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.
If Noel were the swearing type, she would have when something large threw itself against the door behind Ty. The... whatever that was seemed to be jamming the door nicely, though, so they had time to wait things out. They might even have enough time to wait for the official types to show.
The fire alarm stopped and the quiet afterward was a jarring difference. Two seconds later, the sprinklers dried up.
"Looks like help isn't coming after all. We're going to have to get out ourselves." She whispered because it seemed appropriate after all that noise. "Ideas?" Noel hoped the blood running down Ty's face was plentiful looking because it had been watered down by the sprinklers. All the same, the memorymancer tossed the first aid kit over so he could mop that up.
Hmmm. After listening to the details, Noel was pretty sure this was something she would need to bring up to Sebastian once he was back in New York. Kidnap pings related to the M drug. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. It was possible that if they found these people again, they might trace the lines back to someone who mattered in the drug trade. Key word: might.
"So... Practice." Why did she get the impression that practicing with Kyle would leave Noel bruised, broken and sore when he would simply walk away? Noel smeared the strands of hair that had come loose back from her face with her palm. Stupid humidity.
"I just wish there was a way to practice without getting hurt. I can't go full out, no holds barred with you in the morning and then lead an action team that same..." She cut herself off as a thought occurred to her. Cogs started turning in her head so loudly that they could practically be heard from the outside. "Have you ever been to one of those places... I dunno what they're called, I've never been, but they're for the gifted. I saw something in a brochure about the Sanctuary. They called it a safe place to practice your abilities with minimal consequences." That came straight out of the pamphlets she had stacked at the front desk of Faust Pharmaceuticals. Long boring nights manning the security side of the desk meant she had the thing memorized.
"Then we could practice on the same team and use our abilities. What do you think? Ever been to the Sanctuary?" She was pretty sure she had, but didn't remember any context. Would they have to rent the room or something? Couldn't be worse than renting space at a gym.
Better off inside. For now, maybe, but that was a loosing long term strategy. Still... maybe they didn't need a long term strategy.
"Do you have cell service?" Because try as she might with holding her phone up high or low or near the door, she was getting zero bars.
Okay. Plan B.
"Jam the door." Noel jogged down the wall a few steps. She was looking for... Ah. That would do. This was not going to help Ty's headache (or her own), but what choice did they have?
"Cross your fingers that somebody is monitoring the alarms." She broke the glass around an emergency station and pulled the fire alarm that was situated at the side of the box. The alarm chirruped once and then went full force. She grabbed the first aid kit and stuffed it beneath her belt just as the store sprinkler system came to life, misting them in a light spray and likely damaging a lot of product. Not her problem.
Tripping the fire alarm also meant that civilians would evacuate. Excepting the fact that her clothes were starting to get clingy from the damp, it seemed an all around good thing.
It was hard to hear the sound over the ruckus, but if the wet splinters that went flying from the wooden vanity near to Ty was were indication, they were being shot at.
"Get down!" She crouched behind a bird bath and tried to think of other, better options for survival. At least if the door behind them was properly jammed and with no other exits in the immediate area, no one could sneak up on them.
They ran, but the warehouse was not a small or tidy place. The aisles sometimes crowded with heaps of inane objects and necessitated a slow in their pace or a less than direct route.
A trap. Noel breathed in and out in a quick huff. This was such crap. Her power tipped her off to lies and somehow she hadn't gotten a sense from Terry, Terry the whackjob cowboy, that something was amiss. Maybe that was the problem. The persona, the accent...
"I don't have time for this." She needed to keep her head in the here and now and not go second guessing every interaction previous to this. "Show me." Noel grabbed Ty's hand and stuffed his fingers into her mouth. Yes. Into her mouth.
Ty had handled a few letter openers in his life besides the ones he'd handled today, but the one he'd handled just now... Everything was a bit confused like it wasn't solid or maybe like she was seeing it through a glass partially full of water where parts of the images were refracted at odd angles. A side effect of seeing his power at work? Or maybe that was what happened when a memory hadn't yet been committed to long term storage.
It started a slow blooming headache in her midbrain. Yeesh. Was this what Ty went through every time?
//Aaaaaattention shoppers!// Terry's voice was recognizable through the speakers, charismatic as ever. Noel ducked instinctively, but felt stupid when she realized the voice crackled from the PA system. //We are now hosting the special of the day outdoors. If you are interested in today's discount, make your way outside. Thank ya'll very much.//
Now, with the door less than three feet away from them, Noel hesitated. "Are we the special of the day?" Because that was seriously messed up.
