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.
Norse To Meet You - Rex and Null put a stop to the Beasty boys without revealing to each other that they're mystics.
Monster Mash - When Herc is used as a lab experiment by the evil Dr. Cama, Rex manages to free him.
We All Fall - Rex and Cold Steel meet at AA then proceed to save a ton of people from Ice Age and Megafauna. Rex learns the consequences of untested and uncontrolled magic.
Learning How To Spell - After recovering from near-death, Rex arranges a training session with Hercules to learn how to actually use magic.
Thunderstorms & Sack Races - Null and Rex end up having to work together to win the annual NYPD/NYFD picnic games.
Taken For Granite - Rex discovers Hercules didn't die and as they're reunited in a museum, the mercenary Mystic Atlas attacks Will and Hercules over the long-ago-theft of the Grieves of Hercules. Things get even more interesting when the statues come alive and walk out on their own.
The Price Of Power - Right after the attack at the museum, Rex forces William to tell him and Hercules everything he knows about who's after him.
Hope To The End - Rex and Tempest take down a bunch of thugs who robbed a charity auction.
The Sanctum Of The Veil Unveiled! - A new organization for Mystics is formed and they have their first glimpse of their interdimensional library headquarters.
An August Reputation - Rex and August do some volunteer work by cleaning up a community playground.
Over The Moon - Rex and Bella (formerly the mutant Agnes) are investigating some trouble around a new Mystic on behalf of the Veil.
Lean On Me - Rex, Mirror, and Liz attend group counseling with Gemma regarding the Welldrinker assault.
R & R - Rex responds to a fire and discovers Ranger suffering from Null's attack. Rex helps Ranger collect the research Null had left behind.
Firelight flicked off walls and items as Rex walked into the asylum, holding the darkness at bay with burning tongues of flame. Rex shivered reflexively and put his hands in his pockets. The building felt cold, even with his peacoat on and a fireball proceeding him. Somehow the smell of antiseptics still lingered, despite the building having to have been abandoned in the 50s. Now the smell just mixed with death.
Rex breathed in and he detected rot. “Madre de dios,” he breathed out, nearly choking before he steeled himself. He didn’t like this. A decrepit building at night. He could already see signs of many squatters having passed through. He walked by man-made nests and rooms where graffiti artists had gone haywire.
“Is this why I’m here?” he prayed.
No.
“As I thought,” he said, continuing into the depths of the building.
Then he heard the music. He heard the screams.
He didn’t need to pray this time. He took off at full speed toward the sounds of terror.
This time Rex wasn’t surprised when the feeling to move vanished. He did not understand why it left him, but he at least recognized the pattern. “Guide my steps, O Father,” he prayed again, feeling glimmers of power responding. “Lead me to them.”
He began walking, an itch developing in his feet. He made it down three streets before the feeling vanished. Rex simply prayed again. Then again. Then a third time. Whenever the urge vanished, he’d stop and pray again. Each time he felt the urge to move in the same direction he had been. That, more than anything, convinced him this wasn’t just in his head.
He walked for a long time through the streets, passing people of all types and backgrounds. Various races, cultural backgrounds, dispositions, and even species mixed and milled around him, but Rex didn’t stop. Someone out there needed him, he would not be delayed, even if the feeling to walk didn’t always account for obstacles. He often had to find ways around buildings or cross streets or other shortcuts to stay on the path, constantly having to fall back to pray to keep that compass sense alive.
It was dark by the time Rex arrived at the asylum, several hours later. “This cannot be the place,” he said doubtfully. The impulse was still there though. Rex prayed again and the feeling only grew stronger. He walked up and down the block but with every footstep, the feeling remained the same. The asylum beckoned. He stepped up to the door and put his hand on the knob.
It swung open easily. Darkness was all there was.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” he said softly, reaching out for fire.
A fist-sized ball of fire and light appeared at about knee height, a yard or so in front of him, washing the walls and floor in orange-yellow light. Rex pulled his collar up more against a phantom wind and stepped into the decrepit building, the fireball maintaining its distance in front of him, shining its light to reveal the floor and paths before him.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
It wasn’t long before the feeling faded. The impulse died away and Rex came to a stop on a corner. “Is this the place?” he asked aloud. Pedestrians were everywhere, traffic was busy, life was hustling and bustling. Rex frowned. Was that it?
He stood and observed for several minutes and his frown only deepend. There was nothing going on here out of the ordinary. It was a typical day in NYC. “What is it I’m supposed to do? Is this where I’m supposed to be?”Rex closed his eyes. His hand reached up to clutch the crucifix hanging from the cord around his neck. He reached out with his mind, almost like when he called fire and….felt like something was listening. Waiting to answer.
