Strangler plant

Strangler plants or strangler vines are mutated plants native to the Mire in Fallout 76.

Background[]

Vault 94 meltdown[]

After the explosion and core meltdown of Vault 94's G.E.C.K., a thick fog poured from the vault's entrance and down into the surrounding forest.^[1][2][3] It rapidly changed the biome downriver into a swampy jungle and infested the ruins with strangler vines, transforming the region into the Mire.^[4]

A town which had been swallowed by a sinkhole before the War was raised out of the ground, allowing a creature trapped in the church to escape. Elsewhere, the neighborhood of Tanagra was raised into the sky by a mighty pillar of vines, and an odd statue was found in a chamber at its core.

Enclave field lab at Tanagra[]

In the pre-Plague period, the Appalachian Enclave took interest in the vines while researching the post-War ecosystem. They set up a field laboratory at Tanagra Town. The field laboratory quickly collapsed and all of the research was destroyed by an Enclave researcher who presumably went insane.^[5] An officer recommended sending a "burn team" after learning of the collapse of the lab after a scout reported finding "only a couple blood stains" and some intel.^[6]

Wether the Eclave burn team ever arrived is unclear. There are two destroyed terminals in the field lab, apparently smashed. The vines are reclaiming one of them. An ominous scrawled message can still be found found sitting on a table here.

Study in captivity[]

Ultimately, the Enclave acquired seed pods at Tanagra and brought them to Enclave Research Facility Site J, where the researchers were quick to note their remarkably fast growth. They further observed that researchers examining the vines experienced "a sense of euphoria" and "incomprehensible voices."^[7] By 2103, the strangler vines snaked into the pipe systems of the facility.

Free States emergency system[]

Also in the pre-Plague period, Raleigh Clay of the Free States set up an automated emergency system to warn wastelanders of strangler heart colonies in the area and request help exterminating them.^[8] The system continued to function after the faction collapsed and outlasted the Scorched Plague.

Post-Reclamation Day developments[]

In 2102, Vault Dwellers began destroying strangler hearts in the Mire whenever Clay's automated system called attention to them. They also discovered a major strangler heart living in the ruins of Vault 94, and quickly destroyed it. Some Vault Dwellers fashioned strangler heart power armor, designed to augment melee combat with a corrosive, poisonous quality.

When cultists returned to the Mire in 2103, they incorporated living strangler vines into their primitivist architecture. Bird chimes can be found hanging from strangler vines near Blake's Offering.

In 2104, Vault Dwellers accompanied by Aries destroyed large sets of strangler vines in the Harpers Ferry tunnel, which were blocking access to Bysshe Company's secret underground natural gas pipeline facility. To achieve this, they utilized a strong herbicide developed by Bysshe employees, which weakened the vines enough to cut through.^[9]

As of Night of the Moth, a strangler pod can be found growing up through the base of an offering bowl left by the Enlightened on the roof of the Mothman Museum.

Characteristics[]

Vines[]

Strangler vines are thick, red-orange parasitic vines. They are believed to induce auditory hallucinations,^[7] and they are very difficult to cut^[10] or contain.^[7] Some of them are controlled by nearby strangler hearts.

They infest and attach themselves to living things, including the Mire's large trees.^[11] They may infest trees and burst out of them at a higher point. In silhouette, the blooming end of a strangler vine resembles a hand, no matter what angle it is viewed from.

They infest nearly all man-made structures in the area, lifting and distorting them as they grow. With time, they can tear apart and lift buildings, or significantly raise entire portions of land. Strangler vines are strong enough to displace large vehicles and cargo crates. They seem to have a tendency towards consuming vehicles, including many bicycles, several buses, and an airplane. At the Tanagra field lab, they have thoroughly infested several computers.

Strangler vines also widely infest and grow upward from the land itself without any supporting structure.

Hearts[]

Strangler hearts are snarling jungle flowers with the ability to infest and control creatures, including mirelurks, feral ghouls, and Grafton monsters.^[12] Infested creatures act as a hive mind and swarm to defend the strangler heart. When the strangler heart is exterminated, the creatures cease to function and die.^[13][14] Strangler hearts can emit toxic gas and clench their petals to protect themselves.