"Wait. What?" One second she needs a band aid and the next moment both the other post-cogs were holding their heads and eyeballing the exits. It wasn't as if she didn't believe them. She did. She had to when they both believed it themselves.
Noel stood and popped her finger into her mouth to get rid of the blood welling from her finger. She never got any information from herself even if the item that sent both these guys into shock had been in contact with herself. "If we need to leave, then move!" Noel gave the vase-breaker a little shove and it seemed to help him get himself together.
There were two fire exits at middle points in the building, an employee door at the back and the front entrance. The employee door was the closest, but probably led to a break room or a warehouse. Vase-guy dashed for that door and Noel tried to grab him. "No! Not-!" He was gone, out of reach.
She gripped her hands closed and squeezed tight in her frustration. He was a grown man. She had to let him go. She couldn't protect everybody.
Lost cause.
"Tell me." Noel gripped Ty's arm and yanked him toward the fire exit. There was something in her walk or maybe in the way she held herself that suggested of military training.
A boom echoed around the facility Noel prayed it was the sound of the heavy employee door slamming shut rather than gunfire. She did not stop. Having no idea yet what situation had spooked the two of them so thoroughly, Noel bet on threat of bodily harm. The best way to avoid that was to keep going until they were gone.
Drugs. That was an entirely distasteful idea. "The more you tell me, the more questions it raises. Were you targeted specifically as Kyle or generally as a person? As a mutant? Did they know your powers before hand? Were they prepared specifically? What were they doing?" He probably couldn't divine the intentions of his attackers, especially if he had just ended them.
"Do you even want to go down this route? Because I can stop." She was trying to give him the option to have her leave it alone because what she really wanted to do was poke holes in it. She wanted to find the motivation of these people and unravel the whole operation so that no one would have to do what Kyle just did.
Noel shoved her hands into her pockets and walked. These streets hardly seemed to change as the days turned to weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years. It was comforting to have something so stable in her life. That trash can there? Always litter around it like people used it as a basketball goal, but never cared if they missed. At night it would be lit on fire and surrounded by the people who stayed under the bridge. That street light there? They'd replaced the lights with LEDs and someone had taken it upon themselves to shoot at it. The red light had a small splotch of dark dimples that would never light up red and matching holes through the shield around it. Looked like shotgun scatter.
"It wouldn't be a fair fight." She shook her head at him which sent her braid swinging behind her. His words were flattering, but hardly true even if he believed them. "I'm not so proud as to think I could in any way make a good match for you. You're the energizer bunny, Kyle, and I don't think you can turn that part of your power off. Even with my power, I'm just a person. Good as any old mook who goes to the gym." And, having been living at a gym, she could verify that.
"You could go for the newer looking stuff?" She made it into a question even though it was a suggestion just to be sure it didn't sound like she was bossing him around. Sometimes guys were funny about that crap. "I'm sure you could find a doctor who wouldn't care." She shrugged. Seemed like plenty of people did. Noel preferred to steer clear of anything that had the potential to inhibit her choices, even the over the counter stuff. She dealt with enough of that due to her power.
"Mine doesn't work on my own memories." And it was clear by her tone that was a major bummer to her. She licked her next item petulantly.
Meanwhile, the other guy accidentally nudge a vase out of his queue and onto the tile floor with an, "OH SH**" so loud that the nearest old lady hurrumphed and turned away with disgust. The thing may as well have blown up for how thoroughly it shattered. Must have been very delicate porcelain. With a growl he bent to grab up the pieces. "I guess he'll be charging me full price of that one."
Sure enough Terry came bobbling back with condolences for the man and a good-natured slap on his back.
Noel rolled her lips together to keep herself from smiling. It wasn't funny (Okay. Maybe just a little.) because the pieces were flipping everywhere. Even if she didn't want to help clean up, she had to because even just taking one step would have made her step on some of the further reaching shards. "There's gotta be a broom somewhere." She tried to tip-toe over some bits as she made her way behind the counter.
Sure enough there was a little hand broom. Noel tossed that to Ty and then grabbed the trash can and plopped that next to the guy so he could dump the largest pieces he had been collecting in his hands.
"Stupid piece of... can't believe..." The guy muttered to himself as he worked and Noel had to roll her lips between her teeth again. Must. Not. Show amusement.
