So like a Gnomon is basically the stick in a clock, or a giant beam of the sun. It shows the time in hours and a lil in minutes and it moves along with the sun. Or it's a hole in the ceiling of a dark room and the light from the sun [& probs a full moon] travels across the room. They're all basically the central & necessary piece of a Sundial.
[And yeah they also exist in geometry but I just found that out as I was writing this post so we just gonna ignore that for now.]
Sundials themselves can be found all over the world, but the ones I'm thinking about are the ones from the Eurasian & African continents.
Gnomon isn't really human, in cannon he's meant to be a really powerful metahuman. But considering the Metas are all descendants of dumbasses who got to close to a fresh space rock I feel like I can take some liberties.
So my headcannon for Gnomon is that his powers come from a combination of a meta-gene and magic/belief.
Background info set lets move on!
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So you're this kid, over a millennia of years ago, right round when the first Sundial was being made.
You really like this thing it's literally so cool, you wanna study it, you're trying to study it [Mathematician in the making]. Every time you look at you get this weird feeling behind your eyes, this push in your soul, and you feel like there's something way more to this newfangled invention than anyone else sees. So you start hanging around it more.
Your friends/classmates start noticing your increased interest & decide to help you out, cause that's what buddies are for!
You all get pretty far in your research and end up building this really giant sundial and everything, using some not so non-mystical techniques to do so. The whole university and surrounding town comes to check the thing out.
But it's not quite right something's missing, it's been bugging you the months leading up to the showing of the sundial. You just have this innate feeling that it isn't complete.
And as you're presenting you & your friends' life's work, the gnomon breaks. It could have been an accident it could have been a set up from one of your rivals.
So without thinking in a desperate attempt to save all that time spent you move and stand right where the gnomon is supposed to be.
And it feels right, like your entire life was leading up to this moment. The sun light falls on you just right & the shadow you cast is not the one you've always seen, but it feels even more your own.
You keep presenting and nobody can look away, nobody can stop watching you as time goes by and your shadow & the sun work together to tell the time perfectly.
As the showing ends people are slow to leave, and when they finally do and it's just you and your friends they move around the sundial so as to not get in the way of your shadow. They speak to you with awe and reverence and they can't get enough of what you've done. It does absolute wonders for your ego.
You eventually step off the dial when the sun is fully set, reluctantly. You know if it where a full moon tonight you'd stay there.
That day onward you make a habit of being the gnomon for the sundial. Doing all your necessary work from your position, some how not losing your friends to this odd habit.
Around the second month a storm roles in and the clouds block the sun for days. Logically you know it's not gonna work, but since when have your instincts been illogical and wrong.
So you stand where you've always stood and a shadow is cast so strong it seems like it should be clear skies right then, produced by a light nobody but you can see the source of.
And things change from then on, you change.
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So that's how Gnomon gets his powers for me!
Not long after people kinda start holding him in reverence/worshiping him when he doesn't seem to die/age right and call him The Gnomon or just Gnomon.
His metahuman traits start to blossom under this worship, expanding in how gods/deities/mystical beings will have a bunch of facets to them.
This is all egged on by a sort of Tulpa/Egregore situation, where enough people believe that it's true to it becomes true.
★List of Domains:★
★ Gnomons & Sundials: Of course
★ Time: Literally a living clock
★ Light & Shadows: Only logical
★ The Sun: It's movements across the sky, the eclipse is a weird time that I haven't thought up yet so give me a minute
★ Community: cause he was one of the main guys at the university and people tended to literally gather around him just for the hell of it
★ Geometry & Mathematics: Nerd
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Turning this to Duke himself now.
Because Duke is not Gnomon, but ya know still his son, he's got like the base of the powers, [the math stuff it purely just Gnomon being a nerd though].
He's mostly developed his powers to assist in every day life as a vigilante/the dangers of being a gothamite meta. Using a combination of the light and time domains to see into the future for warnings. Shadows solidify into weapons, and mold to Duke's wants and needs in a fight [like when he wrapped that one guy in shadow in the Outsiders]. Light made bright and blaring for stunning people but also as just an extension of his emotions.
The domain of Community coming through as his enhancement powers, cause Duke is genuinely a caring person and likes to help people, so he actively has to think of not supporting his enemies with powers.
He's basically a demigod[...i'm thinking of so many crossover ideas right now]
any way! That's Gnomon & Duke, their powers and how/why they came to be and work the way they do!
