Steve

I cant believe I forgot this one!
 
Bureau 13.
 
Just delightful!

Eastman came back recently and wrote “Ronin”, a dark revenge story about the last surviving turtle, Mikey, going up against The Foot Clan and a Cyborged Shredder in  Cyberpunk future, and it’s Eastman’s best writing. Worth looking up, or getting it online if you have a good sized iPad. 
 
 
Bushido is what we played, and played concurrently with “In The Labyrinth”, before Champions came out. Bushido needs an interest in feudal Japan to work, and some knowledge.
 
In the San Francisco Bay Area, in the 70s and 80s we had a few repertory movie theaters, and our local one was The New Varsity, and it showed a lot of Art films, Animation Festivals, and Samurai films from various famous directors (as well as Rocky Horror Picture Show, and The Song Remains The Same, at midnight every weekend). The Samurai films, and TV26, which would flip over to Japanese programming, and show Samurai dramas (Edo period cops), and Anime (Ikyu-Chan), had the area steeped in Japanese culture if you knew where to look. The Samurai films were probably where the “popcorn nooks” came from that we all used in our campaigns. 
 
We played a lot of Bushido, with each person taking a turn as GM every few months, just so we all could get a chance to play. Each GM would set up an arc, and would hand the reins over to the next guy. Made for wildly different styles. Was fun though. I would still recommend it. 
 
Haven’t run across it yet in the wild. Maybe next February at our first totally post COVID con. I’ve heard of it though, and know a couple of the artists that worked on it. 

Sounds like a good intro to the hobby for kids. 
 
My gem would be Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller. It uses the same stats and the mechanics are similar enough that you can use most, if not all the Classic supplements, and adventures. The main GM sprung it on us when he ran out of steam running his home brew 5e campaign. For me, it was like putting on a comfortable pair of boots. Mechanically it is similar, but the character generation owes a bit to R. Talsorian’s life path, as characters do not die in character generation, but the twist from both is that characters are assumed to know each other, and players negotiate on how each other met, and work out the details. This made for a very tight knit starship crew, with kind of a family feel. It prevents “A$$hole Loaner”, and secret villain characters, or makes them super hard to create. This was for an Online game on Roll20, organized on Discord where no one had webcams, and it helped greatly. With all of the Traveller information online, such as Travellermap.com, it made for a very rich game. 
 
As for Bureau 13, having it run by the creator, Richard Tucholka, at Gencon (in the Milwaukee days), was a treat, so I went to work for him.  
 
Anything modern probably won’t work for me, as I have a distaste for narrative focused, minimalism, which seems to be the modern trend, and find that 5e is about as rules lite as I can enjoy. 

In the BBB, there was a sample plot with a Giant Turkey. Well, which geneticist could create a live giant turkey?

I was thinking Black Harlequin as well.  I had the idea that for Thanksgiving (which I posted in the Hero System Facebook Group) he would duplicate the infamous "Turkey Drop" from WKRP In Cincinnati.  Only instead of live turkeys, he would use plush turkeys stuffed with explosives, and there would be hundreds of them, if not thousands.
 
 

For Halloween, it would be a question of how you want to scale the threat to your PCs' power level. If you'd like someone more in the vein of Michael Meyers or Jason Voorhees -- an opponent who strikes from the shadows, and terrifies as much as kills -- IMO the closest analogue would be Freakshow (CV Vol. 3). Not overwhelmingly powerful, but quite deadly with knives, and very hard to permanently take down, plus he can evoke "waking nightmares" in people by touch.
 
If you want a genuine threat even to groups of superheroes, I'd probably go with Demoiselle Nocturne (Demon: Servants Of Darkness). She's essentially Freddy Krueger or Pennywise, but even more powerful, and with followers. With her abilities and resources, there are lots of ways you could use her. Of course as steriaca mentions above, the CU has many spooky villains, ranging from horrors who can go toe to toe with most supers, such as The Monster, to behind the scenes manipulators like Samhain. (See CV3 for both.)
 
For Christmas, I would favor Black Harlequin (also CV Vol. 3). His write-up already specifies that Christmas is a particularly active season for him, and his murderous toys obviously fit the motif of the holiday. Increasing the size and power of his toys, like his giant murderbot teddy bear, "Clarence," would help scale his threat to the power level of your PCs.

I remember my old GM springing the team which was once known as the Reindeer Raiders. 13 original villains originally named after Santa's Reindeers. You can probably pick and choose writeups and mold them into the new Reindeer Raiders.
 
I won't name them here. Just go through the part of the Night Before Christmas which names the Reindeer and add Rudolph at the end.
 
As for Halloween, use any spooky scary villain you wish. Champions have a lot of them (Samhine, Dead Man Walking, etc.).

