"Tip #137: Always remember to bring a change of clothes in a waterproof bag whenever you pathfind to a new location! Gates are finnicky and love to dump you into lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, or just the straight up ocean. Doesn't sound so bad in a tropical location, but trust me, you'll learn to follow this tip fast when you get tossed into a freezing lake in the dead of winter."
- Simon Brookside, 'A Guide To Wayfinding'

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Simon isn't quite sure where he came from or when. He can't recall any family or friends, only vague notions of growin up in the small mountain town who's state park he woke up in one day, to a quiet world shrouded in fog and mist, seemingly devoid of any other human life. All he had was a bookback with a phone, a mask, and a notebook. Well, those and some kind of entity watching over him, communicating often cryptic but vital pieces of information through abandoned but functional screens and electric signs, guiding him to... some end goal.

It's been a long road since then, but he'd come a long way in the meantime. Simon has taken to calling himself a Wayfinder, due to the task supposed given to him of exploring various gateways into what seem to be alternate earths, dimensions sometimes alien, sometimes nearly identical to the one he found himself in, all of which were either at the final stages, or near the very start of a great apocalypse. Though he isn't sure exactly what he's doing, or even why, he's interpreted the strange words of whatever is guiding him to bring denizens of those world to his, to a small town that had evolved into something of a hub for him and his growing 'crew' of allies.

With a strange but protective eldritch shadow beast he calls Rains by his side, disquised as a scarf, and his quirky, equally odd witchcat buddy Jacklynn acting as the catalyst for his newfound tech-magic abilities, he's gotten quite good at his self-appointed job. His endlessly friendly nature, open mind, and somewhat niave, yet unshakably positive outlook, he's become, mostly by accident, the main factor binding his friends and compatriots together. Every gate opened and explored, every new outsider brought to his home and saved from possible annihilation, is one step closer to answering the questions of what happened to his own world, and of who, or what, Simon even is...

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Well well, a human ref! Crazy right? Well this lad is actually an ancient character of mine that I finally caved and obtained a good ref of. There's a good chance you'll be seeing more of him in the future, as well as his two closest buddies. Hell, you're seeing one of em right now, draped around his neck~

Art for this ref courtest of: https://twitter.com/vialarked
Simon belongeth to meeee~

Fun Fact: The world Simon lives in is heavily inspired by the artwork of Simon Stalenhag. 80's-90's retro-tech sci-fi is saddly a very underexplored concept, and he is one of the best artists around for that very specific style and brand of sci-fi. I highly reccommend his work, especially his artbook "Electric State" ^^