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 splashing of water on his face roused Rex from unconsciousness. He blinked and winced as pain ran through his body as he took his bearings. The explosion of the portal had flung him....not too far from the mansion itself. Nothing looked the same though. The lawn was mostly blackened and scorched, a massive hole was in the front of the mansion, and even chunks of the roof had collapsed. The sky overhead was filling with hundreds of small black shapes harrying the flashing figures of a few remaining fliers and...
"Dios mio!" he breathed as he caught sigh of the waterman. Rex started pulling himself to his feet as he saw the tattooed man with a flame-wreathed arm facing down the self-proclaimed god. A surge of irritance flood Rex but he used that to keep himself moving.
Then Hercules's actions drew Rex's attention, even as water began splashing everywhere. Rex staggered and suppressed a moan of aching pain as he approached Hercules, Amelia, and the other woman. For a moment, it seemed there was a reprieve on the battlefield, as the waterman faced down the fireman.
"Are you hurt?" he asked the downed woman. "I'm trained as a paramedic."
Rex winced as he crossed under one of the few working streetlights in the neighborhood. The light stabbed into his eyes and deepened the migraine. That sleeping spell had been so tricky to work out in the first place. Rex had gotten the idea from Dr. Cama's grimoire, but the doctor's spell was mostly based on manipulating hormones and brain chemistry. Despite al of Rex's attempts, he just simply couldn't replicate those spells.
Instead, everything he did seemed to revolve around energy of one type or another. Thermal, radiant, kinetic. It made sense to him. He could make progress with those areas. So Rex had taken the fundamentals of Cama's spell and warped them into some for of encephalography technology, altering brainwaves to produce a similar effect. It had been taxing and ridiculously hard to figure out, but Rex had done it. He now had a nonlethal way of incapacitating someone momentarily. He didn't know how to do it without getting a splitting migraine at the same time.
Rex frowned as he approached the van. He saw Sam's aerial movement but for some reason it seemed off to Rex. More steps than Sam normally took, from Rex's assessment of the man. Sam wasn't one to play around. It was worrying, but it could be assessed later.
With fireballs hovering in front of him, Rex came to a halt several yards out from the van. "I'd advise you to listen to him," Rex barked. Then he began reciting another verse and soon his sword of pure light reappeared in his hands, a longsword held out in preparation to slice any magic that came his way or to be ready to neutralize the man's magic if Sam could distract him long enough.
While listening to William, Rex continued to assess their surroundings. He suddenly felt exposed, likely due to the emptiness of the large room. What was built to house a plethora of giant statues suddenly felt vast with vacancies. Not to mention they had already been ambushed there once already that night.
"Let's get you to him then," Rex said, eying the guards who were trying to figure out how to bypass priceless animated obstructionist art. Where Hercules went, there was trouble, but at least everyone would be together. Better that than isolated. Besides, they didn't need to deal with security right then. "I don't think this is a great time to be stopped for questions."
He shrugged. Who knew what was mutation or magic these days? "Doesn't matter, does it," he said. It wasn't really a question. He wasn't one to just ponder and philosophize - he was a responder. Whatever the statues were doing, they weren't actively trying to kill a child so they were the least of his concerns at the moment.
"Need a boost?" Rex asked, noting the kid's exhaustion. He didn't immediately push the wheelchair along - he knew teens could get prickly about independence. Rex wanted out quickly though, not only to avoid the gallery but also to find Hercules and figure out the game plan for what came next.
"You're forgiven," Rex said simply. People tended to make a lot of assumptions about him. That didn't bother him. Much. He often didn't correct them unless it was something serious. In this case, Rex refused to even passively masquerade as a priest - that seemed sacrilegious to him.
Rex's frown deepened as Belladonna answered his questions. The furrows turned into trenches as he tried to sort out what she was saying. Rex was only vaguely aware of the development of several years back. A spontaneous fountain of youth, some had said. Living euthanasia, others had countered. It was a plague or something that if you contracted it, temporarily or permanently lost years of your life. You didn't get closer to death, in fact you normally gained extra years at the cost of losing all memories formed in those years.
