Equuleus Equeeleus

Equuleus Equeeleus

## Summary & Background

Played by Jax, Equuleus Equeeleus is a Half-Elf Way of the Mercy Monk.

Link to Equuleus Equeeleus's D&D Beyond Character Sheet.

An orphan, Equuleus was adopted at a young age when she was found on the streets. Equuleus was brought to and lived a quiet life in the mountain monastery Ado Vandor on the west side of Tauriel. Here she practiced her martial ways, bringing peace to her once turbulent life. Focusing on her body, mind, and soul, she began to seek life more than could be taught within the walls of the monastery. Her opportunity came abruptly, as one of her monastery brothers secretly stole and learned the monastery's great forbidden art. He followed this by setting fire and killing her mentor, Grandmaster Kane, with his newly obtained power. Seeing the corruption in his eyes, he left Equuleus and a select few others alive whom he deemed not worthy to taste his newfound killing skill.

Gathering the few members of the monastery that remained, Equuleus and the others made a pact to journey the land far and wide, and one day return with as much knowledge and experience they could muster and collectively create the ultimate artform, and bring justice to their fallen master.

## Story Summary

Through her travels, she eventually comes across Brig, who finds interest in her because of their drastically different views on life. Wanting company, the two begin to travel together in search of adventure, bringing themselves to somehow attain the companionship of Reffins. Their travels eventually bring the trio to the north side of Tauriel and into the mountain town of Vorgshire, where they uncovered a devious plot from the mayor and a new invading Troll. Convincing the goblins to help them, together they slew the Troll. She and her companions helped foster a symbiotic relationship between the local goblins and the citizens of Vorgshire. Shortly after their well earned rest, they receive an invitation to meet with Prince Strahd in the land of Barovia to help him gain prominence. During the night they all have a dream and wake to a blank card within their grasp.

Wanting to continue their journeys, they agree and follow the road north into the land, quickly becoming lost. Meeting the hunter Davish, he escorts them to the Vistani Settlement nearby and they quickly get a small lay of the land from Stanimir, who's the patriarch of this caravan. He drinks and dances with them and tells of stories, a mad mage, and their backstory with Strahd, and hints that they should visit Madam Eva.

Heeding his advice, they are ushered in by her and have their fortune read, with the cards they received the previous night revealing themselves. Equuleus's card is revealed to be The Mists Card. Afterwards, preparing to return to the bonfire, Equuleus sleeps next to the fire. In the morning, the crew leaves the encampment and get lost once again, stumbling across Davish who again escorts them out of the woods. They come across a few abandoned buildings, one of which is a barn that Brig destroys, nearly collapsing it on the trio. Shortly after, they run into a pair of children outside a building, exclaiming that their parents are within the house with a monster.

Entering, they search the house and she succumbs to her worldly desires and gorges herself on the feast in the dining hall, which turns to be rotten food. She pukes into the hallway and ascends the stairway to find an aggressive animated armor, defeating it soundly. Progressing further, they find clues to the true history of the house through the form of journals of Gustav and Elizabeth Durst in the master bed, and the suicide note clutched in the body of the master of the house, Gustav Durst. They eventually come to find the bones of the children and the Nursemaid Anya, which they return to Anya and Equuleus let's herself be possessed by Rosavalda Durst in order to gain her trust, so that they may rest their bones in the crypt downstairs in the basement. Equuleus is also the one to find the passage into the downstairs basement via the dollhouse in the children's bedroom.

Venturing downstairs, they begin to explore, going chamber to chamber and eventually come across the crypts for the Durst family. Taking time to move the heavy stone slabs, they manage to lay their bones in their respective coffins, letting the children finally rest in peace as Rosavalda leaves Equuleus.

They move south to the dining chambers and fight a Grick, to which Equuleus feels sorry for thinking that they slayed a creature just defending it's nest. She prays for it and then follows the group to a chamber with beds and rests. During her rest she dreams of being back in Ado Vandor, training with her master. When she awakens, she remembers how to use her Ki, unlocking it by remembering the lessons Grandmaster Kane taught her. When everyone awakens, they continue southward and encounter a couple ghouls and a handful of zombies, to which they dispatch but not before Reffins is injured. Brig takes a potion of healing off his body and stabilizes him Reffins.

