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.
There was a slow blink that preceded that utterance, and furrowed brows that followed. She seemed to have caught him off guard. The proffered bottle still hung expectantly in his fingers as droplets of condensation fell onto the pathway and disappointed comprehension dawned slowly across his visage.
Katrina tapped her sandaled foot impatiently while she waited for him to work everything out in his head before he bent down to regard her face to face. His countenance was still friendly, albeit somewhat vexed. She almost expected him to put a hand on her shoulder in a gesture similar to an elder sibling imparting wisdom upon their less worldly blood relative, but he didn't, luckily. She hated being talked down to, and that fake gesture of kinship would only have made it more patronizing.
>>>“Look kid, I’m just trying to do my job so I can get something to eat at the end of the day, there’s not a lot of places I can work and this is one of the better one’s. Besides Coke ain’t the only one with a few shady dealings, I’ll bet you $10 that you’re sandals were made in some Asian sweatshop and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about those.”
Katrina frowned at him defiantly meeting his emerald eyes with her own steely gaze, but didn't look down at her shoes to check and see where they were from. She supposed it didn't much make a difference now if she stopped wearing them; they were already made, shipped, and sold. Her actual wearing of this particular pair of summery foot gear would make little difference to her contemporaries in other countries.
“If you need money so desperately, you shouldn't gamble.” Something about his made her feel like smarting off. She knew he probably didn't really mean to bet real money against someone a decade his junior that he'd only just met, if you could even say they had met when they hadn't even introduced themselves, but she didn't care. His cocky attitude begged for sarcastic responses.
And because it seemed to bother him that she had done it once, she avoided his question a second time.
“My cats,” she said answering his last question first, “are neither here nor there. They are, in fact, lost and I am looking for them.” She pulled out one of the posters and held it out so he could see the drawings and the text that adorned the paper. She didn't expect that he would take it, but she didn't particularly care either way. He was getting annoying and she had work to do.
Katrina's expression was startled for just a moment before it slipped back into the more vacant one she'd been wearing most often as of late. She hadn't expected someone whose job it was to listen to people to come right out and say that it was okay if she didn't talk at all. It was strange. She could just sit here, not talking, for the whole thirty minutes or hour or whatever her mother had signed her up for. And it was okay.
It took a moment for that to sink in. At first she did suspect that the red haired woman was perhaps playing some kind of mind game with her, but her tone seemed sincere. Once Katrina had decided that the counselor might really mean it, she relaxed. If she didn't have to talk about the experience, it meant she didn't have to remember it either. It could stay buried in the back of her mind, shoved in the closet with all the other outcast thoughts to gather dust and to eventually fade into nothingness.
At least, that was what she hoped would happen. Things she didn't want to think about had a habit of sneaking their way into thoughts when she least expected them. A perfectly ordinary corridor would suddenly seem sinister, like green eyed monsters might be lurking around every corner. Perfectly ordinary sounds became the hollow dripping of water in the sewers. Dreams that started out perfectly innocent and normal contorted themselves into twisted nightmares full of blood and pain. Sometimes the harder she tried not to think about it, the harder it became to wipe those things away from her mind's eye. Like now. The teen shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
She tried to distract herself by asking the counselor a question, “You're not psychic, are you?” Even her somewhat sullen sounding question, though, was not entirely free from strings attached to darker thoughts. If she couldn't stop thinking about it, and the woman heard everything she thought, was that the same as just telling her?
Fausto seemed to deflate just a little when she mentioned his lack of detailed descriptions. She wished he could say more, but he didn't offer any more details and she didn't ask. If it made him uncomfortable, she wouldn't press him. If he wanted to tell someone about what happened to him, she would always be available to listen whenever he was ready to talk.
Despite the crowds, it didn't take long to reach her bedroom door. People were moving along at a pretty quick rate now that the show was over, and the two of them were small enough to squeeze through cracks between people when they were going too slow. Katrina could hear Kenzie whining on the other side. The noises of the concert didn't make the dog nervous, but she didn't like being cooped up alone for very long especially when she could hear all the raucous students walking past just on the other side of the door.
