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.
Detective Leo had cracked yet another case of What Does the Human-looking Mutant do Besides Act Weird. His confidence soared momentarily while he gave himself a little mental back pat. Psychic. Did he have psychic shields? That was a thing mutants sometimes talked about. Leo tried to think about something really, really specific to test Emily's accuracy.
Purple monkey foot. Rootabega. Roota... Ruetabega? How do you spell that?
Leo grabbed his phone to check.
It was Rutabaga.
What was he doing?
"Uh. Typing. Right." Where had his focus gone? Into the land of mutants and powers. Duh. Leo dismissed the accumulating notifications from the AX forum and fired up a word processor.
"Are you good for grammar? Like editing? I usually just type it all in and move it around to join up later." The bibliography would go on the last page all by itself so it didn't get lost, though. He wasn't wholly disorganized.
"I wouldn't mind if you read out loud some, though." It would keep him from having to bounce back and forth and help them find a rhythm to working together.
What more could a girl want? Good question. Leo tucked that one into his back pocket and tried to be very, very still.
She was the best fit for the message he wanted to get out and she proved it every time she opened her mouth. He could not have planned it better. Leo resolved to come see the Philharmonic for real, no camera. No date. Just the soul of the music.
"Never hurts to have connections, I guess." He'd have to grab a business card on his way out. Not that he played anything, but maybe they could recommend him for being so darn professional and awesome free advertising for their company or whatever. It never hurt to ask.
"Your workmates sound pretty lax. Did anyone oppose your hiring? Did you face any opposition here or did you just slide home like a puzzle piece?" Ew. Lamely poetic. It would sound better coming out of her mouth, he bet.
"Before, you mentioned some things that made me think you haven't always had it this smooth. Can you tell me a little about that time in your life? How'd you get from then to now?"
Her outloud thinking confirmed Leo's thinking. Of course it did. His thinking was sound and it worked on the teachers every time. Why wouldn't it for a wanna be rebel who was secretly/not-so-secretly a nerd? Smugness tried to creep in, but since Leo was trying to not be a complete jerk he kept a handle on it.
"That is a good idea." He conceded the point about independant journals easily. His ego wasn't so big that he'd pass over a good idea just because it wasn't his. Plus, bonus points. Those were like crack. He'd jump for the chance at 'em.
He was already scanning over the section about the topic Emily had suggested when she answered his question about her hating him. He had to stop in order to process what she'd said.
"Oh." Huh. Being a girl must really be different, then.
"So, you're a psychic then." Shoot! Had he thought anything pervvy since he got here? There was a mild flare of panic until he realized that the answer was "probably not." He'd expected animosity from the beginning and he really had come here to work. "I guess that makes sense then: the interest in psychology." Though it didn't explain the punky clothes. What was she trying to say there? Stay away? I like bad guitar filters?
Leo's phone buzzed against the wooden table and he snatched it up before the "silent" vibrations made too much noise.
"Uh. Did you say you're typing, then?" Should he swing around to see? He actually preferred this side of the table if he was being honest, but he didn't want to offend her. Mutants were just weird about their powers sometimes. He thought an apology after that just in case she was listening, but it was still true.
"Ok. Look. knowing that help is out there is way, way different than—" Oh. He was... wow. Literally googling Dissociative Identity Disorder. Now Leo just felt sad for him. "—knowing you, personally, can get help. Don't look at Web MD, dude. It's just going to convince you that you have cancer."
Dr. Google was a helpful and terrifying asset.
So was Leo going to admit to leaving the notes? Ugh. Only after he got done facepalming.
"Look. I wanted to put the pressure on to see if you really are two people. Like seriously, the evidence is stacking up, man, so you can't outrun this forever. But I'm not convinced you don't just, like, need help."
Tanktop Tiger was not the nicest guy. Not that the X's were always nice, but he always had this set of ideals that the X's mostly held to. Triple T? Not so much. "I mean. Your alter ego is a bit... rough around the edges." Not that Masochist wasn't...
"Of course scientific journals and peer reviewed articles are of greater value, but this is a high school project meant for an entry-level introduction to a topic. When we get up in front of the class, we have to speak to our audience as much as we pistolwhip them with our intelligence."
Leo waggled his book in his hand and a single eyebrow. "Broad model. It's not kiddy to start with the basics and teachers love when you cite books in their own library 'cause lots of times they had a hand in placing them there." Psychology at its best. Leo might not be great one-to-one, but he had an idea of how people operated... except for Emily. She'd come out of the gate full on rawr.
"So why do you hate my guts?"
Agency theory was just dandy by Leo. He flipped around until he found the definition.
"You typing or should I?" He was just as fast on his phone, if a bit less accurate.
Leo peeped at Emily over the top of his book as she spoke.
Oh? She didn't shout, did she? Not in volume, no. But she was shouting at him with her eyes and her body language and with her force of will.
