Andale

Summary 

Andale is a town in the Capital Wasteland that has a bit more to it than initially meets the eye. It hosts a variety of 'colourful' characters, and houses an unnofficial sidequest, should the Lone Wanderer choose to pursue the investigation.

Location 

Andale is located pretty much dead south of Vault 101. It's main features consist of 3 intact family buildings, a few sheds, and a couple of overturned lorries.

It's name apparently comes from a bastardization of its 'real life' counterpart :- Annandale Virginia.
Unlike most of the wasteland locations, Andale is relatively unprotected, with no walls or other sorts of barricades to hold off any potential intruders or animal attacks, however, as the residents never leave their homes as such, it appears to not do them all that much harm.

Population

Andale's population revolves around 2 families.

The Wilsons

• Bill Wilson
• Martha Wilson
• Jenny Wilson

and

The Smiths

• Jack Smith
• Linda Smith
• Junior Smith

Also present in the town is Old Man Harris, who is the father of Linda and Martha.

More than meets the eye..

Andale's population are a strange bunch indeed, in fact - one might go as far to say they are perfectly insane.

Upon entering Andale, the Dweller will be greeted by the residents, who put Andale forward as being 'The greatest place on Earth' comparing to other nearby locales and commenting that they just dont compare!
A lot of the dialogue from the inhabitants seems incredibly forced and subtly hints that there is a lot more to be done in Andale then smell the pretty flowers, indeed, the wives of the two families in particular (much like the crazy trailer lady in Arefu) seem to carry on irregardless of the fact their world is a smoking pile of radiation, and act like its still the pre-war 50's.
Also they seem a little too eager for you to join them for dinner...

Whilst the initial dialogue doesn't hint at anything too heinous, upon talking to Old Man Harris (the father of the two wives of the town) some pretty grim facts are revealed about life in Andale.

Well... how incesting!!

One of the first revelations is that each one of the inhabitants is in fact, completely inbred - Bill and Jack are brothers, whilst Linda and Martha are sisters, twin this with their plans to marry off their offspring:-
Jenny Wilson to Junior Smith
And you have one big twisted game of happy families, despite the fact that Junior Smith seems to think something is a little off with this arrangement, he is more than happy to show his excitement about joining the 'family business' which leads us onto...

Mass Murderers

Possibly the best advice you could get from anybody from this town comes from Old Man Harris, who after pointing out the incestuous nature of his family, lets slip the little side note of 
"Oh yeah, they happen to be mass murdering psychos, you might wanna get out of here."
Admittedly, he's a bit more enthused than that, lots of arm waving and screaming about stone cold killers, if there isn't any doubt about Andale being a totally screwed up town in your head by now, then you have no chance.

After speaking to Old Man Harris, any dialogue with the 'parents' from the town has the extra option of mentioning Old Man Harris' rantings to which they express an almost practiced out of tolerance routine,
"That Crazy old Harris, heheh."
Although they also mention they will deal with him personally.

It comes to light that the Families also have a locked shed in which there are a lot of carcasses and dead travellers stored for later consumption, as well as a lot of 'strange meat' lying about the place.
No prizes for guessing what it actually is.

From here, there are a number of options the player can undertake the unmarked quest known commonly as 'Our Little Secret'. They can leave and never look back, there is no reason or reward for solving the mystery, except for self gratification and the knowledge of knowing they won't be killing anybody anymore.

In order to start off the confrontation that leads to the resolution of this 'quest', the Dweller must :-

• Call Jack a sick bastard when he talks about marrying the families related kids together.
• Pick the lock to the 'meat sheds'. (Negative Karma)
• Steal the key to the shed from one of the adults, or from their houses. (Negative Karma)

Once one of these has been met, Jack will confront you and unveil the town's devious past and how they came to be a family of murderers and cannibals.

All you can eat..

Jack reveals that four families initially survived the nuclear war and moved to Andale, however as food supplies began to run low, they turned to cannibalism, leaving only two families left. Since then there has been heavy, heavy interbreeding between the two families descendants for the past 200 years.

This interbreeding, along with the belief that cannibalism is standard, had been passed down from generation to generation of each resident family of Andale, marrying off relatives to each other and the murder and consumption of outsiders and passerby's by becoming the normal way of life.
Old Man Harris reveals to you that ever since his wife passed away, (themselves an inbred couple) he had become disillusioned with the way the Andale residents existed, so he stayed to warn off potential victims of their plots.

Once the confrontation with Jack has taken place, the Lone Wanderer is given the choice of accepting the cannibalistic ways and leaving them at peace or condemning their ways, at which point, the families will become hostile and attack you. You will lose no karma for killing the residents.

If the player has the Cannibal perk, there are extra dialogue options. During the confrontation the player can explain that they are also a cannibal, agree that whatever is necessary in the Wastes must be done and agree to keep their secret. This results in the residents being friendly to the player, reverting back to the neighborly 50's suburbia behavior they had originally. One of the wives will also bake you meat pies made from people every now and then. In the suburban fantasy that is Andale this makes the Lone Wanderer the equivalent of an uncle who will stop by for a barbecue every now and then. 
If the adults are killed, the children seek refuge with Old Man Harris, who basically recaps everything the other adults had informed you along the way.
The adults have slightly higher HP (known as hit points or health) than the average wastelander. However, they are poorly armed and armorless which means they pose little threat.

Decent Loot

Theres a few items of interest in Andale :-

• A copy of Grognak the Barbarian in the Basement of the Smith residence. ( Plus 1 to the Melee Weapons Skill)
• A lot of Strange meat.
• A Nuka Cola Quantum bottle in one of the lorries.
• A copy of Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor northish of Andale. ( Plus 1 to the Barter Skill)
• A small turret camp just east of the town, with a copy of Deans Electronics (Plus 1 to the Repair Skill) and a bed, plus some ammo boxes (look for an empty truck) but beware the turret guarding it.
• Lots of melee weapons. Rippers, knives, blades, etc. in the basements and shack.

Misc.

It seems that the residents of Andale are responsible for the death of James Hargrave's father, who is also Tammy Hargrave's husband. When using the Cannibal Perk conversation option Jack will talk about the excuses people make trying to get out of being eaten. One example he gives is "Please, not me, I have a kid in Rivet City" this implies that James' father was killed and eaten by the cannibalistic residents of Andale. Also if you respawn the mutilated corpses in the shed one male one will shout "James!" repeatedly, giving further evidence that he was James Hargrave's father.