Forest

A Forest (or Jonson if you're from Caliban) is an area of land with a lot of trees in close proximity, creating a canopy overhead. Forests have been one of the most common Biomes on Earth since the Devonian Period.

Forests and Pre-Industrial Society

Besides obviously being a source of lumber, forests are a useful location for a variety of resources; animals to hunt, wild herbs and mushrooms, etc. Sometimes villages would clear brush and dead wood out of the nearest forest (which also reduced fire hazards) and use it as an auxiliary village space. And in extreme circumstances, if your village gets raided your best option for escape would be the forest. That being said, the demand for farmland and lumber tends to outstrip the benefits of having a nearby forest, and forests were just as likely to be home to dangerous predators and bandits, so many of Europe's old forests had been cut down over the centuries, and replaced with smaller pockets of carefully cultivated groves for timber, wicker and fruit trees.

A local noble or king might claim ownership of a nearby forest and declare that no one may hunt or chop down trees in his forest without his express consent, and he would hire rangers to keep poachers out. Now, this wasn't necessarily because the person in question was a conservationist, so much as he just wanted to hunt those wild elk himself. In fact, the first hunting licenses were issued not to limit the amount of hunting, but because the King laid claim to all the good game and you had to pay him for the right to kill and eat them.

Another factor about forests is that they are easy to hide in. It's hard to see things a hundred meters away in the dense foliage and if you don't know where you're going it's easy to get lost. For this reason, bandits and other outlaws liked to lurk in forests.

Types of Forest

There are a wide variety of forests due to different species, terrains and climates. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it will give you a decent basic run-down of the common varieties.

• Coniferous Forest Conifers such as pine trees as a rule are better able to handle colder climates. As such, in places like Northern Canada or Siberia they often predominate.
• Deciduous Forest Broad leaved plants such as Oaks and Ashes have an advantage over Pine Trees in terms of photosynthetic efficiency. The downside of which is that these leaves can't take frosts and shedding leaves to regrow them is costly. As such, in warmer climates they mostly edge out the pines.
• Bamboo forest Bamboo is a type of large-scale grass. It grows quickly, but after it flowers and sheds it's seeds it dies. Fairly well established in East Asia.
• Rainforest Trees grow very well in places where there is a lot of water. Get a lot of water and you can get some impressive tree growth. Most famously there are Tropical Rainforests, but there are also temperate rainforests like those in British Columbia.
• Mangrove Forest partially submerged forest, usually in swampland, where mangrove trees thrive and small creatures find shelter in the trees' roots.
• Redwood Forest tallest trees in the world, so naturally their forests are quite large and form an enormous canopy.

Forests in Fantasy

From Tolkien to Martin, forests are one of the stock settings of fantasy. Forests tend to be the most prolific biome in "good" Kingdoms, with forests reaching even the areas around castles despite the fact that, A) This heavily limits potential farmland, and while it does promote game and forestry, it becomes a hindrance to any large scale building projects or settling space. B) Forests provide cover for invading armies, hiding places for dissidents & brigands as well as breeding grounds for all sorts of monsters. Also forests can often be pleasant places.

Forests also tend to have different depictions in High and Low fantasy. In Low Fantasy, their depiction might be closer to what Rome experienced in the Battle of Teutoberg Forest; an endless and dark expanse of trees from which hostile natives can emerge out of nowhere and slaughter any would-be trespassers. Whereas in High Fantasy, magic forests exist that can have dryads, ents, and mobile trees… that will also slaughter any would-be trespassers but may make exceptions for tree-huggers. More generally there is a distinction between Good and Bad forests. The former are airy with gentle casts of light through a vivid canopy, lush plant-life in bloom, clear paths, songbirds and butterflies. The latter are dark and foreboding, with trees with rough bark and gnarled branches and are overgrown with thorny bushes and vines and the forest floor covered with splintered logs, jagged rocks and predators on the prowl.

Another important point of forestry in fantasy is that of destruction. Men and orcs with axes, saws and maybe even steam powered machines levelling swaths of forest for timber, firewood or to clear land for strip mining and otherwise ravaging the landscape and leaving denuded wastes is a good way of establishing villains. Yes, this is Ferngully shit. Yes, it works narratively.

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