Stephen Vincent Strange

Cloak of Levitation:

The Cloak is capable of both independent flight and providing Stephen with the power of flight when he is wearing it (its flight speed is relatively low, comparable to a bird rather than to a plane). While the two share a bond that allows them to work together without particular conscious thought, the Cloak is capable of making independent choices and has in the past dragged Stephen about against his will in situations where it decided it knew better than him what he should be doing. The Cloak is also sturdy and fast enough to actively block most attacks, including attacks with bladed weapons, and can roughly manipulate objects by wrapping its folds around them. When not being worn by Stephen, the Cloak habitually hangs in midair as though on the shoulders of an invisible person. When on Stephen's shoulders, it often simply hangs and lets itself look as though it's inanimate.


Dimensional Manipulation (i.e. Magic)

Stephen can summon shields and weapons made of golden energy using energy drawn from other dimensions (presumably the godlings' dimensions that share walls with the the Meadous), though he's more adept at making shields than at making weapons.


Astral Projection

Though the Meadous does not include an astral plane, Stephen is still able to project his soul out of his body as though he were traversing said plane--neither he nor Zephyr seem to really understand how that works. This includes the ability to choose whether to go about unseen or to project a spectral form visible on the material plane. While in astral form he can travel through solid objects (indeed, would struggle to interact with physical objects if he tried to do so), though he is unable to travel through the Meadous' walls or beyond the "cap" on the sky beyond the moon on the astral plane or by any other means.


Gateways

Stephen has the ability to use his sling ring to open portals between any points within the Meadous he can visualize; the sling ring's usual power to open portals to other dimensions is limited to the Meadous' own Mirror Dimension.


Temporal Manipulation

Since wishing for the Eye of Agamotto in September 2017, Stephen has regained the ability to manipulate time. During off-world events, the Eye can be used to stop, rewind, or loop time; it would also be possible for Stephen to fracture time and accidentally erase himself from existence or trap himself in a timeline were he not careful with it. Touching the Time Stone encased in the Eye would likely be deadly for any mortal.

Within the Meadous, the Eye's powers are capped. Stephen may only stop or rewind time in a limited area of effect (about the size of a room), and only for five minutes at a time. He is unable to create a time loop longer than 100 cycles of 5 minutes. Also, Zephyr would step in and contain matters if Stephen were to do something that would wipe him from existence and/or if anyone were to touch the Stone.


Telekinesis

Stephen learned telekinesis around winter 2017-2018 by study and practice. He is able to move objects with his mind, including while in his astral form. Though he has so far been limited to smaller feats, he will eventually become capable of lifting and throwing large objects with his mind (as an example, multiple cars at once). Also, he is able to take up a resting position sitting in midair while wearing the Cloak of Levitation.


Telepathy

In spring 2018, Stephen taught himself to shield his mind against outside control and interference. He is also able to project his thoughts into the minds of others; his is always an outside "voice," meaning it is clear that one is not hearing one's own thoughts when he does this.


Near the close of the year 2018, Stephen left the village for several weeks to meditate and train on his own and came back with two new powers:

Second Sight:

Stephen can see the astral forms of others without leaving his material body. He can use this ability to sense the location of invisible people and ghosts or spirits. It also allows him to have a general sense of what someone is when he looks at them, including whether they're a mortal or a god. The ability does not work 100% of the time due to dimensional interference.


Energy Manipulation:

Stephen has the ability to manipulate heat, electricity, and light. He's able to move energy from one area and relocate it to another, or disperse the energy into the surrounding area. Examples of how he can use this include freezing an object by dispersing its heat or darkening a room by redirecting light away from it. This ability requires active concentration to maintain its effects (e.g. if there's a light source the room will become bright again the moment he stops actively darkening it). Outside of the Meadous this ability may work on other forms of energy as well.


Transformation - Dog:

In early August of 2019, Stephen wished for a relic to allow him to perform the Ritual of Awakened Form on himself. Now that he's already performed the ritual once it takes only a few minutes (relic in hand) for him to transform into a black and tan shiba inu. Now that he's better practiced at it, too, he no longer loses his mind to dog instincts when he does so, and can transform back into his human form with ease.