The look she turned on him didn't phase him. He didn't even notice, not did he notice the grin and snort. He was otherwise mentally occupied. Without looking her way, he absently commented, "Eyes on the road. It's unsafe enough as it is." Then he followed up with, "I thought that aging thing only happened to mutants." He couldn't remember any normal people getting affected by it.
It was his turn to answer the question. Was that anger he detected? He continued to frown, suddenly aware that there were undercurrents to this situation he was unable to detect. "I'm a firefighter," he said, starting to fold the map back carefully along it's creases. "Since this magic stuff started, I've been on the streets helping where I can. This seemed like the next logical progression." It didn't occur to him to provide details on the types of help he provided people. Beyond community service for the run-down neighborhood around his church, there were also the infrequent team-ups with the likes of Detective Travis, Hercules, and Sam Johnson, stopping mad scientists, demon-callers, wannabe warlords, and renegade mutant gangs.
He opened his thermos and took a drought of the hot, black coffee. "Looks like we're about there," he said, nodding ahead toward the distance.
So many things happened in such a short span of time. The statue spoke and moved as if it had a life of its own. Security guards arrived and were promptly blocked by two other living statues. Hercules took off after the third statue and jewels, after yelling for Rex to protect William.
"Hercules!" Rex yelled after the man. What in Heaven was the man doing? Why was he abandoning William right now? After several people just tried to kill him?
Rex's typical from turned into a full-on glare. If he'd been a mutant pyrokinetic, his clothes would've been burning in rage.
He tore his gaze from the door Hercules left through and marched over to William. "Can you make him come back?" he asked sternly, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. It wasn't directed at William anyhow. "We need to get you away from this place. The artifacts here are not our concern."
Rex glanced up at the guards, who were wrestling ineffectually against grinning statues, who were blocking that entryway with marble limbs. Rex's hand clenched, like an angry father unable to control what was happening around him.
And in the hallway that Hercules entered? There was an entire tableau on display.
Two statues from the gallery stood there, there hands locked around the throats of the two lackeys that had fled with Atlas. Assorted busted chunks of marble littered the floor where a third statue had attempted the same on Atlas. "It's about time you showed up," one of the statues said in that same lilting woman's voice as before. "You know what they say, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. I'm sorry I couldn't stop the other guy, but I can't lose all of my treasures on this, you understand. Anyways, I think this makes us even. You helped me and I helped you. Tell your boyfriend in there that I'd love another tryst like this again some day!"
Then there was no more voice and the statue's mouth froze once again.
Rex was slower in following Sam. He was used to kicking in doors, not diving out windows. He carefully crawled out the window, suddenly wary of using the back door in case another trap had been left behind. By then, Sam was already a rapidly shrinking figure as he ran off with an iceman in pursuit of the van. Rex took off after them, muttering a verse as he went.
"The Lord is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. The Lord is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path," he said. Two fireballs burst into being in front of his knees and they began zooming along, just off to the side, casting firelight upon the ground in front of him. The trail of frost was easy to follow but at night in a poorly-lit neighborhood, Rex couldn't risk falling.
Rex was worried. Worried for Sam. The mutant didn't seem quite as focused as usual. A bit off. Rex was worried for the last cult member. If Sam found him first, something terrible might happen. Rex was also worried for the victim. What a hellish end that could be. He sped up, fire burning before him.
Rex conveniently turned away when August stated his respect. Rex didn't really know what to do with a compliment like that so he just rolled his shoulders and stabbed at a plastic bag on the ground. It was always easier for him to throw himself into work, especially physical work, than to deal with social niceties or whatever. Gloria was always far better at such things than he was.
Fortunately, August went along with the idea of cleaning, to Rex's mild surprise. In truth, upon their first couple of encounters, August hadn't struck Rex as the type of man to engage in physical labor. He seemed too...hip? Not snobbish or snooty. Just like a person who'd never really lift a finger to do something. That would have been fine with Rex - he had already been planning to fix up the playground all on his own anyways - but the surprise was welcome.
The guy knew literature too. He wasn't just an airhead.
Rex snorted. "Nice," he said, a faint quirk of the corner of his mouth giving the illusion of a faint wisp of a smile. He stabbed a plastic bottle with a label too faded to be legible and put it in his bag.
