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.
The kid kept talking. Now he’d progressed to the point where he asked questions and then answered those questions himself. Rex shook his head and tried to focus on some of the bottles on display behind the bar. The kid must’ve been drinking a lot already, he was far too gregarious. He was also misreading every single signal Rex was trying to emit, short of flatly telling the kid to shove off.
Father in heaven, what was with it with kids today? Or at least this one in particular?
He glanced over as the kid started clutching his wings. Rex sighed and rolled his eyes. He could feel himself getting closer to the grave. More questions that the kid answered himself, except now they were getting to be even more of a waste of time. He raised a hand to get the bartender’s attention but then slapped it down on the bar again. No, he’d gone eight months without touching a drop - he could do this.
Rex touched a hand to his chest, where he could feel the crucifix necklace underneath it. He knocked back the rest of his beer and fervently wished it had a kick to it. “Congratulations,” Rex said. If it was particularly inflectionless, it wasn’t intentional. But he’d asked why the kid wasn’t performing and he’d been told so proper protocol dictated he make the effort to respond. He just knew the kid was going to take the inch and run a mile with it though.
Rex tightened his grip on his mug. “I’m a...” he paused for a moment. “Volunteer.” He was still a firefighter of course, but he didn’t feel it lately. “Don’t you have friends or someone you can hang out with?” he groused instead of getting in touch with his feelings.
The kid kept talking. Even after Rex’s monosyllabic responses. Usually this was when conversations died around Rex, sometimes intentionally, sometimes from lack of traction. It wasn’t that Rex went out of his way to kill dialogues, but rather it took going out of his way to extend them. Even if they were pointless exchanges of meaningless trivia.
Rex glanced at the clock. Not even six minutes had passed. They said time flew when you were having fun. No wonder the clock hands were just crawling.
“No, I’m not a priest,” he said gruffly, setting his drink down and beginning to massage his temples. This was penance. He just knew it. All those times he’d spent in bars like this, drinking himself to oblivion. Now he was being forced to deal with all the potential horrors of that life, without any of the numbing effects of the alcohol. Obviously he was dead and this was his torment. It wouldn’t surprise him if the kid pulled out a pitchfork from somewhere.
He looked over at the kid suspiciously, taking in the wings and tail once again. “Sure it’s not all a curse?” he said before massaging his temples again. He did manage not to shudder though. It would be bad enough being some kind of mutant, but having a freakish expression of power like that would just have to make everyday things ridiculous to do. Even in New York.
His head dropped a little. “No, kid, I’m not a cop either. Don’t need to see your ID.” Rex didn’t need to see the kid’s face either. What ever happened to the old time concept of drinking alone at a bar? Millennials probably murdered it. Again, the call of strong drink reached for it and Rex stifled an urge to cross himself. “Why aren’t you up on stage playing then?” he said. What he didn’t say was ‘and why are you down here bothering me?’
Rex relaxed nearly imperceptibly, which is to say as much as he ever relaxed. This wasn’t specifically a mutant bar. Good. Even if it attracted a large mutant clientele. Bars were some of the last places he wanted to go to anymore, but despite all the events that kept driving him back to them, at least the place wasn’t swarming with the genetic time-bombs.
He did really find Melissa’s comments that amusing. He doggedly took a drink, keeping his lips tight in an effort to maintain a smooth expression and not glare. “No, I wouldn’t be shocked,” he said softly, looking at her sternly for a brief moment. So many of the worst fires he’d ever been called to had resulted from mutant activity.
He cast his eyes back to his drink and he took another swig. But at least blood tornadoes weren’t a common thing. “Good,” he said simply. Even if she has worryingly hedged around a definitive answer for NYC. Just what had this woman seen? And she was still so cavalier about such things?
This...this was definitely not a place Rex wanted to be.”Lord willing, I will never see a dragon,” he said with a slight shudder. “I can’t imagine what they’d do to this city.”
He stared down at the bar as she turned the other questions onto him. He idly scratched at the wood with a close-cropped fingernail. “I...made a fire,” he said slowly. “Everyone...followed me. Warmth. That kind of thing.” If it sounded awkward and odd, that’s because that’s how Rex felt. He wouldn’t claim to be a mutant ever, but somehow admitting to that...magic...was so much worse.