Pirates really did operate over vast spans of distance in the Golden Age of Piracy.
 
But let's not forget that they were operating on the lines of existing maritime commerce. It's less impressive to see a pirate voyaging from New England to the Indian Ocean when Boston merchantmen were doing the same. 
 
Now, a fascinating aspect to this, and one that might bear on the OP's vacant coasts, is just how long and how far these lines of maritime commerce stretched, and how long ago. We have an interminable and exhausting debate over whether or not the Basque were in the Newfoundland fisheries before Columbus that I think is pretty much played out, but is also the less interesting with the discovery that people were present on the Azores as early as the sub-Roman period, seven hundred years before they were "discovered" in the days of Henry the Navigator. 
 
If that's the case, we have to explain literally centuries of what was almost certainly low-intensity (because it is not frequent enough to be documented, and any permanent population on the islands was too scanty to leave obvious archaeological evidence) fishing-related (I mean, why else?) activity. Why didn't it escalate into "discovery"?
 
The answer, which I take from narratives of expeditions to the Canaries, is that the "fishers" weren't going for fish, but for seals. Marine mammals can be taken in rookeries on the beach, which is much safer than fishing for them offshore; they produce a high value staple (train oil) that is completely fungible and anonymised, and while the yield of an individual rookery can be quite high, it is also inherently limited. You can predict about how many animals you can take on a given beach. It's never going to increase, there's no room for capital investment, and the number of hunters has to be limited somehow for the voyage to be profitable.
 
When you look at the global distribution of pinnipeds, and particularly the so-called Mediterranean monk seal, it maps onto the routes of the early European voyages of discovery pretty well. There was a long pre-Age of Discovery era of faffing around with the North Atlantic islands and the islands of "Macaronesia," which all have seal fisheries; there was a southwards push towards the Guinea coast which is first documented in contemporary histories of the "deeds of Prince Henry" when the explorers arrived in the sealing grounds across from the Canaries and then southwards towards Mauretania's Bay of Arguin; Columbus sailed to the Caribbean, catching up with another large seal population, especially off the Mayan coast of Yucatan; the story of how the Portuguese got to the Cape of Good Hope is very obscure, but Namibia has a huge seal population; and, of course, there's lots of sealing to be done off Newfoundland. 
 
So is there a prehistory of low-intensity sealing voyages to the areas later "discovered"? Sometimes. Maybe. Point is, where the sealers go, you're likely to get pirates --subject, and I think this might be the crucial point, to there being fiscal room for them to operate. (There's not much point to going out and stealing hide bags of train oil instead of catching your own seals unless you can sell them for less than the fishers can. Throw in a Prince with a "soap monopoly" like Henry the Navigator in the ports form which the fishers come from, and a rising Meseta to use the soap, and you have a monopoly rent being charged on legitimate edible fats imports which allow the pirates their profit by evading the rent. 
 
Now, when I say that there is no possibility of capital investment increasing yields on sealing voyages, this  isn't quite true. The Canaries in the immediate pre-Contact era seem to have developed quite a trade in dyed goatskin. So-called "Moroccan kid" dominated (dominates) the industry, and the leatherworking port towns on the Moroccan coast are known to have sourced their hides as far away as northern Nigeria during the caravan days. There also seem to have been Moroccan buyers in the Canaries in the era when the  native Canarians were, by some accounts, cave men who couldn't even build boats --perhaps an unfair rap. 
 
The point is that you might see a region that, on a map, looks completely deserted, no towns or even cities, but which is actually fairly populous, and is linked into a global trade network by some kind of high-skill specialised export like dyed goatskin. 

Well they are kinda both, you can both block with them and attack with them.  A shield is like a mobile section of armor which the opponent either attacks through or tries to bypass by targeting other locations.  But you can also slam someone with it or hit them with the edge.  Some shields were even equipped with blades and spikes to help with that.

From this past weekend:
 
Hero previously flashed can see again: "Hey, I can see again?"
Villain that did it in the first place, "You can see again?"
Hero replies, "Yeah, I can see again... oh..."
Villain hits hero with flash attack again.  😛

My son uses it.  You know kids: they want all that flashy high-tech new-fangled stuff.....
 
(Grumbles incoherently in 2e....)
.

Shev: I finally find a Rat I’m not related to and she tells me to f*** off????
 
Gonno’s carpentry over the next 11 months goes poorly, Miya is lucky in business and Arram loses a family member. Romilda gets an unexpected boon and Skave suffers a blow to his reputation in town. 
 
