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 Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
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.
She was sweating, but it wasn’t all from the heat. A white rag was bound tight around her right palm, staving back the blood flow with a knot of pressure. As the blood drained out of her, she forced whatever smile she could onto her face and dismissed anyone that offered help. She was fine, really. The pain was far from crippling, and she’d been through worse… but dammit. It didn’t stop her from inwardly cursing her luck.
The hammer had come down so fast, rocked in a slipping nail as it strayed from its course. Without a sound in the world, she’d skewered her hand. It had taken two of the men on duty to force back her rush of violence and settle the feral wildcat cradling its thorn.
Lenna’s vision was still foggy from the migraine. She should have seen the effects of the hangover coming. So foolish… It pounded at the base of her neck, and no matter how the day stretched, it didn’t stop. It only acquired gut-wrenching momentum, and brought on that loss of balance. Even now, it was barreling down her spine in an electric shock that brought her teeth into rigor mortis. A dumb grin perforated the ground as she wobbled towards Slate’s tent, head bowed in a biting laugh. It was far too hot for this.
“I’d heard there were healers?” Lenna asked as her head popped in through the flaps. She gazed around the interior and bit back a feeling of irony. She’d worked so hard in her attempt to dig up information on the guy, and right when she took her mind off it for a bit of work, here she was. Her right foot lead the left as she half—staggered/stumbled into the room. “Hurt my hand on-site, and they told me you could help. So what’s your name, handsome? Don’t often hear about people like you volunteering your time in this part of the world.”
She grit her teeth. Even in the pain she was in, business came first.
Slate was having a—what was it called?—a ‘lazy day’. It had been several days since the unfortunate incident at the town square, which had lead quite fortunately to himself and the last of the drug lords in this region reaching a mutual understanding: she understood that he was in charge, and he understood that she had been ordered in no uncertain terms to refrain from putting hits on his head. FARC leaders not under his command were becoming an endangered species at a satisfying rate. He still needed to accelerate matters on the AUC side, but that was for another day. Today?
Today, he was sitting in the shade of an open tent, learning how to balance a chair on two legs. His hands were crossed lightly over his stomach. His chair was currently facing away from the construction, towards the rest of the town. The next time it fell, this orientation might very well change. The light breeze was not helping, but it was quite pleasant.
Balancing a chair: it required a great deal of perfection, both in weight distribution and focus. Any subtle shift in either could quickly set the course towards end game results: either a hard thump forwards, or a head-spinning THACK backwards. Complete concentration was necessary for—
>> “I’d heard there were—”
THACK.
>> “—healers?”
Blue eyes blinked twice, once to clear his vision, and again to focus on the figure above him. She was brown-haired. Young, but still several years older than him—perhaps mid-twenties. And, after he had climbed to his feet and wiped his pants off with understated dignity, he realized she was not quite as tall as his first impression. In fact, they were very nearly the same height, though he was perhaps taller by an inch or so. She was also bleeding, quite steadily, through the white cloth on her hand.
>> “Hurt my hand on-site, and they told me you could help. So what’s your name, handsome? Don’t often hear about people like you volunteering your time in this part of the world.”
“My name is Slate,” he said simply. If her last statement had been an attempt to start a conversation, he quite missed it. His attention was very clearly on her hand. “What preciously happened?” His hands reached to unwrap the rag, but stopped short, his eyes flicking to her own. “You do not mind if I heal you, correct?” A silly question to ask a bleeding woman in a healer’s tent, perhaps, but a necessary one, for him.
Lenna turned her palm upwards with a half-hearted nod. So business-like, but he was just a kid. Brown-haired and blue-eyed. He couldn’t have been more than college-aged… maybe some medical student, fresh from the classroom, on an adventure in the bush? Why Cortez was interested in such a kid was beyond her… She waited impatiently as his hand hovered over the bandages. Her eyes tilted over the simple accoutrements of the room. There wasn’t much beyond the chair on the floor to catch her attention. It fell back to Slate.
“Right hand. Puncture wound. Pierced by a nail at the construction site. Nail removed with a pair of rusty pliers, by a pair of uneducated working-class site overseers.” She rattled off passionlessly. “And permission granted.”
