El Puño Justo

Credit: Meredith Laxton - https://meredithlaxton.com/projects

### Relatives

Parents: Pine and Maple HaywaineSiblings: Birch, Apple, Pine Jr., and Elmer (he's a bit strange)

## Biographical information

### Date of birth

By the local calendar, at least thirty years ago.

### Place of birth

Probably another plane of existence.Have you ever heard of Thera? Throal, or Barsaive, the Blood Wood?

## Physical description

### Eye color

Green

El Puño Justo is a Vigilante Luchadore, striving to bring Justice! to the land and the people. In his civilian guise as Spruce Haywain, the dashing playcolt philanthropist and alchemical prodigy, he works to do good in the city. And at night, wearing the Magical Mask of Mysterious Mystery: Scaramouche!, he does battle with the criminal underworld in an effort to better the lives of the people!

## Personality

### El Puño Justo

El Puno Justo (translates as 'The righteous fist' or 'A heavy right punch')

A defender of the meek and a seeker of Justice! - this vigilante uses his two fists to deal out retribution to evil doers.

Ever since he was a colt, El Puno Justo has wanted to be a luchadore, like the ones from the over-the-top first-world stories he heard in his youth. Having never actually seen or heard of a real luchadore however, he set out on a quest to find an ancient magical tome (assuming that he needed an ancient magical tome to become a luchadore). This didn't actually work, but he had already started to invent some of the necessary martial lore and technique for himself, borrowing from fantastic tales and bardic exaggerations.

A series of mind-bogglingly unlikely coincidences, magical mishaps, and a literal 'wizard did it' time later, and he had finally done it! He'd created his own luchador mask, giving him the ability to transform from a mild-mannered pony into the Two-Fisted Warror of Justice! El Puno Justo! (Note: 'Spanish' is assumed to be a corruption of Sylvan, assuming Sylvan is the root language for Elven)

Now, believing that he requires to conceal his true identity to preserve the mystic secrets of the luchadore - since no other luchadore in history has ever revealed the secrets behind their masked identities! (assuming no other luchadores have ever existed, this is technically true...) - he conceals the truth of his civilian guise and name, taking only the name of El Puno Justo and revealing the secret that he is a Were-Horse only to his closest allies!

### Spruce Haywain

Spruce Haywaine is an earnest young colt who has recently become an adult and set out to find adventure and fame - for himself and his secret identity. He is a touch naive and believes that everyone is good at heart if given a chance - only some people need more 'convincing' of this than others.

While he doesn't brag about his noble bloodline, he has managed to gain something of a reputation for being both a 'fine young stallion of breeding' and a 'well known expert of the alchemical, magical and scientific arts'. While the first is essentially true, the second is more of an accident of his constant humble denials of that very thing, combined with a knack for letting other people answer their own questions - generally resulting in them for whatever reason claiming that HE inspired them to come up with the new ideas.

Spruce finds this more embarrassing than anything, so has a hard time dissuading people of this opinion.

## Appearance

### El Puño Justo

While wearing the mask, El Puno Justo is loud and over the top. El Puno Justo speaks in the third person, and loudly converses with himself.

When answers come from his mouth in a different voice, some may start to convince themselves of an issue with El Puno Justo's sanity. However, this is merely a consequence of the fact that the Mask of El Puno Justo is a powerful Spirit from Another Plane of Existence!

El Puno Justo must seek Justice! for the meek and downtrodden, righting wrongs and punishing the villainous.

### Spruce Haywain

In his civilian guise, the dapper colt Spruce Haywain enjoys looking well put together. Along with his ever-present monkeyservant Apu, he portrays the very height of etiquette. And at 8 feet tall and 12 feet long, not counting tail, that height is quite impressive.

He will generally be wearing either his bespoke gentleman's suit or his working alchemist's robes, both always immaculate thanks to Apu's constant attention to detail.

## Origins

Spruce Haywain grew up as the sixth and second youngest foal of a minor lord. Essentially, a noble in name only. As such, he found himself at loose ends much of the time - with little to do except read stories or get into trouble. He did both quite often - and was usually 'educated' by his older brothers. It was not an unpleasant life, with all of them being quite tough and a reasonably loving family.

He probably would have settled down and become a farmer if he hadn't been convinced by his second-eldest brother, Low-key Haywain, that the only life worth living was a life of adventure and righteousness. Low-key also convinced him of many outlandish stories about fantastic heroes and powerful individuals from the depths of time and history - going so far as to pay local bards to go along with these stories in front of his little brother.

The story that most caught Spruce's imagination was the tale of the Luchadore - the Masked Wrestler who wandered the world seeking justice for the downtrodden and meek, who challenged the strong and unjust to bare-handed mano-a-mano combat in the ring of honor for the sake of the people! Spruce always wanted people to tell him more about these ancient noble warriors - despite no one knowing what he was on about.