Rex didn't stop working when the question came. "It needed to be done," he said simply. He speared a second plastic bag as he made his way to the fence so he could begin on the perimeter. Sure, there were so many reasons he could've said instead. He had been asked. They had saved his life before, he was returning the favor. He had...friends? Amicable acquaintances?...there. It was a school. Children made their home there. Great evil was about to be unleashed. He had the ability to do so and wasn't the kind of man to hide his talent in the ground. He didn't need any of those reasons though - he was in as soon as he learned of the threat. Overthinking was overrated.
"You?" Rex grunted in return. Then he added: "Nice moves in the air, too. Didn't let the gryphon-kid throw you." Heaven above, Rex knew how difficult that kid could be, even without that bestial form of his.
Rex’s typical frown returned in full force as he looked around. Now that he was thinking about it, hadn’t the room been emptying out during the entire battle? Any time he used fire he always checked for fire hazards and there simply hadn’t been anything he could burn through most of the fight. Nothing to destroy or hide behind either.
He turned around. How had the fight between Hercules and Atlas not destroyed anything? Some statues had been crashed into, sure, but any bout between people like that surely would’ve caused actual destruction. Yet there was nothing.
”I don’t think this was connected…” Rex began. It didn’t make sense. Why rob a museum only when Hercules was present? Atlas had clearly been here for Hercules and William. Why intentionally make things harder on themselves?
Rex peered closer at the statues clutching the necklaces. The fingers were tightly gripped around them, in a way that should’ve been impossible unless the necklaces were threaded through a hold specifically designed for them. Except, as Rex noted, these necklaces didn’t have clasps - they were circles without beginning or end. His frown deepened. ”Father?” Rex began praying. ”Did I see this statue holding necklaces before?”
A feeling on confirmation washed over him, like a silent voice.
No.
Rex’s eyes narrowed. That meant--
The sound of footsteps and then William’s sudden yelling interrupted Rex’s train of thought.
Then the statue smiled. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave,” the statue of a woman in a simple robe said in a very feminine tone. “Thanks for the help, boys. I never could’ve pulled this off without your very distracting, and dare I say, exquisite display of masculine prowess. Thank you for the enchanting afternoon!”
The statue blew Rex and Hercules a kiss and then began marching out of the room with the necklaces in hand, even as the other two statues moved to block the incoming guards.
The groaning was a good sign. Sam was able to string words together. Rex nodded as the man in shattered ice pulled himself out of a wall. He cast a practiced medical eye over Cold Steel. Wounds, burns, coughing. Unlikely anything was broken. Ice absorbed most of the damage and neutralized the worst of the explosion. The man was lucky.
”Don’t worry where she is,” Rex said sternly, unconsciously placing himself between Cold Steel and the door back to the room where the woman slumbered. His arms were loose and at his sides, still radiating warmth but ready to call on fire if needed.
Rex watched Sam’s recovery for a moment longer. ”I’m fine,” Rex said. ”We need to move. Are you able to pursue the last target?” If he wasn’t, that was going to be an issue. Rex didn’t want to leave the man alone with the people in the house - he wasn’t sure they’d remain alive. Sam had always struck him as an upright, solid man, used to fighting his demons and winning. Rex knew that nobody was perfect, though, and even good men could fall to temptation.
Rex was revolted. Utterly disgusted. This person who he was paired with and their sick, twisted depravities so blatantly on display. He didn't know Belladonna, just in passing. He'd recognize her off the street but he didn't think they'd exchanged more than five sentences. Perhaps if they had, Rex would've known about this abomination beside him in the truck. He could've brought the right tracks to show her the light, the true path, not this heresy she was speeding toward.
Try as he might, he couldn't hide how sick the sight made him. You could actually see part of his lip curl a millimeter in disgust. Horror filled his eyes as she engaged in the despicable act right in front of his eyes, without any sense of shame or decency.
She actually drank the iced coffee!
He noticed her glance and abruptly turned back toward the map, his own insulated thermos of coffee between his thighs. The coffee was hot and black, no non-sense, no frills. There was a second slot in the cupholder, but he didn't want his coffee anywhere near Belladonna's. He just knew it was waiting to contaminate his and he wasn't sure all the fire he could bear down on that iced coffee could cleanse the Earth of its foulness.
