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.
"You hit yellow-y on the way to pink. What was that? Teasing?" Jude managed to send an elbow her way because he'd made him go all mushy. In public. And why was he supposed to pick the colors? His hair darkened with his temporary pout. It wasn't like he knew what any of them meant.
"What do you think green is?" Was green even an option? His irritation passed as quickly as it had settled in. Curiosity and an ashy blond were too easy to fall back into.
The waitress came by to quietly bus their empty (or not) plates and bowls and make sure their drinks were not all gone.
Right! Dinner and a show and they weren't the show. Could they keep up their game while someone flipped rice and veggies around?
"Okay pink." Did he have to consult his chart? Jude had sort of expected a little more explanation to go with that one. "Is that... am I supposed to make you laugh? Or...?"
She was smirking. Why was she smirking?
Jude looked at her. Like, really looked at her.
Oh. Pink. He swallowed from nerves or maybe one last leaf of salad that just didn't want to go.
Okay then. Pink. He could maybe try that...
The Frenchman let himself think down the vast sea of corny pickup lines and settled on one while he gently plucked her hand from wherever she was hiding it. For this, he needed her fingers.
"Si le verbe aimer n’existait pas, je l’aurais inventé en te voyant." As he spoke in the romantic French language, he brought her fingers up to his mouth and planted the most chaste kiss on her knuckles while maintaining solid, unabashed eye contact. "It means, 'If the verb ‘to love’ didn’t exist, I would have invented it upon seeing you.'" And that deserved eyebrows.
Jude snorted. "Yeah slapping booty shorts on mutants seems to be a theme. For a while the ladies on the X-men team all had skirts." Cough. "Not that I had anything to do with that, but it's kinda hard not to notice when I lived with one." ColdSteel had still been a mentor and legend in Jude's mind at that time. Jude's hair cycled through a few different colors while he put those feelings back in the box they deserved to die in. Wow. How times had changed.
But yeah! They were talking about black hair.
"Going nova? Like what your hands were doing when they were purpley before?" But worse, he guessed. She'd said they could have gone worse, hadn't she? Jude stabbed through his salad for a bit as he processed.
"Okay. So recap. Black hair might be more than one feeling. A mix of emotions, I guess. And the chart? You said some of those fit and some others didn't. So, I guess we start with which ones fit? What color do you want to turn your hair? We'll try to make it happen and then confirm that it works." That sounded nice and logical.
How was she possibly this cute? She hesitated when he reached out and then continued with nothing more than a bit of irritation on her face.
"I'm just used to Mansion rules, y'know." Somehow, he'd grabbed a thick book with no pictures. What good was this to him other than a prop or an excuse not to look at the girl he liked far too much.
"Not that I was all that great at following Mansion rules, but..." Celeste's neck was long and made for an excellent place for Jude to snuggle his face into. He let his lips move across her skin as he spoke. "It's nice to know when you're doing something wrong."
They hadn't gone all that far, but their mutual attraction was burning him up inside. He had been invited here, to her room. And he would strive for a gentleman's non-expectation as far as what he thought might happen (or not happen) with them both snuggled up on the bed.
Of course, if he got to influence her decision in one way or another, he certainly did have his opinions.
Jude planted a little kiss on her jawline. "I missed you, you know." Not that they hadn't talked by text, but face to face (and hip to hip) was so, so much nicer.
> "...Though working at a mutant-employed restaurant has also helped with exposure, I guess"
He gasped in mock horror. "That's reverse racist!" As if there were such a thing. Racism was just plain old racism.
"Yeah, I've worked in a a few mutant-run places. The shop I'm in now is full of guys who were forced out because they're mutants and, really, just between you and me... I can't imagine the balls it took to fire these guys. They are scaaaary." Was that saying too much, that was probably saying too much. Ah well. He didn't have any loyalty to any government in this timeline. Not Murica, not England, not a drop of patriotism for his homeland of France.
Okay. Maybe a little idealized patriotism toward France. The language, at least, was far superior.
