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 had been a long time since Darkshift had sat in the park just playing music for the sake of playing music. She loved it and, despite what judgement certain others might pass based on how she looked, she had a voice and a talent to match her love. Back before coming under the employ of The Order, regular busking had been a matter of necessity and survival. Now days that wasn't so much the case but today she felt the urge to return to her roots for a few hours.
There was a little park near her apartment that she regularly trained in late at night. Now it was late afternoon, just coming on evening and there were many more people milling about. It was a beautiful, clear day and, for once, her usual cynicism didn't mark her good mood. Some days it just felt good to be alive and sometimes it took music and people, mutants and humans alike, appreciating music. It was a powerful force and the reminder of its strength this day was a poignant one that she took to heart.
Sitting under a large tree with battered guitar case beside her, change littering the bottom, she held her guitar lovingly. Next to her laptop, it was the most expensive thing she owned and by far the most precious. Her voice was strong and emotive as she sang out acoustic folk punk songs. Even in the most frugal of times, this would have been considered a good day as people were, evidently feeling generous with their coins. Her claws, which had become her nearly constant mark of being a mutant since she had vowed always to have something out in the open, were gone today as they interfered her her playing. Instead, black scales covered the backs of her fingers and hands. Always she would display her mutant pride because, damn it, others had to know that being mutant was nothing to be ashamed of!
As if Darkshift wasn't angry enough, the sign of her own blooded upped the anti. How dare these thugs be mutants and how dare they force her to act against her own kind? It wasn't right. It wasn't right, she didn't like it and, damn it, she didn't have to like it either! She'd show these mutant, upstart, wannabe thugs who was a proper super-hero and who was a henchmen to be beaten down and tied up!
Out of the periphery of her vision, she noticed her alien ally occupy the attention of flaming knife guy. Good, that meant she could focus on her real threat and the cause of her currently aching shoulder. Clearly slashing him wasn't all that effective since all that resulted was either more blood armor forming or barely penetrating the blood armor at all. Thus, a change of technique was in order.
Once again she waited for her opponent to come close to her and this time he was clearly getting cocky. "Not so tough now that your bleeding, are you girl?" he taunted. Well, that suited her purposes just fine.
"Tough enough." Almost there and, just as he swung his blade at her head, she ducked under it and began flowing into an attack of her own. Mid swing her claws melted and a hoof covering her entire hand replaced them. Her boxing lessons paid off when hoof struck head with a satisfying thump and blood armor guy crumpled to the ground, unconscious. "Yes!" Now that was what victory tasted like. And it was delicious.
The, 'should be find now', certainly sounded much better but she had her doubts. That was a terribly traumatic event he had gone through and non in their right mind would be better so quickly after that. Still, there wasn't much she could do about it and she understood the need to keep up appearances. She was essentially a stranger, an unknown, even if she had helped him out of a sticky situation. Her answer would have been much the same.
"Do you need someone to help you get back to wherever your staying?" She hated to simply up and abandon him after the night the two of the had, but this one had to be his call. Showing weakness was definitely a thing and not a desirable one at that. Not wanting to expose the location of your dwelling to strangers was also a thing. Thieves and all that. Of which she was one. A good one. Not that he knew that, of course.
Darkshift shook Randy's hand, careful not to have her claws get in the way. There was a time, in the very recent past, when she would have felt uncomfortable about wearing them out in the open. May weeks had past since her vow to do so always, however, and gradually that feeling had faded. She was a mutant and that was nothing to be ashamed of. If others had a problem, well, that was theirs to deal with not hers.
"Happy to hear you don't have a problem with mutants. Don't worry, the claws only come out to play if you do something really nasty. Like try to kill me or something." Her voice remained light despite the dark words and she offered a half grin.
Darkshift picked up her gloves and began lacing them. After a few moments of silence, she added, "I'm kind of new to the whole boxing thing. Figured the claws are sometimes a bit overkill when it comes to bullies. You know." A shrug and a hard glance to try and soften the fact that she really didn't like to admit any weakness. She was here to learn though, after all. Besides, if he did choose to take advantage of her inexperience there was always the claws. Among other things.
Darkshift remained silent and allowed Tyson to eat, partaking in some food of her own. He clearly needed it and she couldn't blame him after the night he'd had. She did her best not to stare. If he was less than graceful about taking in his food, it wasn't really his fault. All mutant powers, so far as she had been able to observe at any rate, had their disadvantages and this was clearly one of his. In many ways she was lucky: her own power allowed her to take on the seeming of different animals without actually taking on their instincts or non-physical traits. Probably those instincts could be useful in certain circumstances, but the idea of losing control to some kind of internal beast was a terrifying one.
Only once he had finished eating did she speak again. "Do you have a place to stay? Or anyone to help you? To train you?" She didn't want to push too much because he still seemed easily spooked but these questions were important. She wasn't abut to just leave him to his fate. To do so would hardly be living up to her new responsibilities.
