Rennard Rush

Rennard Rush is one of the main protagonists in Synodic Reboot. He is a very tired individual, with his interests described as "kind of a jumble" due to his recurring nightmares which prompt him to stay up for as long as possible. He wears a button-up shirt and necktie with a pair of black pants.

He was the third adlet introduced, and has yet to enter the Medium.

Background
As a Sverb player, he has most likely originally arrived on Nobriel via meteor, but the exact circumstances of his arrival are currently unknown. He grew up in the same neighborhood as his friends Zariyah and Kristan, visiting with them somewhat regularly.

At some point before the comic began, his boyfriend executorTaciturn and his friend Alethea had awakened on Prospit, being able to hang out as their dreamselves and receive prophetic visions of the future. Wanting to join them there, Rennard eventually awoke his own dreamself - however, he found himself on Derse instead, a much scarier, more isolated location in his eyes.

Fearing the whispers of the Horrorterrors above, and what could be waiting for him on the planet below his elevated dream room, Rennard perceived this as him somehow "messing up" the awakening process, always resenting it and viewing it as being a recurring nightmare. His resentment of Derse has only intensified after ET made some sort of discovery on Prospit that set him into a depressive state and likely lost the ability to dream there, making Rennard feel like he missed his chance to properly help him through that and viewing his presence on Derse as a pointless mockery.

He has ended up devolving into a frustrated, exhausted mess as he does everything in his power to keep himself awake on Nobriel to avoid going there.

Sverb
Initially clueless of the true nature of Sverb and originally intending to try it on his own before joining up with his friends, he left his client running unattended after failing to start it, to which Kristan would soon connect as his server player by chance, unbeknownst to him. Shortly after this, Rennard finally decides to go to sleep after encouragement to do so from Alethea, predictably finding himself in Derse. After some brief wandering around in his dream room, he ends up falling out of the nonexistent closet, resulting in him leaving the room for the first time and discovering his ability to fly as his dreamself. Anxious to fly back up closer to the horrorterrors above, he decides to finally explore the world of Derse for the first time.

Staying off of ground level due to anxiety not knowing what the entities that live here are like, he flies into what seems to be a business building, reading articles documenting the dream counterparts of several friends in a conference room, noting that they seem pretty accurate from what he knows. It's here that he also manifests an extra pair of arms, which he then uses regularly as his dreamself. While taking an elevator down, the Exasperated Scribe boards and encounters him on the way down. After a very awkward social exchange, the Scribe reveals that Rennard is trespassing and promptly arrests him.

After being moved to a prison cell, Rennard gets bored enough to make an attempt to escape. He first trades with the Guard for a fountain pen, using it to draw various doors and holes on the walls, attempting to use "dream logic" to no success. Before the Guard actually leaves, Rennard asks him for the walkie talkie. The Guard decides to give it to him, expressing annoyance for the person on the other end. Of course, the Profiteer immediately contacts him, going directly into deranged rambles about concepts that vaguely resemble a stock market in some form or another, which Rennard uses the pen to try keeping track of on the wall. While this goes on, Rennard just starts aimlessly adding tallymarks to the walls, feeling like he's been in here for a ridiculously long time, but ends up being startled out of his thoughts by the door loudly falling to the ground, noticing suddenly that the entire cell is in an extremely deteriorated state. He wastes no time in leaving and getting his items back, before a strange signal emits from the walkie talkie's static, seemingly related to the horrorterrors. Rennard is initially terrified by this, but the static seems to put him into a trance, causing his dreamself and waking self to move in sync as he retrieves his "EXIT" journal on Nobriel and begins writing down what seems to be an aimless list of the letters E, X, I, and T, while the whispers comment that "his time to prepare is running short" and that he "must complete the program before its origin."

Some time after this, he finds himself outside of the prison and encounters the Exasperated Scribe once again. The Scribe reluctantly gives up on arresting Rennard, actually not caring all that much, personally. He enlists Rennard's help in routine inspections of the other dreamers, for documentation purposes, likely due to his ability to just fly up to the towers. He briefly considers waking Xzavier, but decides to wake Zariyah instead, feeling like her paranormal obsession would come in handy here, and that he's just slightly more willing to deal with her than with Xzavier's brash nature.

After waking Zariyah with the walkie talkie's ambient static that put him into a trance before, Rennard stands aside as Zariyah learns where she is and begins to excitedly explore her dream room. She notices Rennard's extra set of arms and begins playing around with shapeshifting herself, quickly overbearing Rennard with the horrifying changes in form, chasing him down to the street where she is introduced to the Scribe for the first time. Unfortunately, the Scribe is very displeased with Rennard opting to wake her up without consulting him first, but he begrudgingly allows her to tag along anyway. The two adlets then fly up to check on Kristan's dreamself, noting the strange energy around him keeping him in a deeper sleep. It's here that Zariyah's overbearing attitude makes Rennard snap at her for being dismissive of his feelings on the matter. Following an awkward silence, the two more calmly talk things through; Rennard explaining his reasons for feeling the way he does about Derse and Zariyah apologizing for being overbearing.