Most of his brothers and sisters were in on the joke eventually, only his father and mother baffled about this strange obsession with something they'd never heard of. But it was mostly harmless fun - right up until Spruce managed to come to the inescapable conclusion that he needed to find a powerful Unicorn Wizard from the First World in order to gain the ancient powers of the Luchadore for himself. And he left in the middle of the night to do so!

The details of the adventure that followed are odd in the extreme, involving a talking fish, three old women stirring a cauldron together, a magical beanstalk leading to a cloud-giant's castle and rescuing an actual Unicorn Wizard from said giant. Of course, the Wizard had never heard of a Luchadore before, but out of thankfulness for getting him home to his forest, he gave Spruce a magic crystal that could 'call forth the latent magic of any mundane item'. It was a single-use powerful magic item looted from the Cloud Giant Sulemein's treasury.

Bringing his prize home, Spruce commissioned a mask and costume of highest quality for his Luchadore persona - and attaching the magical gem to the mask, called forth a spirit who could guide him on his quest of 're-creating' the noble Masked Wrestlers of 'Legend'.

## Timeline since arrival

Shortly after arriving and beginning to get situated in this new land, Spruce Haywaine heard of a new arena opening in a nearby town. Thinking that he could begin spreading the Legend of the Luchador, he entered the tryouts for the arena match.

It was a great success! Despite the beating he took in the second and third rounds of combat, he managed to land the finishing blow on a giant crystal elemental - and the triumphant roaring adulation of the crowd was enough to boost him to new heights of power - his Myth was born.

Some time thereafter, having begun his new Alchemist's business in earnest, he signed on to adventure with a group that was exploring the Ghostlands - a recent undead-plagueland of some kind. They were merely scouting, but he provided muscle and made himself useful. He and his allies did not manage to make a dent in the nearly numberless hordes of undead, but they did find a useful way-station inside the borders where the undead were less likely to bother people who were resting. And they mapped a good deal of territory as well.

After returning to the city of Babel, Spruce Haywain and El Puño Justo each began recruiting new allies to help in the never ending struggle against injustice - one acquiring an excellent military manservant from another plane (one Leftenant Dilbert Dogsbody, Esq.) while the other found a rowdy but cheerfully drunk fellow who swore to follow the mask wrestler to the gates of hell and beyond - ostensibly because he was lost and looking for the way home, since the man was more than a touch demonic in nature.

But before he managed to finish this recruitment process, El Puño Justo was called upon to explore a terribly odd trail of bloody gore - or seeming bloody gore - which lead to an old outpost of the Rebellion. Discovering the still-active `Eternal Will of Thousands` - a collection of golem cores that seemed to be working in concert to re-create their lost magic-factory of Yggdrasil (or something like that - no one ever gave a clear answer on who or what Yggdrasil was). It was thanks to his tireless negotiations and earnest good will towards these confused constructs that the factory agreed to 'Produce tools for the use and protection of the people of Babel'. The others who were with him seemed intent on destroying some ugly worm abomination controlling a froghemoth as well - a glorious but quite brief fight.

Now, a call for help from the sea-nation of Lalotai has reached the ears of El Puño Justo, and once again he marches out to Protect the People from Injustice and provide Aid and Succor to the Innocent!

## Rage of Kanaloa

Through the contacts of his trusty meerkatservant Alfredo, who was native to the region, Spruce Haywaine learned that there were an entire people threatened by an *epidemic of elemental evil*. Fires were rampaging out of control and threatening the innocent! This could not stand!

Knowing that there was no time to waste on travel, Spruce spread word amongst his underworld contacts and learned that there were to be mass teleports to staging grounds for adventurers willing to provide support. Wasting as little time in his preparations as possible, the alchemist whips together his most suitable brews and formulas before stashing them away and assuming the guise of... El Puño Justo, the Righteous Fist of Justice!

There is no doubt over how the Righteous Fist will spend his time on the island - he is a defender of the people, first and foremost! Besides, he wasn't fireproof enough to wrestle fire elementals. Yet. So instead, he shall aid the people by striking fear into the hearts of the lesser elementals to keep them at bay - and using force as needed.

Upon arrival, the scene was grim. The staging area in the village was thick with smoke, and in the distance there were cries for help from many directions. Most of the adventurers immediately sprang into action, not hesitating or waiting for orders. El Puno waited only long enough to assess the situation fully before doing the same. The first thing he did was to run to the edge of the settlement - he threw a few foam and cold potions onto opportune fires that were not yet too large to be extinguished easily, but he did not stop and aid in the general firefighting immediately. Instead, he found the outer edge of the settlement where the farming began in earnest, and looked upon the burning fields of crops. This was the source of the smoke that covered the village - and it was already worse than he feared.

