Great Migrations

Great Migrations is a seven-episode nature documentary television miniseries that airs on the National Geographic Channel, featuring the great migrations of animals around the globe. The seven-part show is the largest programming event in the ten-year history of the channel and is part of the largest cross-platform initiative since the founding of the National Geographic Society. It was filmed in HD, and premiered on November 7, 2010 with accompanying coverage in the National Geographic magazine and an official companion book.

Episodes

Great Migrations debuted on November 7, 2010 worldwide. The series airs on the Sundays of the same month, spread across four hour-long chapters, excluding three supplemental hours which run on other dates. The National Geographic Channel estimated that the show's premiere would be accessible in 330 million homes across the globe.

Production

The production team traveled 420,000 miles (680,000 km) over two and a half years tracking multiple species ranging from army ants to Mali elephants. Cinematographers went to great lengths to film the species and their migratory habits, although none were hurt in the process. Filming provided rare footage of various animal scenes, including the documentation of an elephant's funeral for the first time outside East Africa. Various technologies were used to film the show, such as the use of high-tech tags on Monarch butterflies and elephant seals.

Great Migrations (Greyhawk)

In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, the Great Migrations is a general term applying to the migration of great hordes of Oeridians and Suel humans into the Flanaess from western Oerik. The impetus for the migrations was political tension related to the conflict that erupted into the great Baklunish-Suloise Wars that ended in the Twin Cataclysms. The passage of these thousands of refugees displaced and destroyed much of the local Flan culture and shaped the modern Flanaess.

History

In -457 CY, the Oeridian tribes migrated east of the region now called Ull, pushed north and eastward by vast savage humanoid hordes employed as mercenaries by the Suel and Baklunish. Suel peoples fleeing the increasingly erratic empire moved northward through the Kendeen (Harsh) Pass of the southern Crystalmists (now the Hellfurnaces) and spread out in all directions, coming into open conflict with the native Flan of the eastern lands and with the migrating Oeridians. In most cases the warlike Oeridians defeated Suel and Flan alike, pushing them to the peripheries and darkened wild places of the Flanaess.