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.
Her face reddened a bit. Was she getting chewed out for an argument her older self had started? It felt like it! "There's a pretty big difference between knowing how to drive and not driving like a lunatic just because you can!" Was she gonna back down? Oh hell no!
He ground out something about questions again and she puffed up in her seat like an angry snake, all set to unleash hell upon him for daring to try and snap at her like that, when he.... deflated.
She took a lot longer to deflate... but got there eventually. Still kept her arms crossed tersely though.
"....It's fine." She started, and sighed, and then looked over at him. It looked like he was trying to center himself or something with his eyes closed.
"I understand. I'm... not mad. I'll stop poking at you." It wasn't like this was any easier on her, either. She had just started to deal with her own situation before he had shown up and now she needed to deal with being a wife and a mother on top of it all.
Her teeth were starting to hurt from clenching them. Ugh.
She looked back at him. His eyes were still closed.
She glanced at the road. They were... still speeding.
Holy@#$%HISEYESWERESTILLCLOSED
"Holyshit what are you doing, open your damn eyes! Are you trying to kill us?!" She leaned over and latched onto the steering wheel, pretty convinced they were going to swerve and crash any moment, to go through the wrong light and get side swiped.
Goodness gracious, he was really bad at driving. Almost to a concerning degree. He flipped an old lady off and Shelby craned her neck to see the older woman's reaction, which was to clutch at her chest and swerve abruptly.
....Maaaaybe this hadn't been a great idea.
"That sounds like we are assuming I am going to be randomly popping into your car mid-drive some more after this?
He.., didn't answer her question about the child and her head finally turned to face him, brows pinched and lips set in a flat line. Complex? He'd used the word complex. What did that mean?! Why was it COMPLEX?!
"I mean... maybe if you slowed down you wouldn't have such a hard time concentrating on both the road and the question at the same time? You're going like 15 miles over the speed limit right now."
Huffing, she fiddled with her pendant absently.
"...What else are we supposed to talk about if I'm not allowed to ask questions?"
It... was getting harder not to outright laugh at the absurdity of it. He was speeding, and constantly checking the drying paint on his... on him and was grumpy as all hell about it too.
"Do you get a lot of momentoes from people? Is that a common thing this day and age? I thought that was just a thing that happened in old poetry books when lovers were fated never to be together, or one of them was gonna go die."
"Can- Can you just wait with the questions? I gotta @#$%in landscape on my goddam crotch, here, and I gotta focus on drivin."
The dam burst. She started giggling uncontrollably. A landscape on his crotch! Pfft!
Side note, potential future piece title there.
"Sorry, sorry! It's not like I meant to appear in the middle of your car and spill stuff on you! That's just where you dropped my pendant."
Speaking of, she reached out to snag that necklace back and slip it back on. Always helped to have an exit close by if she needed one.
Shelby instinctively reached for the Ohshit handle as he took a turn a little fast, gripping the edge of her seat with her other hand.
"I think your pants look better like that anyway. Sure beats car grease stains."
She tried to take note of street names and numbers as they passed them by, creating a map that probably wouldn't stick in her head for... well, escape reasons really. As she did so a bit of the mirth died off and she was left with questions. Endless questions. Her... her life was gonna be like that for a long while, wasn't it?
"So... uh... when did we decide to have Jr.?" She didn't look back at him yet, finding it easier to ask while watching the world pass outside.
A ruffled head of pink hair popped up from the backseat, with newly splashed paint on her cheeks. "Memento? It's an exit! I gave you a portal so I'd pop back out right beside you, ya dummy!"
Leaving her paints scattered for the moment, she scrambled into the front passenger seat and sat, buckling herself in and huffing with her arms crossed. "I was gone for like five minutes! Jesus![/color]
After a momentary grump, she switched to trying to wipe the drying paint off her face, and then notice the paint all over him.
"Oh, crap, sorry!" The urge to lean over and try to wipe it up with something was, uh... there, but it was also like all over his crotch so THAT was definitely not happening.
"I can help you get that out at the house! Do... you have Acetone? Did I have Acetone? I probably had Acetone." This was weird. Super weird. Trying to guess what her older self had done or owned was just... ugh.
Though, the fact that he was now splotched in various places with swirls of what used to be grass and bushes... was kinda funny.
She may have giggled a bit and tried to cover it by looking out the window and covering her mouth.
He confirmed it was the car and she paused, gaze going a bit distant for a moment. Wait, how had she known that? Was.... was it a good guess or...
Had she recalled it?
She blinked and shook herself a bit. He was talking. Oh @#$% what had he said?!
"Uh." She eyeballed the open door to his car like it would bite her. Where were they going? The house?
...oh.
THE house.
Well shit.
"I... need to go grab my easel and paints if we are leaving." Yeah, that was a good excuse as any to pop away for a moment and collect... her... thoughts? Sure.