Occupied as she was with her own dual threats, Darkshift wasn't able to properly pay attention to her green ally's conflict. She did, however, hear his witty retorts. Something she would have to work on, some distant part of her brain that was not presently occupied with problems of her own survival, informed her. Wasn't that a sign of all proper vigilante super heroes?
Of course blood guy would be able to form blades as well as armor from his own blood. Why would he not? Because that was just the sort of luck she was having tonight. Bad luck. God damn it, why did she have to choose mutants to practice her super-heroing on?
Fire blade picked himself off the ground and turned his attention back to her. "Bitch," he spat, venom in his voice, before charging. His blade blade crackled as he swung it towards her head. He was the logical choice to dispatch of first since he didn't appear to have any armor to protect him. Once again ducking the blade, her claws struck home leaving 5 deep and bloody fissures across his side. He howled in pain. Score!
Focused as she was on fire sword, Darkshift wasn't quite fast enough to dodge the blood blade her second foe swung towards her. It struck her scales and penetrated, digging into the tender flesh of her shoulder. Damn. Blood began dripping though not nearly so fast as if she were protected by weak human flesh.
Mutants shouldn't be fighting mutants. Those were the words Darkshift wanted to yell out at the thugs but, of course, she had been the aggressor in this little dance of theirs. She also wanted to yell out that that mutants shouldn't be beating on or raping young, defenseless girls but as someone who skirted the bounds of the law frequently (or downright broke those bounds), it seemed a tad hypocritical. Still, while a thief she wasn't a rapist or a killer and she didn't do any more damage than was strictly necessary. Besides, she had standards. Rich ones. That wouldn't miss a few hundred pilfered dollars.
Grinning at blood boy's words, she retorted, "I could ask the same of you." Armor meant a change of plan and bigger claws. Sleek cat claws transformed themselves into the over-sized ripping talons of an eagle. She might have run at her target then but in the corner of her eye, she spotted a flaming blade swiftly propelled towards the crook of her neck and shoulder. Cursing, the threw herself to the side and the blade barely missed her. She could feel the heat from the flames as they brushed up against her scales.
Two on one against mere humans would have been no challenge at all. Two super-powered mutants against one was a much more significant threat. Trial by fire, so to speak. Here was her opportunity to prove that she was worth the funds Aura was giving her to work for the Order.
As fire blade ran at her, Darkshift waited for her moment. Once in range, a black monkey tail sprouted from her tailbone. She crouched low and used it to trip him. Spinning, her knew eagle claws dug into red blood armor. She felt them penetrate the armor, but just barely and this time it was his turn to curse. He was going to be a challenge.
Food was at least something she could do and feel useful. "I'll be right back." Wandering into the kitchen, the next question was what kind of food to bring? Being wolf-like, did that mean he ate only meat? Or might he prefer something not meat in order to get away from that predator kind of stereotype? Wolves were omnivores, weren't they? Deciding variety was the spice of life, she gathered a little bit of everything the could find stashed away from fruit to sandwiches to steak. One of the things she loved about Sanctuary was the food. Apparently there was a mutant whose power was to create whatever food his heart desired, although she'd yet to meet him. Whether it was true or not, there was no denying the quality of eats.
Darkshift came back into the foyer with a large platter covered in various edibles. Taking one of the sandwiches for herself, she sat back down beside the wolf-man. "I wasn't sure what you wanted to eat so I kind of brought half the kitchen with me," she stated in a weak attempt at a little bit of humour. "Its really good."
She listened to him apologize and shook her head at him. "No apologies. We mutants have to stick up for one another and defend one another. In a world that hates us, who do we have but each other? You probably need to learn to control your, uh, instincts better? But there are people that can help with that. So you don't lose control again." She could only imagine how terrifying such a loss of control might be.
A count of her prey numbered 5. Even as a mutant against humans, 5 was a challenging number. Especially if any of the 5 had weapons and, lets face it, thugs like those were likely to have weapons. Surprise would be her best weapon in this situation; if she could take out a couple of them before the rest knew what was happening she'd stand a good shot of taking out the rest. She grinned toothily to herself from her hiding place. Maybe on a subconscious level she desired danger and injury to herself, but she couldn't' help thinking that this was going to be fun.
As Darkshift prepared to pounce, suddenly she wasn't the only mutant in the vicinity nor the only one whose target was the gang of thugs. A green creature erupted from the night, complete with swinging sticks that collided repeatedly with their intended targets. Clearly the mutant had some skill with his chosen weapons and clearly he had taken their foes by complete surprise. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, it her her turn to act and take advantage of the most adventitious distraction.