No.
It wasn’t a word. Just a feeling. This wasn’t the place. “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” he quoted, the scripture coming to him. It was one he’d read many times when first starting the 12 step program. This time, he focused on that distant place. “Father, lead me to where I can help one the most.”
The feeling came back, the feeling to start walking in a direction.
He didn’t expect an answer. No, not from any of three figures following him, Dr. Cama glanced behind him, once more smiling at his work, as slipshod as it was. The two shuffling bodies of prison guards were barely able to keep up. The rafflesia-like flowering growth sprouting from the side of each of their heads was dazzling, even as vines wrapped around the upper third of their bodies.
By this point, the plant had mostly devoured their cerebral tissue and much of the fat and muscle in their bodies, leaving them little more than skin and bones, capable only of basic motor function. All higher thought had been eradicated quickly by the plant.
It was a shame, really. Dr. Cama had been hoping they’d last longer. After all, he needed medical assistants. Fortunately he’d tweaked the plant he’d used on Hercules. It would focus all its attention on his brain first, leaving his body - Cama’s prize - in exquisite condition for as log as possible.
“Ah, this way,” Dr. Cama said, his gaze landing on a rusty placard that pointed to the old operating room. “So convenient, these decrepit, abandoned asylums. Hopefully they left their tools behind.”
-----------------------------
Rex left the Widow Roosevelt’s home. He’d delivered the groceries she’d needed and had stayed to pray over her. She’d been in bed with the flu and her daughter wouldn’t be in town until the next day, so Rex had checked in on her at Father Lorenzo’s request.
He walked down the sidewalk, turning up the color of his long peacoat against the wind. It was his last errand of the day but now he had so many more hours left before bed and nobody to spend them with. A thought crossed his mind. I could call Gloria-- No. She wouldn’t pick up. He wasn’t ready.
Rex suddenly didn’t want to go home. Normally he would’ve headed to a bar. This time, he just stopped, took a breath, and stared up into the overcast sky with closed eyes. “Please, Father, grant me a distraction, a task, that I might be useful to you and your kingdom. Lead me to where I can assist another.”
It wasn’t a fancy prayer. It wasn’t even the first time he’d prayed it. It was the first time his mind had slipped to magic while praying, thinking of other ways he could help.
Suddenly, he felt an impulse to turn around and start walking in the other direction. With nothing better to do, he turned and began a new course.
Rex knew he'd offended Hercules, or hurt him, or just disappointed the man. He was quieter, and Rex had come to learn that when the boisterousness faded, Hercules was getting serious. Rex had seen the man laugh after getting hit with shotgun fire or stabbed with a poisoned knife - only words seemed to truly hurt the man.
There was nothing Rex could do about it. He wasn’t the one good at pouring oil on troubled waters, not like his Gloria was. It caused problems at times, but Rex had no way of changing that about himself. He just had to put his head down and power through it.
The joi de vive seemed to return to Hercules after a moment. Rex heard and then saw the club leap into the man’s hand. Sure. I’ll be in touch,” Rex said. He wasn’t sure he wanted another lesson, not if they were all like this. He was tired, exhausted, and frustrated. He stumbled a bit as he grabbed the cooler and his backpack as the last of the supplies were gathered up.
“Drive safe,” Rex said reflexively as Hercules made it to the door. He stooped over to pick up the last tea candle, the one he’d tried putting out with water. He was sick of magic. Ever since it had entered his life, it had pushed him on a downward spiral. The problems he’d faced as a result. Nearly dying several times. Hurting others. Sealing the judgment on his soul. He stared at the flame and then shut his eyes and exhaled. He just wanted it all to stop.
Rex kept staring at his cup. The attention was getting uncomfortable. The sheer length of the small talk was already far more than he liked or was even used to doing. Singling him out for just doing what little he could to help other people just felt weird. Embarrassing.
Fortunately Melissa did not stick to it and she moved on to talking about her liquor creation. Rex breathed a small sigh of relief and relaxed very slightly. Although hearing about other people wasn’t always fun either, it was preferable to talking about himself and having to carry the conversation.
“Sounds complicated,” he said.
He tapped his glass of water as the conversation aimed back at him. “I don’t drink,” he said slowly. “Sober for nine months now.” There was no pride in his voice and he still wasn’t meeting her eye, just staring at the glass.
Rex stepped out from under Hercules’s hand and locked his jaw tightly to keep from saying any of the things that leaped to his tongue. Hercules wanted to be everywhere? Or he wanted to be God?