Wishlists
Wish clarifications submitted December 2017
More clarifications submitted December 2018

Player Name: Kathryn
Preferred Pronouns?: she/her
Player Contact: YawningDodo
Other characters in play? Peter Vincent (fucking_ebay)

Character Name: Dr. Stephen Strange
Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Game Transplant: Snowblind (snowblindrpg)
Original App: Here (a copy can also be found on Stephen's journal)
Game Summary:
Snowblind is a survival-horror game set in a post-apocalyptic town in Alaska. Characters drawn in from across the multiverse must work together to solve the mysteries of the town before time in the current "session" runs out and they are all killed, but must also contend with enforced isolation (large groups attract monsters known as anomalies), the need to constantly keep moving in order to stave off hallucinations, and the often deadly cold itself. The nanomachines that counteract the constant radiation poisoning that would otherwise kill the characters also prevent characters with powers from using them and give off their own form of poisoning that manifests as a variety of mental and physical symptoms. Characters get to know each other and coordinate their efforts mainly through communications over the game's network, so it's possible for two characters with relatively close CR to never have met face to face.

How long was your character in Game:
19 days IC; 2 months OOC (the game runs on 3:1 time)

History of Character in their Game:
Dr. Strange arrived in Norfinbury on day 187 of the "session" already in progress and quickly learned that the unwilling residents of the town had only an estimated two months remaining before the town would "eat" them. Though he was of course badly shaken by the sudden change to his location and personal situation, Stephen acclimated relatively quickly. Within his first day he breezed through the basics of the problems facing him (e.g. how to survive the climate) and jumped straight in to attempting to help figure out how they had all been brought to this place and what could be done about it, as well as began to look for ways in which to make himself of use. He named himself @beyonce on the Norfinbury network in the spirit of non-cooperation with the Administrator, and would go on to defend his choice of username for the rest of his time in Norfinbury. Who wouldn't want to be called Beyoncé?

Within that first day he met a number of people who would be important to him over the next two and a half weeks. The presence of three Avengers from a timeline alternate to his own (Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, and Clint Barton of the Marvel 616 universe) threw Stephen off, particularly as it became clear that they were further along in their superheroing careers than him, though he connected with Tony right away on the basis of dumb humor. He also discovered (or rather, was discovered by) Claire Temple, a nurse from earlier in his own timeline who had worked at the same hospital as him, though the two had not known each other. Stephen learned right away that some of the people in Norfinbury were people he more or less knew as fictional characters (particularly the modern day Sherlock Holmes and John Watson), and that in turn some of the people in Norfinbury knew the Avengers as characters from films. He took this, too, in stride thanks to his security in the knowledge that the multiverse is infinite and anything can happen. At least, that's what he told himself to get through it. He was also told right away that he shared a face with Sherlock Holmes, to whom he took an immediate dislike over the other man's defense of the surgical capabilities of Dr. Stein, a rogue lobotomist listed as both a medical professional and as a dangerous individual in the guide provided to newcomers.

After three days of aimless wandering as he attempted to find where he was on the map compiled by the longer-term residents, Stephen ran into Dr. Watson on the evening of day 189 and was promptly mistaken for Sherlock and punched in the face (it's okay, though, John gave him a fruit cup to make up for it). Also on night 189, Stephen launched an effort to create a full census of the people in Norfinbury from the current session, both living and dead. He published the incomplete census on the network and requested public input, which he largely got. He also largely refused to address the concerns of several people who questioned the wisdom of the project, and got into an extensive argument with Dr. House when House demanded that his name be taken off the census and Stephen refused to comply.

On the morning of day 190, Davesprite posted the results of a series of experiments he and House had performed together, revealing that they'd had access to a microscope. Curious as to how the Cloak of Levitation could possibly be affected by the nanomachines responsible for nerfing everyone's abilities when it wasn't a biological creature, Stephen resolved to travel to the hospital to use the microscope to examine the cloak's threads. He set off alone on that task, though he continued to converse with both Claire and Tony in particular fairly regularly and at length, forging closer connections with two people who seemed at least more or less familiar to him.