Skave: ONE guy has a bad trip and runs through town naked screaming about being chased by invisible ghosts, and everyone hates you for months, honestly…
 
Shev: Everytime I fire this thing it costs me 5GP.
Gonno OoC: Maybe if we ask nicely the bad guys will hold still, so you don’t waste your money. 
 
Miya has been supplementing her income by dancing at one of Selversgard’s public houses. She’s not exactly spoiled for choice - it’s the only one with a stage. Afterwards, she’s handed an envelope. 
 
Miya: Thank you young dwarf. If it’s a proposition I’m not interested. 
 
It’s an invitation to a meeting with the dwarf Gelvert, one of the most well-off people in town, who has profited mightily from the sawmill since he and four friends founded the town a century back. He even has somebody to take Miya’s cloak and get it dried and cleaned. As he tells Miya, the other founders are dead, or almost certainly so. He’s been thinking a lot about Jael Jirin, one of the founders, a gnome of whom he was very fond. 
 
Gelvert: Soul like a bright lighthouse on a darkened sea… she founded the fisherman’s guild, you know.
 
Apparently Jael hid a number of items for Gelvert to collect, if she never returned, but thinking about her likely death was so painful he’s been putting it off for decades. 
 
Gelvert: I find that as the days grow darker and the winter gathers in my bones, I fear it will not be long before I too make my way to Pharasma’s halls. 
 
He wants to pay us to retrieve them - he probably isn’t relying on our sense of civic duty to avoid paying professional adventurer rates, but rich old dwarfs don’t become rich old dwarfs by wasting money. He tells the group that the collapsed old ruin we explored last year is far from the only such in the forest - they’re all through it, and for that matter most of the continent. Jael kept one as a private lair, some 20 miles SE of Selversgard, and kept various important documents in a strongbox there - Gelvert has the key, and warns us about some of the pit traps we’ll have to avoid. We’ll have to bring a ladder, and probably some raincoats.
 
Gelvert: I regret sending you out in this weather, but I doubt I’ll still be here come spring. 
 
Gonno wonders if any of his neighbors have a folding ladder he can borrow.
 
Shev: Buy one you cheap bastard, they’re only 2GP. 
 
Portable bridges are probably also a good idea - getting a donkey across a ladder seems difficult - although Shev loudly complains that the thing must be made from Darkwood given the cost and weight. Not that Shev needs the bridge, although he’s still the only one with a giant riding rat, Vokk.
 
Shev: I’ve only been here two years, it takes a while to breed the musclerats. 
Miya: I am going to have to do so much negotiation in a few years… ‘no, it didn’t bite your children, and it hasn’t eaten your dog’.
Shev: To be fair, how big is the dog?
 
Nobody’s figured out that Miya and her pet fox are the same entity yet.
 
Townsfolk 1: That pet fox is weird. 
Townsfolk 2: It’s probably a f***ing familiar or something, don’t worry about it. 
 
Unfortunately, by the first afternoon the weather goes from wet to appalling - trying to navigate across trackless forest is hard enough in good weather, and it’s all too easy to miss the giant spider trapdoors when the rain is blowing up your nose. Gonno’s solution is practical - roll a big log over the trapdoor when the spider retreats. 
We make camp. Nothing disturbs us during the night.
 
Gonno OoC: I suspect I’m mostly relying on the fact that only a lunatic would be wandering around in this weather.
Shev: HELLO.
Gonno OoC: But we’re not wandering around.
Arram: But we’re still out here in this weather.
 
The weather continues so awful that it’s hard to tell possible stone towers apart from big rocks. We go to approach one, when a voice pipes up from the undergrowth.
 
Voice: I wouldn't go down there if I was you. 
 
It’s a tiny creature with a humanoid front half and shining silver hair, and the back half of a cricket. 
 
Shev: Why would you not go down there?
The Grig: Because that is the domain of a wolfwere.
 
The Grig: A terrible story - a wolf cursed to live as a man, under the full moon. 
 
Skave is suspicious - for one thing it’s not full moon -  and thinks the Grig is trying to fool us.
 
Skave: I’m pretty sure we can go on.
Shev: Why’s that?
Arram: Love of violence.
Skave: I just don’t trust it.
Shev: You barely trust anyone outside the warren - be more specific
The Grig: Doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t trust me. *flies off in a huff* 
Shev: Now look what you’ve done, our supplies are going to get scattered all over the place the next time we camp.
Gonno: *gives Skave a ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ look, sighs and packs up the rations he was going to thank the Grig with - even if it WAS trying to fool us, rewarding the the Fae for small pranks is still a good idea as long as the pranks remain harmless*
Shev OoC: And it stops them from escalating. 
 
We go ahead into the suspiciously circular depression anyway - the tower is actually a huge monolith.
 