Jude raised his hand and the lady was more than eager to get their orders in. She had already turned on the teppan, for goodness sakes.
"Surf and Turf for me. Steak and chickens for the lady. We both want fried rice. Thanks!" That was what she'd said, right? Yeah. Totally. He collected their menus and, where was his phone? Oh. He scooped it up.
"Where were we? Black?" No, that was racist. "Black hair, I mean?"
He tapped at a string light with a dull tink, tink. "Yeah. I guess it'd be hard to take someone else's opinions into consideration after getting used to your own space." He was spoiled for his own space. In fact, he could do with a little less. Celeste seemed to have the same idea, but one of his hands was still behind his head and the other was off by the lights and...
After a whuff of air that left him involuntarily, Jude vacillating between chuckling and wheezing.
"Warn me next time." His free hand found a spot on her hip and scooted to make sure they were both settled with all their legs in the little single bed. "I don't think natural earthquakes will be a problem." He joked, just so aware that here they both were.
Books? There were books? Who needed books?
"Is this okay? I'm not gonna get you expelled or anything for being in here, am I?" He reached up toward her face and then reached past.
Y'know. For a book.
He smirked, knowing just what he was doing in teasing her. Besides. Maybe there'd be a book with pictures. He was sure he couldn't concentrate enough to actually read anything. Not here and with with her right there.
Oh man, what Jude would have given to hear those words as a kid. Now that he was older, he was actually putting on muscle. A little, anyway. As a kid, he'd tried and trained and lifted at the Mansion Gym almost constantly in order to try to get his power to manifest. Everything was so much easier as an adult.
"Yeah, no. I've never seen the bunk bed with the desk under it thing. That's really smart." She said to make himself at home, but she also made it clear which side of the room was off limits by sort of herding him toward her side. That really made Jude want to make out on the roomie's bed. Wasn't that a college rite of passage? He did want her to have the full experience, after all.
For now, he grinned like a kid and started to climb up the side of the bed, only to realize he still had the calendar in his hands. "Oh. I don't know if this will out you as a mutant or something, but I got you this, too." He pressed the plastic wrapped calendar into her hands and went back for the bed to check it out up top.
Yeah. Actually he did have to flop down and test it out. Just to be sure. "Ahhh. Yeah. It's nice up here." He'd certainly slept in worse places. Jude folded his hands behind his head and grinned unapologetically for taking up Celeste's bed. "Sorta like a tree fort. I dig. Do you guys have a tv in here?"
She sure was giggly. It had been a minute since they'd hung out, though, and settling into a new space and a new routine wasn't always easy.
"Greasy doesn't necessarily mean bad." His rampage through the restaurants of New York had proved that to him over and over again. Sometimes the grease was the best part. "So long as you're not starving. Gotta feed that brain."
The fact that she thought he looked good was encouraging considering that he'd actually put some kind of effort beyond just clothes. "The guys at work finally convinced me to try to pick up heavy things. Look." He flexed an arm and... was that...? Yes. Yes it was. The seed of a muscle. He wouldn't call it a muscle just yet, but there was something there. "Newbie gains. I've gone like 4 times so, you know." He knew he'd have to make it a regular habit if he wanted arms as big as Christmas turkeys.
She opened the door and Jude was blown away. "This is actually pretty cool." He went exploring, easily guessing which side was Celeste's side. It was just so her. "Is that a... coffee maker?" Clever girl...
Jude tried not to gloat as they passed the kid sitting behind the desk who had to decide who got let in and who didn't. Jude had an escort. He totally belonged. They couldn't kick him to the curb for not being a student when he had a student on his arm.
He tried to kiss her cheek about the same time when she tried to plant one on him. They each got half a lip and partial cheek. It made him laugh and loosen up a bit. He really shouldn’t be so up tight where Celest would see it.