From days 192 through 194 all the residents of Norfinbury, Stephen included, were trapped in a mysterious white maze. In this maze, Stephen encountered Davesprite, Dr. House, and Sherlock. Despite earlier awkwardness in his conversations with Davesprite (Stephen seemed to have a knack for saying just the wrong thing to him), the two were able to find some comfort from what they were fairly sure was their impending death in each other's company, and Stephen ultimately confided to Davesprite some of what he'd been through in his foray into time travel. His encounters with House and Sherlock, on the other hand, planted the seeds of a dark idea in Stephen's mind. From his conversation with House, Stephen learned that the people who came back from the dead often came back healed of major injuries and afflictions, even those sustained before their time in Norfinbury. From Sherlock, Stephen received evidence that deliberate, suicidal deaths apparently commanded a statistically higher chance of revival than accidental deaths. Though Stephen never made an actual plan to kill himself, he began to seriously consider doing so shortly after their time in the maze.

Stephen finally reached the hospital on day 197 only for House to arrive shortly after him with the intent of performing an experiment that involved locking himself in the morgue, an action known to carry a death sentence. The two examined the Cloak of Levitation together and learned that its fabric had been modified to include capillaries through which the nanomachines could travel. Stephen initially protested House's plan for his suicidal experiment, but ultimately gave in and not only allowed him to do it, but actually helped him set it up.

Wracked with guilt the next morning, Stephen traveled to meet Tony nearby, taking the microscope with him on a self-appointed mission to relocate it to the residential area for greater convenience of use. The two then had to turn right around and go back to the hospital on day 201 when they learned that House had come back to life there sans his ability to make his own decisions, and that he'd been ordered northward by an unknown person. Together, Stephen and Tony stole House's supply of Vicodin from him in order to safeguard it from the would-be thief (they would later learn it was Alfie Solomons who had intended to clean out House's supply of painkillers) before Stephen went back northward to meet with Claire.

Stephen traveled with Claire from day 201 until his death on day 206. Day 202 saw numerous injuries across Norfinbury due to supernatural events, and the pair were kept busy tending to the injured in the western part of the residential zone. On night 205 Stephen received a message from Tony revealing that Tony had kept back a bottle of Vicodin from House's stash that had technically been prescribed to Alfie, and requested that Stephen take it for safekeeping. Stephen agreed to do so, but when he and Claire set out for the next morning's travels, they were set upon by an anomaly (i.e. a monster) once they had gotten out into the open.

Seeing that he would only have a chance at running away if he were to drop the microscope, Stephen did some mental math and decided to let the creature kill him instead:
1. Dropping the microscope would mean losing it for sure, but if he died with it in his arms and revived afterward, it would still be with him.
2. If he chose to die, he had a higher chance of coming back.
3. (The tipping point): Dying would probably fix the nerve damage in his hands.

Rather than awakening in one of Norfinbury's morgues, however, Stephen awoke in Terezi's treehouse in the Meadous during the February 2017 We the Lost 4th wall event. His two weeks in the Meadous were marked by frustration over his inability to travel to other dimensions and go back to save the others even after his powers returned to him. Even more significantly, though, Stephen had his hands healed by Bertie Wooster within a few days of his arrival thanks to Bertie deliberately keeping him uninformed about the consequences Bertie would suffer once Stephen accepted the offer. Stephen will be continuing in the Meadous from the end of the 4th wall event without having returned to Norfinbury first.

How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?)
Stephen's relatively brief time in Norfinbury has been a whirlwind of refusing to address his own problems while aggressively attempting to address the needs of the larger group. He came in from a canon point that immediately followed a series of highly traumatic events that took place in very quick succession; divorced from the context of what friends he had at home, Stephen did his best to bury his feelings and ignore his symptoms of PTSD (note that Stephen is not canonically indicated to suffer from PTSD; this was an extrapolation on my part based on his experiences and how a real person might be expected to react to them) as he threw himself into a series of efforts to make himself useful and fulfill his own ongoing need for meaning and purpose. Stephen actively contributed to puzzle-solving efforts, and also assigned himself several projects to better everyone's situation, namely the creation of the Norfinbury census and his ultimately fatal mission to relocate the microscope to a more trafficked area in order to make it easier for people to use it.

