Charon (Fallout 3)

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Charon is a possible ghoul companion NPC in Fallout 3. Brainwashed as a child he is blindly loyal to the holder of his contract.

Charon is noticeably larger than other human or ghoul characters, standing a full head taller than a normal NPC.

Unmarked quest: Hired Help

Main article: Hired Help

His contract can be bought from Ahzrukhal for 2000 caps (1000 caps if your barter skill is 50 or higher). Alternatively, you can also retrieve his contract from his employer, by killing Greta in Carol's Place. Either way he will loyally follow you. His very first act as your new employee will be to have a "chat" with his former employer, actually blowing Ahzrukhal's head off.

Karma requirement

Charon is the only NPC (along with Dogmeat) who can join you regardless of your karma.

Location

He resides in the Underworld as a bouncer in The Ninth Circle.

Equipment

Charon's default equipment includes a special shotgun: Charon's Shotgun, a Combat Knife and a Leather Armor.

His unique weapon, Charon's Shotgun, has infinite ammo as well as infinite durability. Like default weapons for other NPCs, this shotgun cannot be traded. Compared to the standard Combat Shotgun, Charon's Shotgun has MUCH higher accuracy and longer range with smaller magazine size (5 instead of 12). Charon will always prefer it over The Kneecapper or The Terrible Shotgun because although it fires fewer projectiles per shot, it's narrow spread makes it much more likely to hit with the combined total damage at all ranges.

Despite the fact that its look is identical to standard combat shotgun, Charon's shotgun appears to be a re-skinned Lincoln's Repeater; he pumps it after each shot, and it even ejects rifle shells similar to Lincoln's Repeater. If you give him a standard combat shotgun and ammo, he will use it and not pump it. It has been confirmed that this is in fact a re-skinned version of Lincoln's Repeater.

Charon sometimes finds a scoped magnum on his own, and also picks up some .44 rounds. An example of this is at Paradise Falls. If you kill Eulogy, he sometimes picks up his gun before you can get to it. He also does this in Smith Casey's Garage.

New weapons given to him do not have unlimited ammo/durability, so you will have to resupply him with ammo. Thankfully non-default weapons used by companions degrade very slow compared to normal usage by Player. Charon is specialized in small guns, sneak and explosives. But still can use powerful big guns and energy weapons.

You can equip him with new armor which he will happily wear. He knows how to use Power Armor even if you do not. If you managed to acquire a suit of power armor early on but are unable to equip it yourself, give it to Charon.

Any armor given to him does not appear to degrade with usage.

Total carrying capacity: WG 183.5

Combat

Charon seems to fearlessly confront any possible enemies. His perception is very good; he normally says something if enemies are approaching and you have not noticed. Normally he attacks from mid-range with his Shotgun. He is incredibly accurate with his unique shotgun. There seems to be little to no spread when he fires, enabling him to hit targets at medium range with it. He sometimes randomly runs around and ducks for cover.

If you give Charon a Chinese Assault Rifle he will use it over his shotgun or any other weapon he is carrying, however if give him a Shishkebab he will switch over to that weapon. If you tell him to switch over to ranged combat he will switch back to the Chinese Assault Rifle. If you fix the Chinese Assault Rifle before handing it over to him he can be fairly deadly with it.

Charon rarely uses his combat knife. However, giving him a powerful melee weapon like a Shishkebab is not always a great idea, because he tends to favor it over ranged weapons even when enemies are far away. Without the Shishkebab, he'll fire a few shots with his shotgun and surely kill most faraway enemies. But with the Shishkebab, he'll often wait for the enemies to get close and possibly harm the player character before attacking. He'll still use his shotgun occasionally, but he seems unable to pick the most appropriate weapon for the situation.

He is very resilient and is able to take a lot of damage before dying. Most enemies are usually no problem for him to deal with unless those enemies are Deathclaws, groups of Giant Radscorpions, or Enclave soldiers. Due to Charon aiming for the torso instead of the face, Mirelurk Hunters can also greatly harm him if the player does not assist.

