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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 641935" data-attributes="member: 7240">Climate and local environmental change, it can be argued, forms the basis of the fantasy genre. If an adjacent region has been rendered uninhabitable or unsuitable by these kinds of changes, not only will characters have to face local problems but there will be escalating raiding, plundering and invasions. The Viking phenomenon was largely caused by a cooling trend which reduced the food production in Scandinavia, causing raiding and escalating militarism. This was then followed by a warming trend which increased productivity and birth rates, allowing the Vikings to really take off.The story of local environmental change by mystical forces is best exemplified by the Grail stories from which fantasy literature originates. The story of the Fisher King (the terms is a pun as the medieval French words for sinner and fisher are virtually identical) is about a king who offends God in some way whose land is therefore cursed and turned into a wasteland. Parzifal, Bors, Gawain, etc. quest for the grail so as to heal the king and thereby heal the land.</blockquote>