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.
Dorian was starting to think that Joe didn't have a future dream. And this shouldn't have surprised him. Future dreams were truly rare; he only knew a handful of people who had one, and he'd spent several months of his life looking for them. That said, Ender was one of the few people who he felt he'd been able to connect with, back when the bombs were falling in China. Even though they were supposed to be on opposite sides at first, Dorian would take a bullet in the head for this man, and he was almost certain that Joe felt the same way.
But that was the future. This was now, before they'd ever met. And they would probably never be able to meet again under those same circumstances. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Thankfully, he didn't need to know how to feel about anything for much longer: Blunderbore had his drink!
"Here y'are," said the clay man, handing him a highball glass full of yellow-green fluid. Dorian nodded and took a sip. Then a few gulps.
Now, Joe was asking about World War 3. He scrawled a quick note for him:
Ever hear about those future dreams from a few years ago?
Another gulp, then more writing. I had one. We knew each other in the dream.
So, they were both mutants. There's a relief, and a reason for Dorian to automatically like this guy; if he'd learned anything from two registration laws and a third world war, it was that mutants had to stick together. The rest of the world wasn't exactly out to do mutantkind any favors. That said, Dorian himself was a little tired fo being on the receiving end of all these favors. It hurt his pride.
'I appreciate the offer, but you guys are probably already busy thanks to that ice. I don't want to make more work for you. Also, the roads don't seem safe right now.' The performer could probably figure out a way to get home by himself. His mutation was pretty versatile. He could work something out.
'What's your name?' They were both mutants, they could both sign, and this guy was going out of his way to help him out of a tight spot, but Dorian didn't even know his name yet.
It was as if the mere act of thinking about his bike compelled the mechanic to check for it. "Stolen" would be a good cover story, and he still didn't want to be 100% open about his mutant-hood.
Then again, he also needed to get back to the Sanctuary. The homeless shelter renowned for its dangerous mutant population, whose infamy had spread far through NYC. Mechanic guy would probably know about it already. Besides, telling lies left a bad taste in his mouth.
Dorian sighed. Even without vocal chords, he could still do that. 'Nobody stole it. It does not exist anymore. I am a mutant. I was headed to a shelter for mutants, but not in a hurry. It is called the Sanctuary.'
He kept an anxious eye on all the mechanics. In the off chance these guys were part of that old "church of humanity" movement or whatever, he could defend himself with invisible walls, and use his good leg to push his swivel chair into a subway station. He'd been up against worse odds before.
Dorian shook his head; he hadn't met anyone named "Bauccus" yet. Just when he thought he knew everyone, too. He decided to ask around about him and try to get an interview or something, when he got the chance. Shaking his head was all he had time for before the conversation kept chugging along. It's hard to get a word in edgewise when you can't say anything. But he did manage this:
Big Foot sightings probably = mutants
At least, that's the best explanation that the scientific community has been able to come up with. Heck, if they took a blurry enough photograph of the Sanctuary's dining hall right now, they could probably claim a handful of "Big Foot Sightings" in the middle of Brooklyn.
>"Does your marker board only work for you or can other people hold it too?"
It would be more fun to demonstrate than to give Lori a straight answer. After erasing his bigfoot comment, he wrote go ahead and held the board out for the Sanctuary's owner to grab.
All of a sudden, their part of the table got real quiet. Eyes darted from Lori, to Dorian, and back again. The mime failed to notice. With a flourish, he grabbed an invisible eraser off the table and wiped his board clean before writing his answer.
I did
He gave everyone a second to read his answer before turning it around to elaborate.
in my dream I helped this "Order" take over Australia then fought in WWIII
Dorian gave himself a mouthful of lasagna before posing her a question:
Have you had one?
Future-dreamers were few and far in between, but it never hurt to ask. The more he found out about the dreams, the more he could put in his book. He thought his next attempt at a book could be about the future everyone was dreaming about; surprisingly enough, while there have been short articles here and there, nobody else seemed to have written a book about it yet. Or at least not one he'd been able to find.
Dorian was glad to find another person who could sign. 'Yes, I can,' he replied. Without, he might add, having to touch his notepad even once. It was nice to be able to communicate without having to write, Dorian shifted in his seat, into a position that made his ankle hurt less. Then he slipped his notepad back into his pocket and returned to signing. 'It's nice to meet another person who can sign. I need the practice.'
'It was stupid to think I could ride my bike on the ice like that. ' Suddenly, he hoped that nobody would go looking for his bike. He might have to explain that he didn't have a bike, and he didn't know how these people would react to his being a mutant. He didn't want to have to find out while he was injured, either.
