Friday, December 22, 2023

Riot, Malicious Wild Card Villain

A wild card villain who just wants to see the world burn and chaos reign.  Bit like a much more malicious Johnny Crisis, albeit operating on a less cosmic scale.

Riot

Riot's true identity (if ze even has one) remains unknown, as does ze's motivations beyond an obvious love of chaos.  Ze seems to just show up at other villain's more high-profile jobs at random, as well as appearing at public events of all kinds.  Ze has a special fondness for protests but doesn't seem to actually support any cause, social, political or otherwise.  Ze is all about chaos and opposing organized efforts to accomplish anything.

To date Riot's observed powers include the ability alter perceptions, implant mental suggestions in human minds, and change zir own physical form within a broad range of adult human characteristics.  There's some debate about whether there's also degree of reality shaping involved, based on apparent manipulation of the local environment.  Either that or ze is impossibly lucky and people become very prone to psychotic breaks in zirs presence.

Description: Who knows?  This villain is a shapeshifter and can look like any reasonably adult human, albeit not a convincing duplicate of any specific person.  Illusions similarly conceal whatever real clothing is worn, and alter zir voice to whatever desired.  Some exotic senses may partially defeat the disguise, but otherwise even identifying zir is difficult. 

Gender: Variable (Ze/Zir)           Age: Variable            Height: Variable           Eyes: Variable

Hair: Variable                               Skin: Variable                                 Build: Variable

Approach: Leech                   Archetype: Domain

Health:  45 + (5 x H)

Powers: Illusions d10, Suggestion d8, Shapeshifting d6

Qualities: Conviction d8, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Subtle Psychic Violence d8, Stealth d8

Status: (# of Environmental targets/challenges) 3+ - d10 / 1-2 - d8 / 0 - d6

Abilities:

Agitator (A) Hinder multiple targets using Illusions.  Recover Health equal to your Min die.  If you roll doubles, Attack one of those targets using your Max die.

Innocent Victim (R) When Attacked, redirect the Attack to an environmental minion.

Mind-Meddler (A) Hinder using Suggestion.  Use your Max + Min dice.  Boost using your Mid die.

Mob Violence (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice.  Attack every target in the scene except yourself with those dice.  Remove those minions.

Stir The Pot (A) Activate one of the environment's twists in its current zone or one zone closer to the Red.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Brainwashing Zone (I) +10 Health.  While the scene is in the green zone, all heroes' qualities of d8 or higher are reduced by one die size.  In the Yellow zone all of the heroes' qualities of d10 or higher are reduced by one additional step (two die sizes total).  In the Red zone, all heroes' quality dice are treated as d4.  Heroes can remove this upgrade with three overcome successes.  If a hero takes a minor twist while taking these Overcomes, they lose access to a quality entirely until this upgrade is removed.  If a hero is knocked out while this ability is active, create a new friendly minion with a die size equal to the hero's largest power die to represent the brainwashed hero.

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

Riot just wants to see the world burn and laugh while it happens.  Ze doesn't really do the "tactics" thing, much less strategy.  Zir favorite trick is to Stir The Pot repeatedly, building up the number of environment minions available to play with.  They fuel zir Innocent Victim reaction if ze's spotted by heroes or the law, and even small numbers of them can cause catastrophic damage when spurred on to Mob Violence.  Ze also finds it amusing to use Mind Meddler to hand out mods almost at random, and often Boosts environment targets or Hinders whichever hero or villain has annoyed zir most recently.  Heroes struggling to deal with challenges in a coordinated fashion will likely draw a use of Agitator, especially if they're trying to bring down Riot's upgrade (if in play).

Zir's upgrade can be pretty crippling for heroes' Overcome actions, and zir's mastery is exactly what you'd expect it to be - a bit of predictability Riot would be deeply annoyed about if zir realized it.    

Design Notes

Riot is designed to fit with any environment where there are twists that introduce regular humans (so not alien planets, exotic dimensions, etc. - although they might work with a human's dream or mindscape environment) and act as a third party who just wants to see chaos run amok.  They're more likely to oppose heroes than they are most villains, but a real control freak or pompous mastermind might draw their ire as much as even the most civic-minded hero.  Riot doesn't really have plans as conceived, and is likely to slip away quietly when a scene starts to bore them - usually after leaving the whole place in ruins after one last use of Mob Violence.


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