Every three years, like clockwork, there are vast migrations across one of the world's largest seas. But it is not sea birds or swimming beasts that are migrating, it is a large group of those mammoth beasts, elephants. But how, you ask, is this possible? Easily explained. They ride on the Floating Marches. But again, you have a question! What are these Floating Marches? I'll answer that as well, but it will take a little longer.
Over the course of almost three years, the drifting branches and leaves that are washed out of rivers into the sea build up all along the coast. They are trapped in the folds and fjords of this great land. After that time of gathering, the mounds stand yards high; this is when the elephant herds arrive. A few of the great beasts carefully board the makeshift rafts and trample them down until nearly flat. Then the rest of the herd boards the, now firmer and, thus, safer, raft. Then, with a giant shove, the journey starts. The float trip lasts for several days, usually, and the elephants, during this time, eat only a little, and that from the raft itself.
At the end of the trip, the elephants disembark onto dry land once again, and go to feast upon the lush greenery that has stood, relatively untouched, for almost three years. The next time that the drifts accumulate, the herd is ready to cross the other way across the sea.
Not all of the herds make it across the sea every trip. Storms, predators, disease, and breaking up of rafts have all added to the number of deceased elephants. But at each journey time, the number fo the beasts is relatively unchanged from the year before.
New Submissions
Commenters gain extra XP from Author votes.
Extra bonuses go to those that spend all votes in between refreshes.
2009-05-24 04:22 PM
2009-10-28 04:03 PM
2009-05-24 06:48 PM
2009-05-25 04:47 PM
1. Why do the elephants migrate?
2. Why are there elephants in an ecosystem where there are fjords and folds?
3. Why does it take 3 years for the floating marches to build up?
4. How do the elephants get back, or is it a one way migration?
5. Don't elephants, being large herbivores, need to eat almost constantly? Why dont they starve on the trip across the water?
2009-05-29 02:09 AM
2010-10-20 07:10 PM
Rafting is accepted theory for the spread of many species, New World Monkeys for example. Of course in a fantasy realm you take any natural event and turn the volume up to 11. So you get elephants rafting, of course why not make it a huge fantasy animal?
Why raft? Without natural predators, elephant populations can be very destructive to the ecosystem, a population which thins its number from time may actually prove to be more stable over the long term. Thus the rafting herds would over take the boom crash herds over many years. But you could make up other reasons...
Join Now!!
Please register to vote or leave a commentRandom Idea Seed View All Idea Seeds
By: Cheka Man | UpVote
Individual submissions, unless otherwise noted by the author, are licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
and requires a link back to the original.
We would love it if you left a comment if you use an idea!
A Role Player's Creative Workshop.
Read. Post. Play.
Optimized for anything except IE.
0.0206