”A hop, a skip, and a bus. No biggie. You look…” He paused to give her a proper once over. Damn, he was so lucky. ”Radiant. Happy. Like you totally fit and belong. The college life suits you. How’s the food?” Would he be the dumb oaf she was dating now? Was he handicapping her college experience by not allowing her to get to know/date/dump her classmates?
He slid his arm around her shoulders as the walked. He liked the way they fit. ”So which one’s yours?”
"I think I'm more than qualified to say that mutations are never simple." Unless it was 'me heap big man, muscles crush', but even then every time he'd copied a power, it came with at least one unexpected twist.
Skye helped with the juggling and Jude had to admit that having someone who was paying close enough attention to notice and help out before he made a mess of himself was nice. (Obviously, he wasn't to ask for help.) She'd already saved him from dining alone (or not at all) here. So, the least he could do was help her out with the menu. He scooted his open menu between them so they could share. There wasn't actually room for them both to open their own menus.
"It's easier than it looks. Choose a protein from the list or you could do veggies if you're into that kind of thing. All meals should come with rice and you can upgrade to fried rice. Do recommend. All of this other stuff is junk." He pointed to the sections labeled as appetizers and bento boxes. "Except gyoza which are little fried packets of pork heaven and tempura which is also fried and absolutely how I like my vegetables. I wouldn't touch sushi from a place like this unless it's cooked. Even then, it's a total waste. We have this big grill-griddle-teppan thing. That's what we're really paying for. Ordering those other things don't get you a table chef and show."
Oh was that lobster? He'd never seen lobster done on one of these, but... oh yeah that was lobster pricing. If he wanted to keep eating out all the time, he had to balance his expensive tastes.
"Oh weird. There's a dancing squid meal too. Gross." Raw food was okay when it was on purpose, but dancing raw food was crossing a line for Jude. "I'll probably go for the surf and turf. Cow and shrimps are delicious friends."
Oh. Yes. The bright and shiny part should be controllable even if the hair was not. Now Jude was trying to remember if it was against the rules to bring people into the firing range. Okay. He knew it was against the rules, but he was debating if they could get away with it (no way) or if testing a mutation there might be worth the trouble (maybe if he thought she was the elite spy type). Jude glanced back at the girl again as he munched his salad. Mmmm. He'd find a place to practice the light thing. For now, though...
> "So...what? We start toying with each other's emotions?"
That was... certainly an option. Jude grinned and his hair lightened to practically ginger.
"So maybe the emotions are bucketed by type?" This was the fun part where they got to throw out ideas to see what stuck. "Not a one-to-one chart like red equals happy, but more general? Warm colors are positive and cool colors are less than positive? I think I saw a chart once about some psychology for how we put emotions on colors." It was probably funded by marketing or something. People were always willing to spend money on making more money. Jude juggled his salad fork and his phone while he went to look up the chart.
"Huh." He couldn't find the one he'd been looking for, but dang there were plenty out there. "This one suggests there's a positive and negative for each color." Man. Her suggestion of a crazy basement conspiracy theory chart was sounding more and more plausible.
"Have you decided what you would like?" Jude was so engrossed in the power trip, that he'd forgotten they had menus. Even more dangerous, he hadn't even heard the server approach with waters for them both.
"Oh, uhhh. Can we have a couple minutes? We'rs still in negotiations." That bought them a little time, but now Jude was juggling his salad, a water, soup, a menu, and his phone. This was getting ridiculous. His hair settled to a mousy brown.
"If you want to figure it out, now's as good a chance as any. I'm pretty good at helping people figure their powers out. Take notes if you have to. It's worth knowing what you do in case of emergencies or... whatever." And the more resigned he became to playing guinea pig, the more his hair darkened to the deepest blue-black. Jude took a particularly stabby fork-full of lettuce.
"I'm a power copier." He was interested in this salad. Yes. Very interested and not at all avoiding the gaze of someone who might flashbang him. "So whatever your power is doing, now so's mine." Was that a subtle swell of violet? Well, he was juuust a little bit proud of his ability to take a mutation and figure it out.
