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.
It seemed that the girl's philosophy concerning education matched his own. He was not certain why she stated it so firmly after he'd already expressed a similar opinion, but he was not sure what had stopped her from crying, either. Slate assessed that while he did not understand the girl in specific, they seemed to understand each other in general.
He nodded as Lenna spoke. "A demonstration of your ability would be quite useful, yes."
There seemed to be... some sort of alternating movement, in their fellow skaters. They moved one leg, then the other, in continuous succession. Susan herself seemed to be doing this. After a fashion. Slate experimentally shuffled after her (with the utmost of dignity). His eyes were on his feet, trying to replicate the appropriate movement: he did not notice that Susan had drifted to a stop until--
>> "How did you stop?"
--until her voice was entirely too close, and too stationary, for comfort.
Slate stopped, his breath puffing as his eyes blinked, rather close to her own.
"Like that," he stated. A glance down at his feet revealed that they had crept closer together; one of them was tilted at an angle to the other, almost like a 'T.'
>> "So, I take it your telepathy is not useful for copying skills from someone."
Slate plucked his scarf up further, hiding his red cheeks from her smirk.
"What sort of senses cross, in your synesthesia?" He asked, not at all to change the subject.
Slate was still looking anywhere but at Katrina. He decided he liked it that way, for this answer. "Somewhat... questionable things. The X-Men helped refugees escape. The Order mindlessly crushed things, and people, together with the Romanian Underground. The Kabal... influenced political matters through gratuitous amounts of money, and by harnessing the other 'talents' afoot." Such as the Order's murders. Those had been quite effective, for showing wavering politicians the alternative to renouncing their current views. Also, Slate's own powers. He... did not really wish to mention the specifics of those, to her.
>> Hypocrite.
"I am technically nineteen. Almost twenty." His cheeks slowly colored; he looked back to the teenager. He was technically twenty, yes, but she was not twelve anymore.
>> “I don't see how me staying safe at home helps anyone. It's just the same as I did before; stay hidden, stay safe. That isn't going to make any difference to the world.”
Slate picked up the hedgehog, and ran a finger through its rubber quills. It seemed a safe neutral ground, for both of their eyes. "What would you have done differently in Romania, if you had stayed? Most of us... most of us ended up in the Camps, Katrina. I did, as well. So did Sam, and Ghost, and Shin, and others. Do you think you would have avoided being caught? Do you think if you had, you would have been able to find the Underground, and help lead the breakout?"
He pushed in its top; the hedgehog softly wheezed out a squeak. "I was useless too, for the past month. I did nothing but mop the floors of the blood that guards had put there. If I knew it was your blood, I believe I may have done so less calmly. I believe I would be dead now if you had also been captured, Katrina. If they had... hurt you."
"You're special," he said. "You gather people. People would die for you. That is why you must stay safe: so people do not gather around you, do not die for you, when they should be doing something else."
Baby blue eyes slowly snuck up to met hers, if hers were also willing. "We are more than our mutations. We are more than where we stand, in the physical world. Isn't there a way you can help, but keep yourself safe? "
The Kabal's Leader was not sure what his employees were doing. Tarin, for example, had simply vanished. Lee had died (without his permission, a part of his mind noted). Lenna was shooting people. Many people. Also without permission, though he did not find himself disapproving. Sebastian had... changed. Tarin had shaken him: colorful light had enveloped them. Then Tarin was gone, and the man holding Lee was... different.
His mentor's skin was darker than it had been. His hair, if anything, was lighter. Slate was not sure how one could have hair lighter than white. Perhaps it was the aftermath of the light, playing tricks in his eyes.
Also, the man could raise the dead now.
Slate could feel Lee's spirit being pulled back, like a tangible force; threads of something unseen brushed against his arms and face, carrying the distinct feel of her. Her, as she came back to her body. As the man pushed her back in, and sealed the wound after, more efficiently than even Slate could have done. No, not efficiently: gracefully. With dignity. He seemed to simply will the wound away, and it went.
Lee gasped, and continued gasping, for quite some time. Slate sympathized with that reaction. He had been dead once, too.
The man stood, as if he'd found more pressing things to look upon than the crying woman at his feet.
And then he was not a man.
"You are not Sebastian," Slate stated, staring up at the equine. He could not seem to look away. The colors of its transformation lingered, in threads of gold, red, and...gray. Slate tentatively reached out a hand to touch that last one. It pointed back towards him, just as the sunset colors pointed down to Ms. Brooks. A shudder went through his body on contact.
Ah.
So that was his soul.