Moving forward, the group head downstairs while Laila refused to head down, whimpering at the top of the staircase. Reffins, not wanting to leave Laila, returns and continues to explore the basement. Equuleus and Brig alone go down to check the nearby area. Noticing Reffins is upstairs, they leave and go to rejoin him. Finding him in a room with a wooden statue of a pale gaunt faced man, exclaiming to Equuleus that he would like the orb. As Equuleus goes to fetch the orb, the other two get ready for some sort of attack, while they all notice when she does touch the smokey gray orb, a shadow coalesces along the ground from a skeleton in the corner and forms into a tall form. Three Shadow figures appear and are dealt with, as they continue to search the floor together, finding a bigger room that they discern to be for someone more important. As they go to search the room, the wall crumbles slightly as a ghastly figure emerges.

The ghast pounces on Equuleus and it's toxic breath causes Equuleus to faint, but her companions manage to make quick work of the ghast, as Laila begins to alert the group of approaching danger. 2 ghouls and a zombie appear, and they make quick work of them. Together they manage to make a wriggling worm out of the zombie, and Equuleus feels sorry for it, and kneels down to pet it before slapping it's head off. Brig faints as a ghoul bites his calves and Equuleus pilfers the remaining healing potion off his body and force feeds him back to consciousness. As they slay the last monster and the room goes quiet, they hear a whisper coming from the ghast's room.

They go in and investigate the voice, finding a Whispering Cloak that Reffins takes and discovering a second piece to the smokey grey orb, to which Brig reveals is a Driftglobe, an item originating from his homeworld. They continue down into the basement and enter a sacrificial chamber with a stone dais and altar in the middle of the murky room. Here in this room the chanting has stopped until Equuleus steps on stone dais, to which they start chanting "One Must Die!", as thirteen apparitions appear around the room. As they investigate further, Equuleus steps off and the chanting once again changes, prompting a mound of flesh and refuse to take form in the southern corner of the room.

Making their stand on top of the stone dais, the group engage the shambling monstrosity, as it clumsily makes its way forward towards them. It swallows Brig, and he's unable to do much so he resolves himself to make funny noises within the mound of flesh.

Equuleus critically fails and stumbles inwards as well, but manages to spot a baby corpse at the core, to which she relays the information to Brig. Brig spots it as well with Equuleus's help and blasts a path open towards it for Equuleus to make her move. She moves forward and grabs the baby and initially goes to attack the baby, but she remembers from her time back at Ado Vandor, having to deal with infant orphans at the monastery, she realizes that the baby is just scared. She begins to instead rock the baby and sing a lullaby to it, which causes the fleshmound to dissolve and dissipate around them, as the baby slowly takes a few last shallow breaths in relief and dies.

With the baby turned to a pile of bones, they ascend again, making their way to the foot of the stairs towards the attic. Here they encounter Nursemaid Anya once again, having felt a disturbance emanate from the basement. Handing over the baby bones, baby Walter takes ethereal form and they fade away cooing and giggling together.

Reaching the top of the stairs, they are met with a very different house, as the windows all brick up, the doors are changed into scything blades, and the room is quickly filling with deadly poisonous smoke. Equuleus and Reffins blockade the doorframe to stop the blades and attempt to make it to the stairs as Brig opts to spend most of his time attempting to break the windows, to little success on the top floor, and begins to follow the other two down the stairs. Mistiming these second set of blades, she is badly injured and stumbles down to the third floor.

She is joined by Reffins and Brig at the nursery window trying to break it open with little success again, and decides to make it out the traditional way, dodging a few bladed doorways with well timed swift leaps through.

