunition boxes, can be found scattered around. Many raider camps are protected by makeshift walls and littered with graffiti. At times, they utilize traps in order to protect their shelter, as seen inside Zapp's Neon Signs.

Like many other raider groups, the Fiends split into small war-parties, usually between three to four members, which allows them to operate in an enormous portion of the outer New Vegas, aside from their main area of the western and south-western city.

Outside relations
The Fiends attack anyone aside from the Great Khans, who supply them with chems.

The Fiends are loosely affiliated with Caesar's Legion, who welcomes the constant trouble the raiders create for the NCR, and their Frumentarii regularly feed them with information of the NCR troop movement to maximize the damage the Fiends does to them, even going as far as to not attack any caravans marked by the Legion. Caesar himself, however, holds no love for the Fiends, as he especially considers their chem-abuse culture an affront to the Legion's principles. Seeing them as inferior fighters, he also plans to betray and eradicate the gang as soon as he is in control of New Vegas, rather than integrating them into the Legion.

The NCR, meanwhile, looks upon the anarchic Fiends with growing concern, as their activity remains an constant background threat to their military's local headquarters at Camp McCarran. It has become a big enough problem that Major Dhatri is putting bounties on the head of the Fiends' leaders. They are hated by most residents of Westside, as they are a constant danger to the settlement, going as far as to simply walk into peoples homes and kidnap them.

On the Strip, the Omertas also have some trouble with Fiends, as their secret gun shipments are occasionally compromised by Fiend activity.

While the Fiends are openly hostile towards almost all groups in the Mojave Wasteland except the Great Khans, they do seem to co-operate with a few certain wasteland inhabitants. Cook-Cook, for example, is known to have bought slaves from Saint James and Dermot.

Interactions with the player character
With a Speech check of 65, one can convince the main guard of Vault 3 that they are a Great Khan selling chems, which you can sell for 20 caps each or 22 caps with a Barter of 65.

Technology
The Fiends have an unusually large supply of energy weapons such as laser RCWs and plasma rifles, but also use conventional firearms like caravan shotguns, hunting rifles, and silenced .22 SMGs and utilize a few melee weapons such as rippers, knives, and pool cues. They dress in various raider armors and wear distinct helmets adorned with war painted ruminant skulls. The Fiends have also used the neon signs from Zapp's Neon Signs to erect a perimeter fence around their territory.

Behind the scenes

 * At one point during development the player would be able to actually work with the Fiends, explaining the cut dialogue for the Three-Card Bounty quest. You could allow the Fiends to break into Camp McCarran (referenced in some of the ending slides) and the player would be able to witness the consequences of that action in cut post-Hoover Dam gameplay.
 * Spare Us the Cutter
 * There is an unused script called FiendTestArmorScript that makes the Fiends friendly if the player wears a certain piece of armour (almost certainly fiend armour). This is interesting, as the Fiend mini bosses (Driver Nephi etc) all have friendly dialogue to talk to the player which can never be heard as the Fiends are of course always hostile (save for when the player enters Vault 3 as a Great Khan). Altogether this suggests it was originally possible to disguise as a Fiend to be safe from them (and in danger from everyone else).

Appearances
Fiends appear in Fallout: New Vegas and the graphic novel, All Roads.

Bugs

 * Strangely, Fiends just fall out of the sky, such as in front of Crimson Caravan among other places.