Ezmerelda d'Avenir

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Ezmerelda d'Avenir is an Adventurer from the Demiplane of Dread introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition adventure module Curse of Strahd and subsequently canonized in the 5e Ravenloft campaign splatbook "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft". She is a student of/heir to Van Richten, a surviving member of the Radanavich family whom Van Richten massacred for selling his son to a vampire as its sexual slave cum offspring. She lost a leg in that incident, but gets around unimpeded due to using an enchanted wooden prosthetic.

Controversies

Curse of Strahd is full of skub, at least if you look at the major camps of Ravenloft grognards on one side and SJWs on the other. Ezmererlda is one of those elements that both camps attack, for different reasons.

Old-school fans dislike her because she snarls up the original established continuity for Van Richten... well, okay, Curse of Strahd does that for Van Richten in general, but Ezmerelda in particular messes up both Van Richten's greatest shame and his subsequent redemption when he came to terms with his racist attitudes towards the Vistani through interacting with Arturi Radanavich, the original sole survivor of the Radanaviches. Essentially, Ezmeralda at the very least basically retcons Arturi out of the setting entirely and takes his role, whilst also going a step beyond Arturi and becoming Van Richten's appointed heir and/or adoptive daughter... which kind of makes the Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins superfluous.

SJWs hate her for... well, a couple of things, but the biggest complaints are her connection to the Radanaviches, who are loathed for being highly politically incorrect (leading to their retconning into being Vistani Impersonators rather than an actual Vistani family in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft), the fact she is described with the traditional Vistani curse of needing to stay mobile to avoid losing her magic, and the fact she is described in the original Curse of Strahd as being ashamed of her prosthetic and so trying to hide that she has it.