A sigh escaped her lips. Now she was feeling light-heated. And was it always this hot? The whole room suddenly seemed to shift as she returned her focus to him, and the girl stumbled forward towards the upturned chair.
“Heh, maybe a little more blood loss than expected.” Oh dear. Were her hands always this clumsy? The chair just didn’t want to stand on four… maybe it’d be easier standing it on two like he’d had it before… if only she could get this darn seat to—
((ooc: Temporary mental pwnage pre-approved by Lenna. Tell me if I need to change anything! Her Adaptation is just starting to awaken after meeting Lee, correct?))
>> “Right hand. Puncture wound. Pierced by a nail at the construction site. Nail removed with a pair of rusty pliers, by a pair of uneducated working-class site overseers. And permission granted.”
Short sentences. Spoken with passionate punctuation. An intriguing style of speech. Did she always talk like that, or was it due to the pain?
Did she always dodge the outstretched hand of a somewhat baffled healer to try and set chairs straight? Granted that he had left it rather untidy. He could understand the urge to put things in their proper place.
>> “Heh, maybe a little more blood loss than expected.”
That was probably closer to the true reason, however. “If you would allow me—” Slate intervened, setting the chair upright, and attempting to guide the woman into it. After that, he would try to touch her hand again, assuming she was not still lurching around the tent.
The healing would be both an easy thing, and oddly difficult. Permission had been given: he entered her mind as easily as any others. The place seemed somewhat... foggy, however. It was not as if she was resisting, as he had experienced with some minor psychics; it was more that his own power was dulling, like a guttering candle. A small frown came to his face, as well as beads of sweat. Finally, he found it: that place in her mind that allowed him to trigger the healing shift. Her hand, as well as any other scrapes and bruises she may have, would be healed.
He had spent a longer than usual time doing so, however. And a longer time in her memories than usual. As he took his own hand back, all that he had seen was forgotten: her memories were her own, and he could not take them. He could remember what he had done, however. He had healed her.
And he had placed in her mind the command to loyalty. He only did that for a good reason. The fact that he did not remember the reason anymore was only a slight hindrance. He had only to ask.
“There,” he stated out loud. “Does that feel better?”
In her own mind, his voice was less sympathetic. Who do you work for? Reply with a thought, please. If she was like the others he had put under his command, she would have no choice but to obey. If.
She allowed him the honor of pressing her back into the seat. She was far too disoriented, too distracted by her pain and headache to resist. The chair was sturdy enough once he'd help her force it to its feet. He was gentle enough with his actions. Lenna's brow furrowed as her eyes clung tight to her cheeks. A faint breath escaped her lips in the awkward silence as she let him do his work. The frayed ends of a tangent tickled the back of her mind like a tassle as the warmth of his proximity added to the day's heat: maybe she should have been paying more attention to the process for Cortez? But then he was slipping away from her and the enfeebling feeling of closeness was drifting away from the murky haze of her mind.
"There," Slate stated. "Does that feel better?"
A nagging pester buzzed at the back of her mind as she rubbed the healed extension, and slipped the rag into a pocket. The image of Cortez once again sprang up in the addled recesses of her mind, blocky like a Picasso, with accentuations on the nose. Three letters Slate would find all-too familiar rumbled like the treads of a tank over the barren edge of the void... right up Cortez's nose, actually. But strangely enough, the vague image of the man from the AUC wasn't the only thing the blue-eyed briggand's command drummed up.
"Much better. My thanks to you. Now I see what Cortez was talking about when he expressed interest with your exploits on the site of this school. Thought you were just an amiable nice guy playing the part of a good Samaritan to the world. Turns out, that might have been just what he thought Columbia would need."
Had she really just said that? A confident smile perched precariously on her face. It seemed she hadn't realized how close to blowing her cover she'd walked. She just wanted to get his reaction, right? That's why she was doing this? Letting Slate know about Cortez's interest in the most positive light? And he'd eat it up, yeah?
"Mr. Cortez is very interested in the work you're doing to help his home. He'd like to aid, if you'd have him."
All beneficial. Lenna felt some stupid connection to the healer now, like she could share it all.
And the blue-eyed boychild wouldn't want to tramp that precarious smile by bringing cruel revelations to her ears, now would he? Humor the good-natured smile and there was no telling where this conversation could go...
Slate was not expecting the answer he got. Not in the least. Not even in the way it came: verbally.
>> "Much better. My thanks to you. Now I see what Cortez was talking about when he expressed interest with your exploits on the site of this school. Thought you were just an amiable nice guy playing the part of a good Samaritan to the world. Turns out, that might have been just what he thought Columbia would need."
Baby blue eyes blinked, clearly surprised at this sudden rush of information. Cortez. It was not the most uncommon name in the country. Any sudden suspicion that he knew which ‘Cortez’ she was speaking of—and that he had not been planning on the man to take as much of an interest in Slate as Slate had in him—were clearly... hasty. Yes.
Hasty, like his assumption that the odd fog that had seemed to affect his powers was not of her doing.
>> "Mr. Cortez is very interested in the work you're doing to help his home. He'd like to aid, if you'd have him."
Slate pulled a folding chair from the little stack by the wall, and sat in front of his healed patient, his blue eyes somewhat more focused upon her as a person. “I am always looking for aid, particularly local aid. This country must heal itself: that is my belief.” He was simply seeing to the national attitude change, in no uncertain terms. “Please, tell me more about your employer. What line of work is he in?” If she had the loyalty command in her mind, this would have—should have—given him distinct answers. Somehow, though... he suspected that such a direct tactic would fail. As well it should: as Miss—
His head tilted slightly to the side; he offered his hand. “I fear I have not gotten your name, Miss.”
>>“I am always looking for aid, particularly local aid. This country must heal itself: that is my belief.” Slate sat down in front of her. “Please, tell me more about your employer. What line of work is he in?”
Satisfaction bubbled up in Lenna’s chest. Score. He’d taken the bait. Now all she had to do was reel him in and smack that trout home. She reached out to meet his handshake with her healed hand, and gave it a quick firm up-down. “Lena. Lena Kadick. And you could say I work for a dog breeder of sorts. He spends much of his time training dogs. The net profit from selling them off goes towards his investments in various stocks and national crops. He likes to think himself a humanitarian, supporting Columbia with every purchase he makes.” The precarious smile stayed present, though inwardly she imagined the corners of her mouth upturned in a wry smirk. It was true, wasn’t it? That Cortez trained hounds. The vicious pitbulls of society made the best soldiers, but before that, they had to be broken. She was living proof of the breeding process Cortez had established long ago.
"I'm curious, though. What do you mean 'Columbia must heal itself?'" An interesting philisophy. It piqued her interest.
>> “Lena. Lena Kadick. And you could say I work for a dog breeder of sorts. He spends much of his time training dogs. The net profit from selling them off goes towards his investments in various stocks and national crops. He likes to think himself a humanitarian, supporting Columbia with every purchase he makes.”
This metaphor was beyond Slate. Far beyond. He gave a nod; simple, easy, hesitantly agreeable. A... dog trainer? Could one make sufficient money in that manner, to support sending employees off on entirely unrelated errands such as visiting school construction sites? It was not until ‘national corps’ that he even began to suspect that this field of work was a metaphor. After that suspicion had set in... no. No, he still did not understand. His head tilted to the side. By all accounts, she had indeed answered his question—simply not with any accuracy. Had the... command gone wrong?
Not for the first time, Slate noted how much more simple this would be if he could remember why he had inserted the command. Something about this woman had caught his attention, and not in a positive way.
>> "I'm curious, though. What do you mean 'Columbia must heal itself?'"
One shoulder rose and fell in a little shrug. “A place can be changed. This is easy. Right now, I am changing this village by rebuilding the school it lost. For change to last, however, the people who live there must want the change. How long the school stands after I leave this country is a matter for Colombians to decide.”
He was merely helping them pick the correct choice, by eliminating the undesirable ones from their list of possible answers.
A simple statement. An even more complex reply. "So what you're saying could be summed up by the proverb 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.' That random acts of kindness don't do much to change the innate nature of the people, and that it's up to them to do something about it. To live, and learn, and grow." She crossed her arms and gave him an argumentative look. "Yet I see nothing happening beyond the school to support your personal philosophy that 'Columbia must heal itself'. Unless you're doing something under the radar, I don't think there's much you could change."
A bitter truth delivered with surreptitiously pleading eyes. "Columbia has been at war for so long, Mr Slate... blood and drugs and lies have spilled over into the very fabric of these peoples' realities..." Her eyes, they did beg questions. "One of your followers even put it best when I mentioned Cortez's desire to help with the rebuilding of the school. She said simply this:,” Lenna raised her index finger and thumb to recite. "I'm not sure what your boss could do, really, unless he wants to come out here and give us a hand himself.” She lowered her hand to rest on one knee, shifting one leg over the other. Her index drew a line straight towards the blue-eyed splinter’s heart. “To change Columbia, something great would have to be done… money can’t solve it. People can build and rebuild schools all they like, but in the end, reality won’t change. All that changes is the name on the blimp flying in the sky overhead, as it rains money down on the world hoping for the best. It’s the people that must be inspired to act, not those above them in castes of society. Rarely do revolutions spew forth from those in the laps of luxury. It’s always the people with ambition, the Caesars, the Napoleons, the Mahatma Gandhis of this world who see problems, and inspire the people to work against them. It takes a strong heart and a keen eye to see things, Slate.” She met his eyes head-on. “Cortez sees great things in you. But looking in your eyes now, I want you to explain what you see in yourself.”
Lenna went silent a moment, waiting. A thought nagged at her that maybe she’d said too much. Still, if Slate truly were the man Cortez had great hope for, he’d be able to respond to the sea of questions. Only then would she decide if he was worth Cortez’s time to meet.
>> "So what you're saying could be summed up by the proverb 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.' ...Yet I see nothing happening beyond the school to support your personal philosophy that 'Columbia must heal itself'. Unless you're doing something under the radar, I don't think there's much you could change."
Slate’s shoulders made a simple movement: a shrug. “Everything that starts has a beginning. You cannot undo beginnings.” Slate had learned that. He had learned it from a hobo. “I thought that setting a proper example would be a good beginning.” What is started can’t be unstarted. Slate had learned that, too. The hobo was dead, and now Slate couldn’t forget him: that was a beginning, too.
>> "...One of your followers even put it best when I mentioned Cortez's desire to help with the rebuilding of the school. She said simply this: ‘I'm not sure what your boss could do, really, unless he wants to come out here and give us a hand himself.’”
Either WereCat or Lee. Most likely Lee. It didn’t sound quite sassy enough for Sara’s mouth.
>> “To change Columbia, something great would have to be done… money can’t solve it.”
He was in complete agreement. A small nod.
>> “People can build and rebuild schools all they like, but in the end, reality won’t change.”
Partial agreement. Reality was changed in the construction, after all. And the deconstruction. That was the hopeful thing about reality: it could be changed. Quite easily, in fact, if one simply did something. He would have commented at this point, but she was still speaking. He politely refrained.
>> “All that changes is the name on the blimp flying in the sky overhead, as it rains money down on the world hoping for the best.”
The... blimp? He blinked upwards. He realized this was silly a moment later. Ms. Lena was speaking metaphorically. Also, there was a tent roof above them. It was white. He would know.
>> “It’s the people that must be inspired to act, not those above them in castes of society.”
He... was not part of society? And the upper castes were not? That was... something he had not known. Slight head tilt.
>> “Rarely do revolutions spew forth from those in the laps of luxury.”
He was ready for her metaphor, this time. Still, it was a rather strange image. He wondered what, precisely, a lap would vomit. Intestines, perhaps? That would be most unhealthy.
>> “It’s always the people with ambition, the Caesars, the Napoleons, the Mahatma Gandhis of this world who see problems, and inspire the people to work against them.”
Head tilt: the extreme version. A question buzzed up in Slate’s mind, and refused to leave. All of her other statements seemed somewhat reasoned. He did not understand this one, however. This was not her fault, and his question would clarify things. He waited politely until she finished speaking, naturally. (It took rather awhile.) His mind stayed focused on that question, however, and took precedence over listening to her further sentences. (There were not many. Not compared to what she had already said.)
“Who is Mahatma Gandhi?” The blue-eyed teenager asked, with a blink. Psychologically speaking, the first and last names on a list were the most likely to be remembered. Since she had been listing examples, he presumed all three were rather the same, in any case.
"...." Lenna's finger hung in the air mid-point, but nothing came. Was he... kidding? Did the kid really not know the name of one of the most inspirational leaders of the 20th century? Blue-green eyes bore into the strange teen's face and Lenna spoke slowly. "Gandhi was an Indian man who saw problems with the treatment of Indian peoples in South Africa, and later, India herself. In South Africa, he was discriminated against, thrown off trains and parted of his turban in a court of law..." Lenna shifted her right arm to lay across the line of her crossed leg, resting her left elbow in the crook, arm straight up. She held her hand up to her mouth, considering what next to say. Did she actually want to give him a history lesson? Hrm... maybe just the highlight reel.
She continued, picking up speed. "Point is, he saw problems with society, and people doing nothing to fix them. He put it upon himself to assist Indians in finding peaceful solutions. One such solution came about during 1906, as a response to a Registration Act wherein Indians would be required to carry identification, and register themselves... much like the Mutant Registration law passed in America a few years ago..." She crinkled her nose.
"Thanks to the press's spotlight on Gandhi's non-violent protests in South Africa, the world's eyes were drawn to the mistreatment of Indians. And just like the end result of the American's attempt at mutant registration, public outcry forced the leaders to respond. A compromise was negotiated, and for the most part, Gandhi won. In his efforts to promote forms of non-violent protest, he came about his personal philosophy, Satyagraha." The word sounded strange with a Spanish accent backing it up. "This philosophy became the cornerstone of various movements that ultimately won India her freedom from British rule. Gandhi was a man with a vision of humanity united, and inspired others to follow his lead. He taught people that they could do great things without raising a fist, and he was one of the most important leaders of the 20th century." Lenna finished. A bit weakly, she supposed.
"Now that I've answered your question, perhaps you can respond to mine. The one you so nimbly dodged..."
Gandhi. His approach to things was, from the way Lena described it... quite perfect. Peaceful means. He had actually achieved change on the national level without violence?
So it was possible, then. Despite all the examples he had seen thus far in his life, and despite what both the X-Men and Order practiced, it was possible.
Ah.
This would require some rethinking of his future designs.
>> "Now that I've answered your question, perhaps you can respond to mine. The one you so nimbly dodged..."
Blink, blink. “I’m sorry,” the teenage healer asked, having honestly no idea what the woman was talking about. “What question was that?”
... Aaaaand, he'd dodged it again. Either this kid was a genius, or he was a bit slow on the uptake. How to take that? Should she press it, or... Lenna took a deep breath and massaged her forehead, thinking. A trace of the hangover headache from before ebbed its way back into the conversation, and it spoke loudly. This man... was a mystery to Lenna. He was immune to longwinded drivel, had a simple, immutable philosophy, and he had dodged her question about what he saw in himself twice now. Truly, Slate was a daunting conversation’s foe.
Deliberation ended. Lenna replied with a pained look.
"That’s fine. Forget it. The question isn’t important. What’s important is this: Would you consider meeting with Mr. Cortez?”
How would he answer? What kind of Man was Slate?
She was sure he’d show her eventually. She’d give him time to find the answer himself.
The woman was rubbing her head; Slate tilted his head, but did not offer to help. Headaches: he did not seem able to heal headaches. As evidenced by the fact that if he could, hers would have been wiped clean at the same time he healed her hand.
>> "That’s fine. Forget it. The question isn’t important. What’s important is this: Would you consider meeting with Mr. Cortez?”
There was no hesitation. “Of course,” the teenager replied. “Exactly what business did you say he was in, again?” She had not said. In retrospect, ‘dog trainer’ had most likely been another of her metaphors. “What business would he have with me?” Blink, blink: entirely open blue-eyed blink.
>>“Exactly what business did you say he was in, again?”
"War." Lenna expounded. The word slipped out into the empty air of the conversation and hung there, like a fart in an elevator. Lenna's eyes didn't belie the fact she was just as surprised she'd mentioned it as one would be to hear it. She made a pass to cover her action with a cough, and attempted a correction to her faulty answer. "Drug dealing…"
Stumble. Whoops! Stagger. God dammit! She clenched her fist.
“That is to say… I don’t know what business he has with you… he told me he was interested in offering you aid. That was all.” Stop speaking, Lenna. She shut her mouth.