Other mechanics seemed to be peeking in at them through the glass. Dorian gave them a friendly wave.
It looked like the annual Communist revolution in the North Pole had gone well. Leave it to the Sanctuary residents to come up with a "Christmas tradition" that involves show trials and gruesome executions for every facsimile of Santa Claus they could get their hands on. The whole thing was actually kinda funny, if a little on the twisted side. There were those who thought that the whole "Democratic People's Republic of the North Pole" thing was a real joykill, but the darker side of the Sanctuary's festivities usually happened when it was too late at night for anyone to do anything about it.
And Lori didn't seem to mind too much. Noticing her expression, and the other residents' chuckles, Dorian let himself grin.
>>"So what's up?"
Dorian pulled a red marker out of his pocket and began to write, seemingly on the air itself. In reality, he had just conjured up a small, invisible dry-erase board.
"I disabled the smoke detector in Jacko's room for him, so the system would stop dousing him every morning," said one man. Or was it a woman? The mutant's skin was all gray, its head was hairless, earless, and faceless, save for holes where its eyes, ears, and mouth should be, and its voice was neither distinctly male nor female. It actually had to grow that mouth-like thing earlier to start talking to them. Everyone just called her "Grey." Or him, as the case might have been. It would probably be impolite to ask.
"Sure that's a good idea?" the person who spoke now was, almost certainly, a guy. "You two might be fireproof, but most of us aren't."
Grey shrugged. "We keep fire extinguishers with us. Better than sleeping in a soggy mattress all the time."
Dorian's eyebrows raised a little at the word 'we.' Instead of wondering too much about that, he turned his invisible board around for the others to read. His day was probably a little more interesting.
I'm still trying to find out more about the "Order" from my future dreams. Don't know if it exists yet, but I found some groups that might turn into it
He shoveled some lasagna onto his plate, keeping his message visible to the others. Some of these others shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
"Family dinner" was a surprisingly accurate description of what happened in the Sanctuary every evening. Not only did the staff serve food on trays and in bowls from which the Sanctuary's residents would serve themselves, but the Sanctuary itself had grown into a really tight-knit community. It took just a few weeks for Dorian to get a grasp of all the names and faces, and even less time for him to feel like he had gained a second family. An eclectic, dangerous, and often criminal family, but a second family nonetheless. One that didn't constantly pour salt into the gaping wound in his ego by comparing him to his siblings.
Dorian's "second family" was a little bit more fun to be around.
Today, dinner was an edible substance that almost resembled lasagna. Not something you'd find in a five-star restaurant, but it sure beat the hell out of Ramen. Even so, it always surprised him that Lori Faust, the rich, beautiful CEO of Faust Pharmaceuticals and owner of the Sanctuary kept sharing dinner with guys like Dorian, when she could probably afford to buy a five-star restaurant. And it always struck him as odd that this woman, rich as she was, would let her adopted daughter live there in the Sanctuary, too. There were a lot of mysterious things about this woman. The street performer had met her in passing several times before, but never had the opportunity to carry on a conversation with her.
As Lori walked through the door into the Dining Hall, Dorian joined everyone else in greeting her with a friendly wave.
Oh, Sparkles. Cheerful as ever. He was a font of good feelings back when he and Dorian went through World War 3 together, too. Or, at least, the part when the nukes started flying around and everyone stopped caring about the whole "who's on what side" thing. Enders didn't seem to recognize his old mime friend, though. It had been a few years since the future dreams happened. Maybe Joe needed his memory refreshed. Dorian wrote another note, and showed it to him.
It's Dorian. We met in China, in WWIII. Remember now?
Dorian found it hard to imagine that somebody could forget doing all the medal-of-honor type stuff that he saw Enders doing. Even if it was just a dream.
There was a shout for a first aid kit, then Dorian felt himself rise off the ground. Everything was a blur. One of the mechanics put him in an office chair. The guy with the red box, he realized, must be called "Frank." Dorian was distinctly incapable of complaining about Frank's poking and prodding at his ankle. And he didn't exactly get to say anything about Frank's decision to reset it. You think you can manage to make it hurt even more, Frank? I have to experience that to believe it! Sign me up! He opened his mouth, and in came the towel.
Dorian's compliance probably had something to do with the fact that he was in intense pain, surrounded by people who were bigger than he was, and unable to speak. Maybe those times he'd been patched up by that medic on the front lines in WWIII were contributing factors. He would probably find himself wondering what the point of the towel in his mouth was if Frank wasn't so hellbent on introducing him to a whole new realm of pain.
