The first scorchbeast was accidentally created when scientists exposed irradiated bats to biochemical experiments in late 2073. Although it would have been a wiser choice to exterminate them, instead the scientists ordered further study of the creatures in controlled habitats at the abandoned AMS mining complexes. The people of the wasteland first learned about the Scorchbeasts from reports issued by the Brotherhood of Steel Although they dismissed them as pure stories to give the Brotherhood an excuse to commandeer ammo and supplies, they were soon proven wrong by their appearance and the plague that followed in their wake. The Scorched, terrifying, warped creatures created out of humans afflicted by the scorchbeast plague, have become an existential threat to the people of the Region which later came to be known as the scorch The situation is made worse by the fact that their breeding cycles are off the charts, limited only by the available nest space in the mining Complex.

Since then, the scorchbeasts established a vast colony of these draconic bat horrors beneath the wasteland. They would regularly dig to the surface to destroy settlements and devour humans, leaving large rifts in the landscape. The only way to safely close the rifts was to use heavy explosivesp collapsing the rifts and killing those scorchbeasts that remain.

Scorchbeasts are partially responsible for the creation of the Scorched, as according to research, their underground colony contains a fungus responsible for the Scorched Plague, causing the crystalline growths seen on the Scorched and scorched creatures.