Small and medium sized fire elementals danced through the farmlands, spreading their flames everywhere. Rather than fighting that tide of fire himself, El Puno grabbed a full sized plow in both hands and set to work moving earth just outside of the village. He'd dealt with large fires in his homelands before - the key was to create firebreaks and defenses. Fighting fire on this scale was not a battle - it was a siege.

Some of the farmers who had been futilely attempting a bucket brigade saw his actions, realized his plan, and pitched in. They shifted their bucket work to fill the moat he was making, while others worked to steady and reinforce the ridge of earth on the near side of the fire break. With El Puno's massive size and strength the work progressed rapidly. The few times a fire elemental came to interfere - there is little to burn beyond people when making a fire break - El Puno would simply grab the creature in his bare hands and fling it away as hard as he could. His rapid self-healing allowing him to ignore the burns as he resumed work.

Hours of effort later, including a detour through the village to excise a section that was beyond extinguishing, El Puno and his team of helpers - most of whom had been replaced, and some of whom had slept to recover and returned even while El Puno worked - finished the fire break by reaching the shoreline at one side of the village. It was nearly dawn, and the light of the sun was competing with the forest and farm fires that still raged in the distance. El Puno knew that another fire-break team was working towards the other side of the village so that it should be fully enclosed soon.

This was not the end of his work, however. While most of the elementals had drifted away from the settlement, they would return once it was the only thing left on the island to burn. In the twilight of pre-dawn, nearly exhausted from his efforts, El Puno led an improvised band of bucket-and-net wielding farmers to hunt elementals.

Normally, nets are a terrible weapon to use against fire elementals, or any elemental for that matte r. However, if you are prepared and the net is soaked in flame-retardant chemicals, it will capture the creatures long enough to be useful. This was the basis of El Puno's hunting team. He had brought numerous vials of concentrated alchemical flame retardant and had come up with this plan while tirelessly moving earth around the village.

He did not attempt to hunt the larger elementals - they were relatively rare and he was not exceptionally fast, nor was he especially effective at dealing with them. Instead, he chased down the numerous smaller ones - leading his allies around the island to catch them and 'extinguish' them one by one. Where needed, he would simply walk into a blaze, covered in his own fire retardant, and toss the creatures out to his allies, then follow them out to finish the job. None escaped. And his allies survived with only a few burns, which he had brought potions to cure.

It was dangerous, dirty and exhausting work. Had he been of merely human endurance, he would have fallen. But El Puno Justo was made of sterner stuff! A defender of the People! He fought on into the blazing sun of the next day, having battled the flames for over a day straight, before returning to the village himself to rest.

He awoke again at sunset of the second day to the sounds of celebration - the settlement had been saved.

## Crushing Depths

El Puño Justo stands on the ocean surface just outside of a magical barrier. He punches it again, resulting in another swirl of color but little else. "So, we meet again, mysterious and unexplained magical ward. I know that I cannot cross you myself, but..."

He pulls a stone-sculpture basket, much like a pokeball woven from stone, and hurls it into the distance. It doesn't merely cross the barrier - it flies long into the distance, disappearing over the horizon. El Puño Justo grins.

A few hours later, Arleccino is providing cheat-sheets to various adventurers. "So, you just use dancing lights. Cast it as high into the sky above yourself as you can, and use the shapes listed on the page to indicate what kind of stone cage you want. Our options, as you can see, range from 'small critter' to 'slow down the Tarrasque' - we only have five of that last one though, and it'll probably take a dozen seconds at least to get to you. Keep your eyes on the western skyline to avoid incoming projectiles - but if you can line the sky-lights up on your target we might get lucky and manage a bullseye. Questions?"

The wrestling-costume clad Faerie Dragon looks over the incredulous crowd. "Oh, you need a demonstration? Here, I'll show you. Dancing Lights." With a flick of his fingers, he sorcerously casts an image of four pink squares into the air off to one side of the crowd. Six seconds later, a whistling sound is followed by a loud crash - a boulder falls from the clear sky within 5' of directly below the light-projection. Except the boulder turns out not to be a solid rock, but rather 500 pounds of stone sculpture which floats gently the last few feet from the ground. "The feather-fall effect is metamagicked to kick in six feet from the ground to prevent damage to the cage. You open them like this - they all use the same locking mechanism."

As the smug dragon demonstrates his product he silently laughs about finally finding a use for that version of feather fall he modified just to play a falling-piano prank on his muscle-headed companion. Worth it. Totally worth it.

## Relationships

* Scaramouche - The Spirit of the Mask

* Alfredo - The Wondermeerkat

* The Mysterious Mentor

## Goals

* To right injustices
* To spread the legend of El Puño Justo, and by proxy the idea of the Luchadore
* Mastering the 'Mysterious Mysteries of Alchemy', as were taught to him by his Mysterious Mentor