One grows within the wreckage of a plane crash, with several immature strangler heart buds growing elsewhere on the craft. One existed at Vault 94 in late 2102, but it was exterminated by 2103.

Pods[]

Flourishing strangler vines may produce strangler pods. When mixed with other ingredients, these pods can be used to create compounds with significant healing properties such as super stimpaks. When high-powered fertilizer is flushed from Dyer Chemical and infused into the swamp, nearby strangler pods produce strangler blooms.^[15][16] As discovered by researchers at Vault 94, the rare flowers can be used to protect against radiation with greater effectiveness than Rad-X.^[17] Ella Ames was on the verge of using the blooms to create RadShield prior to her death.

Locations[]

The vines are abundant throughout the Mire, the region downriver from Vault 94. They dominate the Vault itself. Major infestation sites include the Excelsior Model Home, the gulper lagoon and the crashed plane. Several major sites are unmarked locations in the wilderness or along the roads. Tanagra Town is a towering pillar of earth lifted by strangler roots. They also infest the Harpers Ferry tunnel.

The vines spread to ruins on the north edge of Cranberry Bog, then infested the neighboring homesteads south of Watoga. After the Followers of the Winged One settled the Sacramental Glade in late 2104, a patch of strangler vines came to hang from the central platform, where a casket is found.

A sample taken from Tanagra escaped containment at the Enclave research facility beneath the Forest. To the south-west, a strangler vine can be seen on the roof of the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant.

Notes[]

• Parasitic radtoads appear to be strangler-infested. They can be seen attacking Landview Lighthouse in the Forest during Event: The Path to Enlightenment.
• At some cultist sites outside the Mire, such as Kanawha county cemetery or the abandoned shrine south of Crater, roots have violently torn through land and architecture. However, these brown-grey tree roots do not resemble strangler vines.
  
• When the Enlightened arrived at Point Pleasant in 2104, they set out a basket of offerings for the Wise Mothman on the roof of the Mothman Museum. The bowl contained many varieties of produce from across Appalachia. A strangler pod has grown up through the weaved plate, nestled among the other offerings.
  • The strangler pod is conspicuous when moving the cursor over the offerings, because its interaction reads "HARVEST" instead of "TAKE."
  • At the same event, vine barricades bind their ritual pyres, and must be removed hourly if the ritual is to be successful. Interpreter Clarence believes these vines serve his enemies.^[18] These vines are not red, and therefore cannot be the strangler plant. However, they do emit a pulsating red glow along strange glistening veins on their surface.
  • Additionally, the moss wrapped around blood troughs throughout Point Pleasant sometimes pulses with red light.
• One blooming vine within Vault 94 appears to be "reaching" towards the G.E.C.K.. Within the Enclave research facility, a blooming vine can be seen straining against the confines of its enclosure, evoking a human hand sliding down a window.
• The head of the Visitor, a catatonic red plant-creature, plainly appears to be the end of a strangler vine.

Behind the scenes[]

• The Tanagra Town terminal entries document an Enclave researcher named Rhodes developing insomnia and "mumbling about what the plants want him to do next," but the terminals were sealed in a room that could not be explored without exploits. At the time the lab was made accessible to players, the desk terminals were replaced with broken ones. One of them is overtaken by strangler vines.
  • The terminals were added in an unknown patch prior to Wild Appalachia, the first content update, at which point the room was made accessible and the terminal entries were removed from the game world.
  • It is unknown which terminal contained the entries, the smashed one or the infested one.
  • An Enclave officer recommended dispatching a "burn team" to the ruined lab,^[6] and the Enclave successfully retrieved strangler pods from Tanagra,^[7] but the note Didn't want to hurt them is still found plainly sitting on a table within the field lab.
• Strangler figs are a real type of parasitic tree that form a sort of shell around other trees, killing them.

Gallery[]

Strangler vines "grabbing" and lifting a shipping container at the abandoned waste dump

Strangler vines pulling apart the Excelsior Model Home

A plant overrun by strangler vines

Stangler vines at the Neighboring homesteads

Strangler vines snaking through the Enclave research facility pipe system

Observation window broken through at the Enclave research facility

At Blake's Offering

Magic: The Gathering card (Rootbound Crag)

Extended Art

Card art

MTG card (Wild Growth)

Card art

References[]