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.
Now Rex was absolutely glaring at the kid, who stodd there with an idiotic smirk and kept childishly spouting off obscenity after obscenity, clearly designed just to antagonize him. It worked too. “And the Lord went before them--” Rex said before biting off the rest of the words with sudden awareness. No! He was not going to call up that witchcraft-ridden fire just for some fool of a child! No!
The man whirled back to his mug and gripped it tightly with both hands. He shut his eyes and exhaled suddenly and violently. He didn’t see the small flickers of red-orange flames shoot out from his mouth, only to vanish in an instant. He was trying to block out the kid who was now ranting about how proper bar-room etiquette went. As if the kid knew anything about etiquette!
Rex’s eyes shot open as a new sound emerged. What was the kid doing...was he…purring? A glance into a mirror behind the bar showed the kid staring at his phone and a photo and looking oddly happy. Things clicked and revulsion covered Rex’s face. What kind of sick deviant was this kid?
Rex hunched over his mug. He steadfastly ignored the kid and focused on his breathing and not summoning a fire whirl to burn the kid away from him. For once, the last thing he needed was to be quoting scriptures. He didn’t acknowledge the kid other than to tense up a bit as a hand clapped him on the back, but otherwise he refused to engage. Nothing good would come from it.
Rex shuddered as Melissa described the damages wrought by the dragon. He could all-too-vividly imagine the devastation such a creature could bring. He’d never seen a dragon-like mutant before, but he'd responded to several alarms for burning buildings as a result of some draconic dealings. They were worse, almost, than mutants with explosive or combustive powers, because they typically flew and had supernatural strength and durability, increasing their damage potential. They were but one of many types of fire hazards they were regularly trained to deal with.
Rex focused on his glass of water to avoid going too far down that road of madness. Dwelling on such topics was one of the things that had pushed him over into the abyss before and his current location was the worst place he could be if that happened.
“Maybe,” Rex grunted, nodding his head in acknowledgement. The people were New Yorkers, sure, and used to the cold, but they had been dressed for July, not February. They could have been fine on their own. Or maybe not. He wasn’t the kind of guy to puzzle over what ifs, though.
“Just doing my job,” Rex said, unconsciously stiffening at the compliment. He forced himself to relax and he did, slightly. She couldn’t know about the magic, that stain on his soul. She also couldn’t know that Rex was terrible at handling compliments, especially when related to things that actually were somewhat part of his job. While a blizzard was the opposite of his primary job of countering fires, and making fire was total anathema, protecting and rescuing people in an emergency was what everything he did revolved around.
After a period of time long enough to satisfy his caution, Rex slowly levered the door open. The soundtrack of torment flooded the stairwell and Rex stepped back reflexively as it washed through him. What...what was this place? Were these...the missing people? Some of those sounds they were making...they couldn’t belong to humans!
Rex made his way into the hallway, instinctively making the sign of the cross every few seconds. His normally stoic expression was locked into a grimace, his eyes wide and darting everywhere. There wasn’t much to see though. Unlike the upper floor of the clinic, this one had very little in the way of decoration or information. It didn’t seem like it was meant for the public to see. Everything was plain, sterile-looking, the strong scent of industrial sanitizers in the air, the concrete floor and plain white walls harshly illuminated by fluorescent lights. Under normal circumstances, Rex would’ve approved of the minimalist aesthetic, but when combined with the hellish wails or torment, it unnerved him.
In the midst of some of the more inhuman screams, Rex could hear a rumbling voice yelling in defiance. Rex reached out to a door, thinking to peek into a room, when a door at the other end of the hall opened up and several pairs of footsteps could be heard. Suddenly there was no more time to think. Rex turned the handle and shoved the door open, sliding inside and pulling it softly shut behind him.
Only then did he see the giant of a man partially chained to the wall. “Madre de Dios, help us!” he said in alarm and recognition. “Hercules? What are you doing here?”
Perhaps Rex was indeed oddly good at avoiding answers. The kid, however, was obviously terrible at picking up on social cues. Rex was no social butterfly by any means - he was more of a social snail - he knew how to tell when someone didn’t want to talk. They were the same signals he himself used frequently.
