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.
Any way you sliced it, she’d be in the air for more than a day. Flights connecting in Houston or flights connecting in Paris didn’t matter when the ultimate goal for the mission was the same. Shifting the travel brochures under her fastidious stare, she sat in an uncomfortable seat. Every now and then a page would turn in her lap. The hallway of the airport was beyond cold inattention, and although the crowd burbled by like a fresh spring of information, she did little to raise her glance towards it. The words around her were an alien blur, like the kanji on the page. It was a Rorschach test just deciphering it all with a clear head… and her mind was distracted by greater things…
It had been a day now since she’d laid her childhood friend to rest. An unnamed plot in a Japanese cemetery and some greased palms were all it took. Japan is very critical about how they handle their dead. Inherent racism backs a lot of their actions. It’s not a bad thing, surely, to want to keep foreigners out of your soil. It’s a lot like the old man waggling his cane at unjust laughter from a generation he does not understand. Getting her that grave was the least she could do for her mentor. Taking her name as an alias was the second least…
“Miss Vespeda, do you have any baggage you’d like to check?” A Japanese woman working the luggage terminal quested. The sallow grey of her eyes belied an inner calm that came with age. Red frames tugged the ‘office secretary on vacation’s head into a nod. She was just a character behind gleaming panes of glass, just light-blue contacts and a wig. Her red hair was bobbed into a look that framed her face like a photograph. The picture on her false ID spoke volumes to the depths of anonymity. Red frames, red hair, red lips, blue eyes. Not an organ donor, blood type the universal ‘O negative’. Give to all, take from none.
“Three, please.” She held up tres digits. The bags rolled along the conveyor belt under the impression they’d be going through laxer scrutiny than what she carried. Shielded on the inside with ruses on the outside, they’d give out their own false pretenses to outside scans. Lies were one facet to the weapons of her trade. Now they were shielding real ones.
“Anything else?”
“Just carry-on,” Lenna scooped up her bags, holding her purse close to her heart. She jerked the handle of the rolling suitcase up and nodded one final ‘thanks’ at the airline worker. The easiest part of her trip was now concluded.
Rolling down the airport terminal in comfortable shoes and a black turtleneck, a book snuck into her hands. It was going to be an exceedingly long flight, might as well start the paperback now.
Two-Thousand One-Hundred and Forty minutes and several hundred pages later, the plane roared down over the sweltering tarmac of Rafael Nunez International Airport. The time was 6:07 PM, and the sky was inching ever-closer to darkness on the unsettling horizon. A groggily-cast look out the window caught golden peach radiance igniting the cloud line as the sun parted navy thunderheads like Moses at the Red Sea. Beyond the wing, she caught sight of the flight tower. It sprung up behind a tree that grew like a puff of green smoke.
What time was it? She shifted in her seat, inadvertently knocking the open book off her lap. It flopped to floor with its pages splayed like fingers. Sluggishly, she got to her feet and picked it up. People were pouring out of the plane towards the exits now. She tucked the book away in her purse and forced the overhead compartment open with a grunt. It swung open with a rusted squeal of torment. These thirty-plus hours had brought her to regard that compartment as an enemy. She would not miss it once she was gone. Tugging the wheeled baggage along behind her, she joined the waterfall off the plane. As he feet touched down on tarmac, jetlag mixed with realization.
Here she was. She was here. A stop in Paris and a stop in Bogota had done nothing to stand in her way. Now she was back on homeland soil where she’d grown up and a man wanted her dead.
Like a sword thrust into cold water, she tempered her resolve.
The bus ride into town was bumpy. Dry air clogged the dust-caked interior of the relic around her as it rattled down the graying road. Palm trees passed by her window as the countryside whipped by. In the heat of the approaching evening, a strong wind was blowing. It gave the sagging palms a life-giving breath of fresh air. Lined fields stretched out in the distance. Beyond them, water and green. A wheelbarrow jerked to a halt as the man behind it glanced up at the passing red bus. The yellow of his harvest stood out against the weathered brown wheelbarrow. Lenna met his gaze for a moment, and he was lost in a blur.
As the bus neared the city, sparse skyscrapers loomed on the horizon. Every few blocks, they rose up like the tines on a fork. The bus pulled to a halt at the stop, and Lenna set a foot down on the yellow cobblestone outside. The feel of it under her foot was cool. She inhaled deeply as a tropical wind brought the familiar scent of hand ground tortillas to her nose.
