The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
The arms under Lori's hands were carved wood, smooth from years of other hands' nervous caresses. The cushioned seat was soft and the tacked leather that curled over the back of the chair was a reddish deep purple like ripe grapes or the darker color of wine. The room boasted soothing shades of purple and burgundy similar to the chair, as if the chair had come first and the decorations second. The whole room screamed professional decorator with its matchy-matchy visitor chairs and wall paper. Lori scanned the dimness again before settling back in her chair waiting for her prey.
Dr. George M. Adler Ph. D, psychologist, had been paged back to work after hours. Lori sent out a generic 911 from the secretary's console and until he returned to the mostly empty office, Lori would enjoy George's posh antique chair. Admittedly, it was a very good chair. She didn't know a whole lot about the man, but the chair said something: restful, historic, and respect inspiring. Some people judge a man by his desk, but what was a desk without a chair?
She leaned back. All of the pieces were in place expect one. It had taken a special amount of sneaking and coxing to be granted access to the files except that the physical file wasn't in its place. She'd found the file in the computerized back ups. The files had been computerized, but it bothered Lori that the physical transcript was missing. Who was looking those exact documents?
Lori printed a copy of some files for herself, but it bothered her to know that what she wanted was still floating around. There was no telling how many copies there were, but there was one way to make sure no more copies were made from this source. Destroying electrical equipment was second nature to Lori. The official back up server had an inexplicable power surge and with an acrid smelling poof everything there was fried. But there were more copies. There were always more. And the physical folder was gone. She wanted that file.
She heard the man calling to the secretary who had left hours ago before he decided to check his office. Lori steeled herself. If anyone knew where the folder was, it was this man.
"Oh." He visibly started when he flipped the lights on and found someone waiting. No, not only waiting but waiting behind his desk in his chair. "Do you have an appointment, Miss?"
Cordial. Not an ounce of proof that she'd dis-settled him. He didn't even seem aware that he had been lured into a trap. There was hardly anyone in the building besides the last of the cleaning crew and some security. Unless he yelled, no one would readily hear him. And yelling wasn't the best choice around mentally unstable people. Besides, he was a psychologist. If anyone could talk a crazy person down, it should be someone like "Dr. Adler." Lori nodded her greeting.
His eyes searched for some hint. Obviously, Adler did not remember Lori, but she had been counting on that. Lori picked up the file she had left spread across his desk. The name read Annaliese Blake and the last page had told Lori that the patient had died. She'd removed that last page and briefly flipped through its contents. Annaliese had been a very angry girl. "I was flipping through my file and I had some questions for you."
"You're not supposed to have that." He had set down his things by the door and was approaching the desk now, reaching for the manila folder.
"Un-uh." Lori tipped it just out of his reach. He would have to climb across the expanse of his own desk to grab it now and that was entirely too undignified for a man with a doctorate. "It's mine now, but I'm willing to bargain for it."
Adler looked less than pleased. He'd been halfway home when his pager went off. He'd turned around and come back for this? A game? His first priority was to learn about his opponent so that he was not playing blind. The mystery girl was holding entirely too many cards, but that could change.
"You seem to know a lot about me, but forgive me, I'm drawing a blank on your name."
Lori's face darkened in anger. False as it was, it was in character for Anna. "Am I not important enough for you to remember, Doctor?" Really, someone should get Lori an Emmy. He seemed to spy the name on the file as Lori folded it away. So perceptive. Lori needed to stay on her toes.
"I treat a lot of patients," He admitted cautiously, "Annaliese, is it?"
Lori's face brightened at the mention of her false name. "Two quick questions, doctor, and then you can get on with your life."
"What do you want from me?" He sounded wary and his eyes were tired. Was he really broken so easily?
"I want to know what happens in the office when I take this folder out of here."
He thought carefully before answering. "Well, it's not entirely unheard of for practitioners to take some of their work home with them, but I suppose after a while someone would notice it was missing." He was succinct and offered no help outside of her question.
It was enough, though. Easy, actually. Unfortunately that meant someone had taken home the exact file she had come to take. Time to try for another question. "I also want to know if there are any copies."
"Copies?"
"Copies of the patient records. Extra physical copies, computer scans, data stored in triplicate programmed to email out to several of your peers in case of an emergency... that kind of thing."