While two and a half weeks was not enough to make major changes to Stephen's overall personality, he has been beaten down by the experience and by what he sees as his repeated failures to protect others and to make contributions that had a significant, positive effect for the group as a whole (in particular, Stephen still feels guilt over helping Dr. House kill himself despite having reasoned that he was incapable of actually stopping House from performing the experiment on his own). Stephen had more successes than he gives himself credit for; the overall environment of Norfinbury encouraged his natural tendency to focus on and fear his own capacity for failure. Stephen's mental and emotional processes have also been impaired since his arrival in Norfinbury by his ongoing sleep deprivation due to the nightmares he suffers and frequent avoidance of sleep; on the whole he's functioning well enough for these problems not to have caught the attention of other characters in Norfinbury, most of whom also suffered from sleep deprivation for similar reasons anyhow. While the immediate pressures on Stephen will be relieved by his transfer to the Meadous, he is likely to go on suffering from insomnia and other symptoms of PTSD, as well as to temporarily continue to display various behaviors learned for the sake of survival, such as the urges to avoid large groups, to avoid being outdoors at night, and to hoard junk.

Stephen is currently in turmoil over the manner in which his hands were healed. Though he had accepted his changed circumstances in life prior to his time in Norfinbury, being without his magic as well as without the full use of his hands re-intensified his desire for healing. The failure of his death and resurrection to heal him would have forced Stephen to reaffirm his personal sense of purpose and meaning within the bounds of his disability; having instead been quite suddenly made whole in the most guilt-inducing way possible, as well as having been thrust into a context where he has no lives to save or grand heroic gestures to make, will likely throw Stephen off balance and cause him to backslide into displaying some of his more negative personality traits more prominently as he finds that the return of the use of his hands no longer fulfills those needs for purpose and meaning the way he once expected it would.

How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?):
Stephen has lost some weight due to the malnutrition common in snowbos, though his stint in Norfinbury was short enough that he is still within the bounds of a healthy weight for his build. He suffered minor electrical burns to his hands during an encounter with an unusual anomaly that also left him with permanent, sporadic numbness in one side of his face, though it does not affect his facial movements enough to be noticed by casual observers. His grief beard has returned due to him not having shaved in four and a half weeks (including his time in the Meadous). Most significantly, Stephen's hands are healed to their pre-accident state thanks to Bertie.

Powers:
Stephen's powers and the powers of his Cloak of Levitation, nerfed in Norfinbury, have returned over the course of his two weeks in the Meadous apart from the limitations put on them by the nature of Zephyr's world. His body and his Cloak still contain the nanomachines that constrained their abilities, but without the town's power supply those nanomachines ceased to function about a week into the 4th wall event.

The Cloak of Levitation, an animate relic that behaves like a living creature, will return to full power. At full power, the Cloak is capable of both independent flight and providing Stephen with the power of flight when he is wearing it (its flight speed is relatively low, comparable to a bird rather than to a plane). While the two share a bond that allows them to work together without particular conscious thought, the Cloak is capable of making independent choices and has in the past dragged Stephen about against his will in situations where it decided it knew better than him what he should be doing. The Cloak is also sturdy and fast enough to actively block most attacks, including attacks with bladed weapons, and can roughly manipulate objects by wrapping its folds around them. When not being worn by Stephen, the Cloak habitually hangs in midair as though on the shoulders of an invisible person. When on Stephen's shoulders, it often simply hangs and lets itself look as though it's inanimate.

Stephen himself will regain his canonical powers of dimensional manipulation, i.e. magic. He will be able to summon shields and weapons made of golden energy using energy drawn from other dimensions (presumably the godlings' dimensions that share walls with the the Meadous as noted in this FAQ thread), though he's more adept at making shields than at making weapons. He will also regain his ability to project his astral form out of his physical body in order to traverse the astral plane within the Meadous, which includes the ability to choose whether to go about unseen or to project a spectral form visible on the material plane. While on the astral plane he can travel through solid objects (indeed, would struggle to interact with physical objects if he tried to do so), though he will of course be unable to travel through the Meadous' walls or beyond the "cap" on the sky beyond the moon on the astral plane or by any other means. He will also have the ability to use his sling ring to open portals between any points within the Meadous he can visualize; the sling ring's usual power to open portals to other dimensions will not be regained. Stephen will also find himself currently unable to travel to the Mirror Dimension, usually a fairly simple matter, as the Meadous does not currently possess a Mirror Dimension alongside its material and astral plans. He will also continue to lack the power to manipulate time, as he would need the Eye of Agamotto in order to do so and he left it back in Nepal.

