Jason Damron, the voice actor behind The Storyteller – the main character of a long-running and popular fan-made Fallout lore video series on YouTube – appears to have died.
This is according to a tweet posted earlier today by Damron’s account, which uses his online handle Kankennon and is the same one credited in the descriptions of the most recent Storyteller videos starring him.
“Hello everyone, I am Emily Damron, Jason Damron’s (the Storyteller) daughter,” it reads, “I just wanted to share that on Saturday September 7, my father passed away after a horrible year of health. He was diagnosed with stage four adrenal cancer that spread to the liver.”
For those unfamiliar, The Storyteller series is one that holds a similar revance among fans to that of other Fallout fan creations like Nuka Break. Garnering millions of views on YouTube and covering lore topics ranging from the original Fallouts to Bethesda’s modern entries – Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 – as well as New Vegas, the premise of The Storyteller was simple, but wonderful.
You take a power-armoured wastelander obsessed with cataloguing the past and present of the world around him, brought to life machinima-style with help from mods, and use his travels across the wastelands depicted in the games to discuss areas of Fallout lore, while an adventure plot that gradually builds as the series progresses stops things ever getting too dry or info-heavy. For younger fans like myself who got into Fallout through the more recent entries, the show was a great way to first learn about the wider world of Fallout and the events of Fallouts 1 and 2.
Damron’s voice, starring alongside a cast that occasionally included the likes of longtime Bethesda voice actor Wes Johnson, Courtenay Taylor – the voice of the female variant of Fallout 4’s Sole Survivor – and even for one episode cameos from Fallout developers like Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer, was a big part of the appeal. It was the kind of voice that turned what could easily have felt like unwieldy lore lectures into monologues that keep you engaged and along for the ride.
The news of the actor’s apparent passing has been followed by tributes from a host of personalities and creators within the Fallout/Bethesda community. “Jason was always a joy to work with and had an amazing passion for both Fallout and making cool content. The world is dimmer without his presence. This is devastating,” wrote Austin Hourigan, the current main personality of the Shoddycast YouTube channel, where The Storyteller series starring Damron ran from 2013 to 2017.
“Thank you for the work we did together and for the fun conversations. Truly a legend in the Fallout community with his character, the Storyteller! My thoughts are with his family,” posted YouTuber TKs-Mantis. “Absolutely heartbreaking to hear this,” added another Fallout YouTuber, Juicehead, “The Storyteller was a major inspiration for me and my content and a big part of why I started making Fallout videos in the first place.”