No, no, Rex couldn’t handle anymore. Hercules was too much. Between the pressuring for magic, the inability to actually teach him, and then the heretical nonsense sprouted? No, that was enough. Rex needed to go off and cool down, not just because he was near the warning stages of heat exhaustion.
“I already have someone to listen,” Rex said stitedly. He found a plastic tote and brought it back to the fire extinguishers in order to load them up. He had two people, really. His priest and his therapist. One was qualified to counsel his soul, the other to help his mind. He already had an appointment with the priest and he had a standing session with the therapist. Hercules was neither a priest nor a doctor.
Rex crossed the threshold that separated the blue and red throngs and entered the no-man’s land. It made it easy to find his partner. Number 66 had also been ousted from his domain. Number 66 was also familiar.
“Sam,” Rex said in acknowledgement. He nodded his head briefly in greeting and extended a hand. He had a strong handshake, the kind derived from someone used to swinging axes, holding high pressure fire hoses steady, and gripping people and objects for dear life. He tried his best to ignore his comrades and their increase in good-natured insults as the two joined forces.
“Should’ve known this would happen,” Rex said. He had very bad luck, getting paired up with the one cop who wanted to be sociable with a firefighter. Why couldn’t it have been one of the sullen, mule headed boys in blue who only knew how to miswrite tickets and binge on donuts?
He narrowed his eyes only slightly and shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Who knows? We might get…lucky…” he said with a slight emphasis. There had certainly been a lot of…luck…the last time they’d encountered one another.
Rex stacked a few fire extinguishers by the kicked-open doors. It had been a long moment after Hercules’s observation of the book. Rex was locking himself down and deciding what to say. He hadn’t realized Hercules recognized the book. Rex has rescued it from the fire he’d began in Dr. Cama’s office, but only Dr. Cama and the monster had been there. “It wasn’t,” he finally said.
How did Hercules know about the book? Rex’s eyes shifted over to the man before he brought himself under control and turned back to pick up more extinguishers. This was one of the few times Hercules had been adamant about anything and now Rex was curious. He’d leafed through some of the book already, even before waiting on Hercules. He still couldn’t wrap his head around most of what he’d read, but some bits looked unmistakably like autopsies and anatomy diagrams. One part looked very much like a skin grafting process, but the writing seemed ancient.
“I said the same thing about magic in general,” Rex said with a shrub as he hefted another extinguisher. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with me burning people alive.”
Even if Dr. Cama had been responsible for all those horrors and abominations trapped beneath his clinic, it was equally true that he had been responsible for truly miraculous healings for the regular patients who’d gone in and out. He was still a doctor. It was still medicine he practiced, even if he shattered his Hippocratic Oath. Unlike Hercules, Dr. Cama seemed actually able to do magic.
It was something to consider.
Rex forze as Hercules shifted tracks. His back was to the man, but he suppressed a violent shudder. It was several more moments before he could respond. That awful, terrible moment. All those frozen, dying, dead people. The rage that had consumed him. The agony as fire had literally consumed him, devouring every nerve ending even as he watched the fruits of his magic incinerate a man in a ball of hellfire as flaming imps looked on. He could still feel phantom flames, even though most of the damage had been undone. The damage to his flesh, that is. His soul was another matter.
“I don’t know what that was,” Rex said when he was able to move again. He shrugged. “You’re not God. You can’t be everywhere.” His voice was painfully devoid of emotion.
Rex’s eyebrows started drawing together as Hercules verbally retaliated. The arrogance of that man! It was enough that he claimed to be a god, but then the nerve to insult Rex because he didn’t understand this godforsaken witchcraft? It took everything Rex had just to be open to this!
Words weren’t working. They often didn’t, in Rex’s experience. None of his did, at least. This wasn’t the first argument he and Hercules had had either. Padre Mios, is this a sign? he prayed. Rex felt lost, bewildered, but most of all, angry.
Rex took a deep breath and he forced his face into placidity, smoothing the frown from his expression and returning to stone. He’d deal with the rest later. No point in continuing to argue - he knew for a fact Hercules’s head was harder than a cinderblock.
“Fine,” he said when Hercules stopped talking. “Then let’s take time. I don’t think we can cover anything else today.” He stood up and put what was left of his water back in the cooler. He slid Dr. Cama’s book into a bag and began moving around the room to clean up the fire extinguishers and other paraphernalia he’d scattered around.
Rex stared at Hercules. “I am precisely aware of the power of faith,” he said levelly. “That is not in question. What is doubtful is the power of this magic stuff.” It was powerful enough to corrupt his soul, certainly, but was it actually powerful enough to be even remotely worthwhile? Had he sold his soul for ashes and dust?
He’d never forgive himself if that was the case.