If you give Charon the T-51b Power Armor and helmet he becomes extremely powerful and can easily clear rooms with 4 or so super mutants single handedly with very little problems/loss of health (even on higher difficulty settings). Another good reason to give him this armor as it is very hard to repair but does not degrade on Charon.

When sneaking or searching, he may draw his combat knife.

There is a trick to make Charon reload without time delay. Simply talk to him when fighting, ask for trade(force reload) or just close the dialog when he is about to reload. This can save him from dangerous situations.

Charon is the only follower who is expert in sneak and explosive weapons.

Dialogue

"Talk. To. Ahzrukhal." -- when the player attempts to make conversion with Charon before getting the contract.

"I don't care, talk to Ahzrukhal." -- rarely when the player says "I Just" in reply to his rudeness.

"This place is not safe."

"I don't like the look of this place."

"There may be dangerous here."

"Be cautious."

Combat

"What's the matter, can't stand the sight of your own blood?"

"That's it! That's it!"

"You want some of this?"

"You like that? You Bastard!"

"Where?"

"Bring it!"

"Over here!"

"Flank'em!"

"Had enough?"

"I've got your back."

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Keep firing."

"Help me."

"I am hit."

"Damn!"

"Need help on this one."

"What do we have here?"

"Fire in hole!" -- When throwing a grenade.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are ..." -- when searching for enemies.

"I am sure I heard something." -- when searching for enemies.

"Hello, anybody there?" -- when searching for enemies.

"Better him than me." -- when you performed one-shot kill (snipe without being detected).

"Good riddance." -- when you performed one-shot kill (snipe without being detected).

"Duck" -- when throwing a grenade

End of fight

"Good enough."

"Phew...that's end of that."

"Glad that's over."

"Rather him than me."

Statistics

Health: 240 → 315

SPECIAL

Strength: 6
Perception: 7
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 3
Intelligence: 3
Agility: 6
Luck: 5

Skills

Barter: 11
Big Guns: 15
Energy Weapons: 19
Explosives: 51 → 100
Lockpick: 19
Medicine: 11
Melee Weapons: 17
Repair: 11
Science: 11
Small Guns: 49 → 100
Sneak: 49 → 100
Speech: 11
Unarmed: 15

Trivia

Charon is most likely a take on the ferryman of the dead, Charon, of Greek Mythology, because he is in the "underworld". Charon is also the name of the ferryman of the river Acheron in Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy", the name being a reference to the bar the character appears in titled "The Ninth Circle", as in Dante's "Inferno" Hell contains nine circles. Charon is also the name of the moon that orbits the (dwarf) planet Pluto.
- Oddly, though, Charon's name is pronounced "Sharon" as opposed to the traditional pronunciation "Keran".

Notes

During the final mission, Charon will follow you and you can ask him to enter the control chamber of Project Purity. He will decline however, stating something to the effect of "Haven't I saved your ass enough times already? Not this time."

Stealthy characters can enjoy Charon's company due to how enemies that Charon opens fire on will likely ignore you, and during the fight the enemy will likely not put you into combat with them. This makes sneak attacks very easy, and opens the chance for sneak attacks with weapons that excel at point blank, such as the The Terrible Shotgun, a tactic that depletes a Deathclaw's health in half at the highest difficulty level.

If you steal anything from anyone at Underworld Charon will immediately attack you, and any other NPC's in your party will attack him for attacking you. Be careful while trying to loot/steal from Underworld with Charon in your party. It is possible it was his home and he has allegiance to it. If you have Charon as a follower and when killing anyone from Underworld he will call you a murderer and repeatedly tell you to stop or say "No!" but will not attack you because he is blindly loyal. Also, he will only attack those who have managed to hit you either by weapon fire or melee, and will not attack those that are simply fleeing from you, even though they show as red on your radar. If you were to fire Charon after this he will immediately attack you. Ironically, it is possible that if you murder anyone at Underworld he will go on a rampage and start killing all of the ghouls.(Possible Glitch)

Charon will occasionally disappear or stop following the player after certain events. See this article's discussion page for more details and possible solutions.