It was easier to duck behind the counter again and pick up the chunks from under the case than keep herself from grinning. She reached around blindly under the cases with care, but something jabbed her anyway. "Ouch!" Noel fished out the offending object and turned it over in her hands.
Another letter opener? This one was painfully plain in comparison to the one she had to pass off to Ty, but no less sharp. "Guess we missed one." Noel set the object up on the counter.
The store owner took notice of her minor wound and toddered off to retrieve bandaids.
"Oh. Not there. That's my finished pile." The vase-breaker grabbed the object to move it and froze.
Noel looked at Ty. Was he seeing this?
"Sh**." This one was quieter, but with no less feeling. "We need to leave."
So he didn't get the shadowy string pullers? Big whoop. He made it sound like he put plenty of hurt on the actual hands that harmed him and as an added bonus, he was standing here today. "Not much challenge and yet, they managed to nab you?"
Psycho? Only one of Noel's eyebrows took a trip up toward her hairline. Overzealous, uninhibited, or untempered, sure. Psycho? Not so much. Psycho was one of those words that left very little wiggle room, like evil. Noel had never met anyone who she might consider to be 'evil.' She was pretty sure she had seen psycho, though and Kyle hadn't been it.
The word choice was interesting.
"I think I can see that... and you're sure you want sword training? What for?"
The memorymancer stretched and motioned with her head to give Kyle the non-verbal cue that she wanted him to walk and talk with her. Just standing and talking was making her uncomfortable. They were no longer contributing to the training at hand so they may as well walk. Noel led him to the door and grabbed a faded plum colored hoodie from the hook. "Walk and talk?"
"Would I like to experience this newfound deadliness first hand? Gosh, you make it sound so appealing." She gave him a look to both let him know she was teasing and that maybe he could have thought that one out a little bit more.
"I assume you practiced this newfound deadliness on your previous captors?" Who wouldn't want restitution after such an act? Noel might have ribbed him about getting nabbed if it weren't a very real danger for a mutant in New York. Even so no one ever saw fit to kidnap Noel. She wasn't powerful or cooperative. Or maybe she was just lucky.
All joking aside, the memorymancer had to ask. "Are you sure you're okay?" On the inside, she meant. And she was going to be paying very close to his answer.
"There is a limit to how many of those suckers you're supposed to take in one day, right?" The medicine, that was. Ty was a big boy and could define his own limits for how many antiques he might write about.
Mister DidNotIntroduceHimself seemed to be in a regular pace off in his own little world. He had selected a few items and made himself a little queue. Maybe he really needed the money. Maybe eh just wanted to make sure he did more than Noel and Ty put together. Either way that left plenty of time for them to chat during Ty's breaks.
Noel plucked an extendable brass scope out of the case while she chewed over how to explain her ability. "I get access to all the memories of a person that relate to the contact with an object for a while. If I don't access the memories in the right way it just gets forgotten. I have to focus on what I want to find and have a goal in mind."
Like this telescope thing. She wanted to know if a pirate ever owned it. One good lick told her no. But it had been on a ship. Then she tried to see writing to get something more solid, but watching the horizon didn't have much to do with writing. The best she could do was identify a flag. "French naval officer. This bad boy has seen some fighting, but not personally."
There were worse ways to be spending her Saturday. This at least felt a bit productive and with two others here she could afford to choose which items she would deign to taste and which she would pass on. Cuff links? Suuuuure. Pointy throwing star type weapon? Probably not.
The cuff links were duds. Old, yeah, but the most excitement their owner had seen while wearing them was attending an opera.
"Does it bother you every single time?" Noel tried to make conversation while scribbling her notes.
Terry brought Ty some water and after watching some work get done seemed to get bored and wandered off. "Just holler if ya'll need something else. I'l be around"
A string of pearls and cloisonne powder box later, Noel had finally worked up the courage to try something with a little bit more oomph to it. She grabbed an ornate looking letter opener and gave it a good lick.
Nada.
That was weird. Usually there was something left for her power to read. Maybe in one of those crevices of the delicate metalwork? Noel poked her tongue down in there and got similar results.
"I don't seem to work on this one." Noel held the dainty metal object out as an offering to one of the others. Maybe their powers didn't work like hers and could get around her limitations. "Maybe it got wiped down too well or... soaked in bleach?" Silver polish wouldn't do it. At least, it hadn't with the cloisonne piece. "Why would someone soak a letter opener in bleach?"
Of course, people were complete weirdos. There was not always logic behind a person's decisions. Noel moved on that throwing star. There had to be a non-pointy part where she could get a good lick in.
