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.
Mob activity, potato. Turf war, pohtatoh. A building in a border territory was a rather troublesome place to be. Unlike people, a building could not be relocated. Still, he took notes. No doubt, someone already had all this somewhere, but he did not.
"Do you have a preference for which territory this building eventually sits in?" Considering her heritage and the contact mentioned, maybe the Colombians were the ones to cut a deal with. A muscle jumped at his jawline. He wasn't struggling just yet, but holding her power did take control, a constant wrangling probably not unlike the aforementioned turf war. Sveta's power wanted to be in one place, he wanted it to be in another. For now, he was winning.
Her words were a slap in the face followed by a bucket of ice water. He very nearly let her power go on accident, and then considered it on purpose. But, no... this was better for all concerned. Whatever tentative hope he'd had for civility was shut down, his face shuttered. This was business. Just business.
"I can last thirty minutes or so. I'm trying to build up my stamina so I appreciate the chance for applicative practice." He opened his folio again. "I don't think you could boost anything right now. For physical mutations, it seems to revert them toward a more human appearance. That's not always the case for adapteds, but I haven't exactly gotten a lot of testing. It seems more like, while I can hold it, you're not a mutant at all." He'd just let that sit out there.
And since this was business, he picked up his pen. Page one was as good as any place to start.
"Mob activity looks to be up in the neighborhood. I know the build has been secure, but since you are directly involved in the personal element of the building, can you tell me if anyone has had a run-in face to face?" They would then be on higher alert when those people left in case of any incidents.
Jude was hallucinating, right? And by the way that Zaid's jaw dropped before he let the letter slip from his hands meant that it wasn't just Jude, the danger was shared.
"It's a gas leak." It had to be, right? "Let's get out and call somebody. Come on." She scrambled out from the table and reached for Zaid's hand, except... except he stepped on the paper envelope that the bunny man had dropped on the floor. It. Felt. Real.
Jude turned a slow circle, casting his power out and reaching out for any mutants nearby. There was that second floor mutation, barely in his range from the attached building, but... that was often there. There was Zaid. And... nothing else?
The floor had truly tried to kill them. More than once. That's why Jude was rooting around under the kitchen table to find that one squeaky board they’d found. If one board was squeaky, with their luck, the whole kitchen would fall through the floor and then catch on fire.
Sometimes, Jude wondered if bad luck was somehow a part of Zaid's power portfolio. Perhaps Jude accidentally was copying that aspect of his power and then... well, that would explain a lot of their current life together, really.
He worked at a floor board, but it didn't seem loose so Jude moved on to the next one. He heard Zaid being excited about something in the other room, but that was his normal and natural state. Jude focused on the floor. Was that the squeak? Did he seriously just hear a squeak?
”That’s nice, honey.” But the board wasn’t moving… the sound came again, followed by a light scraping and scratching. He sat up and clocked the back of his head on the underside of a chair. He hissed and scwunched his eyes shut.
And when he opened them…
Were those candles floating over the kitchenette? A romantic gesture this early in the morning? Or had he hit his head too hard? How many windows had there been in this room to start? Suddenly it seemed like too many windows. He started to count, but could swear it changed every time he tried.
He confirmed again with a nod what Sveta obviously didn't dare hope to be true. She asked "how" but all he could do was shrug. How did any of their powers work, exactly? They had cheeky medichlorines or something.
"It's not exactly showy..." For anyone else, he would ask to touch them. Maybe hold their hand just to make sure his power was homing in on the right one. But Sveta had always been different to Jude. And her power made his feel hungry. "Just be still. I think you'll feel it."
He let his power off its leash. In his mind's eye, it dashed straight out like the reaching arm of an octopus snatching up a tasty morsel. Jude knew that if he left it grabbing onto the power that was when he was able to copy mutant abilities. But when he pulled, the power inside the other mutant would budge, too.