"Well, Annaliese," "Anna, please." "Anna," he conceded, "you'll be happy to know that beyond our physical files--" "Doctor" She cut him off in a reproachful manner. His tone had spoken negative and it was a waste of breath to let him finish. "I know about the computer scans. Please, is this any way to gain my trust? Just a simple question, doctor. Are there any more?"
He reached for the phone to buzz security. Apparently he had had enough. Lori waited, her expression placid as Adler's stodgy digits punched the squarish buttons. He huffed a sigh when he realized that the keys were not making any tones. He checked the cord. Still connected. That seemed to puzzle him.
"Does your wife, Karen, know? Or maybe Steven..." She was flirting with danger now by making it personal.
His face went white. "If you-"
"I haven't." She cut him off again, but he was already fishing in his pocket for his cell. She focused on the battery once it was in view and it overloaded as he was dialing. Suspicious eyes flicked up to Lori.
"What did you do?"
Lori blinked away some surprise. "Me?" He was awfully quick to point fingers.
He was angry now, feeling threatened enough to funnel his fear into irritation. "Yes you!"
"What are you hiding? That you won't answer my one little question?"
He turned and headed for the door. Ferromagnetic hinges, knobs, and a kickplate on either side. As long as the screws held each of those tightly to the wooden portal, his strength alone was not enough to open the door. After some moments of pulling he smoothed his coat jacket down and seemed to be getting himself under control again.
Lori was there when he turned around. Close enough that he started again at the sight of her. Fear was a glorious tool. "Just one question, doc. Is it worth all of this?"
Adler seemed to be searching her face. "There are no more." He sounded defeated.
It was time for Lori to search his face. "Why should I believe you?"
"You think we have the funds to store things in triplicate and make them go out in emergencies?" His tone was skeptical, mocking. Lori had held all the cards before and now he made light of the fact that she did not know something. It hurt. Lori liked to know things. She liked to plan and account for all foreseeable angles of a situation.
Lori narrowed her eyes at him and took a step away, clutching the file to her chest. "Why not just say so in the first place." She said it like a statement, no, an accusation.
He sighed and his voice sounded even more tired. "I tried. You were so hung up on proving me wrong that you didn't even give me a chance."
Lori thought back about it. Shoot. She had cut him short. There was no was to test that as truth. She noticed Adler reaching out toward the file and Lori took another step away and out of reach.
"The file. You said we could bargain."
"Deal's off." She stepped around him briskly, flicking her hair as she reached for the handle. That's when it happened. Her heart was suddenly in her throat and she heard an audible gasp behind her. She was no longer looking at Dr. George M. Adler's office door, but instead a small blonde child sitting in front of her mother. The woman was tugging furiously at a brush, pulling it through the child's hair with obvious disregard to the child's scalp let alone her feelings. Tears were streaming down the young Lori's round cheeks, but she didn't say a word. If she'd said anything, Mom would stop. She'd asked her to do it. She just wanted some attention from the one woman in her family even if it hurt. Mom turned toward the grown Lori as if she had called her name.
"Wha---"
The breathed almost-word was enough to break the vision and Lori tried to turn, but Adler still had her hair. The tugging sensation made the flashback all too real.
"Karen?" Lori yanked her hair out of the thick hand and turned to see a still somewhat unfocused George M. Adler Ph. D., psychologist and technically Lori's stepfather.
There was always lightning, cartoons, and fighting. But everyone's parents fight. The cartoons were good. Always just loud enough and just the right kind of funny to take your mind off both kinds of storms. Of course not when the power went down, which seemed to happen a lot in their neighborhood. Lightning hit the transformer, surged the system, took down a power line, fried the wiring. It was always something and it was always expensive. Expensive meant that mom always had a reason to tear into dad. Because he was never good enough. None of them were.
That was obvious by the way that she left and never came back. It was the first thing that had ever made Lori stop and wonder if there was something really wrong with her. Because there had to be. Because unless there is some fatal flaw, mothers love their children. In nature if the child is weak, even momma doesn't hang around.
Lori was vaguely aware of a hand on her forearm, stiff carpet under her fingers. She was shaking her head, squeezing her eyes shut. No, no. Don't touch me. Don't look at it.
The problem wasn't that Mom physically left. No, young as she was, Lori had foreseen her leaving. You didn't have to be a pre-cog to see it coming because she'd mentally been gone for quite some time. Mom had pulled away to a place where no one could reach her. She didn't want to have anything to do with them. It's like living with a corpse. A zombie that used to be your mother. It still hurt when she left, but the leaving made it permanent and left an equally permanent hole in their lives where Mom should have been.
