S is for: Shamrock - Captain Shamrock!

I had some other characters in mind at first - no shortage of "S" characters here - but I had to go with Michael O'Toole, AKA CAPTAIN SHAMROCK!

I created him for City of Heroes when some of my friends and I finally decided to create a regular team to run with together. He's pretty easily converted to other systems as he's not really all that complicated. He's a hand to hand fighter who has the power of regeneration. I did have some inspiration form this old Champions villain. I liked the idea of "hey he's a Brick with 3d6 of Luck!"

But he's a Bad Guy and mine is a Good Guy so they are clearly nothing alike. The original concept for the team was classic Superfriends/Silver Age heroes, goofiness and silliness welcome but it needed to work and be fun to play in the game. I think we did pretty well.

He HAS THE POWERRRRR!

Michael O'Toole was an Irish pub brawler and general hooligan when he found a magical four-leaf clover and was invested with the "Spirit of Eire" which made him magically stronger and tougher than any normal man, and also gave him the power to come back from any defeat. He used this new power to win some fights but he realized it was cheating and even more importantly it was a waste of this kind of power. He decided to become a costumed hero and his fights against evil eventually brought him to America. His already impressive fighting skills have become superhuman with his new powers and his cheerful attitude has won him many friends among the hero community and even some among the villains of the world. His closest friends know he means well, but he is still dangerously cocky at times, endangering himself and those around him. It's something he struggles with and eventually hopes to conquer.

Personality-wise he's a cheerful, cocky guy who's fun to hang out with but who's temper sometimes gets the better of him. He's loyal to his friends and friendly to strangers until they prove themselves to not be friendly - then the temper kicks in. If you want a super-analogue, what if Wolverine was cheerful and ready to grab a pint and throw his hand around your shoulder on the way down to the pub instead of grim and annoyed all the time? Once something makes them mad though, they're pretty much the same. Shamrock is less likely to kill someone as once he's inflicted a beatdown he will stop and ask if his target has learned their lesson. If so, he may even help them up, though a betrayal at that point means he's beating them into unconsciousness. There's also an air of friendly competition when he fights, as he doesn't really expect anyone to be able to stand up to him for long. This helps keep him make potential allies when he's right, but this overconfidence has led to disaster a few times when he has been wrong. As has been pointed out to him "we don't all grow our arms back". He's trying to keep this in mind but it's hard sometimes.

After going solo for a while he joined up with some heroes on a regular basis and during a long night of carousing suggested that they form a permanent team. Thus was born the League of Super Justice Friends, consisting of himself, The Electric Defender, Granite Guardsman, Captain Rex, and the Martian Manhuntress. Together they have fought many evildoers and saved a lot of lives. Within the team Granite is the brick who holds things together, Rex is a gun and bow specialist who fights at range, ED is another close combat guy, and MM is a mentalist. Usually Granite holds the center while ED jumps into the midst of a group of enemies and unleashes his electrical blasts while Shamrock goes for the biggest baddest target in the area. Rex and the Manhuntress take care of targets of opportunity and support the rest as needed. Queen Isis was also present at the founding of the team but she has been somewhat distant of late, handling her own affairs.

Knee deep in the beatdown

Having achieved some success the league has added a second team made up of other heroes that are friends of the founders and together they can cover a wide area and do a lot of good. Other members include the Unearthly Uberman, the Hammer O' Justice, Psycho Ex Wife, Aluminum Boy, Inspector Hammer, and many others.

In honor of Captain Shamrock's greatness, here is my first writeup for Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition, featuring Mr. O'Toole.

Now he's a bit limited in some ways - his main offensive ability is to run up and hit people - but all those advantages give him a lot of options - trip, disarm, boost damage over accuracy, boost accuracy over defense, hit multiple minions, etc. and his luck and Ultimate Effort abilities ensure he can land those hits when he needs to.  One thing I want to figure out is how to give him a multi target melee attack like a full-circle leg sweep kind of strike, but I don't know the system well enough to do it yet. Some kind of stunning or crippling strike would be good too but I wasn't quite read to tackle "Affliction" just yet.

No "travel power" - if Wolverine and Captain America don't need one, that's good enough for him.

He has some skills useful outside of combat as well - that Pub Expertise plus that Persuasion skill combined with 5 shots of Luck mean he could have a really good time. He also has enough Stealth to be useful and a little bit of Treatment to help his buddies recover after a good scrap.