Bring in box. Unload box. Slap a poster of the Bone Bikini Babe on the wall and call it done.
For years, that was exactly what he'd done for his Mansion room. When he moved into the Honeycomb Collective it was much the same, poster of the calcified murderess and all. In fact, he was so sure that it was the right thing to do, that Jude made sure to find a copy of the hard-to-find officially unauthorized BirdWatcher calendars. The pictures were awesome, considering they were amateur and taken at long range, but that made sense as the calendar was a collection of the year's top voted action shots from the mutant-focused forum. There was even one month featuring Bone Bikini Babe. Because Jude's babe deserved the best.
Maybe if he was still a crime fighter, he would be in there. Or maybe not. His power just wasn't all that flashy.
Almost there
Jude had debated flowers, but decided they were just too much. Then bought some anyway because he was absolutely too much. If Celeste hadn't figured THAT out by now, they'd be headed for trouble anyway. He had just 3 or 4 red gerber daisies. Not a marriage proposal.
It was much easier to fixate on the flowers than it was to admit that Jude felt a little left behind with the whole college thing. He opted not to go. He had a good job already. He totally could have if he'd wanted to. That's what he kept telling himself as he walked past clumps of friends, girls and boys both, on their way out from the dorm.
It didn't feel right. It'd be a waste of time... but what was he doing with his time now that was so important anyway?
He did his best to marshal his face and thoughts and made sure his jeans were still cuffed after the walk and he hit the call key for those poor unfortunate souls like himself who didn't have a dorm badge.
Jude snorted at the uncle anecdote. Well-seasoned garbage was at least seasoned! Jude had a short self-imposed garbage point in his life. He didn't like to talk about that, though. "I was totally spoiled growing up. My mom cooks for her hobby so only 1 out of every 10 meals were a little too experimental. Even I'm surprised that I don't have to be rolled everywhere."
> "..Just make sure you always eat somewhere new, and you'll at least put a dent in it."
"The problem is that restaurants come and go. So... if this place shuts down tomorrow, do I get to count it? Or do I have to eat at whatever pops up next too?" Just was asking the hard questions in life, and totally acknowledging that he enjoyed when these were the hardest questions he had to face. The circus of life and death that was X-men missions was for braver people than him.
And that's when her hair did a thing.
He could feel the 'uuuugh' building up inside him. Mutations were just so flippin' weird sometimes. He figured this one was safe if it was just the light show, which he'd been assured was harmless. So he'd gone for it. He let his greedy little power off the hook and... and now his hair was slowly fading brown, bordering on auburn. Jude let his head hang down for a moment, both for a better look at what little he could see of his own hair and so that Skye could finish up talking about where she lived.
He knew the area. Maybe. So he could probably... maybe get her home.
His hair darkened a bit.
"Well, if this place blows, maybe we can get wings." Yes. Definitely a joke was in order. He hadn't quite cracked the code of the hair debacle and... and now his hair was going back a bit more auburny? Bah!
"So I guess the hair color is related to your power then." Was that a note of resignation in his voice? Jude found his fork and mixed his salad around. "Since you walked in and it was purple and now it's... not. Is that emotion-based or based on sunlight absorbed or...?" There were a million ways to do it. Bah! He shoved a bite of salad into his face. Maybe he would just remove the power from himself.
The sun was setting. He knew because the apple of her smiling cheek was bathed in a neon glow and the ferris wheel lights had yet to kick on. He had to work with context clues since they were touching foreheads and he wasn't willing to let anything else take up his sight.
She liked him.
She'd definitely kissed back.
A thrill ran up his spine just because she said 'hey' back. Oh man. He had it bad. He'd forgotten what a rush it was to be liked.
"I like this." And he sealed that statement with a quick kiss. "We should make a habit of it." That too deserved his official seal of approval.
The ferris wheel started going down and their view of the sunset was uninterrupted by the other cars. Tempting, but nowhere near as engaging as Celestina.