He smiled at the interior spine of his book as she took a petulant seat at the table. Huh. He genuinely hadn't been expecting that. And she even brought a laptop that looked respectable. His regard of her jumped a cautious step up.
Leo's book shield dropped even further. "Would you like to tackle the intro or look into our topic a bit further? I got some books..." Though, she had the internet which was arguably a better resource. Still, it was what it was: an olive branch. Would she deign to work with him?
No scathing email came. It was almost worse that way. If she'd sent him angry words, he'd know she was still angry and still not here. Whatever she was doing, he was already in the library which he considered one step towards being the more productive of the two of them.
He sank into the chair at his chosen study table like a man beneath the sword of Damocles. His phone, he put on silent and positioned front and center before him when he picked up a book, it was hidden beneath the paper. Out of sight, out of mind. He had some material with which he meant to familiarize himself.
>"Leo."
He jumped so bad that there was no hiding it. Leo was one of those readers with laserbeam focus, able to shut the world out unless the world came to him. He leaned back in his chair so that he could get a look at her. She appeared to have taken a shower recently. Huh. Guess she didn't have a waterproof phone case.
"So nice of you to join me." He smiled even if he felt more nervous than anything else. "If you're here to shout, go ahead and get it over with and then let me know when you're done." He pulled the book back up to his face more to hide behind it than anything else.
She started stiff, but Agnes was just one of those people who ultimately seemed like she could be comfortable doing anything. That's what made her so cool. She didn't know how cool she was. It was like a coolness amplifier and that made it way, way, totally not fair. She settled into something more conversational, which was good. He'd probably have to cut a bit off the front, but that was no big if he could get her to keep talking.
"Twenty-three is freaking young to have achieved your dreams." Ah. But that wasn't a question. He tried again. "So what's next for you? Any more ambitious dreams or are just that happy? Oh. And what specifically about the philharmonic makes it a good place to work. Can you tell me how you got the job?"
He'd start with the light stuff. The fluff. Then he could move back into other parts of her life like that mention of Demon name calling. It really didn't matter what order the questions came in, he could cut it around to transition for the best story flow.
If there was one thing Leo was not surprised by, it was the speed at which a lady could devour a good dog. He had sisters. Sisters weren't afraid of appearing anything but hungry in front of their little brother. If it came down to the last hotdog and Leo hadn't eaten all day, they still would have raced him for it. Was it impressive? Totally. But not surprising.
Leo went between trying to salvage his tie and eating his own hot dog. It was over far too soon and his tie had a yellowish overlay in the middle. Eh. What else could he do? The actual interview?
Oh. Uh. They could do the actual interview.
"Yeah. We can start it up.” He assessed the scene with a move-maker’s eye this time. Leo ended up shifting so only one cheek remained on the bench and pulled his phone out from his pocket. It was only lunchtime sunshine warm, not imminent explosion warm. “The light’s a bit bright so try not to squint.” He said as he squinted at his screen. He hadn’t realized the backlighting was so yucky on this phone. That’s what he got for not really taking his electronics out when he went to play soccer.
“Okay. You look great. Good smile. Just focus your eyes here-” Leo pointed to his button instead of his eyes “-and address my camera like you’re talking to me and we’ll be good.” He waited until she’d figured it out and everything looked as natural as it was ever going to. The background was better than he’d hoped. People walked past in a steady stream to get to the hot dog cart, but because they were sitting on a bench, none of their faces showed. He’d get an extra blur on them in post and then it’d just obviously be New York without anyone suing them.
“Okay.” He hit record. “Why don’t we start with you introducing yourself. Who are you and what do you do here? What’s it like working for the New York Philharmonic?”
"Are you-" Nope. Nope. Noooooo. Leo shut down that line of questioning. He was not going to call someone who could turn him into toothpaste any names or insult any of his lacking intelligence. So he pivoted on a whim to the exact next thing that popped into his head. "-suffering from dissociative identity disorder, Mr. Saph?"
His eyes and eyebrows asked what his lips would not. Did Saph know what that meant?
"There are many helpful resources set up for, uhm, those who were on the side of vigilante justice? Yeah?" He would give him the easy way out because Leo did NOT want to corner Saph. Cornered men did crazy things. Cornered mutants turned to murder.
Leo prayed to St Francis that he'd get something useable and not get dead. Surely the patron saint of journalists would help a guy out.
And the stalking thing? Eh. Maybe he was getting too used to hearing that. Leo let the accusation roll off of him like water. He had found his zen.
He should have gotten dinner first. Leo knew that in his brain, but his stomach was all tied up in knots. Emily clearly didn't like him. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve that, but he also didn't like the idea that anyone would just be so... so... malhumorado.
He walked the stacks and let his fingers trail along the spines as he looked for the correct decimal and letter pair for this project. He was serious. He wanted to get this over with because this weekend they were merging an experimental branch of coding into production on AX. He'd rather spend his time squashing bugs instead of this ridiculous volley of emails that just made him grouchy.
He wasn't a grouchy kind of guy! The feelings didn't sit right with him.
