The Creation

The Void Welcomes you. The Astral is an island floating in a pocket dimension within the Void, a brimming reality of life and misery. The land is created from land stolen from broken and shattered timelines, pieced together like mismatched puzzle pieces and forced to persist existence within a bubble that no one can escape from.

Creatures are stolen from their homes and forced into this dimension, trapped in a pursuit of escape or death, and as generations passed, people have begun to accept their new lives here, building civilizations, going through wars and finally residing at where it stands in current time - an island falling apart, kept together by the desire of a barely sentient Dimension - a newborn God, envy of creation.

The Beginning
Brimming of death, a creature was born, sleepy and drowsy in the midst of a hollow dimension. In its heart sat nothing - lifeless with only swimming serpents and leviathans, wedging their ways through the emptiness of the void, and thriving off the energy their heart pumped out into the dimension they were born of. A newly born God - with no shape, no identity, name or purpose.

It resided between dimensions and timelines, an ever present, thin line of desolation. Those that entered it died from the nothingness of the Void it had been born in, or succumbed to the leviathans and creatures that were born here - the same way the New God had been forced into existence. The only thing that moved past were Void Walkers, creatures that were immune to the nothingness, for they were created of nothingness. And the sight of one fading in from a dimension, to wander through the abyss and draw power from the Newborn, gave it their first emotion.

Curiosity.

Peering through the brittle veil between dimensions, it saw beautiful things. It saw life, creation, worlds that were far more beautiful than theirs. It saw people, creatures, interacting with one another and living. It saw so many different emotions, saw the stories that unfolded and the experiences each one had. And excited, the Newborn decided it wanted to create life of its own.

Years of trying began, trial and error as he struggled to create. But born of the Void, its nothingness did not allow such a thing. They could not create life, could not create the beauty they had seen and could not mimic the happiness he had grown so in love with. And out of envy, they decided if they could not create it - then they would take it.

Picking their way through dimensions, they could not steal from the ones that had not been abandoned. They were as much a God as they were new, and the Elder Gods who had existed millions of years before their birth would destroy him if they dared steal from their work. So approaching the abandoned timelines, the ones that had been broken, attacked, abandoned, or doomed to fade from existence, they stole the land. Ripped pieces of those realities and brought them into the Void, where its life died and fell apart.

It took several hundred tries, before they created a pocket dimension - an endless bubble within the Void that fit in their hands and owned the capacity to hold things like air, and life. They forced the fragmented pieces of reality into that bubble and stitched it together with traces of their magic. Watching, it silently observed as the wildlife continued to grow and the creatures they'd taken thrived. And once the lands had become sustainable enough to support them, he turned towards the smaller Gods, the people, animals, creatures beyond most comprehension and stole them from their homes, forcing them into the bird cage they could no longer leave from.

And there it sat, The Astral suspended softly in their hands, the Newborn God smiling ever so softly as they watched their creation live and die. It had created life. Had created a world of their own, and for the next few hundred years, they sat in the loneliness of the Void, and watched.

Life
Upon creation - the world was shallow and withering in decay. With the air at freezing temperatures - life struggled to make its mark in an unforgiving world, and perished all the same. The trees turned into stone - and the skies remained dark, as did the world. So shadowed - people could barely see past their own hands and threw themselves off cliffs to their deaths without knowing. The world seemed cursed - and every death resulted in another spirit, mourning their loss, and the deaths that followed them as the Newborn struggled to help guide life into the lands.

As much as they had figured out how to steal creatures and weave them together into the world they had created - they did not know how to gently guide life into the lands, or how to flood the soil full of energy, or warm the air, the lakes, and how to brighten the darkness that they had been born with. And as decades went on, the spirits watched them try and fail - watched as more died to their harsh environment - and eventually, grew restless of the dismay this world had caused.

They could not stop the Child from pulling more in, couldn't stop them from trying. As much as they were inexperienced - they were still powerbul beyond imagination. And as such, they took to help revitalize the world instead. Drifting forward, the spirits banded together to halt death on the world - and began to sacrifice their own souls to help guide the gentle life into the world that the Child could not do.

Water began to flow, the waves pulled - and they mimicked the winds, the storms, and the warmness of air. They brought new births of life there - encouraged the plants to grow, and aided them to glow dimly, illuminating various parts of The Astral, guiding people to water and food sources as the herbs and trees produced fruit and vegetable to eat. And curious, the Newborn watched - fascinated by their magic, and took to helping them.

The land flooded with Void energy, and lent their magic to the spirits. And when they had exhausted - when they had blessed the world with life - they succumbed to the earth, burying themselves deep underground to rest, where the remains of their souls crystallized with the earth and formed into stars. But instead of death like they had expected - the Newborn aided them instead, and granted them more energy and life. In exchange, they now power The Astral, and help flood life into the world for the Newborn instead.