With a growl, not quite the proper feral growl of a large cat as her vocal chords remained human, claws flashed and dug deep into the arm of the nearest thug. The shriek of pain and surprise was expected. The blood solidifying into an armor that began growing from his wound and spread across his body was not. "God damn it!" Either these were M freaks or mutants. Either way, this was not quite the battle she had been anticipating. Good thing she had help. The girl they were saving looked terrified and who could blame her?
Darkshift hadn't really been to enough gyms to fully understand the way things worked and she definitely didn't know the specifics of this one, what with being her first time attending. She didn't really care. Eventually she would get into the swing of things and it wasn't like she was worried about anyone bothering her for not following protocol or whatever. Not many people were really in a position to hurt her. What mere human could stand up to a mutant? If there were other mutants here, well, hopefully they would recognize their own.
Not long after starting her stretches a middle aged man came up to her asking if she was looking for a boxing partner. "That I am," she agreed. Now she was definitely out of her comfort zone, not that she was likely to let that show. In her world, survival often depended upon putting on one hell of a game face. Besides, the only way she was going to learn to be less reliant upon her powers was to actually get out there and do it.
Finishing the last of her stretches, she stood. "I'm Jayden." It felt weird to use her human name. She wasn't even really sure why she did it, given that her black claws remained in the open for anyone observant to see. Maybe she just didn't want some of the usual mutant/human conflicts to follow her here.
The mutant was clearly hurt and hurt pretty badly. Rolling him gingerly onto his back, she tried to take stock of his injuries. On the outside it didn't look like the damage was too serious, but his coughing up blood made it clear that he had some internal injuries. How severe was anyone's guess and not for the first time she wished she knew more about first aid and medicine. Being a mutant and especially a mutant vigilante super-hero, it seemed, was dangerous work.
"Listen, Sanctuary is nearby. Its a mutant safe-house. If I can get you there, you'll be safe and there's a mutant doctor that can heal your injuries. If you have me to lean on, can you walk?" Wings melted back into her body to be replaced by a pair of black gorilla arms, just below her human arms. They would provide the much needed strength to help carry him back to Sanctuary. She leaned down to try and help him back to his feet.
Two of the four Meta's turned to pay attention to Darkshift. That was good, two for each of them meant they might actually stand a chance. Maybe. Either way, it was too late to turn back now and her new friend didn't exactly seem inclined to flee.
"Do not resist," came the command of one of the bots. Like hell that was going to happen! Resist as much and as long as possible, that was her motto. It had gotten her in trouble before but, hell, she was all ready in trouble now so how much more could resisting possibly get her into? Besides, for once it wasn't even her fault this time.
"How about you stop resisting," she retorted. She lowered her head, waiting for the right moment to make her move. 3...2...1 and she charged, horns smashing into the metal torso of one of the Meta's, making a loud 'clang' noise. Her head rang with the impact but, more importantly, the Meta stumbled back, clearly stunned by the impact. "Yes!" Probably a bit early for celebration, but she'd take what she could get.
Turning her attention to the second Meta, she was just a little bit too slow as one of its fists slammed into her side. If not for her thick scales, the fist might have done some real damage. As it was, most of the impact was absorbed leaving her largely untouched. In response, she spun and one of her legs went underneath its and it crashed to the ground, tripped. With a thought, her head transformed into that of a crocodile, one of the few animals with the jaw strength to maybe do some damage. With her new set of teeth, she bit down on the shoulder of the robot, feeling the satisfying crunch of metal.
Distantly, she was aware of the sounds of battle from Max and the other two Meta's but so caught up in her own fight, the details alluded her. Hopefully he was able to take care of himself.
"Its more a matter of what you do with the gifts you're given than what the gifts are," Darkshift answered. She might have said more except that's when she noticed the Meta's. Four of them. Something deep in the pit of her stomach sunk. Well, there went her pleasant morning in the park. Not to mention possibly her freedom and bodily well being. Crap.
"Best not to antagonize them," She directed at Max, her voice just above a whisper. He didn't listen. She didn't expect him to. She got to her feet, facing the Meta's. At least she had learned a few things from her first encounter and that had to count for something, right?
And now they were identified as the mutants they were. To make matters worse, one of the bots then went and attacked the innocent painting. Great. Just great. Just what she needed today. And then suddenly Max was charging the group of Meta bots like he didn't have the slightest idea what kind of threat they could pose. Well, he probably didn't.
The old Darkshift probably would have just fled and left the poor guy to his unfortunate fate. She didn't have any attachment or loyalty to someone she had just met that morning. Unfortunately the new Darkshift had only one possible option: To help him get out of this problem he had half brought upon himself. He was a mutant and she helped mutants now. Damn vigilante mutant super hero or something. Why had she chosen this path again? At that exact moment the answer alluded her.
"Hey, over here!" she yelled, trying to draw the attention of at least a couple of them. Pale, weak flesh transformed into thick black scales across her body and two black bull horns grew out of the top of her head. She was as ready as she'd ever be.
