Ezmerelda d'Avenir

Ezmerelda d'Avenir was a vistani hunter of vampires, who traveled across the Domains of Dread.

"Evil that feeds on the innocent is the worst of all evils and must be destroyed."

- Ezmerelda d'Avenir

Description
Her right leg, just below the knee, was entirely prosthetic.

Abilities
Ezmerelda was capable of placing a curse on others and of casting a wide variety of wizard spells. These spells included the following:
 * clairvoyance, darkvision, fire bolt, greater invisibility, knock, light, lightning bolt, mage hand, magic circle, magic missile, mirror image, prestidigitation, protection from evil and good, and shield.

Hunting Gear
When it came to her vampire-hunting gear, Ezmerelda owned a variety of magical equipment. These included +1 studded leather armor, +1 handaxe, +1 rapier, two potions of greater healing, a scroll of major image, and a scroll of remove curse.

Her non-magical equipment included a silvered shortsword, three stakes, six vials of holy water, a battleaxe, a flail, a morningstar, and a light crossbow with ten silvered bolts.

Mundane Gear
In terms of clothing Ezmerelda owned three sets of fine dress, two sets of traveler's clothes, a harlequin mask, many pairs of shoes, and three wigs. In terms of kits she owned a climber's kit, a disguise kit, a healer's kit, and a poisoner's kit.

Other belongings of hers that were unrelated to hunting included a lyre with golden strings, a chicken with a sculpted wooden cage, a small wooden box containing a deck of tarokka cards wrapped in silk, a set of copper pots and pans, vials of perfume and antitoxin, a steel mirror, a tinderbox, a spyglass, a shovel, and three sets of manacles.

Wagon
Finally, Ezmerelda owned a purple painted, barrel-topped wagon, within which she stored most of her aforementioned possessions. It sported fancy gold trim on its wheels, a brass lantern hanging from each of its corners, red drapes covering its window, and a hidden trapdoor on its underside. When away she kept a steel padlock on the door and a wooden sign reading, "Keep out!"

This wagon radiated an aura of conjuration magic. By speaking the command word "Drovash" while sitting in its driver seat, Ezmerelda could conjure two quasi-real draft horses that were magically tethered to the wagon and heeded her simple commands. She could then dispel them by using the command word "Arvesh."

History
When Ezmerelda was quite young her family kidnapped Erasmus van Richten, the teenage son of famed monster hunter Rudolph van Richten, and sold him to a vampire &mdash; an event that would come to haunt Ezmerelda for the rest of her life. Soon after, Rudolph tracked down her family and interrogated her parents on the whereabouts of Erasmus. Satisfied with their answers, he mercifully chose to spare their lives, an act that deeply moved the young Ezmerelda.

At the age of fifteen Ezmerelda ran away from home and over the course of two years, with many harrowing adventures along the way, she managed to track down Rudolph. He immediately assumed her to be a vistani assassin and put a sword to her throat, but Ezmerelda managed to convince him that she genuinely wanted to aid him in recovering Erasmus. Rudolph then proceeded to tell her that he had already found Erasmus, but his son had been transformed into a vampire spawn and pleaded for death, a request he swiftly obliged.

Ezmerelda would go on to spend another two years traveling alongside Rudolph, helping him to track down and slay may monsters that prowled the night. And with him teaching her many monster-hunting techniques along the way. Over time they increasingly got on each others nerves, their arguments grew more frequent, until finally Ezmerelda suggested they part ways as friends. In the time that followed she amassed a sizeable fortune, some of which she used to buy a wagon in which to carry her vampire hunting equipment.

On one adventure that followed, Ezmerelda had her right leg bitten off below the knee by a werewolf. She became sidelined for months, but luckily did not contract lycanthropy. Ezmerelda would then go on to commission a master artisan to craft her a prosthetic for her missing lower-right leg. After several tries the artisan managed to deliver her a suitable prosthesis and before long she adapted it nicely.

One day while in the company of a Vistani caravan, she heard gossip of Rudolph having gone to the domain of Barovia to slay the greatest vampire of them all, Strahd von Zarovich. Concluding that he may need her help, Ezmerelda spent months traveling to Barovia. When she reached a town there known as Vallaki she heard tell of an old tower, the sort of place she surmised that Rudolph would hold up in. Within the tower she found only some of his belongings, including a rolled up map of Barovia and some burned pages from his diary, which she proceeded to hide in her wagon.

Anxious to find Rudolph, yet eager to finally earn his trust and respect, Ezmerelda took up temporary residence in the tower as she pored over all his research. Learning everything she could about Strahd and Castle Ravenloft.

At some point during her time in Barovia, she encountered a traveler from 15 century Toril, Volothamp Geddarm. She narrowly saved the famed traveler's life from a vampire spawn named Andramar, plunging a wooden spear through its back. Ezmerelda then barked at Volo to grab the creature's ankles and help her drag it outside. They took it to a stream, where she proceeded to drown the beast, and then told Volo to run off for his own safety. Suggesting he head to an inn by the name of Blood of the Vine.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Curse of Strahd
 * Video Games
 * Dungeons & Dragons Online (Mists of Ravenloft) • • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms