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.
Jake couldn't help but bathe in the positive nature of the connections flowing from Vega now. Sometimes he really wished he could see with his natural eyes, leaving him only his imaginings. Strands of contentment and friendship flowed around and through him as they looked at each other, making him slightly giddy for a moment. It felt good to be around people again. He listened as she began to speak.
"You're in luck. The Mansion puts people up all the time. So does the Sanctuary. I would take you to either one, though I am partial to my own home.”
The Mansion. It was one of the aspects of mutant life he had been eager to explore when coming here. It was still strange to think of a place where people like him could learn and grow in safety, governed by a body all of their own. He'd been curious about it ever since she mentioned it during her Awe-driven explanation of her life. Who knows, maybe there was someone there who could teach him to control that aspect of himself.
Jake had always kept his ears open about Xavier's schools. He had heard of the exploits of the X-men and knew how most people felt about them, but he also had his own ideas. From what he knew of them, the X-men worked as some sort of internal mutant police force. The few speeches he had happened to catch regarding them made them out as slightly naive idealists. Jake had liked what he had heard, although he worried inwardly if the group could be proactive enough to accomplish their mission. Hopefully he would find out.
"I don't... typically take cabs. Sometimes the bus, but it doesn't run this late. If you'll trust me. I can take you by air.” Jake smiled as he felt a brush of embarrassment flow out from her, warm and endearing. "Seeing is different and feeling is just about nullified. The first I ferried another this way, he almost threw up. So, if you'd rather take a cab, I understand. I just thought you might want to save a bit of cash. Either way, I have to drop this off first. "
Jake grinned like a schoolboy, his mind hearkening back to the near impossible beauty he had experienced upon the roof. That was something he wanted to see again, even if it risked his dignity. In the back of his mind, he wondered why feeling would be nullified if a person was being carried on the wind. Oh well, he would find out soon enough.
“I've never had anyone offer to take me flying before, and I've always been one for new experiences. I'd love to get the chance to fly with you,” he said, setting aside the broom in its proper location and walking over to where she was standing by the door. Casually, he offered her his arm.
He offered his arm and she held up a single finger. She had to disappear to her office for one last sweep. She grabbed her phone, an embarrassing amount of keys, and her wallet. None of which she was entirely used to carrying and since she refused to carry a purse, they had to find their way into various pockets. She locked the office behind her and then ushered Jake out the back door while she set the alarm.
After finally locking the back door and swapping out the deposit in her pocket for the janitor-sized key ring, she took his arm. Maybe he'd felt put off for a while, but business was business. With a few gentle 'this way's and 'it's not far's, she led him to the bank. The blue deposit bag went in the night drop deposit that looked suspiciously like a movie rental return and business for the night was concluded.
Ghost slipped her arm out of her escort's, "Okay. Please don't freak out and whatever you do... don't let go." She nodded, more to herself than anyone else and stepped in close. Had he been able to see, she would have held him at the hand and let him watch the transformation for as long as his physical eyes were able to perceive. But since she'd seen his milky eyes, she'd go for more contact and a faster transformation.
She breathed in quickly and she was transformed in to her element, a gaseous and partially transparent version of herself. Every place where her arms and torso made contact with Jake was also transformed, the areas numbed and sensationless. Ghost took another deep breath and pushed her power further, the bonds that kept his form cohesive were being tossed into the wind and his body broke apart. After some time, he was as transparent as herself. Ghost changed her arm positioning, never loosing contact between their persons as she made sure to get a good grip around Jake's back in a one armed hug.
As far as she had been able to tell, they would feel solid to each other. From practicing in the Danger Room with Shin, Ghost knew that Jake would still be able to utilize his strange psychic power. "What does it look like?" She was always curious about this part. She'd been told varying degrees of what amounted to looking through smoke, but everything was defined to her by mass. Where the air was maintained a sort of grayish color and where the air was not dictated solid mass. Only by pressing the barometric pressure around something could she perfectly define it's edges, but after so much practice she was able to recognize most shapes and some people instantaneously.
Rather than go up and over, as had become her custom since her most recent incident, Ghost decided to summon a wind that would push them through the streets so that he would not wholly lose his grounding. When it was no longer convenient to pass over cars and around slight poles, they raced up the side of a building and Ghost determined their flight path from the tops of buildings that had become familiar to her in this form. Had she been solid, she most certainly would not recognize the aerial view. "Are you throwing up, or enjoying yourself?" She couldn't hide the humor in her voice. Sometimes it was fun to be a bit mischievous.
Jake watched bemusedly as Vega quickly sorted out the last of her office chores. He could almost feel the regular course of her actions clicking through her mind as she picked up all those little items that an average person required to get through their day, and it was calming in many ways. Eventually though, she led him out the back of the store, locked it down, and wove her arm through his.
Jake enjoyed the quiet stroll through the city that evening. The storm had died away hours ago, leaving the air thick with the smell of rain and remarkably cool for that time of the year. Now and again, the familiar sound of thunder rumbled in the distance, but the storm was now miles away. The streets were virtually abandoned when she stepped up to the locked down bank and dropped her deposit into the armored drop-box and moved back towards him, once again slipping her arm through his.