“Forgive me, O high and mighty Hercules,” Rex said, virtually all emotion and tone leached from his voice. He stared at the towering man with slightly narrowed eyes. “If only I’d had a good tutor or an instruction manual, perhaps I wouldn’t be thinking of magic so childishly. After all, it’s not like I didn’t even know magic was real until about a year ago!” Tiny sparks flew from his mouth at the end but he didn’t notice them. He’d closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Sipping more water, Rex just sat back in his chair, listening to the rest of Hercules’s dressing down of him. “I have never been accused of being comforting,” Rex commented, before opening his eyes. “How on Earth do I comfort a flame? You don’t mean a literal hug do you?” Rex frowned. This magic stuff might be worse than even he’d been worried about.
“That is positively untrue,” Rex said before sipping more water. There were many, many barriers that humans could not breach no matter how much of their minds they put against it. Rex knew it deeply. “If everything in life were solvable on our own, then why would we need God?” he said. Another sip. A moment later he remembered Hercules considered himself a god and he fought back a wince.
Rex chuckled ruefully. “That? What kind of a spell was that?” he scoffed. “I made my hands drip. I do that every time I work out. Watch.” He rubbed his palm across his sweat-beaded forehead and then whipped his hand out toward the candle, flinging a few more drops at at. “That was nothing.”
“This magic is what is not working,” Rex said, staring down at the bottle in his hands. For a moment, he wished it was another kind of bottle. “The first time I did magic, it was a wall of fire. Not…this!” he exclaimed. Maybe it was the incipiant heat exhaustion, but he was loosening up.
“I think this is all I’m able to do,” he said.
Hercules approached and Rex deflated somewhat, mostly from the relief of not doing anything. He was feeling ravenous as well. “When I summon flames? I feel…hot.” Rex said.
Immediately more heat flushed his face. “I mean, I feel like there’s fire inside of me, but warm and comforting,” he said before pausing. He frowned. “I feel….I feel….” He searched for the words. How did he describe it. “I feel…on fire?” he said.
Heat rose in Rex’s cheeks, but it was even odds if it was from embarrassment at the sheer amount of excitement Hercules displayed at Rex’s feeble water spell, or if it was onset heat exhaustion from all the magic he’d performed.
Rex walked back to the chair and dug into the cooler for another bottle of water. He was drenched in sweat and his muscles were aching, despite the sheer lack of physical activity. He felt like he was burning up. “A water spell would be very handy right now.”
He sipped carefully at the water, resisting the urge to guzzle it down. He stared at the rapidly vanishing squirt of water on the floor. “No small feat, right,” he said, entirely unconvinced.
“Again?” he said, a touch of exasperation in his voice. “Doubtful,” he said. Still he held up a hand and aimed it at the tiny fire, this time not bothering to leave his seat. He shut his eyes again and focused on the water bottle in his hand, the cold condensation dripping down. Imagining a fire hose again spraying the candle. Water. Water. Those wavy lines. Cold. Water.
A few drops of water dribbled from his outstretched hand onto his shorts.
“I don’t know about magic fire, but real fire needs fuel, yes,” Rex said. The frown was back. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I can turn my fire off - I can feel it. I can’t feel other fires so I can’t turn them off.”
Rex was starting to get frustrated. This wasn’t going how he expected. He didn’t have many expectations but he thought fire was easy enough to understand, or at least be simple enough to learn. It actually was, he figured. He’d learned a new spell to make fire. His problem was that he didn’t only want to make fires, but to put them out, literally and metaphorically.
“You do not know any spells, then,” Rex said flatly. He…wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not. Likely not, but there was still a part of him that wished all the magic would go away, that if he ignored it enough he’d never have to deal with it again. That wasn’t the path it appeared he was meant to walk though.
“Right, okay,” Rex said. Nothing to be done about that. He’d known Hercules didn’t do…regular…magic, but Rex didn’t know he didn’t even know how to do it. Then again, knowledge of foundations was a good step.
“Think water thoughts then,” he said. “Got it.”
Rex shut his eyes and took a deep breath, thinking about water blasting from a firehose at a burning building. He remembered the feeling of containing that powerful flow and tried superimposing the water symbol that Hercules had drawn over the mental picture. He held his hand up toward the flame, imagining his arm like a hose. Water. Water. Hydro. Agua. Aqua. H2O. Water. Water. WATER!
Tseet.
Rex opened his eyes.
A tiny amount of water arced from his fingers toward the candle, but fell short. It couldn’t have been more than a couple dozen drops, like the dying gasp of a spray bottle. They barely even disrupted any of the soot.
“And the one servant only received one talent,” he mused in disappointment.
