Vasquez

B-class article · First seen: s2 · Last seen: s16
Vasquez
Vazquez · Bruise · Cruz
Vasquez — portrait.
Character
StatusDeparted
First seens2
Last seens16
PlayerPolar
FactionSevryn's recruits, Mharos hosts

Vasquez is a fighter played by Polar from session 2 to the present, originally a half-elf Great Weapon Master with Action Surge and Second Wind, transformed in session 9 into a half-demon-elf when he accepted a bargain offered in the Black Vein Quarry by an entity that introduced itself as Mharos (also calling itself Empraros). The transformation was DM-introduced and rewrote his character sheet at the table; horns tore through his skull, runes burned alight on his skin, and the metal bracing holding his mouth closed fell out as the surrounding flesh healed. He carries a custom gunblade forged at Shamil’s forge in session 3 from a looted pistol, the Aurelian Plate Armour with Nullstone Runes stripped from an Aurelian Paladin in session 10 and re-engraved with his adopted-dwarf-family crest, and (since session 16) a Hat of Disguise he attuned during the boat trip toward Aurelia. He has the Mage Slayer feat with its once-per-day fail-to-succeed on Wisdom and Charisma saves, which has been load-bearing in resisting Mharos’s direct attempts. His prison nickname Bruise, given in s8 by his cellmate Jack who misheard his alias “Cruz”, has stuck.

Appearance and personality

Vasquez (s2-s8) was a masked half-elf with a longsword + scimitar loadout. After the transformation in session 9 he is visibly half-demon-elf: horns through the skull, glowing runes on the skin, ember eye colour, healed face. His earlier metal mouth-bracing fell out during the transformation, the implication being that whatever the bracing was treating is no longer a constraint. He has, since session 16, been disguised as a dwarf via the Hat of Disguise.

The voice is terse Western/Spanish-styled, masked, gunsmith-vocabularied, masculine cadence, pride-and-honour angry vibe. (Note: earlier wiki drafts treated Hugo’s “Bronze God” reference to Vasquez as an in-fiction nickname or pantheon entity. Per DM correction 2026-05-17, that was OOC table chatter and is not in-fiction canon; do not re-add as alias or related entity.)

After the Mharos transformation, his patter accumulates a meta-running-joke layer. “I’m half gay” became a recurring bit (post-s9). “Oh fuck. I’m daddy. Okay, let’s go” [18] was his immediate reaction to seeing the transformation. The deliberate Ghostbusters reference “There is no Vasquez. There’s only Zul.” [19] is recurring. When Mharos whispers in his head, Vasquez slams his head into a wall as a physical tic — first observed [20], repeated [21] with a +1 bludgeoning weapon to feed Mharos misery and keep the parasite occupied.

Background

Adopted by the dwarf father Bison (Bison Bronzgut, per DM ruling post-s17; referenced in the s9 succubus vision: failed knife-mold for adopted dwarf father, [8]. His sigil-engraving on the Aurelian plate in s10 is Bison Bronzgut’s forge/family mark. The biological elf parentage is otherwise undescribed.

The s10 sigil-rework - engraving the Aurelian sunburst into Bison’s family crest - is a deliberately personal act of reclaiming the armour, and is one of the small moments that grounds Vasquez’s adoptive-family loyalty.

Build history

  • s2-s8: half-elf Fighter. Great Weapon Master, Action Surge, Second Wind. Started with a longsword + scimitar; in session 2 traded the scimitar + 15gp + alchemist’s fire to Sunny. In session 3 crafted a custom gunblade at Shamil’s forge from the looted pistol. Wears a mask.
  • s9 onwards: race becomes Half Demon (Elf) on D&D Beyond — homebrew lineage. The mechanical sheet rewrite was DM-introduced mid-session, not via standard race-swap. Necrotic resistance acquired (broken by radiant damage; revealed in s10 against the Aurelian Paladin’s greatsword).
  • Has the Mage Slayer feat. Once-per-day Wisdom or Charisma save fail-to-succeed. Used in [13] against Mharos’s direct save-or-charm targeting Caelumn.
  • Level 4 at end of s14.

Equipment

  • Custom gunblade — forged at Shamil’s forge in session 3 from a looted pistol; magical pistol +1 underlying. Vasquez’s defining weapon.
  • Aurelian Plate Armour with Nullstone Runes — looted in s10 from the Aurelian Paladin; advantage on saves vs arcane spells, blocks the wearer’s own arcane casting, blocks barbarian rage. Re-engraved with his adopted-dwarf-family crest. Attuned.
  • Hat of Disguise — found in a wet crate in the Eldwythe sewers [22], identified by Althea via ritual Identify, attuned by Vasquez during the hour-long boat trip toward White Lantern Shrine [14]. Successfully tested as a dwarf disguise.
  • Hatchets, knives — standard side arms.