Jake felt a brief surge of...something, as she pressed close up against him. Rarely in Jake's new life had he had physical contact as intimate as this. Things tended to get a little muddled when he got close to anyone, and especially with those he had grown somewhat attached to. In situations like these, things tended to get muddled and he could lose track of which connections were his, and which were hers. It felt nice though, like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold and blustery night. The contrast was....remarkable.
"Okay. Please don't freak out and whatever you do... don't let go." Jake didn't have to debate the implications of that sentence and he did not intend to fall a few dozen stories on his first adventure. He felt her breath in sharply and watched as her form began to change, linking in with that impossible source that was beyond his perceptions. For a moment, it was as if he cradled in his arms the wind itself, and yet he could recognize her intensely. Jake struggled inwardly to make sense of things he felt. It was so rich and heady and indescribable.
He watched, struck with glory, as his own weave began to uncoil before him. Physical form, dissolving and spreading outward as if the pull of his own soul had simply given away, and he was scattering to the wind. Something glowed there in the midst of the two of them. Two savage points of nuclear fire he hadn't been able to see before, vivid with meaning and power. As the last of his form 'dissipated', he felt Vega's words whisper from the beyond:
“What does it look like?” She asked as they began to move. Jake couldn't feel his body move, but he could see the river flowing and crashing through the streets below. His sense of contours was simply gone, and only the meaning remained. “Are you throwing up, or enjoying yourself?”
Jake stuttered to come up with the words to depict what he felt in that moment.
“It's.... beyond me. I can't follow it all. It's like everything that makes me who I am has been stripped clean, but it's still there on the edges of me, waiting. I feel so free, so strong. It feels....Earthless.... I can see you, too. You're clearer here. So clear. You're a beautiful person, Vega. I don't know if anyone has ever told you that. Inside. Beautiful...”
The wonder in Jake's voice made Ghost slow. She had a time limit on this ability, but they were nearing the Mansion now. What he described sounded a little scary. How could you be not who you were and still be who you were? But maybe since it was just outside of his reach, waiting to come crashing back around him like his flesh would, that was a reminder of who he was. And earthless... that totally made sense considering the fact that they were several hundred feet up in the air without a solid body to either of their names.
Ghost tried to take his compliments at face value rather than getting embarrassed at them. Had anyone told he that? If it had been anyone it was Garrett and even then the idea was iffy. Had her parents told her that? She could see it coming from her mother or her grandparents at least.
"Thank you." Was about as eloquent an answer she could cook up. The Mansion loomed at the edge of her vision and rather than drop Jake in the yard, Ghost decided to go ahead and slip through the gate bars, in through her room's open window and open door and slide in the crevasse under the door of an adult room she knew to be unoccupied. Streaming through the tight places was always something of an experience. Like the center of herself were being stretched thin.
After she moved to be certain that Jake would fall on the bed and not something hard or metal, Ghost loosened her grip on her torso somewhat. "It's time to let go." She cooed the words soothingly to assuage any doubts he might have about the process. "You'll come back together all at once. You'll land on an empty bed you can use for the night. The door is locked, but the key is downstairs. I can fetch it for you." She moved her hands carefully so that eventually they were only hand in hand. The letting go, she would let him do when he was ready despite the dull ache that was growing in her temples.
Jake nodded to Ghost, or so he thought. It was really difficult to manage his senses in this condition. It was as if he had lost all sense of distance. When she finally released him, he grunted heavily as he fell onto the firm mattress below. Returning from that impossible state was almost like being encased in lead, leaving him feeling confined and narrow, but once more capable of understanding what was going on around him.
Slumped face down and roughly diagonal across the bed, Jake struggled for a moment to get his bearings and managed to flop over rather pathetically. Staring up at the floating form of Vega, he shook his head clear, suddenly being able to find contrast between his form and hers. Oh s***, he muttered inwardly to himself, I must have sounded like a complete ass.
Jake managed a weak wave up towards her, indicating that all was well, and just lay there, settling himself with a few deep breaths.
“That was quite the experience. Not what I was expecting at all. I thought we were just going to float along or something... Damn, I feel dizzy.” Jake ran a hand over his scalp and through his hair. It was true, he felt disoriented, but the feeling was passing. The bed, he noticed, felt terribly, terribly comfortable. He hadn't slept in a proper bed in months, and over time he had grown accustomed to finding the few comfortable angles one could lie on concrete. He had completely forgotten what a bed really felt like.
Ghost nodded slowly with her less than easily visible head. "I'll fetch the key and be right back. There is a private bathroom in here as well if you want to wash up, but I shouldn't be long." Because from what she could tell he didn't have long. Ghost knew the look. The look of one that longed for sleep.
She slipped under the door, the same way that they came in. Her form was loosely held together, not even appearing as a girl, but rather as a cloud of smoke. She made her way through the halls she knew and loved swift and silent as the wind. The mental strain was almost nil now that her passenger was gone. Once Ghost has slipped into the appropriate office to get the key, she worked on getting solid again. It was tough since she, herself was tired, but the effort was worth it.