Rex considered what the kid said. It didn’t sound convincing. Or rather, he sounded very convincing that everything was fine. That’s how Rex knew it was a lie. He told himself that same lie every single day of his life. Huh. Maybe there was more to this kid than just being a loud and talkative mutant. Rex grunted. It was far more eloquent than anything he could say in the other languages he spoke.
The slim vestige of goodwill built toward the kid was all that stopped Rex from rolling his eyes. Cash is kings? Rex was feeling old, sitting by this kid. Unfortunately it was too late to find another place to sit - the rest of the seats at the bar had filled up except for the ones in immediate proximity to him and the winged mutant. Rex also felt like the kid was talking just to hear himself talk. “Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo…”
Another beer appeared before him. He sipped it cautiously, then took another swig. “Sure kid,” he said, resigning himself to this purgatory. It didn’t sound like the kid had ever known Latin, just maybe picked up some random phrases from somewhere and crudely patched them together. “If you say so.” Would the kid get the hint?
No. No, he would not.
He was talking about dead penguins. Rex glared at his beer. Would it kill him to have an alcoholic one? Or twelve? He grabbed it tightly and knocked back a third of it. Gah. No sweet oblivion. “They don’t,” he said reluctantly. He only said anything at all because the kid was talking about priests, and coming to some false conclusion. He shot the kid a glance. “You even old enough to drink?”
Rex’s eyebrows scrunched together. What? Who was dead? This…individual was not making sense. Clearly the kid has been drinking too much as it was. All the more reason to stay away from bars, Rex thought.
Then he stiffened. Oh. He slowly put his beer down. He turned enough to look at the kid, to really look at him. “Condolences,” he said after an equally long bout of silence. The kid had a dead mother and a father he wished was dead. Rex had seen it before, time and time again. He’d drank with a number of people like that, too. “That’s...rough.”
He winced a bit as he said the words. They didn’t sound right. But he couldn’t think of anything better so he just left them there. He turned back to his beer.
He took another drink as the kid seemed to act a bit perkier. Undoubtedly it was not due to Rex’s words, he was too honest with himself to believe otherwise.
“Cash is fine,” he grunted, failing to notice anything about the kids' clothing. He heard some rustling like flapping clothes and figured the freak was airing his wings out or something. Rex slid a hand half over his drink, just in case feathers tried to fall into it.
He stiffened again. Then he...smiled. And let out a quick bark of laughter before catching himself. He couldn’t get rid of the amusement. “That...was gibberish,” he mused, finishing off his beer. “Here my tongue was dead?” Rex shook his head, still smiling. “Try again, kid.”
Rex nodded ever so lightly as the kid confirmed it was charity. Rex thought that would be the end of the exchange. Rex hoped that would be the end of the exchange. Rex prayed that would be the end of the exchange.
It appeared God was busy or just felt Rex needed more penance. The Irish kid didn’t stop talking.
Rex slowly turned his head just enough to actually look the kid in the eye. “He is always around,” he said firmly and solemnly, a touch of rebuke in his voice and a spark of authority in his eyes. He wasn’t one to push his theological viewpoints on other people, but he also wasn’t one to enjoy them being mocked, however so lightly. That was a warning.
“Volunteering,” he corrected the kid, turning back toward his beer. He glanced the other way down the bar, hopefully for the owner to appear. No cigar. “Clothing drive. For St. Peter’s Church of the Cross. Always accept donations.” He took a drink - his throat was getting dry after all that talking.
Then he just drank the rest in a swift chug. Oh God, the kid wasn’t just a mutant, he was a musician too! Rex began muttering oaths and prayers of supplications in Latin and Spanish. Why was he given this cross to bear?!
She was from San Francisco. “Nice,” he grunted. And that was all Rex could think to say. Even that was a bit of a strain. Rex wasn’t one for small talk, especially around people he didn’t know. It was so...awkward. Inefficient. Instead of cutting straight to an issue or enjoying comfortable silence, people wanted to...talk. To him, even. He didn’t have Gloria around anymore to handle the talking for him.