“I'm back girl. Steady,” the command was supposed to keep the big golden retriever from bounding out the door the moment it was open to knock over whomever was on the other side. She was starting to learn, but sometimes she was so excited that she didn't listen. Even though she was nearly full size, she was still a puppy.
Miraculously, the dog obeyed, and was sitting just inside the door with her tail wagging so hard it shook her whole body even though she was sitting down. She whined plaintively once while she waited for her owner and her owner's guest to come in. Then, as soon as Katrina said “Okay,” she sprang into action, winding her way between the two of them, sniffing their ankles, licking their knees, begging to be petted, and then because she was so happy to see them she picked up the first thing she found on the floor to give to them as a present: it was something that probably should have been put in the hamper rather than left on the floor. The golden retriever wagged her tail proudly.
“Kenzie!” Katrina lunged toward the dog, hoping to be able to snatch the unmentionable piece of clothing out of the canine's mouth before Fausto realized what it was.
This is a bit of advanced warning. I will be visiting Calley in Japan from August 8 through 17. I'm not bringing my computer or anything, so posts, PMs, and everything else will be on hold while I'm gone. I'll give y'all another warning right before I leave.
This affects Katrina, Sebastian, and Calliope
(I will be doing my best to distract Calley while I'm there, so in all likelihood her time on MRO will also be affected during that week. So that includes: Rupert,, Slate, and Historian as well.)
Katrina closed the door as she was instructed, but remained standing. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to sit or lay down somewhere or just stand. It almost felt like she was in trouble, like she had been sent to the principal's office or something. She looked questioningly at the chair that sat in front of the desk and then back at the counselor, who at that very moment was making herself comfortable, or perhaps uncomfortable. A rather unladylike stream of words spilled out of her mouth when she hit her knee on the desk.
Katrina blinked. This was the school counselor?
>>>"Sorry about that dear, I am so clumsy today. So, have a seat and tell Miss Raina what ails you."
Obedient again, the fourteen year old slipped into the chair. Now the red haired counselor sounded like grandmother talking to her granddaughter. She was very affectionate and cutesy, especially for a woman who a moment ago had sounded more like a sailor. Normally this would have made her incredibly curious and she would have asked dozens of questions and tried to figure out what this person was truly like. Right now, she just didn't care.
She forced herself to smile at Raina's kind sounding words. If it came out more like a grimace, she was unaware of it and wouldn't have cared even if she had known. She just wanted to get this over with. Would staying silent until the woman gave up trying to talk to her get her out of here the quickest? Maybe, except that her mother would likely hear about it and force her to come back. No, she'd have to at least say something to make the woman think that she was actually doing some good.
Katrina swallowed, letting the silence stretch on as far as it could go, like a rubber band that was almost at the breaking point. Finally, “I'm not sure what to say. I didn't really want to come here.” The truth slipped out. She didn't even really care if there were going to be repercussions for that.
Katrina had an appointment with the music teacher. Not a music related one though. Apparently she also was the school counselor. Katrina had never had a counseling appointment before, and she kind of wished she didn't have one now. She wasn't going to argue that she didn't need one, but it didn't mean she wanted one.
She was getting better. At least, she wasn't hiding in her room any more and refusing to get out of bed. She had stopped doing that and started pretending to act normal again when she realized that her mother was going to obsessively check on her every forty-five minutes or so. If she had known what had really happened, she wouldn't even have let Katrina be alone to go to the bathroom. But she didn't know. No one did, except her tormentor and her rescuer. She didn't want to tell anyone else either, she would rather forget the whole thing ever happened if she could. It seemed pointless to talk about it.
Her pretending to be normal hadn't worked as well as she had hoped, because she still got stuck with counseling. She didn't think talking about something she didn't want to talk about with someone she didn't even know very well was going to help anything. She just went along with it to keep her mother from worrying so much. She had even walked herself down to the office a few minutes early, partly because it seemed like the responsible, well adjusted thing to do, and partly so she could walk by herself and not have to talk.
She found the door open. The red headed counselor was sitting at the desk, facing out the window and wearing something more slinky and low cut than Katrina would expect from a counselor. Meh. Katrina slipped into the doorway and stood quietly waiting for instructions.