Given time to practice and books to study, Stephen could continue to improve upon his magical abilities. In future it may be possible for him to gain additional abilities exhibited by other sorcerers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as by the version of Dr. Strange who appears in the Marvel 616 universe, but doing so would require significant study and practice and a good faith effort will be made on my part to avoid having Stephen progress too quickly in his independent studies (this is assuming that the highly specific, often rare or one-of-a-kind books he would need would even be available to him). Any plans to have Stephen gain additional powers in this fashion will be run by the mods to verify their viability within the setting prior to implementation.



Possessions:

• Equipment and clothing brought from home:
  • Blue long-sleeved undershirt
  • Blue knee-length tabard
  • Intense belt/cummerbund situation (Seems to be one big belt with several thinner belts attached)
  • Blue trousers
  • Boots covered in pointless straps (with hidden zippers)
  • An expensive watch with a smashed face (non-functional); an inscription on the reverse reads "Time will tell how much I love you - Christine"
  • Slimline wallet with a driver's license and a couple of credit cards in his own name, plus a very small amount of cash in a mixture of American dollars and Nepalese rupees.
  • Cloak of Levitation: an animate red cloak made of at least two layers of heavy, embroidered fabric that chose him as its owner and actively protects him.
  • Sling ring: designed to be worn on two fingers; allows the user to generate magical portals.
• Found in Norfinbury:
  • Notebook
  • Pillowcase
  • Dry erase marker
  • Shampoo
  • Shirt ("I <3 London")
  • Pen
  • Handkerchief
  • Stickers (in the shape of cats)
  • Diary (loopy handwriting about the day-to-day goings-on of cats)
  • Black SD card (blank)
  • Chapstick (partially used)
  • Comb
  • Tupperware (one medium container)
  • One of the Ancient One's teacups
  • Handkerchief
  • Curtain tieback (a short, tasseled rope)
  • Tea (one bag of black tea)
  • Amoxicillin (20 tablets of 500mg antibiotics)
  • Anti-itch cream
  • Scrubs (blue, shirt and trousers)
  • Hand sanitizer (1 bottle, partially used)
  • Stethoscope
  • Black paint
  • Hand towel
  • Scented oils (3 small bottles):
    • Mint
    • Lavender
    • Ginger
  • Compound microscope with several glass slides
• Medication taken from the pharmacy with the intent of delivering it to its owners:
  • One month's worth of seizure medication, prescribed to Brian Thomas
  • One month's worth of lithium, prescribed to Ginger Hale
  • One month's worth of Haloperidol, prescribed to Ginger Hale

Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: Stephen meets Tony Stark
Sample Two: Stephen and House examine the Cloak of Levitation, after which House convinces Stephen to help him with his suicidal morgue experiment
Sample Three: Stephen and Claire can't sleep, so they talk about their nightmares

Notes:

[OOC: This is an IC text document created by Dr. Strange (@beyonce). It is publicly available to anyone who has the link, whether it was shown to them by Strange or passed along in a guide or in a conversation with another character. Many of ]

• Census of Network Users by Dr. Strange (@beyonce)
• Norfinbury Survival Guide maintained by Alphonse Elric (@LELRIC)
• Map created by Dr. House (@hotstud_xxx)
• Map created by collaborative effort (maintained by Stephanie Brown / @Spoiler; contact @standardissue if unavailable)
• Information and Timeline by Stephanie Brown (@spoiler)
• Winter Survival Guide by Kunsel (@standardissue)
• Anomaly Guide by Frisk (@determination) and Toriel (@snailfan98)
• Town Guide by Natasha Romanov (@itsybitsy)
• Case Notes by Beckett (@Mnemosyne)
• Body locations by Zack Fair (@dreamsnhonor)
• Video of all residents' faces sent to Dr. Watson (@jwatson) by @Admin on day 181
• Morgue photographs:
  • Day 59
  • Day 110
  • Day 120
  • Day 184
• Travel arrangements and information sharing maintained by Alponse Elric (@LELRIC)
• Book of Nod
• Norfinbury E-Library maintained by Flynn Carsen (@librarian)

Official version posted here.

Player Information

Name: Kathryn
Age: 29
Contact Info: YawningDodo
Other Characters: Ecks (ecks) and Dug (andiloveyou)

Character Information

Name: Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange
Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Canon Point: After the end of Doctor Strange (2016 film)

Background Link: MCU Wiki links - SPOILER ALERT: film summary; biography of Doctor Strange. These pages include extensive spoilers for the film.