Obviously this kid had been drinking too much already or his mutation had addled his brain. Rex was flatly going to refuse to divulge any secrets to this chatterbox stranger. Proper bar etiquette was you left people alone when they wanted to be alone! Rex was actually a bit surprised the kid wasn’t covered in bruises from beating from irate bar patrons, if this is how he approached everyone.
The kid even ordered another round. Rex would’ve glared if he hadn’t been grateful for the distraction. Without alcohol in it, the beer didn’t do much to drown out the kid’s yammering, but at least it was a shield to allow him to not answer.
Then Rex sputtered and spat out his sip. “Good Lord!” he swore, turning to fully face the kid. “What a vulgar tongue you have! No, I do not want to see a picture of your girlfriend. I do not want to hear about your friends. I do not want to listen to you spewing obscenities! I want to sit here, alone, in silence, until the manager returns! Now, please! Leave me alone!”
It seemed God had not forsaken him after all. The handle turned easily under Rex’s hand and he pulled the door open soundlessly. Dim light showed him a hallway illuminated only by emergency lights. He stepped in carefully, as paranoid as a cat, and pulled the door shut behind him, slowing it at the last moment so it wouldn’t make much noise. He didn’t lock it in case he needed a quick escape.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around though.
Rex slowly stalked down the hallway, straining to listen for any noise, see any motion, shadows, anything. He saw what looked like offices, a couple of exam rooms, a nurse station. Pretty much what you’d expect from a clinic. A few computers hummed, various LEDs sparkled, but nothing that obviously announced a sinister presence.
He wandered around for several minutes, searching for...something. Some kind of clue that would hint at anything. Rex was no investigator though. He didn’t have an idea where to begin. Actually, that wasn’t true. He knew there were at least two other people in the clinic, downstairs in fact, since he hadn’t found any lights on upstairs. He’d poked his head into every unlocked room and was greeted by nothing.
Then he found the stairs.
At the bottom, he pressed his ear against the door and spat out a near-silent oath. “Blood of God,” he whispered. Crying, wailing, clanging chains, a mournful howl, growling. So many different sounds, all with one thing in common: pain. He’d heard that recording that was supposed to be from Hell. That recording was a light-hearted ditty in comparison.
Rex wasn’t so sure he agreed with the detective’s assessment. There was a reason Fenrear led the Berserker Boys, and it wasn’t through sheer toughness. They’d been around for several years but usually managed to stay under the radar, finding that sweet spot where they were too difficult for regular police action to deal with, but not enough of a threat to warrant big guns or special resources to bring them down. Today’s rampage was an extreme irregularity, if the stories he’d heard about them were true. Usually they only attacked specific targets or establishments, and even then it was usually just threats and intimidation. This was something else.
Rex shrugged. It wasn’t worth getting into a debate about. There wasn’t anything Rex could do about it anyways, legally or otherwise. Besides, the detective was on the scene so Rex bowed to his experience. At the very least, the man had a gun and had proven he could hold his own against the Berserker Boys. “If you say so.”
The firefighter did lift an eyebrow. “That so? Hmm,” he said eloquently. He didn’t think having insight into how to get police presence in the neighborhood quicker would actually be of use, since it seemed to involve police presence already being there, but he filed the information away for later. The rapid approach of the sirens was positive though, and he could hear the mixed in calls of at least one fire engine as well.
Rex nodded. “Ah,” he said in acknowledgement of the man’s answer. That made sense. “No, I didn’t,” Rex said seriously, completely missing the nuances of the detective’s counter query. As he watched the flames seemingly fill the one house’s living room with fire, he responded simply, “I was distributing meals to some of the people in need around here.” Which reminded him, he needed to check on Mrs. Robinson after this.
The alley was pretty much all you’d expect an alley to be. Short, cramped, out of sight, out of mind. There was a dumpster and a metal trash can, as well as random detritus from previous trash haulings. Interestingly, there was no graffiti on the building, at least none that Rex could see in the dark. He didn’t know if that meant the doctor and his staff were that meticulous in keeping the building clean or if people just held him in too high of esteem to tarnish the facade.
The alley was empty though. There were two steps that led to a door and it was quite obvious that the hunched figure had gone through it. Rex moved into the alley and approached the door. As he did so, he thought he heard something and froze.
Done by Rex’s feet were a number of ground-level windows, implying a basement level to the clinic. Most of them were darkened, which made sense if the clinic was closed, but one of the windows had weak light coming from it. He frowned and listened hard. Was that yelling? Then something thudded against the window with a decisively metallic clang and Rex reflexively leaped back.