The square ahead was open, with paved paths leading across it to a domed building. Small bushes lined the sidewalk of the nearby cafe. Umbrellas hung over the few tables that sat out on the stone. The cafe was alive with nightlife as streetlights flickered on. Glasses clinked, appetites sizzled. Her head popped back into the bus.
"Cinco dolares a la persona que me ayuda a llevar mis maletas al hotel."* She winked. A man with dark hair and a slightly-fevered look sprung from his seat into action, picking up her bags.
"Adonde?" He asked, shifting them to get a better grip.
"Sígueme," her hair turned as she led the way. The wheels on her bag rattled over stone. He trundled behind her, trying hard to keep up as their bus pulled away. The weight of the bags caused his body to teeter dangerously, nearly colliding with a broad-nosed woman in a striking red dress. He settled for making a palm tree shake as he dove out of her dainty way.
"Se cuidadoso!"** Lenna exclaimed, shooting him a dirty look as a man led a donkey past the ass. He was practically juggling her weapons. "Estas son importantes!"*** She hissed.
He swung them back up carelessly, and shook himself off. Lenna wondered if she'd have to reprimand him for further foolishness. She hoped not... for his sake. Luckily, the path to the hotel was clear the rest of the way. Once she got there, a bellhop took over his job. Begrudgingly, she forked over a frayed five. He crushed the crinkled note into his death grip the moment she pressed it in his palm, then made a break for the door before she had second thoughts. Her eyes shifted away with a sigh. Was American money really that valuable to the people in this war-torn, drug-wasted wonderland? Turning back to the man at the front desk, she requested a room. Her eyes were sagging like the palm.
Before she tackled Cortez, she’d take her deserved rest.
*Five dollars to the person who helps me bring my bags to the hotel. **Be Careful. ***Those are important.
Black leather contrasted against white cotton. The jacket lay, spread on the covers of the hotel bed. One arm folded itself over the chest of the coat, covering the silky inner lining. The other trailed lazily over the side, dangling like a hand caught in the act of waving. Straight down from where the sleeve pointed, a lovingly-worn pair of work boots lay on the floor. One stood at attention on the ball of its sole. The other was propped on its side. They were brown, slightly dirt-caked, with frayed laces that wormed like rivulets through the metal holes of the shoe. A faint shadow trailed away from the leather guardian, projected from the light cast over it by the bathroom nearby.
The door was open.
Steam stretched under the crack of the opaque glass door of the stall. The sound of running water was lost in the heady scent of mango. Lenna ran her hands through her hair. It was overwhelming as she breathed it in. One could almost taste the tang of fruit in the air. Melons, mangoes, a hint of cherry...Things like this were a luxury in a world of forced labor and the beating sun.
No, the farmers she'd interviewed the day before certainly did not have this. The hours spent working on the fields, gleaning information from the women around her didn't pack with them the luxury of relaxation... but it did bring the benefit of knowledge.
From it, she'd gathered the chain of command, and who held the power at the farm. After that, it was only a matter of time. She worked her way through sources, bar stools, beer, and underlings. Finally, she'd reached a name.
The shower door slid open, and Lenna stepped out. She wrapped a towel around her body, and blotted her hair. The towel dropped back to the floor when she was done. Her feet padded across the carpet, to pull on her clothes. Blue jeans jerked over her lower half, covering red, and a black turtleneck draped over her top. The black coat whirled through the air, tugging over her shoulders. She bent to slip on the boots. Rising, her hand went for her pocket.
She unfolded a piece of paper in her hands. On it, was printed a name.
Ana Calista.
It wasn't a long name. Just a few syllables, half a word. But it was what she'd been looking for, and where she was heading next. Folding it back into her pocket, she grabbed her bag off the floor and walked out the door.
The drug trade in Columbia is grand and expansive. It fuels the weapons trade, fuels food, fuels war… and it fuels the economy, though the officials wish it weren’t so. You can think of the hierarchy of Columbian drug lords like a pack of wild dogs; More than willing to work together towards a common goal, but ready to snap necks at the first sign of weakness. In-fighting is common place in packs, and every now and then an alpha dog falls.
It is a cold and calculated agreement dealers make with dogs.
Because of this, even dealers have sympathizers. Some call it charity, some call it good fortune… others call it reimbursing dealers for their troubles and offering them a way out.