Apparently Martin was really a gardener, not a bird watcher. Well, they had a pretty extensive grounds that required a lot of care. Currently mowing the gigantic lawn and pulling weeds in the pathway were jobs that were assigned as chores for the students. Katrina hadn't ever had to mow the lawn, but she had been in charge of pulling weeds before. It was a tough job, mostly because she felt sorry for the dandelions. They were flowers, too, but no one wanted them around. It was hardly fair, she thought, to commit herbicide just because a plant wasn't as pretty as another or because it was more prolific.
Katrina swung her feet back and forth in a steady rhythm. Her mind and her eyes wandered back to the basketball game. She couldn't tell which team was winning, but both sides were battling heroically. Their movements were fluid as they spun, ducked, dribbled, and jumped. She was never that graceful, at least not when a ball was involved. She was terribly nonathletic. Most of the time she didn't care, but once in awhile she felt a little left out, too nervous to ask to join in because she knew that which ever team she ended up on would have a handicap just from having her on the team.
To her right, Martin and Sam were talking about all the official, boring stuff. Her mind wandered some more.
They swept off, escaping the backstage area with its bright lights, hired equipment movers, noisy girls who were standing around, giggling in groups, and waiting for opportunities to get autographs, and the potential teacher who was a little upset at the choice of lyrics in the earlier songs.
The small details he could tell her were interesting, but not very specific. He could have done those things in any country anywhere in the world. He was grinning, but she was thinking about all the secrets that seemed to be shrouding his answers so her expression was more thoughtful.
“You kind of sound like a spy. You can't even say where you went.”
When he asked if she had gotten the dog as a present from the same boy she'd been with at the Valentine's Day party, she looked confused. “Ryuichi? No. He wouldn't do something like that, I don't think. Kenzie came from Sam. He adopted too many dogs than he could keep in his room so he let me take one of them. I put her up in my room so she wouldn't get in the way during the concert. Do you want to come meet her?”
Though he was being very secretive about his own adventures, Katrina was still excited about sharing her small stories with him. She grabbed his hand, her fingers winding between his like they belonged there and she pulled him toward the house, her excitement an almost tangible energy that raced through her.
There was a bit of commotion as Calley lunged for the hat like a cat after a string. Then, the hat was quite suddenly in her hands. There was only one thing to be done. She pulled the aviator goggles down over her eyes and the helmet over her head.
Ghost might have mentioned something about this not being the best idea ever, but if Calley was fine, she would be too. There was no turning back now. She was the team leader. She was Aviator Kat. She was fearless, and it was her responsibilty to make sure the machine was safe in case Ghost wanted to try it. Never mind that their rouge had already test run it once. They needed to be extra certain before they could risk their mage's pretty white haired head.
“Never fear,” she announced. Then, rather than randomly mashing the buttons and fiddling with the dials like Calley had done, she left it on the same settings and simply pressed the one button that Calley had pressed right before he'd gone board-like.
A slight hum was all the warning she got before the machine began flooding her head with more images and colors than it was meant to hold in one instant. Image on top of image on top of image. There were people with auras glowing in colors she'd never seen before, each color seemingly signifying a power normally hidden deep within them, invisible to the normal eye. They were glowing so brightly the colors hurt her head, searing directly into her brain. Beautiful and painful.
Her eyes went wide and she gasped. Then the colors faded into blackness.
When Aviator Kat opened her eyes again, she was looking up at the inside of the helmet and the ceiling beyond that. They were both a little foggy looking, and she realized that it was because of the goggles that still covered her eyes. They fact that they were spinning a little probably had nothing to do with the goggles.
Zephyr looked at Ghost, then slowly his gaze shifted to Katrina. It was a look that quite clearly stated, “You've got to be kidding.” It was the kind of look younger sisters especially enjoyed seeing on the faces of their elder siblings. Katrina, having no experience with elder sibling, hadn't realized until now what fun it was to earn such a look.
Of course, the look didn't last very long. It disappeared behind a smirk, which Katrina somehow instinctively recognized was a much more dangerous expression to be on an older brother's face. That was the kind of face he'd been wearing right before he'd blown her right off her branch and swept her up into the sky. This time, the mistral manipulator did not activate his mutation, but fell back instead upon his powers of sarcasm.