His face darkened in thought, only to darken further when he caught the next thing Melissa said. He frowned at her and then looked around the bar. “This...this is a mutant bar?” he asked. He sighed wearily. Of course it was. It didn’t rain, it poured. He stared at his water for a long moment, suddenly wishing it was alcohol instead. First the blizzard, then a bar, then a mutant bar. “Ay, Dios mio,” he whispered under his breath.
Rex couldn’t stop the small scoff that escaped. “More likely whoever started the thing will wear themselves out,” he said, still staring at his water. There were very few heroes, and even fewer of them mutants. No, mutants tended to be the villains, or at least the perpetrators. Even the X-Men could cause severe damage and endanger bystanders at times, all in the pursuit of “justice”.
He knocked back the rest of his water and signaled for a refill. He frowned at Melissa again. “Seen many blood blizzards in San Francisco?”
The beer came quickly. Rex took it, considered it intently for a moment, then tipped it up to his mouth and drank. The taste was there, bringing back memories and sensations, but no alcohol to mess him up or cause him to relapse. He could survive with this.
There was some regret though. The beer was non-alcoholic. Which meant nothing was dulling his mind or senses or offering sweet oblivion to ward him from the mutant kid try to talk to him. Sangre de Dios. “No. Owes me charity,” he said gruffly, never returning the beer to the bar. He didn’t quite look at the kid. That would invite conversation, something Rex absolutely wanted to avoid.
Something he was obviously terrible at doing. Now the kid was introducing himself. “Father help me,” he prayed quietly. Clearly this was penance. “Rex,” he grunted, with only a glance out of the corner of his eye. He took a long drought from his beer.
It wasn’t that Rex wanted to go to a bar. He didn’t. It was too connected to that part of him he wished never existed. The part that had pulled him down into such a sorry state of being that he’d turned his back on everything he’d believed in and drank from the cup of ungodly power those Welldrinkers commanded. The same ungodly power he could summon, brought forth by the Word of God.
He still wasn’t entirely convinced by his priest’s views on the matter, that the power and the manner in which he called it up, were signs that this was a gift and not a curse. And maybe that’s how it really was. It still didn’t help with his demons. The inner ones at least.
Rex took a deep breath to center himself before standing to attention and pulling open the bar’s door. Music and the voices of a crowd washed over him, along with so many memories, most of them blurred, of similar times in the past. But he was different now. He wasn’t at the bar for himself. No, he was collecting donations for his church, some clothing for the homeless.
He spied the bar quickly and made his way through the crowd in a no-nonsense beeline. Bartenders always knew everything. “Excuse me,”he said as he got to the bar, pitching his voice to be easily heard, yet well below a shout. “Is the owner in?”
The bartender polished a glass. “Just missed him. Out to lunch,” he said with a shrug.
Rex tilted his head for a moment and swept his gaze around the bar. His jaw clenched a bit. “That’s fine. I’ll just wait,” he finally said, taking a seat at the bar. “Beer. Non-alcoholic,” he said.
Only then did he really notice the winged mutant kid not too far from him. They were everywhere these days, and this one looked like he was really trying to get drunk. Ay yi yi.
Rex grunted and nodded grimly, accepting Melissa’s speculation seriously. The city had been a magnet for the strange and unusual for as long as he could remember, but things had certainly started ramping up in the last few years. There was nothing to do about it though, other than keep your head down, power through, and do what you could for yourself and others.
He stopped mid-sip for just a moment as the bartender mentioned a mage. That was another of those words for magic people, wasn’t it? “I truly hope it was not one of them either,” he said. That was a far more worrying thought, that the sorcerers were starting to enact plans like this. Unlike mutants which almost seemed like acts of nature and were generally independent entities, the magic people he’d encountered were all part of one organization. They were organized.
That made him shiver harder than the blizzard had.
He resumed drinking, the water an icy kick to his stomach but he didn’t care.
“You too,” he said, inclining his glass to her as the end of the introductory exchange. Then he didn’t know what else to say. Back to being an adult? What did that mean? Did Rex even want to know? No, probably not. He sighed heavily.