Player's rewritten reference version (still contains spoilers):
Doctor Stephen Strange was a brilliant but arrogant and self-centered neurosurgeon whose life revolved around his award-winning work. Strange suffered a car accident (his own fault) that dealt severe nerve damage to his hands, leaving him unable to continue his career. He became destitute through his obsessive efforts to find a cure; when he heard of a former paraplegic named Jonathan Pangborn who had learned to walk again, Strange sought him out and learned that the man had apparently been healed at a place named Kamar-Taj in Nepal. Strange spent his last dollar on a one way trip to Kathmandu, where he did indeed find Kamar-Taj and the Masters of the Mystic Arts, led by a woman known as the Ancient One. After Strange's skepticism (and just being a butt in general) nearly cost him the opportunity to study with the Ancient one, he did get accepted into Kamar-Taj, where he resided and worked at learning the aforementioned Mystic Arts. While the timeline of the film and the length of his studies at Kamar-Taj are unclear, this application assumes that he spent at least a year at Kamar-Taj in order to reach his current level of ability. He struggled initially, but after being forced into a breakthrough by the Ancient One he progressed rapidly and began pushing the limits of what he was expected (or even allowed) to learn, going so far as to tamper with temporal magic he found in a book from the Ancient One's private collection. Strange was also expected to learn to fight at this time; he sort of did, but not particularly well.

When he learned that the purpose of the Masters was to protect the world from mystical/dimensional threats, Strange initially refused to become involved…for about half a minute before he found himself defending the Sanctum Sanctorum of New York (one of three Sanctums designed to protect the Earth from malicious alternate dimensions) from an attack by one of the Ancient One's former students, Kaecilius, who intended to give the Earth over to the ruler of the Dark Dimension in exchange for eternal life. It was during this fight that an animate artifact known as the Cloak of Levitation selected Stephen as its new owner and came to his aid, which was fortunate for Stephen because he was getting his ass kicked. After Strange fended off the first attack on the New York Sanctum, he and fellow master Karl Mordo faced a repeat attack and Strange nearly got the both of them killed due to a major tactical error. The Ancient One came to their rescue but was mortally wounded in the process, later dying at the hospital where Strange had formerly worked.

With Mordo, Strange went forth to defend the final Sanctum in Hong Kong, only to find it already destroyed and a rift to the Dark Dimension opened in the sky above it. Using an artifact known as the Eye of Agamotto (actually the Infinity Stone of Time, not that Stephen knows anything about it), Strange reversed time to undo the attack on the Sanctum, including undoing a number of deaths of both fellow Masters and civilians. Kaecilius interrupted his spell before Stephen could completely restore the Sanctum. Hearing Kaecilius reference the fact that the Dark Dimension was beyond time, Strange abandoned the fight to enter said Dark Dimension and confront its eldritch ruler, Dormammu. Knowing that he could not hope to fight Dormammu, Stephen instead annoyed the entity into giving up his attack on Earth by trapping himself and Dormammu in an endless time loop until Dormammu would agree to bargain with him. Dormammu responded by killing Stephen repeatedly; it is likely that Strange experienced a violent death dozens or even hundreds of times while wearing down Dormammu's patience. Eventually Dormammu conceded in order to be set free and agreed to Strange's demands that he leave the Earth and take Kaecilius and his zealots with him.

With the Master of the New York Sanctum dead, Stephen agreed to take on the mantle in his place after returning the Eye of Agamotto to its proper place in Kamar-Taj. His canon point is immediately post-movie, so the further developments revealed in post-credits scenes are irrelevant to this application.


Inventory:
Non-magical equipment / Clothing that totally doesn't make him look like a cultist or anything:

• Blue long-sleeved undershirt
• Blue knee-length tabard
• Intense belt situation (Seems to be one big belt with several thinner belts attached)
• Blue trousers
• Boots covered in pointless straps (I'm operating under the assumption that they have hidden zippers, because it would take him at least an hour to put them on otherwise)
• An expensive watch with a smashed face (non-functional); an inscription on the reverse reads "Time will tell how much I love you - Christine"
• Slimline wallet with a driver's license and a couple of credit cards in his own name, plus a very small amount of cash in a mixture of American dollars and Nepalese rupees.

