The two slave traders in New Vegas: How reading the lore in a game may make even the simple act of killing much more cathartic Oruç Dim Follow Dec 25, 2018 · 2 min read

*This article contains spoilers for Fallout: New Vegas.*

There are two characters in New Vegas that wouldn’t catch your attention in any way during a playthrough in which you don’t find their ledger: Saint James and his partner, Dermot. These two arrogant characters hang out near the Casa Madrid and act quite hostile to the player (Saint James tells you to ‘fuck off’ everytime you exit a conversation with him). They act as if they are prospectors, but the truth about them is actually quite a bit more darker, a truth that you only know about it you have a habit of reading through the lore of a game.

To complete their quest, The Coyotes, you only have to find Dermot’s ledger, but you don’t have to actually read it. Solely having it infuriates Saint James and results in combat, which, in turn, results in the player killing both of the characters. That is to say, if you do not read the ledger, you will not know what caused those characters to react so strongly to you having it.

The ledger contains the details of Saint James’ and Dermot’s terrible deeds; namely, how they sold slaves to Cook Cook to be raped and eaten by him afterwards (yeah, Fallout: New Vegas can get really dark, just like Fallout 1 and Fallout 2). If that was not terrible enough on its own, they sold not just adults, but also children (you can find the full transcript of the ledger here). Simply taking the time to read their ledger makes blowing their brains out (or blowing them to bits, as I did) much, much more cathartic.

Taking the time to read to lore expands your knowledge about the game, this much most players know; and the ones who don’t care about the world won’t simply read the lore and they are generally more concerned about the action being good and, doing their own thing. What these players are oblivious to, is the fact that sometimes taking time to read the lore makes even the simple act of killing much more cathartic and satisfying. If someone is playing games to relieve stress, reading the lore while playing might make them further relieve their stress through adding more context to their actions, and this also includes killing.