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The Order of Mysteries
General
- Action Girl: Every single one of the women was one of these. It's part of their training.
- Amazon Brigade: Shannon Rivers adopted women and only women into the organization.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Essentially, imagine if after the apocalypse a bunch of women dressed up as Wonder Woman or Batgirl and began shooting Raiders. That makes them no less effective in their role.
- Cool Mask: The Veil of Mysteries is a required part of the Order's uniform. It's also not entirely for show, as the veil itself literally acts as their personal ID cards, since the door to their secret base will flatly refuse to open if the person trying to enter isn't wearing one. Additionally, it's also part of their Required Secondary Powers, where it acts as protection from the hallucinogens released by their Phantom Devices.
- Cool Sword: The Blade of Bastet.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: How the Wastelanders initially saw this group of cosplaying vigilantes.
- The Cowl: All of them are based on Shannon Rivers' radio character.
- Invisibility Cloak: Their signature Phantom Device is a souped-up Stealth Boy that also causes localized frenzy when activated, allowing the user to slink away while their enemies tear each other apart. If used while wearing the Eye of Ra and having the Secret Agent perk card equipped, both the invisibility and frenzy effects can last up to four minutes.
- Posthumous Character: They were wiped out even before the Scorched Plague.
- Two-Fisted Tales: The Order takes its inspiration from this era versus more traditional Silver Age or Modern Day comic books.
- Vigilante Man: While they were dressed as superheroes, their actions were decidedly more lethal and Pulp hero-esque.
- We Help the Helpless: The entire goal of the organization was to protect individual Wastelanders.
Shannon Rivers
Voiced by: Claudia Christian
Formerly the Voice Actress for the Mistress of Mystery in the Silver Shroud radio plays, Shannon Rivers founded and led the Order of Mysteries, a costumed vigilante group.
- Action Girl: Travelled around the West Virginia Wasteland, fighting evil.
- Amazon Brigade: Founded one and called it the Order of Mysteries.
- Ascended Fanfic: An odd example of such but many Fallout players have dressed as Abraham Lincoln, the Silver Shroud, and Grognak the Barbarian before going around the Wasteland in-costume to fight for justice. Shannon Rivers is the first canonical example (aside from the Silver Shroud quest where it's an Invoked Trope of someone doing exactly that. Well, not-counting antagonists like the Ant-Agonizer and The Mechanist(s).
- Becoming the Mask: Decided to bring the Mistress of Mystery, a character she voiced for two decades, to life after the bombs dropped. She takes on all the mannerisms, traits and even the tactical preferences of the Mistress of Mystery, going as far as to make the Mistress of Mystery’s fighting style the combat doctrine of her Order of Mysteries.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Despite the insanity of adopting the Mistress of Mystery persona, she did a bunch of good for the Wasteland as well as created her own vigilante squad that terrified the local Raiders.
- Captain Ersatz: The Mistress of Mystery is essentially a female equivalent of the Golden Age Batman, with elements of The Shadow.
- The Cowl: The Mistress of Mystery is a pulp heroine in this mold, relying on stealth, subterfuge, mind games and surgical strikes to take down her enemies.
- Didn't See That Coming: She was understandably blindsided - and heartbroken - to discover that her own daughter was the one who betrayed the organisation and kill everyone else in it.
- Hope Bringer: The Order of Mysteries brought hope and the promise of a better tomorrow to much of the Wasteland for the duration of its existence.
- Posthumous Character: Is dead before the events of the game.
- Serious Business: Shannon took the Mistress of Mystery role very seriously. Before the Great War, she staunchly fought efforts by the higher-ups to derail the Mistress' individual importance by shoehorning in romance plotlines or male "saviors". When she believed she was going to become the Mistress in the Unstoppables television serial, she actually underwent a legitimate pulp heroine training regime, complete with firearms tactics, lockpicking, hacking, stealth, and martial arts, all so she could give a better performance! Naturally, after the bombs dropped, deciding to become a pulp heroine for real, and to found an entire order to assist her in bringing justice to the wasteland, was a natural step.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Desdemona from Fallout 4, as both are older women who lead good intentioned organizations that rely greatly upon secrecy, stealth and subterfuge to achieve their aims rather than sheer firepower and strength. Both rely on DIA equipment to do their jobs and both are betrayed by someone from within their group. And both of them are dealing with a catastrophic loss of too many members. And both of them are even voiced by Claudia Christian.
- Wag the Director: In-Universe; Back when she was an actress she went out of her way to ensure that the Mistress of Mystery didn't end up playing second banana to other male heroes.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Was once hot property but had been stuck in a voice acting role in a radio play for over two decades. And when that radio play made the jump to television, Shannon was cast aside for a younger, prettier and more popular actress.