The power felt like it was tethered inside Sveta at two different ends. He had never tried to yank a power totally free, it was hard enough just to pull it out of other mutants. Jude's power strained and Sveta's power stretched toward him like a rubber band, constantly wanting to snap back where it belonged.
He never knew what the other party felt during all this, but by now, for sure she would feel the absence of her power. While his power was arm wrestling hers, and neither resided in either body, neither his power nor hers would do anything.
Jude sighed and resigned himself to moving a few seats down. Why did he think she would trust him, of all people? He glanced at Sveta before folding up his folio and then again when she didn't seem to be getting the message. He looked around, but honestly, if this room wasn't secure, what room in this tower would be? Maybe it wasn't a trust problem, but a communication problem.
"I don't advertise, but I can shut out a single person's power. Two, technically, since it takes everything from me, too. In this case, that's a double bonus."
"Nor would I suggest you do." Oh holy f#ck did she think so little of him? "I have a gentler suggestion if you can trust me. Say yes and sit still or I'll have to move a few more seats over."
Jude folded his arms and closed his eyes, his foot still tapping beneath the table. He could wait, but his power didn't want to. It was taking a lot of focus to hold back. It would take focus to shut her power out, too, but a different kind: the kind he had practiced.
The sigh of resignation and disappointment was not directed at him this time. Having a common beef against SUPER was making an unexpected ally of Sveta. It rocked Jude to hear that Boots had been in the inner workings of Haven before. People trusted her too easily. Hopefully they changed their passwords regularly.
”The truce being that.... She won’t snipe any more of your people?” He had to guess since Sveta wasn’t exactly helping him there.
Should they compare notes? Jude opened his folio and started to pick up his pen until she said she wanted to talk about how everything was so messed up. He set the pen down and leaned back as he tried to read her face and tried even harder not to tap his foot. He wasn’t used to being in range of her any more. All the pent up energy was… distracting.
”What do you mean exactly?” F-ed up covered a whole spectrum in Jude’s book. ”Like how a bunch of quadragenarian war veterans are begrudgingly going where I tell them or the 8-going-on-30 year old that works in my mail room? Wait. Put a pin in that. I can't do this anymore." He shifted in his seat and it was Jude's turn to rub his forehead.
"Would you mind if I shut your power off for a bit?” His power strained like a trained pointer. He wouldn’t even have to touch her, he was sure. But he sure as hell wasn’t shutting off a mutant’s power without permission again. He’d already been chewed up and spit out for that.
Oh dear. She had notes. Hopefully those were about the zany hijinks of the mutants housed in the tower and not about his team.
Her first question was a doozy.
”To hear them tell it, SUPER found them.” His mouth twisted like he’d tasted something sour. SUPER was not yet a problem, but it definitely felt like one.
”Boots, er Noel, she was a part of SUPER a long time ago, so this was like going home for her. I don’t know if she roped Hunter in or what exactly. They’re both conveniently missing memories around that time span.” He would admit bias where Boots was concerned, her attachment to the Ranger felt just a little too convenient to Jude.
”Do you know what she was doing here? I mean, she wasn’t a double agent reporting on Haven so far as BlacTac can tell, unless you have alternate information.” Though admittedly, they’d been too quick to rely on Noel’s ability to taste lies and inability to not show everything she was thinking on her face. If she had successfully lied to them, that would be impossible to prove now.
Sveta looked a bit rocked. That satisfied Jude to some degree. She'd always maintained such cool collection while managing to throw him wildly into self doubt and turmoil. Finally, it wasn't him on the back foot. He knew how to run a security briefing.
"I don't run BlacTac," he admitted. Jude would only ever strive to tell the truth to her, even if she wasn't a client. But with money in the mix, that was doubly true. "I administrate for BlacTac. Mostly, I do the talking and contracts. The Ranger still makes all final decisions when he can, but..." He had to let that one dangle. Sometimes the Ranger was around less, sometimes more. In the end it all boiled down to the fact that Jude had his boss's trust, otherwise he wouldn't be here now. He wasn't so insecure that he needed to flout that, but, boy was he tempted.