He would... refrain from doing that, again. It was... something of a feedback loop, he supposed, his memories and feelings amplifying within themselves, painfully acute.
A hundred fine colored threads shimmered in the air around the unicorn, where they met the intangible force of the immortal's own power on the way to and from their sources.
Slate couldn't stop himself from gently brushing his hand against another. It was... beautiful. Carefully, he reached out to lace his finger's in the immortal's soft mane.
>> “How would you even go about that? Just not inform the humans of the mutants or would you get children from accepting families?”
"By creating a very, very good school, Ms. Braun, in an area where none is available. Education can be a great motivator for families, when it is not a common place thing." As was the case in Colombia. He was not certain how well a Pax Academy in Romania would do. While he was tempted to build one, he was also quite interested in changing their education system as a whole. Now was certainly a good time, and he was in a decent enough position. He would be in an even better one, with a house visit to the education minister. Better yet: a house visit to one of his senator's homes, where the education minister had also been invited. He was sure the man could be made to understand the benefits of raising Romania's children in a more inclusive atmosphere.
She was smiling, now, and smirking. Slate relaxed as the tide of her hormones shifted. He tried to keep himself ready for a resurgence of tears, however. She was a woman, and a teenager. Neither was to be underestimated.
>> “Excuse me, Mr. Swartz? I was curious as to what kind of jobs I would do and if that would make me a Kabal member.”
"You will be a Kabal member as soon as you accept to work for me, Ms. Braun, and will remain such for as long as we both find it beneficial. As for missions, it will depend upon the situation, in large part," Slate explained. "For example, had you been with us in Romania, I would have likely assigned you to helping find the hidden safe houses, and helping mutants then cross the boarder into safer areas." He had trouble envisioning politicians taking her seriously, if he had sent her on bribe missions. He could see scared mutants allowing her to get close, however.
To her question of the Mansion, Slate nodded at Lenna's answer.
"I would prefer that you remained at the Mansion, in fact," he added. "I value education in my employees. I would quite prefer if you graduated high school, and college."
...Something he was not quite sure that he was destined to do. Personally, he had failed a semester at the Mansion, and not gone back. To his credit, he had been busy consolidating his rule of Colombia at the time.
Perhaps it was time to attempt the GED examination, again.
>> It could be useful.
Indeed, Slate agreed with Lenna's dimly whispered thought, being somewhat more careful of who could hear him. There was that, of course. Slate was never opposed to having another set of eyes and ears working for him.
"Also," he stated simply, "if you wish to join the X-Men, you may still do so. The Kabal will not use all of your free time, as it were."
He was especially unopposed to having more X-Men under his employ.
>> “I thought it would be like when we lived with the Resistance.”
Slate balanced the little hedgehog on the arm of his chair. It was looking rather worn--the colored tip of its nose was wearing off, and there was a crack beginning near its belly.
The time of the Resistance was a scattering of memories, for he and Calley both. He had half conversations, half storybook readings, half study sessions. He only had his own memories. Before the Resistance, there was mostly nothing. Kat was in most of the memories he did have. He wanted her to be in more memories, from now on, for a long time to come.
It was unforeseen that he's lost no one in Romania. He had expected deaths.
Death was where memories stopped.
>> “If it is so dangerous, why did you go? Why did you ask Fausto to go? And Zephyr? And Ghost? And Sam?”
His hands rolled into fists in his lap. He observed them from a distance, as his baby blue eyes finally rose to meet hers.
"Because we had to try, Kat. Nothing changes unless someone tries. The changes people were trying for, there... they were the wrong ones. If people wish for violence, they will have violence. We had to change the way they thought."
"Kat... during the Resistance, did we do anything? We stayed inside, and we talked with the others--but what did we do? We were useless back then, weren't we?"
It was an honest question. If they had indeed done something, anything, more concrete than 'moral support,' than it was too fragmented for him to piece together.
"Did it ever occur to you that you might help us the most by staying here, and staying safe?" He frowned, looking away from her. "Sometimes you need to let the adults handle things, Katrina."
She came towards him. Slate's arms shifted slightly, in Pavlovian welcome.
She did not hug him.
She sat down.
Slate stood for a moment, then lowered himself into the chair next to hers. He folded his arms across his lap.
>> “Ask my math teacher.”
Ah. "Ah." Ah.
He lifted up his legs, tucking them under his body. His foot hit something cold, and rubbery, buried between the chair back and the cushion: he pulled it out. It was the lime green squeaky hedgehog. It seemed safer to look into its perennially smiling black eyes, than to meet Katrina's.
"I'm sorry. I... forgot. About tutoring you."