"About five minutes," Rex said in his typical gruff tone, staring at the map with his typical slight frown but otherwise expressionless face, barely blinking as they went over a bump in the pitted road, which he was now naming Good Intentions.
They were out in the middle of nowhere, which wasn't thrilling to Rex, who'd grown up in the big city and lived there his whole life. However, the last several months in working with the Veil had done a lot to desensitize him to things. Months of serving on extraction teams, helping new mystics out of hairy situations and providing aid where needed had taken him to many diverse places, utilizing every bit of his first responder training, volunteer experience, and faith to make it through, as well as judicious use of fire and prayers.
As a result, Rex didn't know many of the people in the Veil, other than people he'd gone on missions with. He didn't spend much time in the library unless he had a reason or needed to coordinate with people for logistics or intel. He wasn't much of one for magical research - the only book he truly needed was the Good Book. Apparently that was enough to earn him some kind of nickname. "I'm not a Father," Rex said, then adjusted, "Not that kind, at least." The one kind made him ineligible for the other. He also wasn't wearing a white collar on his red plaid work shirt tucked into heavy-duty jeans. Sunglasses and dirty boots completed the look. No, he was blue collar through and through.
"This your first time?" Rex said. He probably should've found out her experience in these kinds of missions before. Well, no time like the present.
In hindsight, Rex should’ve seen it coming. What else would you expect from destroying a gravity spell? After all, what went up…
The owl slowed his fall but Rex still dropped into a roll to absorb the rest of the impact. Along the way he let go of the sword and the lightblade vanished. He finished the roll and pulled himself to his feet, already inwardly groaning. He was going to feel that in the morning.
Hercules was on his feet almost at the same time, if not quicker than Rex. Rex grimaced. Another title? Hercules’s typical “of the inferno” addendum was bad enough. Burning blade, though? What burning blade? His expression smoothed out though as Hercules, in all his excitement and pride touched a sore spot.
“It took a lot of prayer and study to learn that,” Rex said. “Months. You were…not available then.” He steeled his face to not show the face of a man who’d been haunted by causing the death of another. It seemed reality was not congruent with his thoughts, but it had been real enough to Rex.
William’s comment redirected Rex’s attention. He looked around at the mess caused by his ending of the spell and…frowned. There were only three statues in total in the room. None of them were the statue of Hercules or the bust of Zeus that Rex had focused on earlier. None of the vases, artifacts, or portraits were in the room either. Empty pedestals, empty glass displays, and naked nails littered the walls and floors. One of the statues had a fistful of necklaces clutched to it, and that was all.
Rex relaxed just an iota. Sam was no longer adopting the threatening posture of before. Rex noticed the warmth from his spell was not being overriden by Sam’s elemental control. No men of ice were forming around them, and there were no more threats.
Thank you Mary and all the saints. Samuel had not succumbed to the temptation of fear and torture.
The woman in Rex’s hold started answering anyways. While it seemed as though she’d been acting earlier when accusing Rex of trying to kill her, she was sold on Cold Steel’s willingness. Rex frowned, which only deepened after Cold Steel snarled and left, acting on the information and leaving Rex alone with the woman.
What was he to do with her? He had no doubt that she’d cast more magicks the moment he deactivated his sword. Perhaps he could--
An explosion interrupted his thoughts. “Cold Steel!” Rex shouted. Sam was already in another room but that massive THUNK Rex heard didn’t sound good.
That settled it.
Rex let go of the sword and it vanished. Now it was no longer preventing the woman from accessing magic, but it was also no longer immunizing her to magic either. With his free hand landing on her forehead, he rapidly recited, “There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.”
A red glow emerged from his hand as energy flowed into the woman and began altering brainwaves. Alpha waves were suppressed, theta and delta waves took center stage. Then the woman fell asleep and slumped in Rex’s arms.
Rex gently set her on the floor even as a migraine lanced through his head. From his experiments with the spell, he was lucky a migraine was all he now faced from using it. It was hard learning how to use magic, but in situations like this, it was worth the time and even the pain.