Making it to the first floor relatively easily after this, Equuleus and Reffins are stuck at the front door as the smoke closes in on them. They can't quite get the timing and decide to go for it. Mistiming it quite badly, Equuleus is racked with slashing blades and collapses on the floor in front of the doorway. She is quickly brought back by Reffins who also takes a few slashes, to which Equuleus then absolutely destroys the front portcullis. They sit outside as they watch Brig descend from the third floor balcony. As they relax, they notice Davish is next to them looking at the house in astonishment as it catches fire.

After a brief moment to catch their breath, Davish urges the group to follow him through the woods away from the burning house, as it will attract monsters of the night. Finding a clearing a few minutes off trail, they rest as Davish stays up to watch. During the rest, Equuleus astral projects, trying to test her limits and see through the clouds above. Eventually she is tethered back to her body where she is transported to an area familiar to her, the Lotus Sanctum in Ado Vandor. Kane here, reveals this is the Ether, a sort of afterlife where he resides, and he has her follow him to another area of Ado Vandor, to the Path of the Seekers. Here she must learn what path life is choosing for her. She sees life tendrils, which Kane explains that the Earth has chosen for her to wield it's power over life and death, and offers his hand to help her control it.

Morning breaks and they get back onto the road as Davish departs again. The temperature slowly drops as they near the snowy town of Krezk. They aren't welcome here, as the guards seem to be wary of strangers. Brig uses his imp to play some childish pranks, and the guards throw down a crudely drawn map for the party to use. If they want entry, they would have to check on their scouts and shipments of wine from the Wizards of Wine Winery to the south.

Following the map, the group eventually make it to a clearing where Brig unsuccessfully hides and is engaged upon by Twig and Needle Blights. Easily dispatching them, they go to move on when a man emerges from the treeline and ushers them over. He introduces himself as Adrian Martikov, acting lead of the Martikov Family and owners of the Wizards of Wine Winery. More family members emerge from the treeline as he explains that his father Davian stayed behind so that the group could escape and were being pursued by these blights.

He shows them to an overlook and introduces the winery exterior to the group. The children and other members point out what they can spot are blights guarding the exterior. Brig then takes this time to use his imp familiar to explore the interior, before he dismisses it after being caught. They then decide to go forth when Dag Tomescu, a member of the Martikov group, suggests a plan for them to use a decoy to lure the perimeter guards away. He and Adrian go back and forth about volunteering themselves as decoy until Brig convinces Elvir Martikov, Adrian's younger brother, to be the decoy.

With that, Elvir, Adrian, and our trio head towards the winery and set up an ambush spot in a clearing. She takes part in slaying as well as hiding the blights during the ambush.

## Key Events

* Left Ado Vandor, her monastery after it was burnt down and most of the members killed, vowing to gather knowledge and experience to create an ultimate martial artform devoid of corruption
* Partook in the slaying of T the Troll in the Village of Vorgshire (During Session 0)
* Managed to create a symbiotic relationship between the goblins of Vorgshire and the citizens of Vorgshire (Session 0)
* Ventured into the Mists of Barovia (Session 1)
* Helped lay Rose and Thorn Durst to rest (Session 3)
* Returned Anya's bones to her (Session 3)
* Brought peace to baby Walter's tormented soul by showing him love (Session 8)
* Escaped the Durst Manor (Session 8)
* Was granted power of the life force of the earth (Way of Mercy) (Session 8.5)

## Notable Items

* The Mists Card
* 1x Scroll of Bless
* Elizabeth's Journal
* Gustav's Journal

## Notable Feats

* Football kicked a Shadow's head into another Shadow grappling Brig (Session 5)
* Grabbed baby Walter, rocked and sang a lullaby to him within the fleshmound, bringing peace to his tormented soul before reuniting him with his mother, Nursemaid Anya (Session 8)
* At level 2, dealt 26 damage to the front portcullis to escape Durst Manor
* Cleaved 2 Twig Blights in a single swing

## Notable Kills

* 2x Ghouls (Session 4), 1x (Session 6)
* 3x Zombies (Session 4), 1x (Session 6)
* 2x Shadow (Session 5)
* 1x Twig Blight (Session 9), 9x (Session 11)
* 1x Needle Blight (Session 9), 1x (Session 11)

## Trivia

* Named after a constellation