“Yes, I’ve lived here my entire life,” he said. He idly watched Melissa fiddle with the television. “Never seen a storm like this in July. Hope we don’t again.” He sat the now empty glass back on the counter, his wedding band glinting weakly with a brassy shine. He was feeling much better, but he knew he shouldn’t call the fire again any time soon.
“...and don’t come out until you hear quiet!” Rex managed to shout and whisper at the same time as he shut Mrs. Robinson’s door with a slam. The steel bars on it and the windows should keep her and her grandkids safe enough. He’d left them with all the extra food he’d had, figuring he’d come back for it later. Right now he needed to assess the situation. There were other people on the street, maybe more in danger. At the very least there might be wounded.
There was a lot of screaming. Kodiak had flipped a car, grabbed it by its frame, and hurled it halfway down the street where it crashed through a storefront not too far from Rex. The glass spray nearly struck him.
A sharp shriek from instead dictated Rex’s next move. Without thinking, he zipped over to the store, his boots grinding the glass into smithereens as he leaped over the window frame, kicked off the car, and landed inside.
It was a mom and pop grocery store, now partially demolished. Inside was about a half dozen people hiding behind aisle shelves. The cocking of a gun drew Rex’s attention and he turned to see a balding man in an apron with a name tag “Manager” aiming a rifle at him.
“Woah, hold up, sir,” Rex, raising his hands. “I’m here to help. Is anyone injured?” The car was leaking fluids and the acrid smell was mixing unpleasantly with the dust in the air.
“Don’t think so,” the man said, lowering the rifle. It seemed Rex’s habit of spending time in the neighborhood was paying off. The manager, Mr. Cho, seemed to recognize him. THey both looked around at some of the heads peeping out of hiding.
“Okay, Mr. Cho, you need to lead these people out of here. The Berserker boys are going, well, berserk. This car is a hazard. It’s possible it could explode. Is there a back door to this place?” Rex said calmly and in a no-nonsense fashion. Mr. Cho took a few seconds to process Rex’s words.
“Yes, yes there is. I can lead them away,” he said nodding quickly.
“Good,” Rex said. In emergencies people often got confused and didn’t think straight. Assigning people specific and singular tasks was often all it took to get them working and acting right. “I’m going back out to see who else I can help.”
“You’re a good man, Rex,” Mr. Cho said, as the people started to draw toward him.
Rex didn’t respond. He’d jumped back through the hole where the display window used to be.
The morning had been going well. Rex had spent most of it making rounds in a poorer section of the city, spending his enforced hiatus trying to help others. He was starting to get to know some of the residents of the area and was slowly winning their trust. In return, he was able to sometimes provide ways that could make their lives easier.
Today, he’d been passing out some food from his church’s pantry to a few places and people he knew needed a bit of assistance to make it through the rest of their month. It was something his therapist approved of - it was catharsis.
Then everything changed when the Berserker Boys attacked.
Who knows what set them off? They were a small gang, if three people counted as a gang. Street trash, all of them, always looking for a quick buck or cheap thrill without putting in an honest work effort. They also had powers, enough that nobody really ever stood up to them.
Rex had heard about them of course. They were well known. Folks tried to avoid them or appease them, but never fight them. They took offense easily and were apparently fond of Norse beliefs, or at least their leader was, who went by the name Fenrear (to the hidden amusement of anyone who actually knew how Norse names were pronounced). He had some kind of delayed healing power. He could take damage but wouldn’t bleed or stop moving, even if bones were broken. But the next time you saw him everything was great. It was horrifying to watch.
His cohorts were equally abhorrent. Kodiak wore a jacket made from the pelt of a Kodiak bear he was rumored to have killed with his bare hands. Considering just how huge and tough those hands (and the rest of his body) got when he worked himself up into a battle frenzy, nobody doubted it.
The third member of the trio was Razorback. He turned into a giant, bloodthirsty boar the size of a minivan.
And now they were busting up a street, destroying everything in sight and brutally stomping down anyone who tried to get in their way.
Rex nearly inhaled the water. He chugged it quickly, stopping only to breathe and to continue gauging if he could keep so much so fast down. He could. Soon the ice was rattling against his lips and he set the glass down. “Thank you. May I have some more, please?” he asked, pushing the glass toward the woman’s side of the bar.