Magical items:

• Cloak of Levitation: an animate red cloak made of at least two layers of heavy, embroidered fabric that chose him as its owner and actively protects him. See "abilities" section; this item qualifies as a pet as per this discussion on the FAQ.
• Sling ring: designed to be worn on two fingers; allows the user to generate magical portals. Does not work in Norfinbury.
• [Pictured in links above but not included in his Snowblind inventory: an eye-shaped amulet known as the Eye of Agamotto]

Personality:
Until relatively recently, Stephen was a self-centered neurosurgeon whose work was his life. A combination of arrogance and fear of failure drove him to the top of his field, which offered him both the accolades he desired and a sense of control over his own life as well as the fates of his patients. As a surgeon, Stephen selected his patients based largely upon how much they might benefit his career, declining to operate on patients whose problems he deemed uninteresting and older patients who might "ruin his record" by dying on the table, and declining even to communicate with potential patients whose cases he considered "hopeless." That being said, Stephen took his Hippocratic oath seriously even if he did not invest himself emotionally in his patients as individuals. Stephen had also made for a poor boyfriend to his former significant other, Dr. Christine Palmer, due to his general narcissism. The two did, however, remain on friendly terms after the relationship officially ended (Stephen has a tendency to stick by the individuals he's chosen to trust), though Christine eventually cut off contact when Stephen became emotionally abusive in the downward spiral of financial and emotional self-destruction that followed his accident.

Stephen's time at Kamar-Taj taught him humility almost above all else, which is somewhat ironic considering the cosmic powers that came with the training. His sorcery education began with the Ancient One quite calmly and deliberately stripping away all of Stephen's assurance in his basic understanding of the universe. The greatest lesson the Ancient One imparted to Stephen, though, is that it's not about him. While that's a lesson with which Stephen continues to grapple, he has become more willing to put others first, to share credit when credit is due, and frankly to acknowledge that other people are also capable of competence, though he still tends to only allow himself to rely upon a few select people he has deemed trustworthy. He became willing, also, to admit his own wrongdoings and to offer a sincere apology to Christine without any accompanying expectation that they would resume their romantic relationship.

Stephen still strives for greatness; while his time at Kamar-Taj has given him a clearer picture of his place in the world, he has never stopped pushing himself to new heights. While he is innately gifted, Stephen is no stranger to the hard work that goes into reaching the top of one's field, and is singularly, stubbornly driven when it comes to increasing his own knowledge. He is a lifelong learner with an impressive memory that he puts to both impressive and not-so-impressive uses. His increased powers of retention allowed him to progress rapidly in his education first as a surgeon and then as a sorcerer, but they also allow him to pack his brain with esoteric musical trivia that he enjoys reciting whenever given the slightest excuse. In his former career he went so far as to play musical trivia games with his assistant while performing brain surgery, to no apparent detriment; he is, apparently, quite adept at multitasking.

Stephen has a dry but active sense of humor that he employs mainly for his own amusement. He favors sarcasm as well as deadpan deliveries of the more absurd truths he encounters. While he is capable of speaking seriously about important matters (and is definitely capable of man-tantrums at his lowest points), he generally prefers to downplay his fears. He can be sassy when the mood strikes, but he mostly says things he himself finds funny rather than making many keen observations about the people around him.

While Stephen does hold certain convictions to heart (namely his reluctance to use deadly force), he is flexible in his problem-solving and shows a marked readiness to break the rules (up to and including the laws of nature) if he perceives that good will come of it. Stephen is not a rule-breaker for its own sake, but will readily circumvent or simply ignore any rules that would prevent him from solving a problem or progressing in his own education. Because Stephen sees rules (even his own) only as guidelines to be constantly questioned, he is relatively forgiving of hypocrisy in others so long as the intent was good.

For all the humility he's managed to learn, Stephen remains largely unable to accept that there are problems he cannot solve. His distaste for killing, rather than making him a pacifist, drives him to find alternate solutions to problems that often fly in the face of the more direct strategies used by other sorcerers, martial artists, superheroes, and so on. Stephen prefers to contain or remove threats rather than fight them directly. This stems partly from a moral objection to killing, partly from a refusal to allow others on the sidelines to become casualties, and partly out of an ongoing need to prove to himself and others that he has a better way of doing things. Also, well, partly because Stephen is not particularly good at fighting (when forced into combat, he mainly shows off his mad skills at running away). Even when his creative problem-solving backfires spectacularly, as it did the second time he faced Kaecilius, Stephen is not deterred from trying to do things his own way again later.

