Why are fantasy settings typically medieval?

Because it can reproduce the superstitious nonsense of the dark ages

Because we enjoy fantasizing about our Golden Age.

How so? I want examples.

Most fantasy series are made by Europeans who dont know much about the rest of the world during the 1300s.

Tolkien and role playing games such as D&D and Final Fantasy. Medieval setting is the only one where you can have a wide choice of weapons and armor and magic and have a nice aesthetics. Try making an RPG game in Ancient Greece. Your equipment is spear, shield, helmet, short sword, sandals. Yup that's pretty much everything you can have.

>Your equipment is spear, shield, helmet, short sword, sandals.
That's not any different from how a Medieval setting can be brushed off as nothing but spears, shields, swords, helmets, and hose.

The actual answer is because the vast majority of settings are derivative, and there's less work involved for fantasy authors, artists, and designers to default to the popular aesthetic of their time to sell their setting than take risks.

>numenara
>shadowrun
>wh40k

so are you just being an annoying cunt by not posting this in Veeky Forums or are you a lazy fucking retard?

Isn't LOTR about the coming of the age of man and machines? All the fantasy shits going extinct and irrelevant.

>typically

Don't forget all the world of darkness books.

They are not. The standard hackneyed "fantasy world" written by idiots who misread Tolkien takes place in the 17th century Holy Roman Empire, with gunpowder conspicuously absent.

I doubt many of them actually read Tolkein any more.

Saruman escapes and forces industrialisation on Merrie England (the Shire)

>The standard hackneyed "fantasy world" written by idiots who misread Tolkien takes place in the 17th century Holy Roman Empire, with gunpowder conspicuously absent.
Not sure about the HRE angle, explanation?

I disagree about the Tolkien answer. Tolkien's world is very Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages, while most medieval fantasy is set during the High Middle Ages.

I think modern fantasy literature origins in the Romantic Era, an era with a passion for the Middle Ages, is more likely the cause.

>Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages
If even that. He was inspired by old Ango-Saxon, Irish and Scandinavia mythologies. That doesn't present a "

>while most medieval fantasy is set during the High Middle Ages
Most shitty fantasy includes knights wearing full plate armor, that already puts it in the 14th century at the earliest.

>made by Europeans who rightfully dont care much about the rest of the world during the 1300s.
FTFY

Most fantasy is more inspired other fantassy works and have a very distored idealised version of the middle ages. I think a fantasy that followed the technology and aestheci of the middle ages farily close would be fairly novel at this point.

Because it has the convenience of already developed and relatable European infrastructure/culture while still being in a time, where mystical creates were believed in.

A European player/reader/audience can relate much more to medieval towns and cities, which still exist in most of Europe, while also experiencing the possibility of fantastical creatures existing.

As most here have already said, Tolkien is most responsible for this, but it's interesting to know that before Tolkien brought the Germanic elves n dwarves business to the forefront of fantasy, Greco-Roman was all the rage. That was before vidya though, so all the mythology was in paintings and such, which was all satyrs and nymphs.

Why would they? Globalism meme didnt exist till the Spanish cancer discovered the New World.

Because it's the time that the great Western songs and stories of heroism are from.