He crept toward the window and tried to peer through it, but it was opaque. He could see vertical lines through it and a vague shape in the room’s weak lighting, but nothing else. That was odd, though. Bars on a window were one thing, not even a rare thing in this neighborhood, but the bars were always on the outside, to keep people out.
You only put bars on the inside if you needed to keep people in.
Mother of God, he thought, making an effort to not speak in case he would be overheard. He pulled his dark leather jacket tight around him and then finally reached out to the door’s handle, praying it was still unlocked.
Rex grunted. He wasn’t sure luck had anything to do with him being on the scene. Maybe bad luck. That was more his life. Being lucky would’ve meant he wouldn’t be watching two houses burning down before his very eyes. He stared at Sam expressionlessly for a long moment and then turned back to the flames.
The other man spoke and Rex frowned. Mutations on the fritz? What did that mean? He turned his frown toward the man and this time shifted his stance to somewhat face the detective and the houses at the same time. “Now that’s lucky,” he said, very little inflection to his voice. Was that the cop’s way of saying he’d killed Razorback and Kodiak? No minor feat to accomplish, but still.
Rex looked over to where he’d shoved Fenrear out of his way. The spot was bereft of people. He got an itching on the back of his neck. People like that didn’t stay down. Firestarters like that had missions or manias - neither was satisfied with a single act. “He’ll be back.” Mark Rex’s (few) words. He nodded once.
The firefighter snorted. “Doubt it,” he said, crossing his arms as the heat from the flames started making its way across the street. He could just barely discern it. “Police don’t come quick to this neighborhood.” It was a bad section of town. Nobody lived here if they could avoid it or unless they could make a profit, usually at the expense of those less fortunate. Which begged a question. “What brought you here?” They rarely saw cops there, even ones out of uniform.
Rex was twenty-seven percent finished mentally reciting his fire manual when something changed. He said nothing to the rat. Not only would that be silly and a waste of time, but also because the rat had long since moved on to other trash cans. A duo of new rats had swung by and even they’d been bored and left, especially after determining Rex wasn’t intending on doing anything to them, or perhaps doing anything at all.
A shadowy figure was making its way slowly up the sidewalk. It wasn’t moving very fast and it seemed to have a limp. Interesting. From what Rex had gleaned from his time working with the people of the neighborhood, such obvious weakness wasn’t something anyone dared to express. This was either someone new, naive, or confident they were in no danger. Regardless, they bore watching.
The figure was hunched over and seemed to be carrying a large sack on its back, an irregularly shaped sack with various lumps and protrusions coming from it, to the point where Rex could not easily discern what was inside, even as the figure passed underneath the single flickering orange streetlight. Peculiar indeed.
Rex pressed himself back into a grimy wall, glad he’d gone with dark clothes. The shadows covered him soundly.
He peeked out of the alley and his hopes fell a bit when the figure walked past the front door of the clinic. It seemed another night wasted then. The figure instead limped past the building and turned into an alley right beside the building. Rex stood up straighter and leaned forward. Now things were heating up! He watched the figure vanish into the darkened alley, along with the sack, and waiting for exactly sixty seconds.
Then Rex slipped across the street, as silently and stealthily as he could, and pressed himself against the building adjacent to the clinic before finally peeking his head around.
“He is always listening,” Rex said simply. Then his phone connected and he was on the line with a dispatcher. He quickly and succinctly outlined the situation and the location and once all the details were sorted out, he hung up.
He glanced back at the other man, the professional of some kind, who seemed to be the only other person out on the street not panicked and frightened. A quick scan of the surroundings showed some people peeking out of their homes or stores or other refuges. News traveled fast in places like this, where people were used to getting inside on a moment’s notice to avoid getting caught up in one brouhaha or another. He nearly sighed in relief when a family came stomping out of the house next to the one he’d rescued the mother from, their arms full of presumable valuables and sentimental treasures.
As it was, his face softened ever so slightly, from concrete to soft marble. With people from the neighboring houses warned (another reason to yell), there wasn’t much else he could do. Not without equipment. His magic was only good for making more fires, not stopping them. His jaw clenched as he watched the smoke thicken and flames grow inside the houses. Not a single thing he could do.