He had a stack of 4 books that seemed like a decent start, those he dumped on one of the study tables while he went to go find a dictionary. When her next smart mouthed email came in, he figured that he ought to be prepared to pick her apart point by point.
Paper, the books, and one pencil waited for him back at the table. He didn't expect Emily to actually come. And if she did, he fully expected to get an earful and then to watch her leave.
Mouth a-gape. She... she did American crazy well! And he was not the only one swooning over that faint lilt. The chat was going wild.
"It looks like the questions are slowing down a bit, but the text questions usually roll in all day if you want to hop in and answer some beyond the webcast, Miss Grey. Uhm, I guess just a few more and we'll call it a day."
Leo scrolled around.
"Would you agree to be in a charity pinup if the proceeds weent to dying puppy orphans?" The internet was dying for an Ambrose repeat or another mutant bikini photoshoot. They got those kinds of questions often.
"What's you're take on the whole 'Mutants are a different species' thing?" Ugh. Wrong your! It was a good question, though, so he read it faithfully.
"Do you have any tattoos?"
Okay. He chose one from the bottom of the barrel with not many upvotes, but it should have had more!
"Uh. Let's make this our last one. We have a request for you to say "I love you" so that Pterridesticals can use it as their ringtone. Can you say it as per usual and also in your American accent?" Pterridesticals hadn't specified both, but Leo really wanted to hear the latter.
Leo did not see the message. He was too busy working up a sweat getting his butt handed to him in a futbol match. He was a human in a mutant school. He didn't have any delusions that he would beat the mutants. But, hey, it put him in a way better mood.
In fact, he was having such a good time, Leo showered, changed, and was halfway through his last class of the day before he even thought to check his phone.
He stood.
Little ******!?!
"Leo? Do you- uh, need something?"
He set his phone down in a hurry, embarrassed. He hadn't known Emily was so...
"Bathroom." He insisted. Because he was already embarrassed enough that he wanted to go dig a hole and hide inside it. He escaped from class with only his phone and stood for a long moment in front of the mirror in the bathroom attached to his room.
B***. She was biting his head off without reason. Yes! Totally uncalled for. He re-read the email for the bajillionth time.
To: Emily Graves (e.graves@giftedyoung.edu) From: Leonardo DeValdenebro (l.devaldenebro@giftedyoung.edu) Subject: Re: Group Project Message: I'm not messing. I don't think I'm hormonal. (Isn't that a girl thing?) I especially love the assumptions you've made about me, but honestly this isn't about me. It's about the project. (I make exceptional grades, thank you.) Meet me in the library. Or don't. I don't care
He'd been changing when the trill of his email sounded. Oh. Had someone posted a response to his latest speculation of Audubon X? Because he was excited to read the going theory on the different types of psychics.
What he got was... not that.
"These pretenses? Ha!" His thumbs patted out a reply, tapped back some, and fired off his response before he'd actually spell checked.
To: Emily Graves (e.graves@giftedyoung.edu) From: Leonardo DeValdenebro (l.devaldenebro@giftedyoung.edu) Subject: Re: Group Project Message: I'd rather just do it myself.
He'd typed more initially. Specifically, he'd started in on her use of a comma instead of a period and the potential quality of her work, but the PE teacher was strongly encouraging him to put his phone away so that he would pay attention to the day's explanation.
He'd do the project before midnight, now, because he didn't want to think about it later. And maybe because she was being a brat about it.
The class gave a collective groan. That was both cheesy and terrible. No one liked collaborative projects, mutant or human. The teacher struggled to talk over the collective disapproval
"-so I expect you to work as a team. Check your hand outs for details and your partners are assigned by me." Another round of groans and this time the teacher waited with a single raised eyebrow until they quieted down.
"This project is due by the end of the week so don't waste any time. Email your questions to teachermail@giftedyoung.edu. I expect to hear from you because you will have questions. Anyone have a formal complaint or anything helpful to add to today's discussion?"
The bell rang which dashed all hope the teacher had of getting anything else out of the classroom. The overall mood lifted considerably as soon as the teacher dismissed them.
Leo, like many others, had his nose in his information packet while he packed his bag. His partner was listed at the top of the page as Emily Graves. The Mansion wasn't that big so he knew who she was, but he still didn't know know her. He'd seen her around in classes, sure, but hadn't ever actually talked with her.
Which was a shame because last week he'd thought about giving her a high five for that Life is Strange tee shirt.
He checked his schedule even though it hadn't changed-- PE. Thank goodness. He was going bonkers being cooped up inside. So he tapped out a quick email before he got changed.
To: Emily Graves (e.graves@giftedyoung.edu) From: Leonardo DeValdenebro (l.devaldenebro@giftedyoung.edu) Subject: Group Project Message: Hey, you want to get together some time today? I want to get this over with. Leo
That was easy enough. He considered his part of taking the lead and initiating the project as over and done with and he wouldn't think about it again until he got a reply.