Frederick Rivers
Voiced by: Patrick Dollaghan
The husband of Shannon Rivers, Frederick created the training facility under their mansion and all of the gear used by the Order of Mysteries, having first set it up to help Shannon prepare for what seemed like the obvious call for her to transition to playing the Mistress of Mystery in the upcoming Silver Shroud television serial.- Gadgeteer Genius: A lot of the basic materials came from other people — for example, the central computer was a completed-then-cancelled RobCo product — but still, Frederick literally built up the entire training facility and arsenal of the Order of Mysteries from the ground up.
- Serious Business: Frederick took his wife's role as the Mistress of Mystery as seriously as she did. To the point of using their wealth, his technological genius, and correspondence with another uber-fanboy to literally build a real-life training facility and Mistress of Mystery arsenal for her — as well as hiring instructors in everything from survival to unarmed combat... all to better prepare her for a TV acting role. When the bombs dropped and she decided to become a pulp heroine for real, naturally, he was with her every step of the way.
- Uncertain Doom: He's almost certainly dead, but what happened to him is not clear. His body is never found in any Order-related locations, nor is he mentioned in any of the holotapes made before or after Olivia's betrayal. We can't even be sure if the Scorched Plague is what did him in like the rest of Appalachia.
- Understanding Boyfriend: Husband, actually, but Frederick was nothing less than his wife's biggest fan.
Olivia Rivers (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
Olivia Rivers (top) holding the corpse of her mother Shannon (bottom)
Voiced by: Jan Johns
The daughter of Shannon Rivers, Olivia had never really gotten on with her mother, but joined her crusade when she founded the Order of Mysteries, if only due to lack of any other prospects.
- Action Girl: An even better warrior than her mother (unfortunately).
- Alas, Poor Villain: Although her fate is well-deserved, there is an element of tragedy in how her dying mother takes her in her arms as she's been fatally shot.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Olivia's personal diaries reveal that her relationship with her mother was strained even before the Great War, and she was already counting down the days to when she could go to college and escape her. When she found that her mother was not going to give her special treatment within the Order, well, that pushed her over the edge.
- Face–Heel Turn: Betrayed the Order of Mysteries in order to try and take over a Raider group.
- Gone Horribly Right: Successfully destroys the Order of Mysteries and is promptly betrayed by her allies.
- Hates Their Parent: Olivia had a very strained relationship with her parents, mainly her mother, even before the bombs fell. It's not made clear exactly why, but it became worse when she was essentially forced to stay with them in the aftermath, and learning she wouldn't get any special treatment in her mother's Order seemed to be the last straw, driving her to sell out the Order to the Cutthroat Raiders.
- It's All About Me: Olivia's biggest flaw is her obsession with her own status, and her resentment of not being afforded special treatment. It's the root cause of her failed relationship with her mother, and the reason that she destroys the Order of Mysteries.
- Karmic Death: Betrayed and killed her mother, along with all of the rest of the Order of Mysteries, and is betrayed and killed in turn immediately afterwards by the same Raider band she shacked up with.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Implied by her embracing her mother's body immediately after being fatally shot by raider Brody Torrance.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Her disabling of the Whitespring's renovation lockdown ultimately allowed the reformed Responders to move into the resort in 2104 and convert it into a refugee camp.
- Posthumous Character: Is dead before the events of the game.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: The Raider group didn't particularly care for her plan to take them over after the Order was destroyed.
- Self-Made Orphan: Was more than willing to put a bullet in her mother's heart herself after she decided to destroy the Order of Mysteries.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Olivia believed that just because she was Shannon's daughter, she had every right to be named her second-in-command in the Order of Mysteries. And then she believed that she could easily manipulate the same raider gangs the Order had been preying on for months into first murdering the Order, then falling in line under her. She winds up being shot once she's the last survivor.
- Stupid Good: Olivia Rivers had this opinion of the Order of Mysteries, having a staunch belief in the ideals that only the cruel and ruthless were able to prosper in this post-apocalyptic world.
- Is an example of Stupid Evil to her own as she gives up a life of relative stability, comfort, and position to try to join a bunch of psychotic Raiders who lived in ruins.
- Too Dumb to Live: Trusting a bunch of Raiders off the bat was not an intelligent move at all on her part.
- Walking Spoiler: She gives away crucial elements about the Order of Mysteries quest-line, which is why her entire entry is spoilered.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Is of the opinion she's in a Black-and-Grey Morality setting where the Order of Mysteries is ridiculous. Unfortunately, for her, she's in Fallout, where the ridiculous is as great as the tragedy.