Then Rex ran over to find Cold Steel. “Sam! Are you okay?” Rex barked.
A few uncharitable thoughts went through Rex’s mind at Hercules’s suggestions, then William spoke in a more reasonable manner. Soon an owl was winging over to Rex and pulled and pushed and dragged him to where he needed to go.
“Fire is the backup plan,” Rex said, before turning his mind to his next task.
It was because of Hercules that Rex learned the possibility of learning new ways to use magic. He had thought the pillar of fire was all he could do before then. Although the man was unable to explain to Rex how to do magic, at least to Rex’s satisfaction, his stories were filled with possibilities and innovations.
It was Dr. Cama’s grimoire that provided the next link in the chain. In reading it from cover to cover, Rex discovered that the pursuit of magic was not too different from engaging in scientific pursuits, or even mastering a style of art. It took time, patience, and study in order to work out what you wanted to achieve.
It was the Bible that led Rex to everything else.
His eyes watered a bit as he contemplated his spell, forming the outcome in his mind. When he’d last seen Hercules, when he thought he’d killed the tattooed man, Rex had come out of the encounter shaken and disturbed. If it had not been for the providence of the Father, Rex would not have survived the night, not against someone of Hercules’s caliber. If anyone else could ever control Hercules like that, or if any other such magical monster existed, he needed a way to stand between the foe and the innocents.
Since that night, Rex had begun to forge himself a weapon that could level the field.
"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword…” Rex began reciting as he called upon the place of power from which he brought forth fire and magic. Fire was too destructive and could so easily be turned against the innocent. His weapon needed to be precise and under his control.
“...piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow…” he continued. Yet a simple blade would not stop Hercules, or even the abominations of Dr. Cama. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities. It had to be a sword that could cut the magic from a man, to mortify a so-called god.
“...and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart!” he finished, as the sword in his mind’s eye turned to light, an everlasting reminder of his Redeemer’s grace and might.
That same blade blazed into being in Rex’s hand, a longsword of light with a blade beyond three feet. Then Rex focused his thoughts and the sword shifted, growing even longer until he held a greatsword in his hand. He clasped his other hand around it and held it overhead, like a lumberjack, and then stabbed it straight down.
The light pierced the paper and the floor, disintegrating the spell, and everything came tumbling down.
Rex brought his eyes to meet Melissa’s ever so briefly. ”Thanks,” he said, hoping that it was the end of that. It rarely was, though, and this time was no different. Still, he detected no patronizing or pity from her, so he took it in the spirit he believed it was intended.
”It…is very hard,” he admitted. He didn’t usually open up to strangers, except sometimes at AA meetings. ”Finding things to fill that void when everything,” he waved a hand at the blizzard outside, ”just pushes you toward it is…hard.”
He wasn’t very eloquent. He wasn’t sure she’d understand. Not everyone turned to drink for the reasons he had. Not everyone sought to drown themselves in a bottle and steep in the darkness of their souls.
He pulled his thoughts away from that pit. ”Oh, that’s good,” he said in regards to her having a lawyer. ”Got a…marketing rep too?”
He saw the look in Cold Steel’s eyes and now Rex could see where the man got his name. The air turned sharp and crisp and Rex’s breath, now losing the accompanying flames as the spell wore off, produced steam with each exhalation.
The Catholic man’s eyebrows drew together and Rex’s stare turned to a glare. The woman began shaking, from either the cold, fear, or both, and she started to scream.
“Stop,” Rex barked at Sam, turning to the side so the woman wasn’t immediately in front of Sam but angled so he could still see the other man. “We will not resort to such tactics.”
He didn’t yell. He didn’t need to. There was no fire burning in his eyes, other than the light of conviction shining there.
“Father, please warm my hands and hers,” Rex said, not breaking eye contact with Sam’s one eye. Soothing warmth began radiating from their hands, countering the increased chill. The woman stilled and stopped screaming, although he could not know if she was pacified, terrified, or calculating.
”Tell us where they’re going and God may have mercy on your soul,” Rex said to the woman. ”Cold Steel will not, and I cannot guarantee I can stop him.”
