Dr. Edith Harper Chisholm
-2102- Resident Psychologist of Vault 76, honorary Responder, "field medic". -2287- Traveling researcher, Priestess of the Forgotten God, occult expert.
Once an esteemed graduate of Vault-Tec University and a close personal friend to the Chambers and Hopper families, Edith Chisholm set out on Reclamation Day alongside her fellow residents to explore and settle in the ruins of Appalachia together.
Throughout her journeys, she grew ever closer to Jaden Chambers and Beverly Hopper, coming to care for them as her own children, and soon enough found herself romantically involved with Janice Chambers. Though initially fully loyal to Vault 76's mission statement of "reclaiming the wasteland", Edith soon became disillusioned with The Overseer's colonial vision when the mysterious Scorched Plague threatened the health and wellbeing of her newly-found family.
Although curing mutagenic infections fell far outside her typical area of expertise, Edith worked tirelessly to formulate a treatment plan, utilizing the resources left behind by the extinct post-war factions and following the trial of breadcrumbs left behind by The Overseer to seek out a solution to this monumental problem. While she remained acutely aware of the dangers, fervently analyzing and documenting the unique "telepathic" properties of the Scorched Plague is likely where her morbid curiosity with the occult and the unexplained truly began.
In 2103, after the Scorchbeast Queen was slain, and a cure for the plague was finalized and distributed, Edith's fascination with unexplained phenomena began to turn into obsession. Though her many encounters with so called "cryptid" and "mythical" entities served to fuel this fixation, the main driving force behind Edith's predilections came after Beverly Hopper's exposure to an unearthed mysterious artifact granted her with telekinetic powers, transforming Beverly into a kind of Psyker.
At first, Beverly's powers were greatly beneficial to the survival of the family and to the returning wastelanders, crushing raiders and crippling the abominable mutant hordes who would have seen them all dead or enslaved. But as the months drew on, and as Beverly grew in power, so too did she begin to grow reckless and careless as well, becoming as much a danger to herself and those around her as to her would-be foes. A force of raw fury and power to be reckoned with.
By 2104, Beverly's growing instability lead to tragedy when her family finally confronted her with their concerns, lashing out against them and mortally wounding Jaden when he dove in front of Edith aand his mother, taking the brunt of Beverly's telekinetic blast. Realizing what she had done, Beverly fled across Appalachia, leaving a path of carnage in her wake. Solemnly, Edith and Janice swore to stop their adopted daughter by any means necessary. Relentlessly they pursued Beverly until finally cornering her inside an abandoned nuclear facility, where a final confrontation played out, ending with Edith trapped inside the reactor core and suffering intense radiation exposure. Though she miraculously survived and was rescued by Janice, over the coming weeks and months, Edith underwent the slow and painful transformation into a ghoul, while Janice's health merely deteriorated.
Broken and grieving and irradiated, Janice and Edith returned to the homestead they had built, caring for each other until the end. Desperate to find some form of "understanding" in the wake of so much pain and loss, Edith sought out spiritual guidance and found her way to The Enlightened, fully indulging herself into the field of paranormal and occult research, etching crude wings onto her face and proclaiming herself as a Priestess of the Forgotten God.
Years later, when the Brotherhood Of Steel's fledgling presence made it unsafe for Edith to exist in the open, rumours began to spread among the Appalachian settlers about a dangerous and powerful mad-woman wreaking havoc and destruction somewhere to the east of Appalachia. A rumour which Edith has been chasing ever since.