Hmmm, im not sure if the medical staff comes from South America. I recently read a book on medicine and healing, in which it is mentioned that 14 th. century alchemists used the serpent staff as a symbol of the four elements (in which the staff was earth, the snakes air, the venom dripping from the snakes was water and the red gem in the staff was fire). It can though be mentioned, that the "modern" version of the serpent
staff has left out the venom, due to it's commercial application. But, the snake was used as a symbol of healing in a myriad of cultures, so using it as an alternative form for a genie that is specialised in healing would actually make sense.
Is it the Library of Alexandria you are referring to? I remember that when they burnt it, there was enough books and scrolls to keep the city of Alexandrie heated up for a year.
Those are actually wise word, the mentioning of the three arch-typical creatures. I know we have both elemental spirits and dragons in our Nordic mythology, but Im not sure about the vampire though
I do though know that most Fey creatures originate from Northern Europe, in other forms though. The dwarves were actually used as the elemental creatures of earth.
"Apo", isnt that the shop-owner from Simpsons?
Shivamuffin, when you wrote about that ball-game, I couldn't help but to think of a game they play in Greenland. Its often one village against another. Each village or settlement has a defined "goal", meaning a place where you must place the ball to score. The ball is a leather ball, round, that there are no limitations to what you can do with. Kick, hold, throw etc. It is then the objective of the players to score in the other village by putting the ball in the goal. Since the villages were often far apart, a game could take weeks, during which they still hunted and gathered food as usual. Sometimes, they would attempt to score by sneaking into the opponents village to place the ball, other times they would gather up a large group of youngsters and attempt to "muscle" their way into the village. Hmmm, im getting of topic.....
As for african based genies, it's not that hard to imagine, I just look no farther that the Mirage/Visions sets of Magic the Gathering to gain inspiration for genies in that type of setting. No, what would be hard, is genies from an aztek/mayan type setting, now that would be a real challenge... To bad I know next to nothing about aztek and mayan culture...