Gonno: *examines the monolith from various angles, mentally calculating the size of the crater, closely examining the lichen on the stone, and giving the rock a cautious sniff* Thassilonian.
Shev: Rune-cannon shot. Rune this, rune that. What happened to good old fashioned glyphs, I ask you?
GM: Certainly runed this area.
 
A bit later on we find a sign nailed to a tree, pointing to a strongbox. It contains a meat pie and a blueberry cupcake, as Skave’s alchemy confirms. This is OBVIOUSLY Fae food.
 
Shev: DON’T EAT IT.
Miya: I’m not going to - it was going to stay in the strongbox for now.
Shev: You leave it right where you found it!
The Grig: Oh, but then the pie will get cold!
 
Shev and Gonno are far too knowledgeable about the rules for dealing with Fae - i.e. Don’t. - to fall for the Grig’s protestations of innocence, even if it was innocent.
 
Miya: Hang on, you had it made up for us? Where???
The Grig: Oh, I’m not going to tell you THAT.
 
The Grig doesn’t trash our camp overnight, but our paranoia leaves us unrested nonetheless. The next day brings us to an old stone building - with a newer steel portcullis. News in ‘probably added in the last century’. A bit of elbow grease gets it open, although Gonno does manhandle the block we were using as a fulcrum underneath the portcullis just in case. 
Perhaps Gonno should stick up the front of the party - he won’t distract our trailblazer Shev with any unnecessary chatter.
 
Shev: That’s why I have Vokk. To avoid any unnecessary chatter. I dare you to name a more trustworthy companion.
Miya: A rock. 
Shev: Nonono, They’re constantly stealing your elephants.
Miya: … What? That’s a reference to something isn’t it… Oh. That went straight over my head, like the elephants, who are very distressed about it so don’t be there.
 
It’s the giant riding rat Vokk that spots the first warning - a big, helpful PIT! sign with an arrow, with delimited paths and trap bounds. It doesn’t seem to be in the same handwriting as the Grig’s sign earlier. Further on there’s a room with all mod cons - glowing crystals in the walls, comfy bed, a cage, a skeleton, and a corpse slumped over the table. The skeleton is a person, holding a spear and standing straight upright. Gonno wants to look around for a keyhole. The key we were given was supposed to disable some of the defenses and he doesn’t like the look of that skeleton, but Shev is more interested in looting those crystals and Arram lobs a rock at the undead. The corpse is a human or maybe an elf, and was using the room to flay and prepare corpses. The wannabe necromancer apparently retired here to perfect his art and take over the world. 
 
Arram: The Twilight Academy is a week’s travel away, you nutter, you should have just gone there. 
 
The corpse-botherer even managed to animate a single skeleton, but then, at a loss about what to actually do with it, ordered it to guard the cage. Arram toasts the skeleton, which never even twitches from its assigned duty - a sad end for the late Necromancer’s ‘Great Work’.
 
Shev: An appropriate end.
 
The Necromancer has four puncture wounds in his chest, but not caused by anything in the room. The loon never explored past this room, according to his journal, since he didn’t like all the traps. If one of the traps is responsible for his injuries, we can hardly blame him. At least his spellbook didn’t get too icky. Unfortunately, we’re not so scared of traps, and thus discover what killed the necromancer - giant mosquitoes. 
 
Skave: *Missing yet another crossbow shot* I’m terrible with this thing!
GM: Yes, you should be throwing bombs.
Skave: I get yelled at when I throw bombs!
Shev: For good reason!!!!
 
GM: You have avoided catching the disease carried by these Stirges.
Gonno OoC: That notwithstanding, I should probably avoid squeezing it like a piping bag to get my blood back. 

 


 

Gonno OoC: It’s at this point that most villagers would put up an ad on Craigslist looking for murder-hoboes. 
 
Despite the increasingly difficult weather and terrain, we eventually find scattered yellow wax of the kind that poisoned the rats. There don’t appear to be any giant poisoned bee hives hanging from the trees overhead, but that doesn't preclude giant poisoned burrowing bees.
 
Arram: And that would just be about our luck, wouldn’t it.
 
And if there was a trail, it’s too old to follow, even for a rat as antisocial as Shev. Fortunately the plants have been there longer, and Miya can talk to plants. The shrubbery tells us that the were fuzzy things, less hairy than the ratfolk, smaller than any of the villagers, that came through about 10 brightnesses ago. Also, their noisy bits were bigger than ours. Honestly, as far as descriptive qualia go, that’s pretty good work for a vegetable. 
 