>> “I had more important things to worry about last semester, like most of my friends in a foreign country where people were dying.”
"Ah," Slate said again. "I..." He lifted his gaze, his lips in a thin line. "You should not have tried coming with us, Katrina. It was dangerous. "
He said this very authoritatively. He was a Faction Leader, after all. She could not simply do what she wanted: he would not allow it.
Slate was not used to Noin Mortman sounding displeased with him. Most of the staff generally avoided that tone; their last employer had instilled in them a certain respect for authority that still persisted, though it had been over a year since the man had last been seen, and Slate had taken over their employ. In that time, things around the Labs had significantly relaxed. He heard, for instance, people occasionally laughing in the hallways. The X-boxes and LARP costumes were not necessarily hidden, when he walked into the break rooms. The judo secretaries had gotten in the habit of ruffling his hair when he failed in a particularly abysmal manner (an action, Slate noted, which did nothing to help his already disorderly hair).
He was not used to their displeasure, however.
"There is someone here to see you. I believe you've kept her waiting. Sir." The nine-fingered secretary's tone was polite and clipped.
Slate blinked, tilting his head against the phone receiver. "Who is it?"
"Katrina Dumonde. Sir."
...Slate found that he was cringing. It was an instinctive thing: he was not entirely sure where it came from. "Ah. Tell her, ah... tell her that I will meet her in the library. She knows the way."
Noin held him on the line for an unnecessarily long moment before hanging up. It seemed that the staff liked Katrina. This did not particularly surprise him.
Slate walked from the board room, ignoring--or simply not hearing--the polite greetings said in his wake. He was walking rather more quickly than usual.
He did not sit down when he arrived. He found himself standing near one of the library's comfortable chairs, facing the doorway. He found himself... smiling.
"Hello, Katrina," he practiced. "It's good to--" He cleared his throat, and tried again. "It's been awhile, Katrina, how have you..."
The door opened. Slate cleared his throat, and smiled, his hands clasped behind his back. "Good afternoon, Katrina. ...How have your classes been?"
If you want camera and TV trouble, Maxine can always visit the Mansion. All the joys of potentially terrible publicity and drama-making with the added bonus of a PC causing it, rather than NPCs. Not to mention I was kind of plotting to do so already.
Being a gentleman (and having been slower than the lady), Slate graciously allowed Susan her wall. Though he himself could, perhaps, have used it more. With a bare minimum of wobbling, he trailed after her as she continued to speak.
>> "I live in a boarding school for mutants."
She turned. How did she turn? Slate braked, his arms wind milling for balance as he tried to avoid crashing into the witch. He succeeded, despite the laws of physics.
...Wait. He braked. How did he brake?
>> "It's a safe place to be, even though, well, the school part is not exactly a challenge."
Slate stared interrogatively at his feet. They had done something. He was sure of it. He was simply not sure what. That was the problem with 'instincts.' She started to move again; Slate follo--
>> "And currently I don't have a phone. But I'm pretty sure the Mansion has one."
--wud.
At the least, he had managed to avoid taking out her legs. He simply slid up rather near them, in a more horizontal manner than recommended.
"The Mansion?" He blinked upwards, as he regained his feet. "Xavier's Sister School, correct? I know it."
Experimentally, he moved one foot forward. Then the other.
He did not make much progress, but he did remain vertical.
"How are you doing that--" he searched for the correct term, "--sliding thing?"
>> "I don't have anything scheduled. And I think it's a good idea."
He tugged down his scarf, letting his own smile show. The blush was mostly gone. Mostly. As the witch had earlier pointed out, the cold did make your face red.
"Would picking you up at six be appropriate?" He had access both to cars and to a fake driver's license. Really, it could be no more dangerous driving in New York's slow-moving traffic than across Colombia's back-water roads (while being shot at).
"I suppose I would need your address, for that," he contemplated. "Also, an exchange of phone numbers would be of use, in case unforeseen complications should arise." The goatee scratched at his scarf as he spoke. It was mildly distracting.
His eyes turned back to the rink. "First, though, I recommend we survive this encounter."
They seemed to have uncovered the secret of standing. While this was admirable, the larger conquest remained: skating.
The young woman looked as if she was going to cry. Slate sincerely, sincerely hoped she did not. He was not entirely certain of what to do with a crying young woman. You could not order it taken care of: that, he suspected, would make matters worse.
>> "M-..My mother and I haven't spoken for months. She sent me to New York in November when people found out about my power. If I could help people so they don't have to feel like a freak, I would be so happy. For that to happen though, I guess mutants can't keep hate for humans. That's not what I have at all, actually. Just sadness most of the time. That's just how I feel..."