Now on better terms again, the two are interrupted by an earthquake-like event and the Scribe calling them back down to the street. Once they head down, the Scribe points towards a figure leaving the area as it carves the street, only able to liken it to the myth of The Rejected. After consulting Rennard on what he'd like to do, Zariyah decides to try tracking it down after it got out of sight, manifesting two tailmaws to "sniff out" the Rejected.

While Rennard sleeps, Kristan set about placing the Sverb machines inside his house, and Cheral later finds his way into his house to rest after he fell to Nobriel from Girin-2, only letting himself in due to the meteors falling outside and being in desperate need of a rest after climbing a ways up the mountain, politely leaving a note for him before using his shower to clean up.

Personality and Traits
Due to his physical exhaustion, Rennard is often rather irritable and impatient and is prone to typing errors. He doesn't seem to have many lasting interests, instead opting to briefly touch upon various activities before giving up on them out of frustration, mostly seeming concerned with finding ways to keep himself awake than anything. Past activities have included coding and a current "planned interest" is in tabletop gaming.

Creative writing seems to be one of his consistent interests, though he tends to keep quiet about it, musing upon the possibility of using tabletop games to "bridge the gap" to open up to his friends about his writing.

He also enjoys drinking coffee and soda, as shown by the cans scattered about and the coffee machine present in his room. However he has pointed out that sometimes he drinks so much coffee he builds up a "temporary resistance" to it, to the point he feels drinking too much in one day makes him even more tired than he would otherwise be.

Part of Rennard's irritability comes from feeling himself to be bad at coping with or handling things, leading to an unpleasant feedback loop of sorts. He aspires to be able to just "go with things" more than he does, but has a hard time doing so.

Abilities
As a player of Sverb, it can be assumed that he has some sort of ability relating to his title as the Foe of Time, but as of yet said power is a mystery.

He has an awakened dreamself on Derse, which can fly and shapeshift, which he has used to have four arms.

executorTaciturn
ET is Rennard's boyfriend. Rennard worries about his wellbeing very often, and a huge degree of his frustration with dreaming on Derse is because he wishes he was able to be with him on Prospit instead, and feels like being there prevented him from helping ET with whatever happened there to put him in the depressive state he's in now. Rennard notes that current sleeping issues makes it hard for him and ET to talk.

Zariyah Gunn
Rennard and Zariyah are good friends, but due to Zariyah's fascination with anything that may be paranormal, there tends to be a fair amount of tension between them as Zariyah sometimes pushes the sore subject of Rennard's nightmares without seeming to get the hint to stop. It takes her a while to even notice when she's going too far, but she does try to ease up when she notices.

Alethea Luke
Rennard and Alethea are close friends, with Alethea being concerned for Rennard's wellbeing, trying to comfort and encourage him to give himself the sleep he needs and gradually help overcome his nightmares. Rennard is the one outsider that she and ET kept in the loop regarding their dreams on Prospit, until the change with ET.

Exasperated Scribe
Rennard has briefly spoken to the Exasperated Scribe while on an elevator, but the scribe clearly had no interest with discussing things with him, soon proceeding to arrest him for trespassing in the building. Later, the two encounter each other again, with the Scribe seemingly giving up on arresting Rennard as he helps out with inspection with the unawakened dreamers. He is very unimpressed by his decision to wake Zariyah without consulting him, but he tolerates the decision.

Kristan Gunn
Rennard and Kristan are good friends, with Kristan being understanding and sensitive of Rennard's nightmare issue. Rennard greatly appreciates that, much preferring his approach to Zariyah's recklessly fascinated mannerisms.

Cheral Cassyz
While not knowing Cheral, he has found his way into Rennard's house for shelter against the falling meteors as well as a resting spot while trying to climb the mountain to get back to Girin-2, which he fell down to Nobriel from. Though Rennard has been asleep for the duration of his visit so far, Cheral has left a polite note for him before using his shower to clean off.

evaluatedEntablature
It can be assumed that Rennard and evaluatedEntablature are at least acquaintances as they have had one brief conversation starting with Rennard impulsively trying to make some weird pun. However, EE has little patience for Rennard's exhausted nonsense and asked him to contact her later instead, when he was less tired. EE is shown to worry about Rennard's mental state on some level, evident by her conversation with a barely-legible Cheral while under the impression that she was still speaking to Rennard.

Xzavier Rexx
Rennard and Xzavier have yet to be seen interacting in the comic, but it can be assumed that they're on relatively decent terms, as Rennard said he had to deliberate on waking him or Zariyah, unsure if he'd rather deal with Zariyah's paranormal obsession or Xzavier's abrasiveness. He did ultimately wake Zariyah instead of him, but the fact he considered it hints that he's mostly fine with him.

twinjetXanthic
It can also be assumed that Rennard at least knows TJ as an online friend, as he seemed to recognize her picture on Derse while not being entirely sure.

Trivia

 * Rennard has individual sprites for facing left and right, so the yellow spot on his eye does not flip sides when he turns.
 * His appearance was slightly retconned at one point in the comic's production, with his sprite being updated in existing panels to increase the quality of art and to give him a more simplified color scheme. Unlike the other redesigned characters, Rennard's hair has remained the same between iterations.