A concept "villain" if that's even the right word for her. Losing a scene to her often means you're going on an unexpected trip to someplace strange, and can be a good setup for major character rewrites and big shifts in campaign tone - from street level to cosmic, for ex - which is what I've used her for. Don't throw her at players who obsess on getting definitive victories through beating down the main baddie, she'll be pretty frustrating for them.
Pretty sure I object to being called a villain. Just doing my own thing here.
Happenstance
The entity that calls itself Happenstance is not what it appears at all. It first appeared in 1967 where it became the center of a confusing crisis that led to chaotic dimensional rifts, extensive property damage and the disappearance of a San Francisco hero team, most of whom have never been seen again. The few who eventually returned from wherever they were taken (they still won't talk about it) were radically altered. Since that time "Happenstance Incidents" have occurred sporadically throughout the world, each following a similar general pattern of reality disruption, improbable coincidences, and unexplained disappearances of super-beings (both heroes and villains) who rarely return as they were when they vanished. What triggers these appearances is unknown, and the only consistent warning that one may be coming is an apparently coincidental gathering of a statistically improbable number of redheads in an area.
Thankfully these effects seem to be quite localized, disrupting a small city or even just a neighborhood rather than threatening the world or the universe. On at least one occasion Johnny Crisis was sighted at an Incident, but upon being questioned he claimed it was his "day off" and he was "just here for the party" rather than heralding catastrophe as usual. During another, the Reckoner attacked out of nowhere, only to be chastised by Happenstance for "being a downer" and "crashing" and summarily ejected from the scene.
If Happenstance has a comprehensible motivation it seems to be observing how various supers react to a sudden, unexplained crisis. It's not clear if "failing" leads to punishment or reward, and some of those who've vanished when an Incident wraps up have returned saying they're much better off for the experiences they've had. Others have been traumatized or simply amnesiac, and more than half never come back from the trip. It seems to dislike those who resort to violence without thinking about the possible consequences, and whatever harm it wreaks always seems to be from environmental side effects or sheer bad luck rather than intent. Civilian casualties during an Incident have been very low, and the few deaths have proven to have some kind of retributive fate aspect to them - sexual predators, abusive parents, and in one case a former Nazi concentration camp guard who'd be passing as a Jewish survivor for decades.
I'm not an "it" you jerks! I'm a "she" and my name is Ginger. Ginger Happenstance, thank you very much for asking.
Some people just spoil my mood.
Description: A slim young redhead in in civilian clothing. She gives off a serious "hippie lovechild" vibe, preferring pastel colors, loads of beads and necklaces, a bit of body paint and enough peace symbols to cover a Volkswagen minibus. She has a melodic voice and tends to speak mostly in questions.
Gender: Female Age: Unknown (Appears Mid-Twenties) Height: 5'8" Eyes: Green
Hair: Redheaded Skin: Well-Tanned Caucasian Build: Slender
Approach: Dampening Archetype: Domain
Health: 55 + (5 x H)
Powers: Cosmic d10, Intuition d8, Precognition d8
Qualities: Magical Lore d10, Insight d8, Persuasion d8, Serious Weirdness Magnet d8
Status: (# of Environmental targets/challenges) 3+ - d10 / 1-2 - d8 / 0 - d6
Abilities:
Do You See What Your Violence Has Led To? (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice. Recover that much Health. Remove those minions.
Strange How Things Work Out (A) Activate one of the environment's twists in its current zone or one zone closer to Red.
Terrible Accidents (A) Remove any number of environment-created bonuses. For each bonus removed, you may Attack one target using your Mid die, using a different bonus against each.
Tragic Happenstance (A) Attack one target using Magical Lore. Use your Max die. Hinder each opponent that can see or hear that target using your Min die.
Twist of Fortune (R) When Attacked by a hero with a penalty, ignore their damage and remove a penalty on that hero.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Calming Aura (I) +10 Health. The heroes act as being in the Green zone for status die, ability access, and all abilities. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist while attempting these Overcomes, you may use a reaction to Hinder them by rolling your single Infernal die.
Master of Total Chaos (I) Automatically succeed at an Overcome when you throw out all the rules during a situation that is spiraling out of control.
Tactics
To mundane senses Happenstance doesn't seem to be doing anything other than strolling casually through the scene while chaos breaks out around her. More exotics forms of awareness will easily identify her as the nexus of that chaos. Even when faced with violence she barely reacts beyond using Twist of Fortune to negate damage outright while asking the heroes if they really want to use force here. Her actions are usually spent on triggering suitable twists to fuel other abilities with Strange How Things Work Out or hampering heroes' efforts through wholly coincidental Tragic Happenstance. If the heroes seem to be benefiting from the environment they'll quickly suffer Terrible Accidents instead. If she takes serious damage Do You See What Your Violence Has Led To? will restore her at the cost of various environment minions meeting messy fates instead.
Her upgrade makes it much harder to be sure Happenstance is responsible for all of the chaos, and her mastery reflects her unpredictability, and will often be used to advance the scene tracker unexpectedly - or even move it backward a tick or two.
Happenstance is a weird villain and doesn't follow the usual rules for "winning" a scene. Challenges (both environmental and pre-set) in the scene are often more important than she is. If she's defeated she'll simply disappear without a trace, but that may or may not end the incident depending on what other challenges and characters are still in play. Solving all challenges might end things, but if she's around she can often spawn new ones. If the scene tracker runs out while she's still around and there are unfinished challenges the heroes are probably going for an involuntary trip.
Design Notes
The character concept was partly inspired by the fact that Domain archetypes don't tend to use their own dice pools for much, which plays in to the concept that stuff just sort of happens around her rather than being something she's willfully causing. There was also weird dream about a redheaded hippie gal offering to take people on a trip they wouldn't forget...
Capital-T Trip there. This guy's such a square it's kind of adorable.
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