Aliases

  • Bruise — jail nickname earned in the s7-s8 Nightwatch arrest in Umbrafall. His cellmate Jack heard “Cruz” and decided his name was “Bruce”, which became “Bruise”. The official jail log entry for him reads “bitch-ass elf”. The nickname stuck. “I’ll bruise up some guards that’s for damn sure” [5].
  • Cruz — the alias he gave the jailer.
  • Veska — appears once or twice in transcripts; likely a transcription artefact.

Mharos

The defining transformation. In session 9, mid-fight with the Black Vein Quarry specters, an unseen presence offered Vasquez a bargain to take the weight he carried. He accepted. Pain blooms white-hot as nerves scream and your vision blurs [23]. Horns tore through his skull. The face healed. The metal mouth-bracing fell out. The race rewrote.

The presence introduced itself as Mharos, also calling itself Empraros: “I am more of a concept than a thing. I am what remains when hope is given up and misery gets to breed” [24]. The wight in the upper quarry asked, “What makes you so special? Why did it succeed with you?” [25], implying others had been offered the same bargain and rejected.

In session 10, Mharos manifested in physical-shadow form on Vasquez’s watch and refused all bargaining: “There is no deal. There is only this. There is only me feeding on your delicious misery. … You and I will become one. You will be my terrible sword that sweeps across Eldurae and they will all bow to us” [26]. He is satisfied by group misery, including Harvo’s death. He is weak to radiant damage — revealed in s10 by the Aurelian Paladin’s radiant-rider greatsword bypassing the necrotic resistance.

The Black Mask knows about Mharos and considers him a competitor for Vasquez’s soul. Per the Mask: “Once he’s dead, the demon has no hold of him” [27].

The escalation across sessions: s9 (transformation event); s10 (refusal to bargain); s12 (named by the Mask as the recruitment target); s15 (whispers “blame the arcane on her” pointing at Althea — Vasquez refuses, takes the blame himself, Ruin is executed for it); same session, Mharos targets Caelumn directly with a Wisdom save attack and is defeated only by Vasquez’s Mage Slayer fail-to-succeed; s16 (Vasquez slams his head into a wall during the rest with a +1 bludgeoning weapon to feed Mharos misery, keeping the parasite occupied with the host’s pain rather than the party’s, [21]. The relationship is now openly adversarial, with the host imposing terms.

Campaign role

Vasquez has been at the table since session 2. Notable beats:

  • s2: original five-person party at the Hollow Hall Tavern; trades scimitar to Sunny.
  • s3: forges the gunblade at Shamil’s; killed Sunset is Nigh (opportunity-attack critical hit, s3) in the wyrmling’s lair - the perfect-crit OA tore off the wyrmling’s tail and hind legs, and Vasquez decapitated him the following turn.
  • s4-s7: standard fighter contributions through the Warrens arc; in s7 the bio-gloom experimental potion gives him bioluminescent meeping bubbles for an hour.
  • s7: arrested by Nightwatch reinforcements after the Risa urn intervention; jailed.
  • s8: released from jail by Harvo’s 150gp under-the-table negotiation. Acquires “Bruise”.
  • s9: Mharos transformation in the Black Vein Quarry.
  • s10: loots the Aurelian Plate from a downed Aurelian Paladin; re-engraves it with his adopted-dwarf-family crest.
  • s11: absent (player not present).
  • s12: fed into the Candy Cottage taffy puller; transformed into soft elastic taffy briefly [11].
  • s14: among the party who hits level 4 at session end.
  • s15: refuses Mharos’s “blame the arcane on her” whisper, takes the Aurelian blame himself, witnesses Ruin executed for it. Uses Mage Slayer once-per-day fail-to-succeed to defeat Mharos’s direct attack on Caelumn [13]. Attempts to electrify the sewer water mid-Kuatoa fight.
  • s16: attunes the Hat of Disguise during the boat trip; successfully tests dwarf disguise. Heads his own self in the rest to feed Mharos misery [21].

Status at session 16

Alive. Aboard the skiff toward White Lantern Shrine. Disguised as a dwarf via the Hat of Disguise. The Mharos parasite is still inside him; he is feeding it his own pain to keep it occupied. The Black Mask still wants his soul.

Session 17 retcon — captured (departed offscreen)

At the opening of session 17 the DM laid out a framing retcon of the end of session 16: rather than continuing onto the skiff with the rest of the party, Vasquez and Althea split off at the sewer mid-point, were forced back into the sewer when Aurelians closed in, and the party had to choose between fleeing and rescuing them. The party chose to flee. Vasquez and Althea were captured by Aurelians [15], restated for Caelumn’s player at [17]. The Hat of Disguise Vasquez had attuned the previous session was destroyed in the escape [16] — Terry objected at the table (“I object to that retcon. I want a different retcon. I want one where he keeps the fucking hat”, [28] but the change stood.