His mind drifted to his time in the California Resistance, when he took a bullet to the stomach. The other guys remarked about how he didn't cry out even once. He took that bullet like a man.
Hah. Hah. Hah.
Once the ankle was reset, things started to get a little better. Frank and his magic hands were sent away, leaving Dorian alone with the one who picked him up and shoved a towel down his throat. The one who was probably about his age, yet called him "kid." The mute took his notepad out of his pocket, along with a pen, and wrote.
I'm a little better now. Thanks.
He showed that page to the mechanic sitting across from him. When he thought the man had been given enough time to read it, he flipped to another page, and showed that one to him:
My name is Dorian, and I can't talk.
It's nice to have notes like that prepared ahead of time.
The Order is a well known shelter for homeless mutants
I think you meant "Sanctuary."
Also,
Character name: Dorian Stewart Current affiliation: Factionless Faction interest: The Order What do you need to do next to join?: Get contacted. He lives at the Sanctuary, and he already knows about the Order from his future dream. In fact, several Sanctuary residents might already know that he's been looking for the Order ever since his future dream ended. Because he tells people.
I might end up having Kaitlyn pull him in, but that just seems... dubious. She's 11. It might be more fun to have another person involved, anyway.
Life is a dark place full of pain and bereft of hope. Or, at least, sometimes Dorian felt like his was.
A message came back from the publisher that day. They told him that they thought his book about the Californian Resistance during Mutant Registration was "too intense." That this made it unsuitable for publication. These same publishers had printed a book about child trafficking (eugh!), but they couldn't possibly print anything about one of the bloodiest conflicts to take place on American soil for the last – few decades? Century and a half? Was there anything that happened in America that was worse than the Registration, other than the Civil War? Dorian wasn't sure.
Dorian realized that some might consider his political views too extreme. That was why he made sure that they never made their way into his book in the first place. All he had in there was the facts. The stories themselves, as he and his compatriots remembered. He even had the story from the perspective of the military men who they sent in to quell their rebellion, as well as tales from the ones who were sent to the camps. He went to hell and back researching every little minute detail. He checked and double checked facts, and made note of any discrepancies. He spent years on this thing. It was his baby. And to help it succeed, he tried to make it as sterile and factual as possible. And he didn't include anything like the imagery in the aforementioned documentary on eugh, which had made him physically ill when he read it.
Yet eugh got the green light, while his book, which was probably as "intense" as a high school history book, didn't make the cut.
In response, Dorian sent them some angry mail, then headed out by himself for a local bar. It came well-recommended by Sanctuary residents for selling good (read: powerful) drinks on the cheap. It was called "Blunderbore's." The owner/bartender was a man made of some kind of formless, ever-shifting clay. Apparently he had gotten on the bad side of some mutant vigilantes back in 2006, and since then he had never been quite... right, in the head. Though, the way some people tell it, he was outright criminally insane before his run-in with the vigilante types, and that his current state was a vast improvement. The patrons at this bar were generally the criminal, dangerous mutant types, or the well-armed human types, or the dangerous, well armed, mutant criminal types. Blunderbore managed to keep the place from being incinerated or blown up on a regular basis. But just barely.
Dorian didn't quite care about all this stuff, though; he just wanted to get so drunk he wouldn't remember how much of a failure his life felt like. Hard rock and cigarette smoke inundated the air in Blunderbore's. He tried to remember what the name of that drink was that they recommended back at the Sanctuary. Hand grenade? The hapless mime scribbled I'll have a hand grenade on his notepad and showed it to the bartender. Blunderbore smiled at this; at least, that's how Dorian could have interpreted the expression on that ever-shifting mass where the clay-man's face should be, if it wasn't the expressionless, ever-shifting mass that it was.
Maybe he should have figured out what was in that drink before going out and orderi- hold that thought.
The man sitting next to him. Was that...?
That was Joe Enders!
Dorian scribbled a note, then poked the man on his shoulder to draw his attention to it. The note read: Hey, Sparkles. Remember me?
Yesterday, it had rained. Today, it was freezing. The roads and sidewalks were covered with a good layer of ice, making even walking difficult. Nobody with an ounce of sanity would be hitting the road with something on wheels today. That just left the taxi drivers in their cabs, and Dorian Stewart on his invisible bicycle. He must have left his ounce of sanity back at the Sanctuary. Or maybe his family took it from him, when he went to visit them over the holidays. His parents were so proud of his sister, the doctor, and his brother, the army officer, that his last ounce of his sanity had probably evaporated before he had the time to say "inferiority complex."