We press on looking for more clues - looking so intently that we don’t notice that the rushing torrent coming down from the hills has undercut the bank, and Arram ends up hanging from a tree branch. Fortunately the rest of us haul him back to safety without going over ourselves. And a bit further on from there, we hear words in an unpleasant barking language just over the next ridge. Unfortunately, none of us speak goblin. Fortunately Shev and his giant riding rat are both pretty stealthy, and easily identifies them as goblins, a goblin dog, and a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin is currently beating one of the mouthier gobbos about the head with a stick. Then hands out chunks of that yellow wax to each.
 
Shev and his rat might well be stealthy, and it’s true that the goblinoids don’t notice them at once or as he and his mount are sneaking away again. On the other hand the rest of the party are not so lightfooted as we sneak into position to ambush the enemy. Shev is inclined to blame Gonno, who is certainly the physically densest of the party, but Gonno is too generous to point out that it was actually the riding rat sneezing. The goblinoids, however, are generous enough to share most of their arrows with Gonno. Arram is comprehensively ventilated as well. In fact, it’s a small miracle we survive at all - it would seem murder-hoboes exist for a reason. 
 
The conscious members of the party decide to lug the unconscious Gonno back to the hut, for safety and healing. The current clearing might be suitable for a campsite, but for two factors - the enemy know about it.
 
Shev: And it’s a bit corpse-y.
 
The goblinoids are not equipped well, which isn’t unusual, but the hobgoblins are unusually clean and are all branded with a V, which is. And none of them are carrying rations, which implies they have a camp somewhere nearby. In hindsight, we should have let Shev’s rat chew on all the goblinoids, so their compatriots will blame wild animals when they come looking.  
The next day, with considerable more caution, we locate the goblin camp, at a long-ruined tower deep in the forest. One unusual feature is a set of large wooden cages, one containing a large and very unhappy boar. There’s no sign of any goblins, but there is a large hole leading into the earth. No spoil heap, which implies a collapse rather than an excavation. Or maybe there really are giant poisoned burrowing bees. Unusually, the hobgoblin has a statue of Shelyn set up in his tent - with a note underneath it that none of us can read. Written in a very neat neat hand. That might be related to the cloven-hooved prints leading in and out of the hole. 
 
Distracted into a conversation about the ‘Where’s Wally’ mythos.
 
Shev’s player: In the United States and Canada he’s known as “Waldo”, in Denmark he’s “Holger”, in France he’s “Charlie” and in German he’s “Walter”.
Gonno’s player: And Interpol has taken a keen interest. 
 
There’s a deeper chasm at the bottom of the hole, with a swinging bridge, a sleeping goblin in a running cage, and a raging cascade. Unfortunately, bridge and goblin are both on the far side of the chasm, and our attempts to snipe them from our side are a spectacular failure. We end up relying on Shev and his giant riding rat again.
 
Shev: They might not as fast as a horse but f*** they’re versatile. No! No! Get that of your mouth!
Arram: You don’t know where it’s been.
 
As suspected, the ruins had a dungeon underneath, and there’s a hooded figure doing something alchemical on a table near two caged hobgoblin females. Could be dangerous, especially if they're anything like our ratfolk alchemist.
 
Shev: Because in our experience, alchemists are very good at hitting us. 
 
Happily, not everybody thinks to put tripwires on the walls. Even in the Underdark, where practically everybody can Spiderclimb or the equivalent. We even manage to get into position to ambush the alchemist - almost. She seems quite pleased to see us, which is not good. She’s a Forlarren - corrupted fey. 
 
Forlarren: Well gentlemen, ladies? What can I do for you?
Miya: Ah… we wanted to know why goblins are poisoning the animals of the forest and causing sundry problems?
Forlarren: Oh that’s easy - I told them to. 
Miya: … OK… any particular reason?
Forlarren: I wanted to drive the rats towards Selversgard and make you all insane and dead.
Miya: …. Why?
Forlarren: Because I hate you. Obviously I won’t need these anymore *reaches for a lever next to the hobgoblin cage, and casts Heat Metal on us*
 
Fortunately not all of us are wearing armour, and she doesn’t cast it very well, so her attempted Cook and Book doesn’t go as well as she’d like and we have her surrounded before she can escape. And then she’s on fire, and very soon after that, dead. It’s quite fortunate that we stopped her pulling the lever, since it wasn’t a cage release but a mechanism to kill her extraneous test subjects. We free them, and give them food and water. 
 
Shev: I can’t just abandon them because they’re not my species.
Miya: And they’re female - you can’t just do that.
Shev: I’m usually more egalitarian than that, but still. 
 
The hobgoblins seem very grateful, despite the language barrier. Extremely grateful, at least insofar as Miya is concerned. 
 
Arram: I would help, but I’m paralysed with laughter.
Miya: Ah. No? Busy. Do you understand? Busy.
Shev: Arram, can you please do something about this? We have things to do today. 
 