Maybe Ana Calista was one of those overly-caring romantic types who are overjoyed to offer second chances to down on their luck dealers, and to cut deals with druggies to save lives... but the likelihood was far greater that she was just another Russian mafia boss on Columbian soil, dealing in information and hard labor like they were commodities. Columbia is a free market, after all. Discarded trash is just as game as a drug lord's lost cargo, and even pirates need business partners to help them set up fair trades.
Ana was one of those types. And that was exactly why she was a valuable source of information to Lena Kadick.
~*~
A shot glass of vodka turned in her crimson fingertips as Ana regarded Lenna with disinterested amber eyes. Sallow skin, a solar flare of hair, a tired smile, and Sanpaku eyes rounded out the distinct features of her sharply-drawn face.
“What do you want?” She asked passively, slumped forward and staring at the pale liquid as it sloshed against the side of the glass.
“Information,” Lenna murmured. The word resounded in the breathless air of the dusty room like thunder. It was like a video arcade, with every game stuck on mute. Pinball machines flashed, but they stood stock still. . The two women sat at a round table in the center as the restless neon lights rotated around, bathing the two guards on either side of Ana in a restless light. Their arms were crossed against the black of their suits, eyes unreadable behind black shades.
Ana’s lips drew into a line like the arc of a seagull in flight. “That goes without saying. What, pray tell, do you need information on?”
“Cortez.” Her hair splashed against the side of her face.
“Location, current movements, his interests?” The shot glass clinked down with interest.
“The works.”
“Bust… Size?” Ana arched a curious brow.
“With his ego, probably too big to measure.” Lenna shrugged. “Just give me what you know about what he’s been doing lately, who he’s been talking to, and a good idea of where he’ll be next. That’ll do for now.”
“Won’t be cheap.” Ana replied with an ‘oh, I see’ smile. A wad of money flopped onto the table in front of her.
“Already covered.”
A sleeve slipped forward to flip through the bills. Ana glanced up at the confidence on Lenna’s face. Her yellow jumper slipped down the side of her shoulder as she counted. “Good, good. Beni, get my laptop. We’ll tell Miss Vespeda what we know.”
“Shipping activity in the last quarter has been up ten percent. He’s really stepping up his business plans as of late, that Cortez. Guns from the Arabs, a shipment of Cubans… you probably don’t care about the sordid details so I’ll give you the highlights rather than the bonus reel. Here, here, and here…”
Data sprung up on the screen of the red PDA in Lenna’s hands. The brunette shifted the stylus, sifting through various lists of cargo for the strike-through red points of interest. The total amount spent on guns, the receipt from the purchase of a few brand new jeeps… It was all there. Plans for takeover of Columbia lay out like simple business reports… as if an accountant could keep track of world domination with the latest copy of Excel. As her eyes skimmed the day-glow field, a cigarette tapped its way between Calista’s lips like a wedge. The smile behind the wedge was genuine; thinly drawn and deceptive, like a waiting snake. A pinball machine rattled. The lips moved to speak again, sent facts to ricochet through the open air with a puff of smoke.
“Seems things between the AUC and FARC are taking his full attention. Maybe you’ll want to look into…” The ashtray filled as she went off on a tangent. Lenna bought the suggestion too easy. She didn’t even have to bait the hook. Another few minutes passed. Lenna rose, and pocketed the PDA. All relevant information had been uploaded to the crimson device.
“Take care of that. This information isn’t come by easy.” The cigarette butt ground into the glass dish like a heel into a face. The guard on her right gripped the sides of his arms tighter. A video game wailed as Mrs. Pac Man folded in on herself in death. The other guard let out a quick bite of profanity. Lenna wrapped her coat around her shoulders and walked out the door.
“We have Cortez on the line, right?” Ana addressed the entire room point-blank. “No dawdling around, just rung him up? Okay, one of you nodded. Good. Tell him we have data relevant to his interests, and…” She turned to face the guard stationed on the Pac Man machine with a glare. “Can someone please teach him how to get past level five!?” A second guard rushed over to his friend’s aid. “Okay, good.”
Discarded trash was just as good as a drug lord's cargo, alright. And dealing in information is a double-edged game. Find a new player, pop in a new quarter. Secure your initials. High score.
Trash is relevant to trash, after all. And instinct told Ana Miss "Vespeda" was more than discarded junk data...