The water was doing him some good already. He needed to take it easy and get his temperature down. This seemed as good a place as any. Ironically, he’d probably cool off way easier in the blizzard, but then he’d be far too cold. Alas, how could one expect to use sorcery without paying a price? As it was, Rex considered this penitence quite light.
He snagged an ice cube and chomped down on it, quicking turning it into ice water. “I should hope it’s neither,” he said very seriously. Only a few seconds later did he realize the woman was kidding. He considered smiling, but he didn’t have the energy. An ice age would be horrendous, but so would a mutant run amok, especially one this powerful!
“Rex,” he said by way of introduction. He glanced around the place, from the booths to the pool tables. “Nice place,” he said a bit gruffly, having never been too great at small talk or polite conversation. That was more his wife’s area of expertise.
”In the daytime also He led them with the cloud, And all the night with a light of fire.”
The recitation rolled off Rex’s tongue and the dying flames around him surged with new life. They twisted and whirled around him, stretching a dozen feet into the air and providing a powerful column of heat and light. The snow could not come within a half dozen feet of him and where he walked, the snow and ice melted behind him. As it was, a small gathering of people had formed around him, the four such he’d already worked with that evening.
The blizzard had sprung up out of nowhere. It’s suddenness and lack of proper weather beforehand gave it an unnatural edge. Likely it was a mutant or a cadre of them in another one of their clashes, unconcerned with whomever was caught in their wake. Within minutes of it appearing, it had thickened to nearly blinding levels. Traffic had become nightmarish and there had already been a few wrecks. Rex had witnessed one and had already managed to leave the drivers to shelter, as miraculously they’d been unharmed.
“Not much farther,” Rex shouted so he could be heard over the fury of his personal fire vortex and the equally tempestuous snowstorm. “We’re almost there!” If the huddled people behind him, woefully underdressed for this eldritch weather, said anything, he couldn’t hear them. He took care to move slowly and steadily, allowing them to maintain an optimal distance for warmth and safety. He’d located a suitable building that could provide shelter for a number of people without strain or burden and was guiding them there.
Finally they made it, and none too soon. The flames licked out as Rex’s spell faded. He didn’t renew it. They were only feet from the door and he was already feeling the effects of constantly renewing his spell. He could feel the signs of heat exhaustion building in him. Despite the sudden cold, he wiped sweat off his face. “Everyone inside! Come on!” he barked. At least this was something he knew how to do. He was used to guiding people through blinding, dangerous conditions and they were more than happy to follow someone who sounded like they knew what they were doing.
As the last person to enter the building, waiting for all ten or so people to file in first, Rex pulled the door behind him firmly, to keep the cold out.
It was a bar. He’d known that before. He would’ve avoided it, but it was the first place he could think of that would cater to a bunch of people. Food, drink, plenty of space, it was perfect. He marched up to the bar and slumped onto a stool. “Excuse me miss, I need some water,” he said, goose bumps breaking out all over.
A hollow feeling began to grow inside of Rex as Hercules kept engaging him and telling him of his exploits. Insanity. Delusion. Near-blasphemy. Rex didn’t believe most of what the man said, but he could feel his conviction, and that was terrifying. This was a man full of faith in himself and with abilities to back it up. Just like the other mutants who thought themselves to be gods.
Rex started shaking his head involuntarily, a motion that only increased as Hercules began to accuse him of lying. No, Rex wasn’t a hero. Not anymore. He was a shell of that former man. What he wasn’t, however, was a man who was going to stand here and listen to a false god telling him off and attempting to coerce him into some kind of ill-fated vigilante justice!
His face darkened further and finally turned back to Hercules. “I don’t know why I’m here. I wish I had just gone home.” It was truth. It was lie. It felt right, but also wrong. The hollowness gnawed at him and Rex suddenly felt adrift and unmoored. His hands were startings to shake so Rex stuffed them in his pockets.
“Make sure the police get everyone,” he said, his face closing up again and turning his back to the man once more. Then Rex stiffly walked away, back into the hallway they’d fought through, back out into the street. He carefully picked up a feather, but then he started to make his way home.