>>>“I hadn’t expected the two of you to be quite so forward, do you always attempt to undress your guests or am I simply special?”
That wasn't necessarily a 'no'. At least not yet.
“Very special. Besides, you can change behind that screen.” She pointed to the folded up wood and paper construction that was perched atop the old dresser.
Ghost had found something flowery and frilly and was holding it up to Katrina's shoulders. She wrinkled her nose, mostly because she wasn't certain she could even figure out how to put that on, with the crazy sash and the fabric going every which way.
“I'll try that on if Zephyr tries on his, and you try on something, too.” In a show of good faith, she took the straw hat from Ghost and set it on top of her head, adjusting it a bit because the straw was a little scratchy against her forehead. She peered out from beneath the brim, eyebrows raised hopefully.
>>>“In either case I shall have to decline… however,” ... “Don’t let me dissuade you; I’m certain this particular costume would compliment Ghost just as well as it would me.”
The dark haired boy held out his outfit to Ghost, clearly having decided that he had no intention to put it on. How very older-brotherly of him to refuse to cooperate. Was he too dignified to ever have fun? Had he grown up so fast that he had never learned to at least play along? Was he so self conscious that he couldn't even lower his defenses around a pair of innocent and light hearted girls who'd never harm a fly?
The young illusionist continued to peer out from under the brim of her hat, her eyebrows puckered, her lower lip protruding just slightly in her best imitation of a little sister style pout. Her eyes shone, still hopeful.
I think we have a pretty good system in place for getting characters to the factions. If someone ever has trouble figuring out what to do, it isn't hard for them to ask for help coming up with ideas to get where they need to go. If someone wants to be a student found by Cerebra, they could ask and we could work something out.
I don't think that supercomputers are necessary for the other two factions. Their best recruiting method is looking for people who share their ideals, which can only really be done the old fashioned way: by meeting them and talking to them. Searching news stories for (trouble causing?) mutants as possible recruits doesn't require anything fancier than a newspaper or access to an internet search engine.
Katrina was still running towards the group of invisible men when the threat from above tumbled from the sky. It was strange watching him fall. In the light she could see him, in the shadows she could not. Quite suddenly he was gone from where she thought he was going to land and appeared instead several feet away, falling into a patch of light then struggling to stand again.
Some part of her defenses must have worked, because he looked to be in less than perfect health. He found his feet again, but not without effort. As she moved swiftly toward him, Katrina tried to piece together what she had seen of his abilities. One, somehow he could sense where her invisible people had been. Two, he could turn invisible sometimes, but didn't seem inclined to do it just now while he was fully exposed under the bright light. Three, he could rapidly perhaps even instantaneously change his location. That was quite the arsenal he had, and perhaps had more tricks up his sleeve. This might be tricky, but perhaps she could distract him.
She had to assume that he could see her, or at least could sense where she was somehow, since he had found the group protecting the president.
Speaking of whom, Split up. Groups of two. Leave quickly, she ordered in silent Mandarin. Even if he could sense invisible people, perhaps he couldn't tell which was the real target. Seeing the trapped look on the amazing vanishing boy's face as he stood in the light and remembering how he disappeared like a smaller shadow swallowed by a bigger shadow when he was in darkness she added for safe measure, Stay in the light.
She, however, was going to stay in the dark for now and cause a distraction. She hadn't gotten a chance to really use her illusion ally before; the glowing eyed wonder had spoiled all her fun. Perhaps the trick would work better on this one, with a few tweaks this time. There was no sense in resorting to new tricks if the old ones were going to work perfectly well.
She picked a spot in another shadow off to one side, close to where the assassin was regaining his balance. She imagined someone standing there, someone who was still choosing to stay invisible except for the electricity that sparked and crackled randomly across his invisible body revealing only his basic shape before it began to collect in his invisible hand. Artificial lightning wasn't too difficult to create. A little light, a little crackling sound, and when it struck...