And who was left to fold clothes? Who baked the turkey for Thanksgiving and bought the presents for Christmas? Who cooked dinner and made everyone wash up before they sat down together? Certainly not Lori. Try as she might she was domestically challenged. It was more weakness. She burned 3 out of 5 meals. She turned enough whites pink that her brother finally had to step in. Logic had nothing to do with it -- it was the sort of thing that you had to learn by example.
"Stop." The voice, her voice, was distant and easily forgotten.
Lori didn't want to follow that example. She went elsewhere to learn.
And she couldn't learn enough. She filled her mind with facts because they're always right and they're always the same. She threw herself whole heartedly into everything because to do any less meant that she would have to stop and think. Thinking meant that she inevitably came back to her basic flaws.
"Stop it." Louder this time.
Somewhere along the line her brother left too, but that hardly mattered. There wasn't a family left to save. That woman was just the person whose body spit Lori out. It takes much more than that to be a mother. Much more to be a brother or father. They were only people who happened to once live together and just happened to be related by blood. Blood that was feeble and made her inherently flawed. Because there was something wrong with her. Something beyond the obvious smallness and weakness.
The answer came in the form of a bolt of lightning.
"STOP IT!" The first trickles of electricity buzzed through Lori's words reminding her of who and what she was.
The fighting had stopped when mom left, but that didn't mean that the storms did. All it took was one short walk home from campus. Lightning hit the umbrella and traveled through the metal seeking the path of least resistance. It flowed into her hand, her arm, her very core, and then -- when lightning would normally have sought to find ground -- it stopped. Or rather it poured. It poured and poured, as if electricity were water and muscle and anger. It found that there were limits, that her skin did not burst, her bones did not burn, and her body did not give, the lightning swelled filling her skin from the inside and then settled inside of her. It stopped and settled like an an animal curling up in its den. Her toes were safe. Her shoes were whole. Lightning went in and nothing came out.
The power pushed through the barrier of Lori's skin to bite and sizzle along any skin touching her own. Adler jerked his hand away, but it was too late.
Adler seemed to look at Lori for the first time as if he were really seeing her now. "You didn't come for your own file, did you? You don't have one, not here, not to my knowledge anyway."
She shook her head not trusting her voice to remain neutral in the topic of the file. "You're a mutant just like me."
He flinched as if she'd physically struck him. "Surface thoughts mostly, but when I touch... Your mind is well organized, like a book."
She didn't know what to say to that so she decided to press the mutant issue. "We're not a human, not sapiens. Humans are weak and flawed. We are mutant, superior. An upgrade on the original design. An improvement, not a mistake." It sounded weak even in Lori's ears. She was trying too hard to convince herself of that truth to really convince anyone else.
Lori wiped at her face. The moisture on her cheeks was weakness. It made current arc uselessly through the air and wasted her reserves. "Why are you hiding your talents behind a desk, Adler?" Or was it that behind a desk was the most useful application of his talents? Lori was trying to steer this conversation into something that she could handle, but Adler wasn't interested. He seemed too intent on reviewing the flashes of images they had just shared.
"I-I can't believe I didn't recognize you, you look so much like--" he wisely ended his sentence with a sharp look from Lori. "We-I... had no idea. She hurt you so much."
"I am so not having this conversation with you, of all people." Lori wiped again at the traitorous saline trails as she got to her feet. Her knees were a bit wobbly, but otherwise she was fine.
She looked at him flatly. "Does it always hurt?"
"Only when you resist." He actually moved as if he might wrap his thick, meaty hand around her ankle, but Lori was faster, already on her feet. "Why are you running?"
"I could ask the same of you."
Lori was by no means a tall woman, but standing she was able to look down at where Adler had fallen as they had shared memories before. She crossed her arms around her middle. Lori wasn't sure why she was responding, only that she felt the need to explain. Stupid Psychologist mind games.
"There are moments when I feel that awkwardness. I'm not a human, not a daughter, not a sister, not part of the visible or invisible mutant community. I'm just a girl, just a mutant dabbler who no one trusts and who trusts no one. I don't belong here, hell, I don't belong anywhere. I'm not part of a team or an organization and part of me understands that no matter how many friends I have, mutants or otherwise, there will always be that part of me that never relaxes. There will be a part of me that knows that I can never be..." she didn't want to say it, it was too stupid. "who I want to be."