Either way, he couldn't have been in full possession of his senses when he decided that public transportation was expensive, and he needed some exercise after all that holiday feasting anyway, so why not just take his bike home? This was a great idea.
Or so he thought, until he was lying face-first on the cold, wet ice. And – well, Dorian was, by no stretch of the imagination, a doctor. Recent experience with his parents and his sister made that much clear to him. Furthermore, he had never taken a course in anatomy. He barely put enough effort into his undergraduate biology course to pass. So, he could easily be wrong about this. But... were ankles supposed to be able to bend that way? Because Dorian couldn't recall his right ankle being able to do that under normal circumstances. And, now that it was, he was in agony.
At times like this, he wished he had vocal chords, because then he could yell something like "Ow! I broke my ankle! Somebody please help me!" Alas, thanks to his mutant gift, he only had the ability to mouth an incomprehensible stream of things that simply aren't family friendly as he slid himself over to the side of a building and used the wall to help himself back onto his feet.
No, foot. He meant foot, not feet. The foot that wasn't attatched to a broken ankle. Yes, it was difficult to stand on one foot on a slippery layer of ice, but good lord that hurt.
The sign on that door said something about mechanics. Whatever. In there, it would probably be less icy and slippery and cold, and the people there might be able to help him. If there were people there at this time of year. Though, there probably were, because the front door was open. Hopefully, these people would be nice, and they would help him back onto his foot after his face finishes colliding with the ground again.
Thud.
Grimacing from the pain, he removed his face from the ground again and tried to take in his surroundings. Anything other than his ankle would be nice to concentrate on. His ankle was beginning to feel damp and red.
It wasn't the first time Dorian had visited Tognino Hall. When you fancy yourself an intellectual, you aren't gainfully employed, and you don't live too far away from some good universities, it's not such a bad idea to drop in on a free lecture every now and then. It was certainly more fun for him than sitting around, wishing and waiting for the day that a publisher would finally print his book about the untold stories of the Registration Act. Or street performing, which had stopped being fun for him almost a year ago.
Most of the philosophers whom Dorian remembered hearing at Fordham were disappointingly traditional. Their ideas were echoes of things that came long before all the nihilism of the modern and postmodern eras. Which was okay, because various degrees of nihilism had somehow became mainstream in the university's intellectual climate. Statements like "god is real" and "there is a universal, objective morality to which we are all held accountable" were now groundbreaking ideas that challenged tightly-held beliefs among the undergraduate population.
But this lecture promised to be a different animal entirely. Finally, someone was here to talk about nihilism! And he was called "Dr. Black," no less! What an excellent name! Dorian came early to secure a front-row seat for himself, thinking all the edgy, freethinking undergrads would flood the lecture hall to hear this guy.
He hadn't counted on Christmas break. There weren't many undergrads present; most of them were off to see their families. Their loss; Dorian was starting to like this guy ten seconds into his speech. He didn't even bother to introduce himself, or have anyone else introduce him. He went straight for the throat – BAM! Life has no meaning. That was the starting point for the lecture. Where, Dorian wondered, do you go from there?
Why, clearly, you reveal that you're a mutant and you've taken everyone in the room hostage.
...
Nope, he couldn't say that he was expecting that. Nor was he expecting Dr. Black to be a dangerous mutant. That tentacle-thing had a pretty nasty-looking claw on the end of it. And as if that wasn't enough, he had a sword. But, mutant or no, it would be too easy for the off-duty street performer to make himself an invisible handgun, shoot the locks off a door, and make his merry way out.
And on his way out, he would tell himself that he had just wasted what was starting to be a very interesting evening.
Notepad and pencil came out of his pocket. He wanted to tell Dr. Black something, but he wasn't sure what, yet. As some fled to the back of the room, and others stayed near the front and spoke, he tapped his chin with his pencil and thought. He'd decided that he wanted to stay, but to what end?
By the time the brunette woman a few seats away from him had finished saying something silly about releasing the hostages, Dorian had finished writing his note.
Hello, Dr. Black. My name is Dorian. I am a powerful mutant who cannot speak. This is by far the most interesting lecture I have attended here. I would like to help you keep those keys out of the others' hands, for now.
Dorian then stood up, tore the page with this message from his notebook, folded it, and walked over to the doctor, holding the piece of paper out for him to accept it.