Status: departed (offscreen). Vasquez is not expected to return. The capture is the in-fiction send-off for the player Polar leaving the table; per Chris’s note after session 17, the active rescue arc the recap initially treated as an open quest is not the campaign’s direction. The character’s last known location is in Aurelian custody, the Mharos parasite presumably still inside him, but his fate is offscreen and unresolved by design rather than as a hook. Future agents should treat Vasquez as a departed PC, not a captured-and-rescuable one. He is grouped with Cholmondeley, Harvo, and Ruin as former party members rather than as an active thread.

The real-world meta — Polar’s departure — is documented in the Polar player handle article; it is intentionally not surfaced in any in-fiction article.

See the session 17 recap and the s16 Retcon block for the framing.

Player

Played by Polar (Discord handle, no other name available) throughout. Frequently called by the character name even out-of-character because the player and character are tightly identified. Absent for s11 only.

Notable quotes

“Vasquez.” — Vasquez, mumbling his name, [1]

“You can eat my entire ass you druid.” — Vasquez, [2]

“It’s the future. The combination of…” — Vasquez, on the gunblade, [29]

“Look, they shouldn’t have called me a fucking elf.” — Vasquez, during the Nightwatch fight that gets him arrested, [30]

“I’ll bruise up some guards that’s for damn sure.” — Vasquez, [5]

“Oh fuck. I’m daddy. Okay, let’s go.” — Vasquez, immediately post-transformation, [18]

“I don’t know. Do I have something on my face? I feel very warm. I feel like something’s heavier on my head and what is my hat what is this what what is this.” — Vasquez, post-transformation, [31]

“We might be able to make an accord. You help me, I help you. You scratch my back, I scratch your shadow.” — Vasquez to Mharos, [32]

“You can blame the arcane on me. That was right here.” — Vasquez, [12]

“Yeah, you’re trapped in my mind. I make the fucking rules for right now… feed on me and me alone and you’ll have what you’ll want.” — Vasquez to Mharos’s smoke figure, [33]

“There is no Vasquez. There’s only Zul.” — Vasquez, [19] (recurring)

“I don’t think you realize this, Callum, but I have lived long enough to know my character is in fact a pussy.” — Vasquez, [34]

See also

References

  1. ^ Session 2, line 304 — First introduction, mumbles his name.
  2. ^ Session 2, line 920 — You can eat my entire ass you druid..
  3. ^ Session 3, line 2080-2090 — Crafts gunblade at Shamil's forge.
  4. ^ Session 7, line 1267-1324 — Refuses elf-slur from Nightwatch (next time don't call me an elf, later they shouldn't have called me a fucking elf); pre-arrest, not in jail.
  5. ^ Session 8, line 154 — I'll bruise up some guards that's for damn sure..
  6. ^ Session 9, line 78-138 — Mharos transformation; horns tear through skull, race rewrites.
  7. ^ Session 9, line 187 — Mharos introduces self as Empraros.
  8. ^ Session 9, line 1104-1110 — Adopted-dwarf-father vision; failed knife-mold flashback.
  9. ^ Session 10, line 383-732 — Mharos refuses partnership; "There is no deal.".
  10. ^ Session 10, line 1721-1775 — Loots Aurelian Plate; re-engraves with adopted-dwarf-family crest.
  11. ^ Session 12, line 1325 — Fed into the taffy puller in the Candy Cottage.
  12. ^ Session 15, line 116 — You can blame the arcane on me. That was right here..
  13. ^ Session 15, line 487-488 — Mage Slayer once-per-day fail-to-succeed defeats Mharos's attack on Caelumn.
  14. ^ Session 16, line 1671-1676 — Attunes Hat of Disguise on the boat; tests dwarf disguise successfully.
  15. ^ Session 17, line 130 — s16 retcon — Vasquez and Althea split off at the sewer mid-point, were captured by Aurelians; party fled and left them behind.
  16. ^ Session 17, line 134-136 — Hat of Disguise destroyed in the escape.
  17. ^ Session 17, line 785 — DM restates the retcon for Caelumn's player (catching up post-break).
  18. ^ Session 9, line 138 — Inline citation.
  19. ^ Session 15, line 1178 — Inline citation.
  20. ^ Session 15, line 788 — Inline citation.
  21. ^ Session 16, line 1364 — Inline citation.
  22. ^ Session 16, line 66 — Inline citation.
  23. ^ Session 9, line 78 — Inline citation.
  24. ^ Session 9, line 197 — Inline citation.
  25. ^ Session 9, line 495 — Inline citation.
  26. ^ Session 10, line 383 — Inline citation.
  27. ^ Session 12, line 235 — Inline citation.
  28. ^ Session 17, line 137 — Inline citation.
  29. ^ Session 4, line 807 — Inline citation.
  30. ^ Session 7, line 1324 — Inline citation.
  31. ^ Session 9, line 284 — Inline citation.
  32. ^ Session 10, line 726 — Inline citation.
  33. ^ Session 15, line 490 — Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 16, line 1137 — Inline citation.