Against her better judgment, she reached up to unclasp her necklace with one of the little painted pendants she always wore.
"Here, hang onto this for a moment? So you know I'm like... coming back and stuff." She held it out awkwardly, blushing on habit alone, and then awkwardly pointed a thumb back at the wall art they had popped out of. After a touch and a Pop! she was on her way back toward the park.
She was gone for five minutes as she gathered everything up, and maaaaaaybe spent a few of that panicking.
Unbeknownst to her he had gotten in his car and started driving at some point.
So, when she finally decided to go along with his offer, she popped back into painting space and headed for the locket. Which... was further away than before? sure felt like it. Like... a couple blocks away. Was... he moving?!
She finally managed to tag the exit frame to her locket and Popped! back out beside him.
... Only he was in his car and driving.
She squawked like an outraged parrot as she appeared above the middle console of the Prius and fell, rolling into the backseat in a flail of limbs and painting supplies.
He... was actually quite good-looking when he grinned like that.
She felt a little jolt of something she didn't quite understand and tried to shrug it off. No time to dwell!
"Gonna have to take my hand though." She offered him her left one, keeping her dominant hand free.
Once she had a grip on him somehow, she'd head them off toward the entrance frame for the other artists' work.
One pop later they were in a much more realistic park setting, probably in oils, with a replica of her sitting a dozen feet away painting. The paint!Shelby was humming some tune she had never heard while going through the motions of putting more color on the painted canvas.
Shelby spotted a few more paintings around the rim of the world and headed for one that looked like a patch of street art on a city wall.
They moved through seven different spaces, each artistically different from the last, before popping out of one on the same street he had mentioned, 5th, with his abandoned car in sight.
"That it?" She dusted a bit of chalk from one shoulder, from a quick trip through a mural of a Holi festival.
Ooookay then. She was going to have to re-work some of the monsters in her defensive paintings. Saph could one hit her current renditions of scary monsters.
Shelby hadn't moved from the bench and was instead turned around and peeking at him over the back. She had a lot to think about. what them finally meeting meant, what eventually meeting her son would mean... that her dad was in New York and she'd finally be able to see him again.
It was a lot to process and she really didn't have a choice anymore.
"oh, yeah, I could get us there. Unless you wanna talk and walk."
She stood, tucking her paintbrush away in her pocket, and waited for an answer.
The idea of a magic box that could make.. projections? Oof, yeah, that went right over her head. She could tell he wasn't lying to her though, so... thoughts for another time.
"Yep, that sounds like me. I love the space. Have I already subjected you to all of the various facts and space puns I know?" If she had, that would be disappointing.
"You've met him then? My dad? I tried calling the number he used to have when I first woke up because I figured he and my mom would be able to help make sense of everything, but it was disconnected. Never was able to track him down."
...She couldn't help but wonder what might have been different if she had been able to talk to him.
"I did? I didn't know I had one. I wasn't able to unlock the phone I woke up with." She didn't have it on her, either. It was at home in a drawer by her bed just... waiting.
Fishing her own, new phone out of her pocket, she hopped onto the Myface app that had come already on the phone to try and search herself up.
"... Do you wanna go back and-"
An unholy shriek interrupted her as the monster from the lake finally hauled itself up over the cement ledge, and the huge monstrosity started scrambling toward them with wet, squelching steps.
"Oh, hey, it worked! Time to go!" She reached out to try and grab Saph.
Those two words together just made her think of a room full of knives, or running chainsaws.
"... Well that sounds like something I'd do, at least. Maybe I didn't change as much as I thought I had."
Three and a half?! Jeez! "We were together for a few years then... Sorry. Again, for... Being flakey I guess."
His comment about Jr, her... Child, dragged a small laugh out of her. "Clarence?! No way! That sounds like something my dad would have chosen. That or Giles. Saphirus Jr sound much better in comparison. Pfft, Clarence."
Marrying in Vegas sounded like her too. She'd never been a Glitz and Glory kinda girl, so something fun and quick was right up her alley. "Did we drive or fly? I've always wanted to road trip across the states and that sounds like a perfect excuse."
An idea hit her right then, "oh! Do you have any more pictures or...or videos of us? I wasn't able to find much on older me online. It be... Neat to see it. Like... How I was before."
She didn't look surprised when he started to talk about Roach, though she didn't know him by that name. She did frown because it was still a sore spot. She let him finish, not rushing him, and just nodded a little.
"It's okay." She slipped in, responding to his use of the 'babe' pet name. She didn't mind the slip-up.
"It's okay." She offered a tense smile to let him know it was alright. "As I said, I learned a lot online. I know about my mother's passing." She set the paintbrush to the side and offered him a hand if he wanted to take it. Maybe as a way for him to not feel alone.
"I read about a lot of stuff, other people that died who I don't remember and saw a few of the pictures of... older me, in the papers. I don't know all of the details about what happened, but enough that I was able to process it already." At least to the point where it didn't hurt 24/7, just... sometimes.
