Duke

> "I'm Duke. Fellow bad kid."
>
> - Duke presenting himself to Lenore

Duke is a Nevermore student as well as Lenore's closest friend in Nevermore. On the merit board he stands second-to-last, right ahead of Lenore (although with a giant point difference). He's generally a pretty laid-back person that likes to bend and ignore the rules. He also knows some magic tricks and is very skillful in lockpicking. Duke is Montresor's roommate.

## Appearance

Duke is a dark skinned man with dark curly hair and early stages of a moustache. He wears the Nevermore uniform formed of a white dress shirt, an open black overcoat, a black bow tie, black suspenders, dark gray pants and black shoes.

## Personality

Duke has a very performative personality, likely due to the fact he used to be a performer. He has a habit of teasing his friends and taunting those on Annabel Lee's side. Despite his constant jabbing, he does care about his friends, seen by how he is a constant form of support for Lenore and even attempted to cheer up Morella by showing her a coin trick.

Despite his feelings towards his friends, and how he's often a very determined, self-assured, and confident person, he seems to not care for himself as much as he does others. When in Dreamland with Lenore, rather then attempting to fight for his life or come up with solutions to his problem, he accepts his fate surprisingly quickly. Duke's biggest regret during what he believes to be his last moments with Lenore, in Dreamland, are that he won't be there to take care of her and be there for her the way she's been for him and the others.

While in Dreamland, Duke is dismissive of speaking about how he was placed in the wall, instead attempting to distract from the subject entirely, preferring to have fun causing mischief with Lenore for the last time. He wants his last moments with her to be enjoyable, and doesn't want to dwell on such topics, because he knows Lenore will blame herself for it.

## History

Not a lot is known about Duke's life, but thanks to the items he has on him and inside his suitcase we can confirm that, in life, he was a magician that lived after 1912. During this time, he was known as "Fortunato", a magician specialized in escape tricks.

Duke drowned in a failed escape attempt from a locked glass box filled with water during one of his escape magic tricks. It is implied that his business partner sabotaged his escape attempt for the purpose of murdering him.

## Spectre

Duke's spectre is a Poltergeist which is a Harlequin type and is considered Neutral. Duke manifested after he heard Pluto say "it's all apart of the trick," which lead to Duke remembering how he died; he drowned in a failed underwater escape trick, where the audience watched him drown, cheering him on while he knew he could do nothing to save him.

Duke's Poltergeist is a large jester-like man who has deep saturated skin with black lipstick, jester makeup and glowing teal 4 sided star in his pupils with black scleras. Half of his outfit's pants is purple and black in a striped pattern while the other side is blue and black with a diamond pattern. Duke wears a harlequin hat with three points, two of which are purple and black with a checkered pattern, and only one is blue and black with the same pattern. At the ends of each point is a bell. Duke wears black gloves that reach his elbow and his palms glow teal. He wears a half-purple, half-blue striped shirt that's open in the front. From the open spot is six points that stick out with bells on the end of each. Under his shirt is a black and white striped shirt that reaches his elbow on his arms. Lastly, Duke has a cape that goes from purple to blue to dissolving into blue diamonds on the inside and on the backside is black with metal buckles keeping it together. The cape is tied to his shoulders and neck and he wears a black bowtie with a padlock in the middle of it.

**Abilities**

**Levitation:** Levitation is an ability that allows a Poltergeist to fly and to make other objects float around and move them like they are using telekinesis.

**Invisibility:** When Duke wraps himself in his cape, he is able to turn invisible. It is unclear if he can go invisible with someone else if he wraps his cape around them.

**Hypnosis:** Poltergeist have the power to hypnotize to do anything they want. This is shown in episode 86, when Duke is able to hypnotize Ada into making Monstresor see what he fears the most.

## Trivia

* Duke is based off two Edgar Allan Poe short stories: *The Duc De L'Omlette* and *The Cask of Amontillado*, where he is based off of the character Fortunato, a name shared with his stage name. In the Cask of Amontillado, Fortunato dies by being bricked into a wall, which was what almost happened to Duke.
* Although Duke is second-to-last in the amount of merits he has, he is still very far away from being last, due to Lenore having way more that ten times his amount of demerits.

## Gallery

Duke's first background appearanceDuke's first proper appearanceDuke's talking about his deathDuke's coinDuke's stage persona: FortunatoDuke's Spectre, a Poltergeist.
## References

1. ↑ https://poemuseum.org/the-duke-de-lomelette/
2. ↑ https://poemuseum.org/the-cask-of-amontillado/