HND Campaign Pitch
It's 1987, anytown U.S.A. You're a rag-tag group of heroes, with a few nifty abilities, and one very strange thing in common: you seem to jump into your own body every time the Universe blows up. Which it keeps doing.
You've seen the monsters: horrible, unnatural, and impossible things that Lovecraft himself wouldn't dare imagine. You've fought them. You've killed a few. You've been killed a lot more. And every time, you survive, albeit in a slightly different universe than the one you left.
I put Quantum Leap, the X-Files, Supernatural, and Heroes into a blender, and this came out. (Seasoned with a bit of the Adventure Zone)
Magic powers exist, although not in a form Dresden would be happy with (unicorns and elves might be a thing, but they aren't *the* thing). Magic always existed, but it used not have always existed. People are messing with space and time, and changing the rules of history. This is, necessarily, a bad thing, that's destabilizing reality, causing further deviance from the Prime, in a vicious cycle.
And when that cycle reaches its inevitable end, the Universe blows up. And half the time, you're the reason why.
Hyacinth has this black shard around her neck. Found it years ago. If you crack it--which almost no known force can do--it becomes a black hole that sucks in the entire Universe, unless it's somehow stopped (which almost no force can do).
She also has a bitchin' dagger that transforms into a sword. It can nullify almost any supernatural (or hyperdimensional, as she prefers) energy. It can hurt monsters. It can block their powers. And it can shatter the Nightmare Shard.
When the Universe gets too bad, she puts it out of its misery--shattering the shard, swallowing up the Universe, monsters and all, and then pops into existence in her own body...always at 2:30 pm on Tuesday, July 7th, 1987.
And so do you all. Which might be really inconvenient, depending on what that version of you was up to.
And this new world never knows what you saw. They'll never know you saved the Multiverse at the cost of a Universe. But you do.
That's a hell of a weight to bear, but what can you do? You're pretty sure you can't suicide your way out of this, even if you're willing to throw the Multiverse under a bus. Why?
Because ***Heroes Never Die***.
Enemies
Monsters
The Protocol calls them "vergences". Everyone calls them "oh my god, what the fuck is that!". We know them as monsters.
The best way I can describe them is this: read the top articles on the SCP wiki.
We're talking the usual dimensional horrors, but also cognitohazards--memes that spread through your thoughts and can kill by you learning about them. Colors from space, new numbers that break Math, and even the occasional slimy, humaniform monster that tries to eat you.
They're a problem, and not just because of the obvious physical violence they cause. They also have a profound psychological effect, after which the company was named: Paradox.
Things that can't be real--not just shouldn't, but **can't**--don't like to be observed. Or rather, the Universe doesn't like it when you observe them. The concept of the world and how it works is a tangible thing in the realm of thought, and that very realm fights the idea of supernatural (or hyperdimensional) horrors. For a small phenomenon, like a "wizard" trying to make a little fireball, Paradox acts defensively, mitigating or nullifying the effect, because it just can't exist. But for larger phenomenon, it bends the other way; when the vergence is powerful enough, the collective mindshare of human (and other) intelligence begins to doubt their conception of reality, in favor of the obvious contradiction they're witnessing.
In other words, a runaway chain reaction: a Meltdown. When enough bad energy concentrates, and enough minds witness it, Paradox reaches critical mass, and begins to decay reality, starting with the vicinity of the event. The more people observe this breakdown, the more they contribute to it. It spreads like wildfire, and can encompass all of Earth--indeed, the Universe--at frightening speed. Even a single vergence, if not properly contained, has the potential to cause a "reset"--a nice euphemism for the ultimate apocalypse.
So yeah, they need to be stopped. And the Protocol is kinda good at that. Mostly. They make mistakes, but usually manage to lock things down eventually, if at the cost of life.
Except when they *don't*. You've seen them fail. They'll fail again. You've bailed the Universe out a few times, taking out the baddies they couldn't. A few more times, you bought the Multiverse another chance by "burning" a Universe with the Nightmare Shard.
Which sucks to do, but when you have to, you really should. Because every time the monsters win, when they consume the Universe instead of the Shard...they get stronger. And some day your powers, the Protocol, or even the shard might not be enough. And then it's all lost. Forever.
So go kill those monsters!
The Protocol
The Truman Protocol is an off-the-record, top-secret general order regarding "supernatural, paranormal, or pan-dimensional events". It is fairly simple: destroy what can be destroyed, contain what cannot, and never, ever, let the public find out what's going on. At all costs.
The organization implementing this Protocol has no official name (that you know of), and may not even be a single organization, but you know them as the Protocol, because they're always going on about. They're the most intractibly bureacratic organization you've ever seen; they make the U.S. Army look like a Silicon Valley startup. But that rigid structure is necessary, in their opinion, to compartmentalize knowledge, to isolate operatives from dangers they can't handle, and, perhaps most crucially, to arm them to perform their cold, sometimes cruel duties to protect the "greater good".
They aren't bad guys, necessarily, but they think they know best how to deal with the threat--a threat you've seen get the better of them more than once. They don't respond to reason, they don't like anyone but them knowing the truth, and they're a little to quick to make a small town disappear to rub out one minor "vergence". But they mean well, sort of. It feels kinda bad to off them.
Paradox, Inc.
Officially, the inner circle of Paradox cooperates with the Protocol, arming them with research and weaponry to help them do their job. Secretly, they're controlled at the top by maniacs who've lost all touch with reality, and might not even be what we'd strictly think of as "people". And let's not forget, this whole situation is their fault.
Hey, maybe if you got a hold of one of their balefire guns, and figured out who, specifically, was originally at fault for founding the organization...maybe you can fix all of this, permanently and forever. Maybe there's a way out of the cycle!
Maybe there's a way back home.
Powers
Supernatural powers are possible, because the rules of Reality are a little fuzzy. If you have magic, or psionics, or superpowers, you've probably always had them, or maybe came into them at a certain age, or whatever. That's because time itself has been altered. You remember how you acquired your powers based on the circumstance of your original timeline.
Maybe one character comes from a world like Dresden's, where wizards and vampires operate secretly, according to ancient traditions.
Maybe another was discovered by a psychic mentor who took him away from his home to train him, along with other gifted individuals.
Maybe another just plain comes from a version of Earth where it's totally normal for people to be able to lift cars, deflect bullets, and fly.
Hyacinth, for her part, has cool dimensional tech. She's no magic-user, but her devices are pretty much magical, and use the same rules.
And those rules have a unifying theme. All magic (or psionics, or superpowers, or dimensional tech, pick your poison) is affected by Paradox. In a strong anti-magic situation (you're on a stage in front of 50,000 people, broadcast on live TV, about to cast Fireball after bragging about your ability to do so last week), Paradox will crush your power into nothingness. In a strong pro-magic situation, like a Meltdown, your powers become stronger perforce.
This doesn't affect your knowledge; which powers you know, which talents you've acquired through training and experience, that stays the same. But it amplifies or mutes the output of said powers, and depending on how much so, it might create whole new possibilities, and ultimate manifestations of your potential. Sometimes, after a brush with such power, you gain new insight into your abilities that you couldn't have learned at standard power level, and that can explain the acquisition of new powers, even ones that don't work according to your original timeline (like Dresden gaining Cyclops' laser eyes).
The exact implementation will depend on which specific system we use.