Listen well, young one. Tens of thousands of years ago, when my ancestors were first taking human shape, they lived on an island called Beastchester, which sat on the back of an enormous turtle. This turtle roamed the oceans of the world in a meandering but cyclical path. Meanwhile in the Feywild, the island’s fey analog drifted through the skies on the back of a giant manta ray. Where Beastchester had a volcano, the floating fey island was home to a large tree. Once every few months, Beastchester would drift through a patch of planar bleed with the Feywild; when this occurred, the tree would be visible to everyone in the city—as would the dryad who called it home.

Over the years, catching a glimpse of the dryad in the tree would be considered a sign of good luck. The people nicknamed her “Avandra.” Some people began to praise her for their fortunes; others would whisper short prayers in her name. A turning point came only a few thousand years ago when my ancestors finally learned how to control the path of the turtle. They charted an elaborate sea atlas using the locations of planar bleed as permanent landmarks— marked with Avandra’s signa.

As faith and worship of Avandra grew, so did the divine energy available to the witless dryad. She knew nothing of this Beastchester and its humans other than what she could glimpse during the bleed to the material realm. And yet, as more of my ancestors praised her and brought her name with them while colonizing new lands, Avandra’s ability to watch over her people increased. Eventually she was called by the Pantheon to become an official god to humans and create her first sephiroth. As a dryad whose life force is inescapably tied to her tree, this was an easy—if naive—choice.