Woo. Noel would not have gone for the guns. The potential for experiencing violence was too present. It was one thing to kill a man, but a whole thing entirely to experience the memory, the motivation and the feeling behind someone else's choice. She'd long ago learned that people could be quite ugly.
Noel watched the pill popping with a bit of unease. Surely he wasn't an M user, dosing in broad daylight.
The third guy picked up the vase and turned it in his hands. Either he had better control of his touch-based psychometry (he wore no gloves) or he had another way of getting his information. He related a story about opium, status symbols and blue glaze and Noel took the opportunity to pick up the cameo while the rest of the group was distracted.
Her power was a little embarrassing to use in front of others. She brought the small object close to her face as if to sniff it and tried to hide that fact that she had to take a lick to get the full story. She tried to focus on a name, a date or catching a reflection of the wearer of the brooch. Leaving her eyes unfocused she tried to sort through the deluge of information until she had something that seemed like the beginning of the story.
"Originally worn on the high lace collar of a woman... Isadora Nickerson." She saw the way the woman signed her name with a certain double stroked flourish and tried to blink back the memory of writing it. Not important. "This is not it's original setting, but it's an old one. The silhouette is an image of Isadora's mother Pearl who did everything she could to further womens' rights, but died suddenly in a fire. Isa wore it to motivate herself to be brave when she handed out pamphlets about women's suffrage. Thing was damn expensive. Even then."
"Did you... sniff it?" Terry had his hands looped in his belt loops.
"No." Was that a touch too defensive? "Sir." She added to take off the edge of her earlier comment.
"Well I guess ya'll are all on the level." He sniffed in a way that perhaps indicated that he was a bit disappointed. "I've got paper here. See that lil dangly paper tag? Each item is labeled with an identification number. I don't got a lot of information on these items here." He slapped his hand on a case at the back of the display area that seemed to be in sore need of sorting. "Write down what you can about each piece and make sure to include it's number. We'll get ya'll sorted payment-wise after I read through what you've got. Sound fair?"
She wrinkled her nose at the advice Kyle shouted out. Sure, plenty of others were giving their input, but did he have to put some in directly in conflict with hers? She was rooting for the little guy. Noel turned from the fight and took in Kyle's appearance.
He didn't look terribly different. Same crazy hair. Same-ish clothes more or less. He even maintained that funny way of speaking which was a little old world flattery mixed with a kid who probably grew up in the 90's. He probably thought it was a heroic way to talk. It wasn't. But it was a little endearing.
What was not endearing was the way he avoided her eyes. Seriously? They weren't enemies. It didn't usually just slip.
"What have you been up to?" Neck deep in trouble? Recent experiences that may have honed his skill? Noel had a hand for each hip ready to sass as needed. It wasn't as if she weren't willing. She was. It was just that he didn't seem to be taking it very seriously if he thought that he could just show up once every few months.
Should have aimed even lower. He let her hand go immediately. Well, at least he still had good instincts. "Seems like you've been busy." Noel eyeballed him as if she could discern what happened just by looking.
As for herself, "As well as can be expected." Which could mean just about anything, but polite chitchat rarely got much accomplished anyway. The guys hauled Brian off and called up the next pair. There were always more that were willing to get into the ring. "Did you need something or were you just stopping in to say hello? Not that I don't appreciate learning that you're not dead and all." She folded her arms and turned to watch the fight. This was at least something she could understand.
This fight was less equally matched, but what the smaller man lacked in size he made up for in brutality. When he got his hits in, they stuck with the other guy. The trick was getting to land 'em. "More to hit than just the inside. Which was more or less what the others who were watching were suggesting. sometimes these things were easier to see from the outside of a fight. The smaller man switched tactics and started pummeling some kidneys.
He was right of course. "Brian!" The man turned toward Noel, the one who had called his name and promptly got smashed upside the head hard enough that he was knocked silly. He wasn't out, but it was enough for the aggressor to realize that the other guys was out of the fight. "Well that works too."
The brunette flicked her calf-length braid over her shoulder and turned to... well she forgot what she was going to do because the guy who'd pointed out the fight was Kyle. Long lost Kyle. Disappeared off the face of the earth Kyle.
She threw a punch at him. Not a sloppy slug or haymaker. A quick, controlled jab. Not aimed at his face.
"Hey." She didn't sound angry almost as if the greeting and the punch were two disconnected things.