She commented about the similarity in their situations which made him realize that maybe he'd been uncharitable in thinking of her as power hungry before.
"You got left holding the bag too, huh?"
He caught himself cautiously smiling. That was probably too personal for a business meeting, but he missed their personal connection. He missed his friend, lover, and confidant. Jude had to admit that connection was well and truly dead. He'd expected… hostility. And he hadn't yet gotten any.
Jude's anxiety whispered that it was on it's way, but maybe if they stuck to business that whole mess could be saved for another day. His power strained it's leash, so he shortened it's mental freedoms even further. No. Bad power.
"Do you have specific concerns for BlacTac to address, or would you like to start with a debriefing of recent incidents?"
It was well that Jude had some experience in controlling his face, despite the emotional turmoil and the personal mutant power that strained to reach out and copy the juicy morsel at the end of the table. Correction, at the HEAD of the table.
"Neither f*cking nor kidding today, unfortunately. How are you Sveta?" He'd nearly called her Svetty and that was likely to be as welcome as his face was.
Jude surveyed the seats. He didn't want to sit RIGHT next to her, but they had paper documents to pass back and forth so he had to be in arm's reach, plus or minus paper distance... Jude chose one chair of padding. He wasn't afraid of her exactly, but there would be absolutely no accidental touching at this space.
"I'm sure you know, given your previous arrangement, but Michael Hunter is no longer able to function at his previous capacity for Black Forest Tactical. As such, a large portion of his duties have fallen to me." He realized that he'd been avoiding looking at her, really looking at her so he made sure to make full eye contact. It was her. She was mad. He was still going to press on anyway.
"Don't worry, I'm not moving in." He tried not to smirk, but... well, he was trying not to do a lot of things today.
Evelyn cleared her throat for the third time as Jude flipped back through the files in the Haven section of the BlacTac drawer. They weren't unorganized. He should just be going straight for what he needed and then be done. Only, Jude was delaying. He couldn't come up with a good reason to get out of this meeting. He could not escape this time.
A fourth throat clearing had Jude grab the incident folder. He waved it in the air for a sarcastic goodbye.
He always sent someone else for Haven meetings. First, because it seemed like someone with more direct hands-on experience should handle it. Second, because in the power vacuum left by their charismatic leader who'd gone MIA, Jude knew the woman who'd stepped in to lead. A lifetime ago, but... they hadn't exactly left on the best of terms. He was supposed to be retaining this business relationship, not endangering it.
He mentally added to his excuse pile as he made his way through traffic. Thirdly, all his days were gobbled up by meetings. The new client work seemed like a clear priority with the entire future of the company weighing on his shoulders, but now he was having to look at retention too. Because, somehow, Jude was now the person in the company with the most seniority, experience, and client connections. He'd gone from filing boy to Director of Client Relations in just a few years. He would love to brag that his meteoric rise happened because of his reliability, but the truth was far more complex.
Jude was not-so-secretly convinced that the Ranger had totally run off and gotten turned into a kid near his age just to avoid meetings. He'd paid fir it with memory-loss, but clearly it'd been worth it since it was Jude on his way, not the Ranger.
He checked in with security, extra protocols put in place for meeting with the big wig, herself, and extra protocols put in place for him, since he so often had to show up at places while not looking quite like himself. All in all, it wasn't too bad.
He hesitatied when he felt Svetlana's aura of coffee jitters hit him. She was in there. He could still go find a face changer, maybe. It'd make him late, but he knew of one at the...
"Are you going in?"
"I'd rather not' and 'I'd rather face a stampeding moose.' both died on his lips before they could make relations here worse. "Of course."
Jude opened the heavy boardroom door, armed only with a well-fit suit and a few file folders in a leather portfolio.