Rex grunted as the man-- the detective-- congratulated him. The title explained much. “Lieutenant Rex Vidales. It’s my job,” is all he said. He could’ve done more if he’d had more time. Maybe have been able to verify nobody was in the first house. Something. He just stared at the growing flames.
“Keep an eye out for Fenrear - he had two Molotov cocktails,” Rex said without looking away from the fires. “That’s how these fires started. Who knows what else he’s up to. Berserker Boys aren’t usually this...berserk.” One again, a mutant had been the cause for another blaze.
“What am I doing here?” Rex asked himself for the hundredth time. A rat on the other side of the alley stared at him briefly before going back to rummaging through trash. Rex didn’t blame the rodent. He must be insane to be hanging out in an alley past midnight in this part of town.
It was a run down area, where people who had no other options lived. It was rock bottom, the gutter. Nobody sane came out after dark here, not unless they had business that wasn’t suitable for the light of day. Awfully enough, Rex had business here, or at least he was pretty sure he did.
This neighborhood was where Rex spent much of his free time - which he had so much of these days. He’d taken up many volunteer missions to work with the poor and homeless. For nearly a year he’d been walking these streets on behalf of his church and some other nonprofits and charities, trying to make the lives of the people just a bit better. He’d started getting to know them and they’d started opening up to him, at least somewhat. Much had changed the night he’d stepped in and made himself a wall of fire between two unsavory individuals and their unwanted attention on a teenaged girl.
And that’s how Rex had heard rumors about the free clinic he was now staking out. Many people hailed Dr. Cama as an angel, performing medical miracles when they were sick or injured. He’d even had several media events and such due to his unusual successes, which had really been increasing as of late. Much of the local area was ready to canonize him.
Those weren’t the rumors Rex was hearing though. A few people, after checking that they were all alone, had told him about the disappearances. Some people were reported to meet with the doctor late at night for special procedures and nobody ever heard from them again. What was worse though, was that sometimes they did appear again. And things just weren’t right about them anymore.
So Rex had been lurking in this dingy, dark alley across the street from this miracle clinic, in an awful section of town with only a rat for company. For seven nights in a row.
“I’m starting to think these were just rumors after all,” he told the rat, uncharacteristically verbal. Seven wasted nights watching a clinic could drive a man crazy.
Rex coughed twice as he made his way to the street. Only then did he set the woman down. Immediately a child’s voice called out to the woman. “Mandy!” the woman cried and raced across the street in her pajamas to scoop her daughter up. Rex coughed again, though nowhere near as violently as the first time.
A man standing addressed him. Rex took in the man’s tone and noted the businesslike briskness. “Not sure. Didn’t hear anyone. Door is locked. Knocked, yelled, rang the doorbell. Heard the kid scream so came over here,” Rex reported swiftly, nodding at Mandy and her mother. Everything in him wanted to charge into the other house and make sure nobodoy was there, but he wasn’t equipped for it. Even what he had already done had been very dangerous, even with that...spell. If he hadn’t seen the fire start and had an idea of exactly where it was, he wouldn’t have risked that either. “Nothing else to do but pray.”
Even with this power he had, he still couldn’t do much of anything. It was just a stone around his neck.
He pulled out his phone to report the fire, but as it was dialing, a thought occurred to him. “Wait, where’s Fenrear?”
Once inside, Rex started hearing a woman shouting for help. “I’m coming!” he yelled before immediately coughing. He pulled his shirt up and over his nose and oriented himself. He was standing in a living room that was half-consumed by fire. On the side he was on, there was a tiled hallway leading to a kitchen, it seemed. The other side, the side with the broken window, had a stairway that led up. As Rex watched, flames started licking their way up the first several steps.
“Help!” the woman shouted again. Rex didn’t respond. He needed to conserve his breath. Already black smoke was forming a haze in the living room and it was only going to get worse. They probably didn’t even have five minutes - Molotovs were highly efficient at spreading fire, especially in a carpeted room.
“Father, protect me,”Rex said swiftly before shutting his eyes and calling up a verse. “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way,” he spoke. His words stirred something inside of him, something that started burning like the flames snaking up the steps and across the living room and one of its walls. “And by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light.” He focused on the heat and the words and what they meant to him. “To go by day and night.”