It’s not ideal, but we can’t really let the two hobgoblins fend for themselves, naked and alone. We might have to take them back to Selversgard, despite the fact that goblinoids are universally despised (and for good reason). The Forlarren also had a human skull with a few citrines shoved into the nasal cavity. 
 
Gorro: *thinking* Well I don’t think it would match the decor at my place, but perhaps one of the others would like it.
Arram OoC: I hope not, because then I’ll have to write ‘nose gems’ on the treasure sheet. 
Skave: Hey, skull for the alchemy shop!
 
There’s also a preserved nymph’s head, a skinned hobgoblin and the remains of a halfling bard with a masterworked lute in the other room - nobody we recognise as a visitor to Selversgard, but it’s possible someone will come looking for him. The Maker’s Mark from Magnimar will help narrow down his identity at least. Gonno prepares the bodies for rough burial - none of us are clerics. 
 
Arram: I’m pretty sure by the time the rest of us finish arguing about it Gonno’s already dug the graves. 
Gonno: I dig.
 
The hobgoblins head off by themselves, to Shev’s relief.
 
Miya: A quick smack on the bum and off they go.
Shev: NO.
 
We also get XP for releasing the boar.
 
Miya OoC: Now we just have to rescue 10 ½ more boars and we’ll go up a level.
Shev OoC: How do we rescue half a boar?
Miya OoC: Piglet.
Arram OoC: Yeah, Young template would do it.
Piglet: Oh, bother.
Shev OoC: Did that pig just talk?
 
At least we've dealt with the crazed rat problem, and can return to Selversgard as Perfectly Adequate Substitute Adventurers. We’ll send a few letters to Magnimar with the next load of timber, and see if we can find an ID for the dead bard. And then Gonno can start carving a set of alphabet blocks for the ratfolk’s offspring - they’re not a species that put off parenting until middle age. 
 
Next Adventure : a year and a month from now!

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle -
 
Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry!
Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US!
Lorgar: .... the other warcry
Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER!
Lorgar: Much better.

That's one of the things that makes MCU Iron Man one of the best superheroes on screen. So many films seem to have their hero not actually change or grow from one film to another, reverting back to their old habits of bad behaviour and such, just so that the sequels can repeat a similar moral again. The Iron Man suits, and Tony's initial relative personality flaws/mental health issues, allow for a constant self-improvement and power-up in every film. Shows his extreme self-awareness and self-reflection, mirrored by his increasingly advanced technology and refined skills as a superhero.

One of the world's most enthusiastic explorers of alternate realities is Doctor Odysseus.  These are a few of the worlds he has visited and named:
 
Gaia:  The Champions Universe.  Alternatively, your homegrown campaign universe if it could be the birthplace of a dimension-hopper named Doctor Odysseus.
  
Hera:  A universe where the most powerful supers got together and created a standardized set of laws that they would enforce on the entire planet of Earth.  National governments still exist but their ability to make and enforce criminal laws is restricted.  One of their laws is the one requiring every active super to join their gigantic super-team.  
 
Athena:  A universe where almost every person on Gaia has an opposite sex counterpart
 
Thanatos:  A universe where almost all of Gaia's superheroes have fallen to a necromantic villain who revived them as undead under his control.
 
Hecate:  Magic is the source for superpowers and superheroes operate in secrecy, memories of witnesses end up erased if they can't keep their mouths shut.  Technological advancement is somewhat retarded with no cellphones or even personal computers because demons have a tendency to infest cybernetics.  
 
Hephaestus:  Advanced technology is the source for superpowers, producing battlesuits, cyborgs, robots and androids in this vaguely cyberpunk reality where corporations and governments create highly visible and merchandised superheroes as well as plausibly deniable "supervillains" and covert operatives. 
 
Persephone:  A reality where the supers of Gaia ended up on the opposite side of the moral fence. 
 
Calliope:  A reality that seems to have no native supers or exotic technology, but a certain comic book company is publishing tales of Gaia's supers.
 
Typhon:  A reality where the Stars Were Right and despite the efforts of the superheroes human civilization was mostly destroyed by Lovecraftian horrors. 
 
Kratos:  A reality where humanity is extinct but other primates took its place.  Among their champions are Shock (the monkey), Furious George, Silverback and Battlechimp Potemkin.  
 
Zeus:  A world where innate superpowers only belong to aliens, but many aliens have been attracted to Earth by the surprising number of humans who are gadgeteers/ 
 
Nike:  A steampunk version of Gaia.
 