No one was really flawless. No one ever lived up to their parent's level of expectations. Logically she knew this. Unfortunately emotions don't follow any logical pattern. She was running from herself just as much as she was running from anyone else.
"We can try to be ordinary, but in the end, it isn't truly possible, is it? What we are will always overwhelm who we are."
He was so pithy that she wanted to strangle him. Lori ended up taking more slow steps back. She was out of easy reach, but there still wasn't enough space between them.
"Anna... er-Look, just... you don't want want to see that file."
Understanding dawned across Lori's face. "You have it, don't you?"
He cringed a bit and that was answer enough that Lori kept connecting the dots. "She came to you for therapy and you lured her away from her family."
"It's not like that--"
"I don't care what it's like, doctor, the fact remains that ... that..." That it was this mans fault? If it wasn't him, it would have been someone else. It could have been anyone really, but the fact that she chose a mind reader... "You knew the right words, sh-she accepted you because she never had to tell you what was wrong, you already knew!" She was furious now. It couldnt have been just anyone. She had needed a mind reader. That was always their problem. They were never intuitive enough, never perceptive enough. Not only did he lure her away, but he practically manipulated her into loving him! She couldn't... no, wouldn't love anyone less than a mind reader.
"I took the file because it's not... I mean, it's improper, I know... I should have gotten the back ups. Since you know that means you already have a copy don't you?"
She didn't owe him any explanation. She didn't owe this man anything, in fact, she wasn't entirely sure he deserved to live. Lori took a step forward.
"She hurt you, I..." He seemed to think better of admitting his own guilt in the affair. He tried a different angle. "It's not healthy. You shouldn't have to see..."
"Oh, but I want to." It was Adler who scooted away from Lori now. "I want to understand why. I want to know what I could have changed, who was to blame, but most of all I just need to know why she abandoned a perfectly good family to start a new one... with you."
His voice was soft, almost a whisper, as if Adler was afraid that if he spoke too loudly, it would tip the building tension. Tip it over, and spill it into something bloody and awful and irrevocable. "Please, don't." He pleaded, not even knowing what to ask her not to do when Lori knelt in front of him.
"I don't want to kill you." He sighed in relief even as Lori's hands reached for George Adler's face. "I hear being brain dead is a worse fate."
She didn't know if it would make him brain dead, but she did know it would hurt. She didn't know it would hurt her too.
"Huurrrr." Clenched teeth didn't leave a whole lot of room to elaborate. She tryed to pull that bio-electric current from his brain, through his skull, and into her reservoir. It would be the most useful and poetic way for him to help her now... except that he didn't seem the helpful type. That or his mutation meant that bio-electric current was how he saw those memories.
She saw flashes of light, felt hands on her throat, and saw Diego. The same Diego who would make a joke on the way to hell, even if it meant extra time and a worse punishment.
Lori called after him from the tangle of sheets. “You know I have to be the better man in any relationship.” She joked, but Diego turned those brown eyes back with a surprising amount of seriousness. “F***, Lori, you are the better man. Just because you don’t have the right equipment, doesn’t change what you are.” He closed the bathroom door behind him, firmly, until it clicked.
Her mother opened the door, but it was a different door and her mother wouldn't have worn that except in front of someone special. "Are you sure you want to do this?" The voice wasn't her father's and even if it had been, she would have wanted to look away.
But he just had to add insult to injury. It was Adler. Oh god. She was so not doing this. Lori gagged, realizing that something was squeezing her airway. There was only one thing to do. She changed the direction. She wasn't pulling at that current anymore, she didn't want it. Instead, she was shoving as much as she could through her fingers and into that thick skull. Anything to stop the images. Anything to stop the man.
There only snips of conversation or snapshots flashed through her mind now. She felt her eyelids flutter, but closing her eyes did nothing to stop the torrent. James and his fishnet, high heel, and motorcycle fetish. "You think I would pity you if you cried?" A dead cat in the road. An anti-mutant rally she'd attended on her daddy's shoulders. "Can we eat it?" A look of disgust from everyone in plain sight. "You think that's love? That's nothing but lust peppered with the desire to dominate." Dry eyes at Grandma's funeral. And then finally only visions of a purple room with raisin colored pillows and wine red chairs swam in front of her eyes.