Slate's lips instinctively cringed upwards to return her forced smile. Please do not cry, he fervently hoped, rather unaware that the thought might easily be overheard by either of the women. More easily for Henrietta than Lenna.
"I'm sorry. Not all humans hate mutants, just as not all mutants are the sort of killers that taint all of our reputations. To truly fix issues of discrimination, I believe we must correct it early. I am funding schools to that effect--schools that integrate both humans and mutants, as opposed to the Mansion, which simply caters to mutant children."
Please, please, please do not cry. Again, he was somewhat careless with his thoughts.
He felt unbounded exponential relief when, at last, Lenna rejoined the conversation. She was a woman: she could help her fellow... emotionally gendered individual.
Safely hidden behind his own red scarf, Slate was confident that Ms. Susan did not see his deepening blush.
She was laughing at him. It was not a good thing when women laughed at him. ...Was it?
>> "I do that all the time. I was told I... um, lack people skills. But. I think there might be a similarity between skating skills and socializing. It probably takes practice to get it right... that, or you have to narrow the scale of your social interactions to people who equally lack the skills."
With the grace of a penguin, Slate made his way back to his feet, thus joining Susan on the vertical plane.
"No one seems to comment on my social skills," Slate said. "I suspect that is not done in compliment of them."
>> It is fascinating that someone who possesses telepathic skills can be as clueless as any other person. Who would have thought...
Either that, or they were choosing to save their thoughts on the matter for their... thoughts. Ahem. She was simply lucky that he was not a skilled psychic. Then he could read her entire mind on demand, or so he had heard. Or choose not to read it. That, too, would be convenient.
Her eyes were shifting colors again. He found himself staring, and looked down at the ice.
"Would you like to practice your social skills with me?" He did not remember asking his lips to form those words. "At dinner. This Friday. If you don't have any particular research or pre-scheduled activities that I would be interrupting." His lips quirked behind his scarf. "Or coven meetings."
There was a fine spray of red on Slate's coat sleeve, from the exit wound. It reminded him of when he had taken over the Kabal. As memories went, it was a relatively fond one: the blood had belonged to the last disloyal employee in the Labs. It's shedding had secured Mondragon Labs, the Kabal, and the rest of Antonescu's former empire as his own. It had been his first move; it had lead to Colombia, and to here.
Lee took a step, and collapsed forward. It struck him as strange, how she moved: she had always been graceful. She was not, at the end.
Tarin seemed to materialize like one of his spirits; he held Lee to himself. Slate wondered, idly, if Tarin would blame him for her death. He would quite understand that sentiment: it was quite well founded. Likely he would retire from the Kabal. That would be inconvenient.
Sebastian joined them. His pale hands touched Lee's body, but nothing happened. He was wearing some manner of--no; Slate recognized the shards from the King Pharmaceuticals battle, and he was certainly acquainted with their user. Shin. It seemed to Slate like Shin should have better things to be focusing on, than hiding what a man was naturally born with. There was no shame in Sebastian's nakedness, as he rushed to save a friend. There was no shame, that he could not do anything for her. Like the rest of him, Sebastian had been born with his power. It had its limits, as did all things living.
Slate had better things to be doing, too, then standing frozen. Ah. Was this 'shock'? It was a singularly useless mental state.
With a jolt, he skidded down to Lee's side, and took her hand in his. There was still time--though her chest was... was beyond repair by normal medical means, Slate's own healing only needed a single spark of--
Lee's went out. A black shutter closed around her mind.
Slowly, Slate released her hand. He did not want to be holding it anymore. He did not understand how Tarin could keep touching it. It was not Lee anymore. It was her blood and bones, but it was not her.
Death was not a state. It was an end.
"I am sorry, Tarin," he stated, with the same finality as Sebastian's hands, and Lee's hollow gray eyes, still open.
So there they sat, scarf-wrapped and ice-bound, as the other skaters glided easily around them.
>> "Well, duh. People come here to socialize. Why else would someone endure all the falls in the learning process? You thought people come here solely for going around in circles?"
"Well..." Slate stated, her usage of the word 'duh' not helping his blush, "I was not quite certain of its purpose. I thought, perhaps, that the ease of movement across a nearly frictionless surface could be a draw. It was only a theory, though. Yours makes distinctly more sense. I had... failed to factor in the social aspect of human nature."
He nestled his head further into the scarf, until it covered his nose. His blush thus aptly hidden, he turned back to her. "I sometimes do that," he confessed.