Enyo:  A world that seems to copy Athena's past, with Adelphine Hitler, Winifred Churchill and Francine Roosevelt leading their respective nations into their version of World War II.  Male Gaian heroes may be annoyed by the blatant sexism with which many will greet them.  
 
Zelus:  One of those worlds where the Nazis won World War II
 
Hippolyta :  A world where men have disappeared and women reproduce by magic. 
 
Priapus:  A world where superpowered men rule in a polygamous and patriarchal culture.  They've been to war with Hippolyta.  
 
Achilles:  A world with a single really powerful superhero sent to Earth to protect it from alien intruders.  Bad news.  You count as alien intruders.  
 
Sisyphus:  A world of great prosperity, but all of it fueled by brutal exploitation of its superhumans especially the energy projectors trapped in its power plants.  
 
Ekecheira:  Superheroes and villains are performers under contract entertaining the public through streaming video sense by the hovering cameras that follow them.  The real supervillains were banished.  
 
Porphyrion:  Natives are 9 times taller than normal Gaians meaning Gaians are the size of Porphyrion's action figures.  
  
Iris: is a world plagued by demons which are fought off by magical champions chosen shortly after reaching puberty.  90% of the defenders appear as magical girls even though in their civilian form some of them are boys and men.  
 
 

Thomas called Al-Shujaea home these days. He couldn't remember how old he was, exactly, but he figured he was around his mid-thirties, and for the past five years an attic off the Street of Potters had been where he'd hung up his hat. His hair was greying before his time, and the lines of his face were not getting shallower -- a rough life and the dust carried on the winds off the high desert saw to that.
 
It was now close to midnight, and Thomas was not-at-all staggering home. The evening's job had been a success, and he and his ... associates -- friends was too friendly a word -- had earned enough silver to last a good while. The strong date wine had flowed rather freely afterwards, but he'd managed to limit himself to a few cups. Thomas knew better than most what dangers lurked in the dark alleys along Al-Shujaea's mean streets. He had no intention of making it too easy for some desperate robber to relieve him of his hard-earned coin. The days being what they were, the desperate were growing in numbers, and the desperation grew even more.
 
But Thomas got home without incident. As they usually did at times like these, when he climbed the stairs to his room, memories came flooding in of another groaning old house with creaking stairs, and as usual he fended them off. He sang a dirty song to himself and tried to think happy thoughts. He entered his room -- as always, fighting a bit with the crooked door -- closed it, barred it, threw himself on the palliasse without even removing his boots, and fell asleep. And dreamed.
 
TBC

Our group played Twilight 2000 (way back in the 80s and 90s) for several years. Our “currencies” changed several times, depending on location, local resources, and need. Barter and Trading became vital skills.

For a while, the players used ammunition - small arms, mortars, C4 - as the standard for trade. Then at various times vehicle parts, including bicycles, black powder, food, and medicines. Once they even ‘acquired’ several tons of gold, and found it was only as valuable as their trustworthiness. 

Eventually the true currency became skill sets. Horticulturist and farmer. Engineer, mechanic, electrician, and gunsmith. Tactician, trader, and navigator. Some PCs became so valuable, the rest of the party would throw themselves in front to take a bullet.
 
The mechanic was so protected that the player quickly got bored. So, we let her play a scout as a second character. (The player was indispensable. She would point out what could be salvaged from houses and vehicles and what could be made from the scavenged parts. Being an engineer at the Oak Ridge National Labs has unexpected perks.)

My group had our character creation session for the new campaign using Mongoose’s Pirates of Drinax campaign setting this weekend. It was quite a lot of fun, like a time-compressed pre-campaign session, and everyone had a great time following their character’s life paths.
 
One character started out with a fantastic stat set (three 12s rolled in front of me) and the other two were closer to average. Of those other players, one had his best stat as his social standing, and the third was fairly average with social standing as his dump stat (a five as I recall). Because there was a pretty big difference in the totals of their characteristics, we all decided to let the two with lower characteristics have some rerolls on their life paths to make up the difference.
 
They all then decided to go to the military academy for the Marines, and that’s when the fun began. My player with the golden stats failed to get into the academy and was drafted instead, ending up in the Marines anyway as a private. The low SOC player managed to successfully enroll on his first try and the third used one of his rerolls and managed to get in on his second try (and we explained that as his high SOC meant Daddy pulled some strings).
 
The other two later managed to graduate with honors without rerolls, entering the service as lieutenants, while the stat-lucky player finished pounding it out in his first enlistment and was promoted to a higher level noncom. The player kept joking about “college boys” like that sergeant character from the old “Black Sheep Squadron” tv show.
 
