The world was in pieces, ripped apart by our own careless hands. The wonders of the world gon in the blink of an eye, rubble beneath the electric mushroom clouds and the most powerful of spells. As I watched from up high, the refuge of a long-lost enemy of mine, a floating castle upon fake white clouds, I stood conflicted. For it was I who had first invented such weapons of mass destruction oh so long ago. So am I partially to blame for this madness? Or am I exempt from the most terrible of crimes that tore our world apart?
And yet what has been done has passed, and nothing can be done to fix it. Almost nothing, but I am not willing to go through such lengths, and retrieving the tool for doing so is all but impossible as well. So I must be content with watching. As my island drifted, I found a group of survivors, a hundred strong, huddled in a cave, praying for the gods to save them, but they would not come. They have abandoned this world, a punishment for our crime. And so, I decided to step in.
They asked who I was. I did not respond. They remained huddled together in groups in the large courtyard, wide-eyed stares as I piloted the island away, as the original refuge crumbled beneath the eternal arcane storm. They offered me material possessions, what gold they had left, and praised me as their savior. As I picked upmore survivors here and there, it became evident what little space and sustenance I had for them. So I conjured a demipane to house them, ever expanding and with infinite food and drink when coupled with a more powerful spell, making it permanent as well. Soon, the demiplane mansion housed over a thousand poor souls. Somewhere in there, I was dubbed Anora, and they began worshipping me as their god. The one that stayed, the one that preserved.
Anora was somewhat reminiscent of my original name, so I suppose that is where it came from. But Anora is who they prayed to, so it is who I became. I, Anora, the Last God, the one who preserved, saved more and more people from the end times. Soon, I had saved over two-hundred thousand people of all sorts of races. Humans, elves, dwarves, halfings, gnomes, dragonborn, half-demons, and 2 half celestials. With the power granted to me by worship, divine power was at my fingertips. The half-celestials, twins they were, became my “children,” demigods representing darkness (Morgana) and light (Melena) to split the theological holes left empty.
The people grew restless. They were savedm yes, but bound to the demiplane. Sp, with the godly powers I could muster, I pulled together pieces of rock that floated about the endless magical storm that was our world. With some wards, I soon had a safe plot of land. From that, I expanded. Bits and biomes, dirt and rock. A world flew together, created solely by my hand, designed in my vision. It’s funny, the one who could be at fault for destroying this world was the main instrument in rebuilding it.
Some of the old pieces I found were still intact. For one, a statue of an elven woman, a crown of white flowers upon her brow, eternally enchanted to stay in perfect condition. I placed her south of a large lake near the center of my land, surrounded by more blooms. A massive Song Tree of old I put west of the statue, and around it grew the Wyldwood, a forest full of wild creatures recreated, for there were none left. Melena and Morgana were left to handle the finer details of creatures and terrain as I shaped the rest of the world. Lastly, I brought the testament of my most horrible work: a mountain shattered under the power of the first of those terrible weapons ever tested, despite its good purpose. Around and on it grew wild greenery, the opposite of what the land once had been, a desolate waste mired in eternal darkness and despair. I called the blade that had borne the burden of destroying the darkness, finding it still intact. I placed it at the foot of the old statue, both of whom had taken that darkness in and destroyed it.
After several weeks, my world was finally complete. The first few people tentatively put their feet on real earth for the first time in months. As more and more followed, bewildered and curious, they approached me, offering thanksand prayers. Over the course of the next year, I helped them rebuild society, albeit a lot less technologically savvy. I did not trust the now old ways any longer, for they only brought death and destruction. After the year was up, I left them to live on the mountain nearby, bidding them send an emissary once every year on the anniversary of this world’s birth. A city named Theopolis grew around the mountain, which they called Godhome. And this world became known as Anora’s Refuge.
– The Testimony of the Last God