After a few moments, Ghost had a new resident's folder with a map in the back and a shiny new key that corresponded to the empty room Jake was currently inhabiting. She slid the key home before she thought to knock. Ghost knocked hastily to make up for it and slid off her shoes so that she was barefoot on the hall carpeting.
Jake could just hear the whistling sound as Vega flowed under the narrow crack in the door and watched as the remainder of her personal connections slid after her in almost the same way a flowing dress was drawn after the person wearing it, only more malleable. Sighing, he pulled himself away from the embrace of the sheets and stepped into the bathroom.
To him, nightly hygiene had been a thing of routine, although the months of travel had required necessary sacrifices. If the option was there, use it. Jake didn't know for how long he would have amenities like this, so he got right to work despite his weariness. It didn't take him long to wash his face and hands, setting aside his glasses and using plenty of soap in the process. More went onto the thick layer of stubble which he'd managed to develop, which he then attacked with the folding knife he kept on hand at all times. He had carved through around half of the hair by the time Vega knocked again.
Setting aside the knife and rinsing his hands, he walked over to the door and swung it open. His eyes were hooded and weary, and he hoped that she wouldn't been too disturbed seeing him in his normal state of being. Smiling, he leaned against the door. He could feel the portfolio in her hands, a document tied intimately into the nature of this place. It was obvious she had done this before, but it amused him how he was supposed to read it. Maybe he could convince her to do that for him at some point. He really should learn braille soon.
“Hey - thanks for letting me camp out here tonight. I really appreciate it. I hope I haven't made your night too complicated.”
He could really use the rest. Tonight had been among the most confusing of his life. He was gratified - scratch that, surprised - at how well things had turned out. During the earlier portion of the night, he had been sure he had ruined and chance of friendship between him and Vega, and now here he was sleeping in a dorm room at Xavier's school. To be honest, all these close interactions with Vega had also thrown him for a loop. It was rare to find people that well-intentioned, and her presence had added an almost drug-induced edge to the nights events. He needed this friendship. However, despite wanting to spend more time with her, he also needed some time to muddle through his own thoughts. His tomorrows, he imagined, would be far more complicated.
Ghost honestly didn't think about Jake not being able to read the papers or the map. He answered the door with a half shaved face, for goodness sakes! If he could use sharp blades at his neck, he could surely puzzle out a way to fill in some blanks. It was mostly routine stuff anyway. What is your power? and Is it dangerous to others? were among the most important. Ghost, personally, thought it was a bit rude to come right out and ask sometimes and since Jake had been a bit evasive about it, she hadn't bothered. It was apparently complex, as most mutations were.
"Thank you for helping me. I'm getting to actually go to bed tonight rather than fall asleep behind the calculator." She ducked her head a bit sheepishly and opened her hand in an offering of the room key to Jake. "You don't have to just camp out. If you want, the room could be yours for as long as you need it." She ducked again or rather it was a shuffling of the shoulders. "It wouldn't be a night to remember if it didn't have at least a hint of complexity." She was glad he wasn't the creep she'd imagined him to be. He had actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy.
"And if you need anything else or you get lost. I live on the girl's side. That's one hall over. My door is always open. It helps with air flow." She explained as if the trusting nature of an open door were the most natural thing in the world because to her -- it was. "Goodnight Jake Townsend."
She smiled a bit foppishly, bowed from the neck and turned to go to her bed. Perhaps 2 out of every 7 nights, she actually made it to bed. 3 of those unclaimed nights were spent sleeping somewhere random around the Mansion. Ghost was the type to simply fall asleep the moment she stopped moving.
“Goodnight Vega” he intoned quietly in return and watched as she idled away. Cute. Definitely cute. Sighing, he turning away and gently closed the door behind him. Is this my future? he wondered, glancing around the room. Is this where I'll end up? Clean sheets and neat lines for the rest of my days? It seemed a very real question. She had offered the room to him for as long as he required. It was the last word that weighed most heavily upon him. What was he looking for?
Jake walked back over the the darkened bathroom and flicked the knife blade out once more and fingered the blade. The old knife had been pot marked and worn in his travels, but he had always kept it close. In some ways, it had become a part of him. Was he to be considered dangerous? Probably, once they came to understand how he truly worked. People despised the idea of someone being able to find anything and everything they loved in this world. They liked to covet their private things and hide them away from the world in safety. He was the literal anathema to that state of being, which was why the Awe had such terrible power over him. He felt like an addict, both demon and angel.
The blade moved with a delicate grace across the skin of his neck, shearing away the last of the stubble that was a reminder of those hard days so recently ended. His sense of self made it all seem so easy, but being close to Ghost had shaken that sense of being. He set aside the blade and splashed his face clean before staring where the mirror was his with hollow eyes. Where do I end, and others begin? All he could think of was the infinite tapestry he saw play out before him each and every day. If nothing else, he would make a difference. He was nothing without meaning.
“Look around you... These are your brothers and your sisters.” he muttered quietly to himself for the second time that night, and then felt the heavy pull of weariness. Stepping away from the bathroom, he casually shucked his clothes, letting them fall hap hazard to the floor and climbed into the bed's smooth embrace. In minutes, he was asleep.