In the PC version of Fallout 3, you can use the console to make sure the character never dies. The character will, instead of dying, be rendered unconscious and recover after a while. Console command for Charon (Fallout 3): Template:FO3 Console

In Vault 87 you can request Charon to retrieve the GECK for you. The radiation is not a problem for him. Strangely though, if you already have Fawkes going to get it for you, he will decline (possibly to avoid them both getting it at the same time) but he will say that that is not in his contract rather than just point out Fawkes. Once you're whisked away by Col. Autumn, see the next bullet:

"Firing" Charon has a similar effect to telling Dogmeat to wait at Vault 101: Charon waits for you in Underworld. (The explanation for this is that the contract you purchased to obtain Charon is still valid, and he'll be available until the terms of the contract expire, or until there's a new owner of the contract.) Try the Ninth Circle, where you first hired him. He also goes here after the Vault 87 debacle.

After accepting the contract on Greta you cannot buy Charon from Ahzrukhal

Killing Greta before you talk to Ahzrukhal about Charon's contract will result in the removal of any dialogue options that allow you to acquire Charon's contract.

Charon will use grenades if you give him any, but he is rather lousy with them.

Unusually, Charon is about a foot taller than every other humanoid (human, ghoul etc.) in the game. It doesn't make him better than anyone else, as the height difference is purely cosmetic.

If you like to play slaver and mez some enemies to send them to Paradise Falls, Charon will seem almost too good at his job. One blast from his shotgun at close range will kill most raiders, and often this blast finds them before your Mesmetron shot will.

Like all companions, Charon cannot jump. This will get extremely annoying in the rocky outcroppings of the wasteland. The best way to fix this problem is nudge Charon off the edge of whatever rocky terrain you're trying to go down or try to find other nearby routes that can be traversed more easily. Another method is to get separated far enough from Charon: He will glitch to you.

Upon entering the courtyard of the citadel he may have his shotgun in his hand, this may be a result as there are weapons being discharged in the nearby area.

Bugs

if you give Charon the terible shotgun and some ammo after a few fire fights it seems like he has two terible shotguns one in perfect condition one with the condition that you gave to him (you can only take one so take the one in good condition)

Charon can disappear after the the rescue mission Project Purity. He is located in the tunnels. Go to the Citadel and there is a sewage grate on the ground outside the Citadel near the river. Back track the exact route you took to rescue the NPCs.

On the PC, XBOX 360 and PS 3 Charon will sometimes get stuck and fail to kill Ahzrukhal and thus not follow the player. So make sure to save before you buy his contract. If Ahzrukhal is not tending the bar when you buy his contract, Charon will get stuck trying to confront him. Wait until Ahzrukhal is awake and behind the bar to buy the contract. Sometimes it also happens that Charon gets stuck after killing Ahzrukhal and stands still beside his corpse. On the PC you can use the console to reset the variable that tells Charon to kill Ahzrukhal. Click on him in the console and use sv to see what variables he has. Set any that are set to 1 to 0.

A minor bug: when Charon spots an enemy at extreme range, he sometimes pulls his combat knife at the same time he gives his vocal cue (what he says seems to be random, but you can always hear the little "shing" sound of him drawing the knife out of it's scabbard), and it takes him a while to switch to something more appropriate. This seems to happen more in the Wastes, maybe because of longer encounter distances. He does this even when equipped with more powerful melee weapons. It also seems to be hit-or-miss regarding whether or not he'll pull out the Ripper for close combat when appropriate even if it's the best melee weapon he has, although he seems to prefer Shishkebabs or the Vampire's Edge and switches to those if he's carrying one of them.

(FOR PS3)Major bug: Charon may somehow lose his personal shotgun, happened during the quest for big town. Tried taking all his weapons away from him to get him to use it but he ended up fighting with his fists. The circumstances were: he was given weapons to hold but no ammo, occured inside the germantown police hq

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