The things that Zaid chose to focus on and freak out about were... emergency adjacent. Jude chuckled because if he didn't chuckle, he was going to to start throwing a full blown toddler hissy fit. Zaid padded away. That was quite possibly karma. So he needed to shoulder what he'd earned. Jude did what amounted to a sloppy, slippy pull of on the back rim of the tub. He'd managed to get one foot back on dry land that would support him by the time his bun came back to help.
Zaid was chattering away, offering helpful ideas and some less than helpful observations. "Zaid." And then he went to inspect the hole? Like he was going to get in there and lift a cast iron tub? By himself? Jude hurried to wrap himself up and put a heavy hand on the rabbit's shoulder to cut through his enthusiasm. It was endearing, one of the best things about him by Jude's estimation. But this...? This was beyond what even a lucky duck could handle.
Neither of them were lucky. Otherwise they wouldn't be living here.
"Zaid, you're not touching the tub and I'm missing my meeting. I think falling through the floor qualifies as emergency enough to call out for a few hours. I'll reschedule. We'll call a professional. And... maybe cut the power before we all die?" He took a drippy step toward the door and stopped. He was wet and should not be messing with even just the breakers.
"You get the power. I'll call in. Meet back at the other shower in case I fall in?" He gave Zaid a kiss on the cheek to break up the pow-wow. Good talk. Go team. Jude grabbed up his pants to shuffle his phone out of the pocket.
Jude sputtered, but ultimately found himself in the bathroom, alone in a creaky old bathroom, without the clothes he'd been determined to put on. He thought that he'd been a whirlwind, but his bun could be a force all on his own when his mind was put to the task.
Time marched on. So he fiddled with the temperature— No, wait, the other knob for hot. He'd just been reminded! Something made the whole shower rig bobble a bit, but nothing in this wreck of an old house surprised him much any more. He fiddled with the shower curtain to be sure the floor was protected and hopped in.
He landed weird.
Like, through the floor?
He was so surprised to find himself on his butt in the half-sunken tub and bits of rubble. It took a moment for his brain to catch up. He'd stepped in, closing his eyes and enjoying the feel of the water. The creak of the floor when he shifted his weight between his feet had fast become a groan and when he went to grab the shampoo the groan became a crash.
Jude scrambled to get his feet back under him, but the tub was only half sunken. Half the heavy clawed feet were still on the ground floor. The other half the tub was through the floor, sub floor, and down to what must be the foundation which left it at sinking pirate levels of slanted. It rocked beneath him as he grabbed for the floor that was at chest height. It hadn't been a long drop, but Jude coughed at the wood chips and powdered grout that just kept crumbling away as he tried to get back onto the good parts of the floor.
Okay. New plan. He reached for the tap to turn off the water... only the tap was still on the level. He debated finishing his shower, but not knowing where the water was getting to was enough to make him reach up on tippy toes and stretch to just barely be able to turn the whole thing off.
The shower curtain wafted gently, taunting him.
They had another bathroom. If he hoofed it, maybe he could still get clean.
Jude started the arduous climb up and out of the top half of the back of the tilted bathtub.
So... what was the point of plates that no one wanted to eat off of and no one wanted? "Uh. Decor? They could be hung up or... or something." For now, he set them in the spare room with potential donations. It seemed a shame. The catbus-thing was cute enough. When he was walking back in, Zaid had already cleared the rest of the box and was collapsing it.
"Bless you." He scoped Zaid up in a hug from behind since his hands were full and then scooted sideways past to the box beneath. Jude's fancy clothes. Stolen shoes from his time impersonating a dragon, a heap of silky socks, and a hangar zipper clothes wrapper that had ended up folded in half rather than hanging in a hanging box. Inside, his suit was just a bit more rumpled than he should have let it be. This, plus the shirt in the bathroom--
He was up and bulldozing right on through Zaid.
"Iron? Have we found the iron?" He hadn't meant to barrel right into him so Jude reached out to steady the bun. "There is an iron... right?" He was definitely willing to sacrifice his shower time for iron time, but he had yet to see one.