The illusion lightning arced toward the assassin's leg. If it hit, and Katrina was fairly certain it would since she could change the direction of the lightning with almost no difficulty, the shadowy stalker would get to experience a unique blend of senses in that leg. Pain was one of the senses she had practiced using specifically for this job assignment. He'd feel the sharp pain of every nerve in his leg sending a brief signal of pain and heat for the instant the lightning touched him. Then for a few moment afterward, his muscles would feel like they were quivering or spasming even if they were not. It might make it difficult for him to walk. Oh, and don't forget the sizzling sounds, the faint smell of clothing burning, and the thunderclap. The thunderclap was going to be helluva loud even if the lightning missed him.
Fausto appeared at the edge of the stage like a hybrid between angel and demon. The bright stage lights behind him made him glow like he had a halo all around him, they also made his face shadowy. His cape swirled around him as he leaped off the stage and the young girl couldn't help but be reminded of a vampire like the ones in the stories every girl her age seemed to be reading. She could never really get into those stories, mostly because she had a hard time thinking of vampires as anything other than terrifying bloodthirsty monsters. She was probably biased on the subject, but she thought Fausto looked much more handsome tonight than a vampire ever could. It seemed like he had grown up a little since the last time she had seen him.
She opened her mouth, about to say hello or even shout hello and run over to hug him, when the young rock star swooped over to worry about a little scratch on her arm. Katrina looked down to where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a angry red line there. She vaguely remembered scraping by some twig or another when she had been climbing the tree to get a better view.
“I hadn't even realized it was scratched. Must have been from climbing the tree. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt.”
>>>¨ Sorry ... I should start again ¨ ... ¨ Nice to see you again Katrina, i missed you as much as i missed this place¨ ... ¨ Is really nice to see you again. ¨
He sounded embarrassed at first, but his smile showed that he was really and truly happy to see her again. Katrina was not as shy, but just as happy to see him. For now, she forgot all the confusing emotions she had and let joy reign. Since there was little room left for embarrassment, she was free to do what ever she wanted without the fear of making a fool of herself and actually caring. She felt perfectly fine, for example, throwing her arms around Fausto's chest and squeezing him in a tight hug.
“I missed you, too. It's been so weird not having you around.” Squeeze. Joy was a great emotion for releasing inhibitions.
“There's some teachers who might be looking for you. You might want to avoid them.” Katrina pointed to one possible escape route, releasing one half of her hug to do so, around the van and toward the house was a clear path they could use if they wanted to avoid any of those pesky adults that may have had issues with a couple of lyrics.
“So... how was it? What happened? Tell me all about the trip! Things have been kind of boring around here, mostly. Oh, and I got a dog!” They had much catching up to do.
Katrina neck was becoming sore from craning it upwards toward the topmost limbs of the park's trees. She was beginning to lose hope altogether that she could find her friend. It was a shame that he didn't have a cell phone or something else with which she could contact him.
The young illusionist lowered her ashen gaze from the sun dappled oak leaves when she heard the approach of a rather boisterous melody approaching and her eyes were immediately assaulted by the vivid scarlet raiments of a young man with a boom box on one shoulder and a cooler on the other. She couldn't help but think that it must be difficult to travel with all that.
>>>“Hello there, are you here by yourself?”
She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. His eyes were striking, especially in contrast to his outfit. In the early spring when the leaves had unfurled themselves to greet their first ray of sunlight, when the budding foliage still formed a translucent lime haze around the treetop rather than the dark and dense mass that adorned summer branches, perhaps then the leaves she had just been staring at had been as green as his eyes, but she doubted it.
His eyes were crinkled at the corners and his mouth turned upwards at the corners, combining to form a pleasant and friendly expression. He was holding something out to her, the logo on the bottle white swirls on red. Coca Cola. It matched the logo on his jacket and his hat.
Katrina narrowed her eyes and ignored his question, instead asking one of her own.
“You work for Coca Cola? Don't you know what that company does?” Then, in case he didn't know, she elaborated. “They benefit from hazardous child labor in the sugar cane fields in El Salvador, they steal the ground water from villages in India and give the farmers toxic sludge to use as fertilizer in return, and they arranged to have union leaders murdered in Columbia.” Katrina did a Geography report on Coca Cola that Spring. Her teacher would have been proud to hear that she had remembered all of that.
In short, no, she did not want the free bottle of the syrupy sweet, brown, bubbly beverage.