Fire rushed out from Rex and immediately began swirling around him in a tight, whirling cylinder. He took another deep breath and then sprinted into the fire.
Wherever he walked, the small wind caused by his pillar sucked at the surrounding flames, pulling them toward him, draining them. Fires vanished beneath his feet even as his own flames licked at the ceiling. “No…” he whispered. He switched over to Spanish, repeating the same verse. “Y Jehová iba delante de ellos de día en una columna de nube para guiarlos por el camino…”
The pillar shrank back from the ceiling and Rex made it through to the steps, bounding up them. He stopped speaking and he stopped focusing on the fire. His fire whirl dissipated in seconds and a single glance back saw a four foot wide path burned across the carpet. He turned back and ran up the steps. “Where are you!” he shouted. THe smoke wasn’t as bad up there, not yet, but Rex still hunched over.
“Here!” came the woman’s voice and Rex saw a figure burst out from a room in what looked like pajamas. “What’s happening? Where’s Mandy? Oh God, tell me she’s okay!”
Rex stepped forward and grabbed the woman’s arm. “Your daughter is fine, ma’am, she got out! Now we just need to get you out. Is there anyone else in here?”
“N-no, just me and Mandy,” the woman said, eyes wide with panic.
“Then trust me and hang on!” Rex said. Then he smoothly bent and scooped the woman up in a fireman’s carry and plunged back down the steps, back through the charred carpet and floor that was just now being reclaimed by flames (flames which his boots handled just fine) and he burst through the door again, into the fresh air.
Fenrear cackled, a harsh, raspy sound as he stood back and watched his handiwork. He didn’t have any more Molotov cocktails, but he was happy with how’d he’d used these two.
He was so caught up in his arson that he didn’t hear the rapid bootsteps dash across the asphalt.
Rex lowered his shoulder just before contact and slammed Fenrear to the side, shoving the thug a yard or two away and sending him crashing to said asphalt. Rex didn’t stop. He powered over the sidewalk and to the nearest house’s front door, which he began banging his fists on. “FIRE! FIRE! GET OUT NOW! FIRE!” he roared, years of training coming through. He hammered on the door again and then stabbed the doorbell repeatedly.
Then Rex heard a scream.
His head snapped to the right and he saw the door to the first house open and a little girl come running out, even as black smoke started to pour out with her. “Aiiiii!” she shrieked as she scampered over to the road.
Rex leaped off the porch he was at and he ran into the neighbor’s yard. “Is there anyone else inside?” he asked, trying to not yell at the girl. “Did they make it out?” Little kids wouldn’t be alone, right?
“Muh-muh-muh-my mommy is upstairs,” she stammered. Then tears started pouring. “The fire is on the stairs already.” She started sobbing.
“I will get her out!” Rex said forcibly, briefly touching the girl’s shoulder. “Now go across the street where it’s safer!” He gave her a gentle shove and then inhaled deeply before sprinting into the house.
Rex ducked immediately as a gunshot cracked through the air. He crouched beside a car and froze for a moment, straining to hear other shots. It hadn’t sounded like he was a target and he didn’t hear and new shrieks, at least none associated with a gun. There were people yelling and screaming all up and down the street though, amongst other sounds of carnage.
The firefighter peeked over the hood of the car and that’s when he saw the writhing form of Razorback vanish into the damaged form of an unconscious man. His eyes widened. How did a single gunshot do that to something that was so big? Didn’t elephant hunters have to use special armor piercing rounds or something?
But this was good. There was help on scene.
A bellowing roar blasted down the streets and Rex could feel it in his bones. He snapped his attention toward the source and he saw Kodiak charging down the street, another car suspended over his head. With another roar he hurled the car down the street in the direction Razorback had seemingly been heading. “Die!” the man shouted in a rage-garbled roar. “Die, die, die!” He looked even bulkier and more musclebound than he had just minutes before.
Well that accounted for two of the Berserker Boys. Where was the third?
Shattering glass and malicious chortling dragged Rex’s attention back down the street and he saw Fenrear throwing a bottle with a flaming rag through the window of a house. The one beside it already had the tell-tale sight of orange lights from it. The whoosh of sudden flames could just be heard by Rex. “Sangre de Dios!” Rex said.
No more thinking, only time for action. He jumped up and started sprinting toward the houses.
