Duke Thomas

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Duke Thomas (Scenesys ID: 3849)
Profile
Name: Duke Thomas
Superalias: Signal
Gender: Male
Species: Metahuman
Occupation: Gotham Academy Student
Citizenship: U.S. Citizen
Residence: Gotham
Education: Gotham Academy
Theme: DC (FC)
Groups: Gothamites, Street Level, Bat Family
Details
Apparent Age: 15 Actual Age: 15
Date of Birth 02 FEB 2007 Played By Jacob Artist
Height: 5'10" Weight: 170 lb
Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Brown
Twitter:
Theme Song: Day 'N' Night - Kid Cudi


Character Info

Profile

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Duke is yet another hard-luck case, ward of the Wayne family. He's an exceptionally gifted student at Gotham Academy, excelling equally in academics and athletics. As a ward of Bruce Wayne and a resident of Wayne Manor, he travels under heavy security as one might expect.

This helpless facade is a cover, of course. He is secretly the costumed vigilante Signal, and more than capable of defending himself.

Timeline

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Timeline:
* 2006: Elaine flees from Gnomon, the metahuman father of her child to Gotham City and takes up a job as a social worker. She meets and eventually marries a loving construction worker, Doug Thomas.

* 2007: Duke Thomas is born.

* 2007 - 2018: Duke lives a pretty uneventful childhood, spending his days in school, studying brain teasers and puzzles, as a hobby. He also follows the adventures of the Batman as any child in Gotham would. He studied martial arts under various instructors, and excels at academics and athletics.

* 2019: Duke's metahuman powers begin to manifest in unpredictable ways. Afraid but wanting to understand his abilities, Duke begins to catalog all of the things he can do.

* 2021: While Batman was away in Manhattan during the events of Path of Glory, the We Are Robin movement arose in Gotham. Local teenagers took to gathering in groups wearing the Robin 'R' and fighting for their city. Duke was among the leaders of the movement and he fought honorably and fearlessly.

* 2021: The Joker rounds up a group of We Are Robin teens and starts killing them. In the roundup, not only is Duke taken but so are his parents. Batman intervenes but is unable to save Duke's parents.

* 2021: Having previously correctly deduced what he thought was the secret identity of Batman, he confirmed it during the rescue by confronting the Dark Knight.

* 2021: Bruce takes Duke into his home as his ward and begins to train him. Duke takes on the code name 'Signal'.

IC Journal

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{{{ICJournal}}}

Personality

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For the Culture:
One of the most important aspects of Duke is his love for and appreciation of his culture. He knows who he is, where he comes from, and what that means. He embraces it and uses it to fuel himself in almost everything he does. This is what allows him to not let others define him or his terms but to further his own. He is proud of heritage and makes sure to show it in everything he does.

Honor & Integrity:
Truth, Justice, & the American Way may be a line from a comic book, but for Duke they are watchwords. Success absent truth is failure. Victory absent justice is defeat. Honor and integrity are everything, and the journey is AT LEAST as important as the destination. The ends do not ever justify the means. Are these stark, black-and-white beliefs? Of course they are, but Duke is young and idealistic. He's faced some difficult challenges but the world and the universe have not yet beat him down.

Swagger:
Duke has a bit of a charming swagger to him that just comes naturally. He finds a way of being charming be it through humor or just being himself. He's a very spirited person with a strong set of core beliefs that he leans on to be successful in whatever endeavors he may be working on. People find themselves attracted to that kind of comfort in one's own skin.

Will To Act:
Often a situation balances on the edge of a razor, and the decisions one makes in the most early moments echo up to determine success or failure. Duke has trained with the Batman himself and he understands that sometimes the will to act overcomes many obstacles that might otherwise lead to defeat. He isn't reckless but he is daring and undaunted and heroically bold. Failure is not something that parses in Duke's brain. There is only continued iterative improvements until success is reached.

Character Sheet

Powers

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Immortality?:
Duke's biological father, Gnomon is immortal and thousands of years old. He claims that his son, Duke, possesses the same quality. Absent an unnatural death, time will tell just how long Duke will live. Perhaps it will be a normal human lifespan or perhaps he will live until the Very End.

Photokineses:
Duke has the ability manipulate and interact with light in some potent ways. His photokinetic powers include:

* Ghost Vision: He can interact with light a few minutes into the past or a few minutes into the future, allowing him to glimpse brief scenes of something that occurred in a location a few minutes prior or something that will occur in a location a few minutes into the future.

* Cosmic Perception: He can perceive the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum and can even see beyond the known electromagnetic spectrum. He's able to perceive light originating from across dimensional boundaries into the history of a previous universe.

* X-Ray Vision: Duke can see through most opaque materials.

* Telescopic Vision: Duke's vision can literally follow rays of light so that he can see things at vast distances, including over the horizon, or things traveling at great speeds, including light-like speeds.

* Microscopic Vision: Duke can focus his vision to see extremely tiny things, down to the subdermal level.

* Invisibility: He can bend light to render himself or others hard to see. It's not a true invisibility, but more of a hide-in-plain-sight camouflage.