"I don't recall ever seeing you mentioned in the papers. Musta been part of the whole protection thing?" She sighed deeply.
"Kinda easy to disassociate when it feels like all that happened to a whole other person and not you, ya know?"
What else could they talk about?
"So... who proposed to who? Where'd we get married? How old is Saphirus Jr?" She leaned in slightly, "Did I actually agree to let us call him that, or did you trick me into it?"
She could do this. It was fine. What was her old life preparing her for other than chaos like this? If she could survive her parents perpetually divorcing and re-marrying, she could survive anything. ...Right?
"Oookay. This is fine." She nodded, reaffirming it to herself. "Everythings gonna be fine." She shifted on the bench to face him, determined to push through the awkward and just... get it done. No, wait, that wasn't right. Too callous.
Push through it and re-learn everything. Clearly, there had been something that brought them together, made them fall in love, and caused her to want to have this man's children. Child. Whatever!
"...So, we just... I dunno, treat this as one of those really overdramatic soap operas, then. Right? Right. You... probably already know everything about me, but I need to re-learn everything about you. So let's start there?"
She looked at him, how he was reacting to it all, and then down at his hand where he was gripping the bench like he was trying to strangle it.
"...What was our first date like?" That was an easy enough question, right?
That was news to her. She hadn't been aware that this was something she could get better from. Like.... she could do back to being the other Shelby? That was a possibility?
He stated he needed to sit, and she agreed. She kind of needed to sit too.
They found a bench and she sat, sorta beside him but at a respectable distance.
"21."
Her brows creased and she was bending the paintbrush slightly while staring pointedly at the painted grass.
"So.. you go better? What was that like? Did... do you remember all the stuff from when you were younger?"
This was partially why she had just avoided the whole problem from the get-go. She didn't feel like she was mentally prepared for... this. This was existential dread material if she'd ever encountered it before.
If she was going to re-age at some point, and presumably go back to being happily married and a doting mother, then... man, she had a lot of questions to ask.
"So, um... what is our kid's name? The baby in that picture? It's just the one child, right?" She looked over at him finally, trying and succeeding at calming herself down a bit.
Yep, nope. Darn thing was broken beyond repair. She wasn't about to try and track down packing tape to try and slap it all back together, either. She just collected the big broken chunks into a pile and dusted her hands of it. Good think insurance existed!
Turning from the accident back to her job, pulled back the edge of one glove to see the back of one hand. The name of the piece she was after was written there. 'The Dream' was her target. A very expensive little known painting making its rounds through various galleries. Given the price tag, she was sure it would be in a special area all by itself, probably with a bit more security. It was to be the most expensive piece she had ever tried to steal.
Didn't know why the client wanted it, either! Seenit collectors were pretty weird sometimes but had surprisingly deep pockets.
Shelby headed off into the place, slipping out a small flashlight so that she could read each painting name a little bit easier.
She chewed on her lip for a moment, not answering right away. Her excuse as to why she hadn't looked for answers, for him and the child, felt right to her... but she was aware that they wouldn't feel right to everyone. She was certain they wouldn't feel right to him.
"If-" Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. "..if you woke up somewhere strange, in a different place and year then what you remember, and then you find out that there was this whole other you that had a family and... and a kid, would your first thought have been to jump right back into that foreign life?" She kept her voice soft, not wanting to hurt him and not wanting to sound accusatory or anything, but trying to get her point across.
"I went from being in Seattle, with my girlfriend, to here... in chaos, with a needle in my leg and..." She ran a hand over her face, pushing her glasses up and into her pink hair.
"Look... I'm sorry I didn't show up to figure things out, but.. but I'm not her. I've never even considered having kids, and I didn't know what I was gonna do if I found you and you were, well... like this. I guess. I know who you are from looking you up online and the picture I had in that wallet, but... I can't remember anything about you."
"This is more private for... uh... the conversation we will be having." She didn't want a bunch of strangers eavesdropping on the strange love drama that was about to play out.
The bushes all around them clacked their feet, fruitlessly trying to stretch out to get a bite of both of them.
"I was practicing making hostile environments." She offered, pointing out the hungry landscape. "I based the idea of this place off of an environment that wants to consume us, as much as we consume it."
It was one of the first truly dangerous ideas she had decided to play with, rather than the fun, kind kooky paintings she liked to drag Boy Wonder through.
He introduced himself and asked her probably one of the most dad things she had ever heard, and she barely held back a full cringe.
"... I know who you are."
She fiddled with her drying paintbrush and took careful note of the only two exit frames in the whole space. Someone else was in the park painting, it would appear.
"I've known for a while who you were. Looked a lot of stuff up when I woke up here."
...ah, and there was the guilt again. She frowned and avoided eye contact.
"I know you were married to that other Shelby, and that you have her kid." She waved a hand awkwardly. "Marriage and birth records."