She breathed her first breath like she was coming up from the bottom of a deep pool. Adler lay in her hands and she smelled burned skin. Messy streaks of bubbled red tissue traced from the crown of Adler's head down to the sides of his face marking where her small hands had been. The damage even extended to his hands where he touched her. He really tried to strangle her. She could hardly believe it, but in all fairness, she hadn't been too nice to him as of yet.
At first she thought she'd killed him, but his breaths were just low and long. "Ssokay to be afraid." He wheezed. The sound made her jump. F***, he could still talk? She shoved him away. Hard.
"No. It's not." She stood up on shaky legs and pulled her false doctor's coat from the coat rack. Normal. She needed to feel normal and more clothes could only help. She took her time pulling at her shirt and making lay it just so. She pulled her hair up in a bun and stuck it with a pencil from Adler's desktop. She pulled her glasses out from her coat pocket and slipped them on her face. When she buttoned the lab coat on it was the whole sexy doctor look. It was enough to pretend to be someone else. Pretending to be someone else who was stronger made things easier.
Lori calmly stepped toward the briefcase, edging out of Adair's reach when he made a feeble attempt to catch her ankle. She popped the locks and rummaged around until she found it. She was doing them both a favor really. Clearly, he wasn't responsible enough to have this.
Street lamps all along the block flickered, gilding Lori's face in amber flashes of sometimes light. The papers were disorganized and the string of logic was hard to follow, but at least it was there. Answers. Most people never got this kind of insight into their parents' minds. It was disturbing, but useful. Precisely what she was afraid to hope for.
The first avenue of thought the file followed had to do with savantism. Adler noted that Lori's mother had done her homework on manifestations of control and order issues in children. Her search had her pursuing an emotional trauma during the third trimester and studies that linked a mother's emotional trauma into a manifestation of emotional detachment and pursuit of logic. Obviously, she had questioned her children's normalcy, especially Lori's normalcy, from a very young age.
Although flattered that her mother thought her intelligent enough to perhaps be a savant, Adler and her mother eventually reached the same conclusion Lori did: it was a deviation for her to pursue her children's abnormalities when she obviously had issues of her own.
Lori flipped through a myriad of drug trials: Lithium, valproate, clozapine, aripiprazole, lorezapam. Some of these Lori even remembered seeing in the medicine cabinet. She'd been interested in the listed side-effects which had always been long and intricate lists. As a child, she had no idea what the medicine's purpose was. Now that Lori was older, she hadn't thought about it until it was sitting in front of her plain as day.
Bipolar.
At least, that's what they were calling it these days. Adler had scribbled the less than politically correct "Manic Depression" on the prescriptions. Her mom was clinically unstable. Really, it explained a lot.
From the patterns described in the notes and drug trials, Lori was able to trace years of manic episodes and their subsequent depressive down swings. The sexual deviance, illegal drug use, and poor judgement of one particular mania led Karen, Lori's mother, to James, Lori's father. Once Karen realized what she'd done, her realizations would trigger a depression and so went the pattern.
The street lamps continued to flicker inducing a twinge of headache in the forefront of Lori's mind. Her breaths rose even and icy through the chilled air. So... that was it. Through the roller coaster of episodes and drug trials, Lori and her brother had been born into this world and promptly taught that emotional dependance on others was not only unwise, but actually dangerous. Her father was a simpleton. A real red meat and potatoes give-it-to-me-in-one-syllable-words kind of guy. Beyond the psychiatric bill, he probably had no idea that something was wrong.
Or maybe he did. At least her mother thought he did. Lori followed a list written in her mother's own hand:
It looked pretty accurate as far as Lori could tell. She honestly couldn't remember a single good time she'd had with her mother alone. Maybe a family outing here or there, a fluke good day.
Whatever.
The papers snicked and slithered to settle at the spine of the manila folder that Lori slapped shut. She should... burn it. Or... or... well, there just wasn't a good enough way to get rid of it so maybe she could hide it away somewhere. It was totally illogical, but there just wasn't something bad enough she could do to expunge the memories from her mind so why not keep the file? Why not keep some record of why she was why she was? Oh. Right, that was exactly why.
The bulb in the street lamp sputtered frantically and finally with a last surge exploded.
Lori shielded herself from the spray of glass, realizing that the flickering was her fault. So much for emotional detachment. With a sigh, Lori heaved herself to her feet again. She gave a long look to the dark window of the office where the twisted body of George Adler probably still lay unnoticed and then turned her back on the evening's misdeeds. Surely there was someone out there willing to buy a drink for a naughty nurse.