Power Amplification:
Due to the high concentration of Nth metal in Duke's bloodstream, when metahumans (METAHUMANS ONLY) are in his presence their powers will begin to increase. The amount of power increase metahumans receive depend on their proximity to Duke and how much time they are in his presence. In any case, the power increase will be significant but not absurd. For example, if a metahuman had the power to grow in size, if they were standing next to Duke they may be able to grow 25 percent larger and stronger.

Rapid Self-Healing:
Perhaps supporting Gnomon's claim of his son' immortality, Duke is capable of dramatic, rapid self-healing. Unless an injury actually kills Duke outright, he will eventually heal from it. In battle, this makes him extraordinarily difficult to defeat because once inflicted on him, battle wounds begin to immediately and rapidly heal.

Skills

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Acrobatics:
As part of his combat and tactical training, Duke practices acrobatics on a regular basis. He is capable of Olympic-level dives, flips, mid-air twist, etc. He can also move through his environment with ease using Parkour-level leaps and flips and dives.

Genius-Level Intellect:
Duke has a profoundly high intelligence. He also spends enormous amounts of time studying the philosophies behind codes and puzzles and riddles. This initially started as a way to directly counter the influences of the Riddler, but it grew as his love of mysteries and conundrums grew.

Melee Combat Expert:
Having trained under several martial arts instructors, including Batman himself, Duke has become a potent hand-to-hand melee combatant. Although he has learned to competently employ a variety of weapons, he is especially skilled at unarmed combat, escrima, and stick/staff fighting.

It should be noted that because of Duke's Ghost Vision, his fighting has a precognitive element to it. He knows where you're going to strike before you do!

Polymath:
Under Batman's tutelage and enhanced by his high intelligence and devotion to study, Duke is rapidly improving in several fields including detective work, deductive and inductive reasoning, escapology, psychology, biology, chemistry, criminal science, mathemetics, physics, etc. He has a long way to go to become an expert in any of these fields, but he has a headstart that very, very few kids this age have access to.

Writing & Poetry:
Duke loves to write! Although his exposition in general is strong, he particularly enjoys to write creatively, especially poetry. For some reason he is a bit embarrassed by this and only those who become personally very close and trusted would learn of this or get the opportunity to read his work, which is quite remarkable.

Resources

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Modified Escrima Sticks:
Duke's favorite weapons are a pair of modified escrima sticks. He can attach them together with a monofilament line that extends from the ends to make a pair of nunchaku. They are equipped with reinforced, spring-loaded blades that can be used as grappling hooks, for climbing, and even as weapons (although Duke profoundly dislikes using the blades as weapons). The monofilament lines can extend quite far from the sticks to use for swinging and entangling.

Motorcyle:
This is a yellow version of Batman's Batcycle. It can tie in with the Signal Armor to change color for a nearly invisible camouflage effect.

Signal Armor:
Bruce had a special suit of armor constructed for Duke. It has a reflective Bat insignia that can be used to blind or bedazzle opponents. It can change colors to match the environment, effectively rendering Duke invisible. It also has a built-in electric defense system that can delivery a military-grade tazer shock. The shock is also automatically delivered if the suit is manipulated (for example, someone tries to take it off) while Duke is unconscious, bound, or otherwise incapacitated. Members of the Bat family know how to deactivate this in case they have to move him while he's incapacitated.

The Wayne Family:
As a ward of Bruce Wayne, Duke has access to the wealth, privileges, and prestige involved with being a Wayne.

Weaknesses

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Code Against Killing:
Duke has a profound respect for the Batman. As such, he takes Batman's code against killing and code against firearms very seriously. Out of respect for Batman, he will not use firearms even for target shooting or other sport activities. Likewise, in only the most extreme circumstances would he take the life of a sapient being.

Extreme Code of Honor:
Duke is an old-world-style hero. He believes in truth, honor, honesty, and giving every task every thing you have to give. He is extremely hard-pressed to lie, to cheat, to deceive, or to act dishonorably. Giving up is unknown to him.

The Wayne Family:
Being a ward of Bruce Wayne is a two-edged sword. As the adopted ward of one of the Earth's most famous billionaires, Duke must endure the presence of constant security. While not in his guise as Signal, he must give the impression of being a vulnerable teenager. This means bodyguards and security monitoring and controlled movements.

Role-Play

Logs

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Duke Thomas has 3 finished logs.

Title Date Scene Summary
Beneath These Dark Crowded Streets April 2nd, 2023 No description
Science (And CRIME!) Run Amok! February 26th, 2022 One of Gotham's premiere shady R&D companies is attacked by mercenaries... boy did they pick a bad time to do it! And now the lab's shady doings are destined to come out of the shadows. Dun dun dunnnnn!!
This Thing Rocks At Homework February 25th, 2022 Duke runs into Stephanie doing homework with help from the Batcomputer.

Cutscenes

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Duke Thomas has 3 finished logs.

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Entertainment Credits

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Duke Thomas has been credited in 0 shows.

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Duke Thomas has been credited in 0 albums.

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Gallery

Duke Thomas/gallery [ edit ]