Finally, Stephen is willing to put himself in harm's way to protect others. Despite his initial reluctance to become involved in the Masters' mystical war, Stephen was drawn into the fight the moment he saw a fellow member of his order fighting for his life and interjected himself into the situation despite being outnumbered and vastly outmatched. Stephen is not a man to stand by and allow another person to get hurt or killed when it is within his power to prevent it, even if that means that he must suffer immensely for his interference. Stephen has shown willingness to endure torture (even to invite it upon himself) for the sake of protecting the people of Earth; while his experiences in the Dark Dimension will certainly have scarred him, Stephen's taste of self sacrifice has also left him stronger than ever in his conviction to protect others.


Flavor Abilities:
Sorcery:
As noted in the inventory section, I propose that he should keep the Cloak of Levitation and that it should remain animate/actively magical on the grounds that it behaves like a living creature and therefore qualifies as a canon pet. At full power, the Cloak would be strong enough to lift Strange, giving him limited flight capabilities (also, enabling it to drag him about against his will), and sturdy enough to block attacks made with bladed weapons without being damaged itself. In Norfinbury, the Cloak will retain its ability to move and act, including the ability to fly through the air independently of Stephen, to hang in midair when not being worn, and to wrap around and roughly manipulate objects. It will not be capable of lifting Strange (or any other heavy object) and will be rendered about as sturdy as any quality garment made of heavy fabric, nullifying its usefulness as magical armor. It will also be unable to fly any higher than an average human can jump.

In canon, Stephen is able to tap into a variety of magic powers (some only with the use of magically imbued artifacts), including teleportation, travel to neighboring dimensions, astral projection, summoning shields and weapons made of energy from other dimensions, and altering the flow of time. Given that all of these abilities represent distinct survival advantages, he will not be able to use them in Norfinbury. If possible, I would like him to be able to come tantalizingly close to calling upon his sorcery, namely by generating sad, useless little sparks in the air when he tries to create a portal or pull energy from another dimension (the sparks would not be useful for generating heat or lighting fires, and he would have to work quite hard to do even that much).


Mundane abilities:
Strange is a quick learner with an eidetic memory (that is, while his memory is not perfect, he has significantly improved sensory recall compared to an average person). He is quick to grasp and to be able to implement complex concepts and instructions. He is also shown to have significant (but not inhuman) linguistic ability; during his time at Kamar-Taj he learned to read ancient Sanskrit well enough to understand an advanced magical text and perform a ritual described in its pages within minutes of first reading it.

Beyond that, Doctor Strange is also a passable martial artist. He's capable of physically defending himself, but without his magic he likely wouldn't hold up very well against more experienced fighters, and he cannot strike with his hands without causing himself a good deal of pain due to extensive previous damage.


Disability:
While this is obviously not an extra ability, it's important to note that Stephen Strange has limited use of his hands due to extensive nerve damage sustained in a car crash. He is capable of performing tasks necessary for day to day survival (he will be perfectly capable of operating doors, for instance, and of dressing himself), and he is able to type slowly but clearly when he makes the effort. However, he has poor individual control over his fingers and he experiences nearly constant tremors in both hands that worsen under duress; he will struggle with any tasks that require fine motor skills. He also experiences chronic pain that comes and goes at irregular intervals, which he will treat with meditation and/or any over-the-counter pain killers he manages to find.


Suitability:

While Stephen has grown as a person and become more willing and able to set his ego (...and personal safety) aside for the common good, he will have a hard time coping with the loss of his powers. When he lost the use of his hands he obsessed over finding a cure to the point of financially ruining himself and destroying what few positive relationships he had because his life lacked meaning without his work. This time around he'll handle the loss of his abilities better due to his increased emotional maturity, but he'll have to convince himself that he'll eventually be able to get his powers back in order to be able keep moving forward.

Stephen is a problem-solver, and I expect him to actively work with others to find answers and help move the ongoing explorations forward. Being transported to an alternate universe and encountering people he considers fictional (not to mention a face twin in Sherlock) is something Stephen will actually take more or less in stride at this point in his life. While he will be curious about the town and its inhabitants and won't exactly be happy about the cold and the monsters anomalies, the core issue of finding himself in another world will not phase him as badly as it does many characters.


RP Samples:

I may have gone a little overboard. Please note that typos in Stephen's text-based communications are intentional.