Water shortage (modern).

Since 2482 (2 years ago, as of this writing), the entire world of Canopica has found that its river system is drying up. Once stable oases are drying to trickles. Why?

The answer is one of the central questions of Canopican cosmology. When individuals die, they are send to Anubis 's Underworld at the base of the inverted pyramid of stone. Most are judged to have to spend time in purgatory, during which they work ceaselessly as slaves driving the massive engine that pumps water from the endless ocean up to the canopican surface. The term of purgatory is 2,500 years.

The Water War started in 18 BW and ended in 1 AW. (Click here for a calendar explanation. ) Ironically, the mass of deaths caused by the Water War resulted in Anubis's engine being flush with labor for 2,500 years. Now, 2,500 years after the war's start, those souls are finally finishing their purgatorial term, thus causing a water shortage which may lead to another in the endless epochal series of wars in Canopica's history.