After that, things continued to be interesting. The golden-stat player kept getting injured and ended up losing both eyes, one each on two separate tours of duty which were replaced with the marines covering most of the cost. Meanwhile, the two academy grads steadily ascended in rank, never once failing an advancement roll and never getting injured that I recall. They also accumulated a small collection of contacts, rivals and enemies during this phase.
 
The high starting SOC player served his entire career in the motor pool, and the other graduate was a Star Marine.
 
During one particular enlistment later on, there was apparently a disastrous military campaign that took place that was the fault of the commanding officer. The low SOC player decided to turn in his commanding officer and received a bonus to his next promotion roll and advanced again in rank. The noncom player ended up getting injured in that mission and lost his other eye, getting that one replaced and picking up a bit more medical debt.
 
The golden-stat player, having had enough of the dangers of military service by this point, changed his career to being a corporate agent and then ended up almost burning his face off on his first tour of duty for his new employers but gained the Demolitions skill. This added to his accumulated medical debt for more repair work. Even before this, he was being compared to a young Nick Fury.
 
The other two players retired as Brigadiers with pensions and earned a lot of mustering out benefits. They also decided to pay for anti-aging treatments. The formerly low-SOC player finished with a 10 SOC thank to his rank, and the other somehow managed to become a decorated war hero with a SOC in the low teens all while commanding the motor pool.
 
After everyone settled their medical debts, the two Brigadiers joined up again with their old service buddy, who had become a deadly gunfighter based on his skill levels by then, and they ended up in the Trojan Reach together to begin their new adventure.
 
I’m now going to take their rolled characters and convert them over to Hero.

Synchronously, this has been something I've asked of some OSR players recently. How common was/is Raise/Resurrection in your games? The answers were mainly 'exceedingly rare' to 'quite common'. There didn't seem to be much of a mid-ground.
 
I asked it largely because it seems as though the main objection of Old School DMs was the "invulnerability" of 5E D&D characters, i.e., "It's too hard to kill them". Personally, I feel that whilst the threat of death should loom large, I don't see that as the primary way to challenge them. I try not to kill my characters willy-nilly as I invest a lot of time into weaving them into the campaign. As I've always been a GM who has had Raising been very rare, that's a lot of wasted work. In any case, if you kill PCs readily but allow Raising as fairly commonplace, what are you achieving?
 
On a related note, I've always been interested in the general ability of healing/curing in D&D communities via the clergy and how that impacts day to day life. Any village with even a resident 1st level cleric would be significantly different to a real-world medieval community. 

Its like any game you play, significant deaths are part of the game storyline, but your character can always come back to life whenever they die and raise dead spells are all over the place.  It makes no sense, unless the game explicitly and particularly says that there's something about the PC(s) that makes them particularly able to come back to life and even then its silly.
 
That's one of several reasons why I made bringing people back from the life either gruesome and temporary (the necromantic version that uses transform to bring someone back... but they "heal" back the transform as normal and rot away over time), or complicated and special (a particular ritual or herb that can preserve someone's soul in their body a short period of time like Westley being "almost dead" in Princess Bride) which then other techniques can be used to heal them back to life.

In a number of settings resurrection magic either won't work or has limited effect on people who die of old age - might get them functional for a short time, but they're just going to die again, and given the difficulty of resurrection magic, not worth the trouble. Such settings would likely result in a lot of long reigns, punctuated by civil wars.
As far as assassination goes, I imagine that mutilating the corpse would be a common method of prevention. A lot of settings only allow resurrection of an intact corpus. Taking the head and disposing of it would be effective there.
In settings where resurrection magic is common, a counteractive approach would likely be considered. Steven Brust's Taltos novels feature both hiding the body until resurrection is no longer possible, and Morganti blades, which kill the soul as well as the body.

there's a decent chance that the next person in line hired the assassin

The latest Full Frontal Nerdity webcomic posed an interesting question and then some possible explanations.
 
http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=2470
 
Given the wealth and power of royals, why do they never seem to get brought back from the dead when such magic exists?

Another example of this kind of circumstance is Aes Sedai from The Wheel of Time. Male wielders of The One Power go mad over time since the source of magic they use has been corrupted. But women do not suffer this fate since the pull from a slightly different, but interconnected, well of power. 

The cover article for the October 2022 issue of Scientific American is "The Power of Viking Women," with the abstract, "Analyses of ancient North Atlantic textiles show that Viking and medieval women wielded considerable cultural and economic influence." No, the old Norse weren't matriarchal as such. But women ran the farms while the men were out raiding and trading for years at a time. More particularly, cloth-weaving was exclusively women's work (with taboos against men even entering the weaving-house), and cloth was of great economic importantce -- to the extent that standardized lengths of cloth were used as money. So not as simply patriarchal as one might think.
 
Dean Shomshak