Lament of the Mind

danshive:

Vault Brain Ant Pheromones - Originally posted to Deviant Art - 1 | 2

Back in 2011, I was contemplating the idea of Daria in the Fallout universe:

I recently decided I wanted to play through (Fallout 3) again, but not allow myself to use Charisma to talk my way out of things. I also wanted my character to have high Perception and Intelligence, and that combination of highs and lows made me think of Daria. Thus began the adventures of the Vault Brain.

Ant Queen Pheromones are an actual item in the game that increases Charisma by 3, but also reduces Intelligence and Perception by 3 each. Given a scale of 1-10, that’s a HUGE decrease. It begs the question of exactly what those pheromones are doing to effectively make someone a smooth talker.