The Pomegranate Gambit

There was a fierce fight, and the scorpion turned into an eagle while the snake became a vulture. For a time the vulture pursued the eagle until it turned into a black cat. The princess then became a brindled wolf and for a time the two creatures fought together in the palace. Then the cat, finding itself beaten, became a large red pomegranate in the middle of the palace fountain. When the wolf came upon it, it rose into the air and fell on the palace floor where it burst, its seeds scattered, each in a different place, until they covered the whole floor.
A shiver ran through the wolf and it became a cock, which started to pick the seeds so as not to leave a single one, but as was fated, one of them was hidden by the side of the fountain.

- One Thousand and One Nights, Night 14

The Spell of the Pomegranate is a last resort for magic-users in fear of their lives. The magic-user becomes a pomegranate that bursts and scatters 100 seeds. The soul of the magic-user can move freely between seeds and see out of them, unless the seeds are burned, eaten or otherwise destroyed. If all the seeds are destroyed, the magic-user is slain instantly. When the spell ends, the magic-user can choose which seed he/she emerges from, while the others wither away to dust.

Level: 4

Duration: 1 turn/level (can be cancelled prematurely)

(By the way, this shapeshifting princess is a total badass. She's just sitting around in her palace when her father's all "How will we save this prince from a curse put on him by an ifrit?" and she's like "Oh yeah, I never mentioned it before but I actually have like a bunch of magic powers." And then she summons the ifrit and kills him. 

How tough is an ifrit? Well, nobody else in these stories even thinks about fighting them.)

A Baghdad Shopping List

A wealthy lady's shopping list in the markets of Baghdad in the 8th century, from One Thousand and One Nights:

Fruiterer's shop: 

• Syrian apples
• Uthmani quinces
• Omani peaches
• jasmine
• water lilies from Syria
• autumn cucumbers
• lemons
• sultani oranges
• scented myrtle
• privet flowers
• camomile blossoms
• red anemones
• violets
• pomegranate blooms
• eglantine 

 Butcher's:

•   ten ratls' worth of meat wrapped in banana leaves

 Grocer:

•  pistachio kernels
• Tihama raisins
• shelled almonds

Sweetmeat seller's shop:

• sugar cakes
• doughnuts stuffed with musk
• 'soap' cakes
• lemon tarts
• Maimuni tarts
• 'Zainab's combs'
• sugar fingers
• qadis' snacks 

Perfume seller's:

• rosewater
• orange-flower water
• water scented with water lilies
• water scented with willow flowers
• two sugar loaves
• bottle of musk-scented rosewater
• frankincense
• aloes
• ambergris
• musk
• Alexandrian candles

Wait, Wait, Don't Kill Me

When [the merchant] had finished [his poem], the 'ifrit said: 'Stop talking, for, by God, I am most certainly going to kill you.'
''Ifrit,' the merchant said, 'I am a wealthy man, with a wife and children; I have debts and I hold deposits, so let me go home and give everyone their due before returning to you at the start of the new year. I shall take a solemn oath and swear by God that I shall come back to you and you can then do what you want with me. God will be the guarantor of this.'

- One Thousand and One Nights

Here's a tip for anyone playing in a game I run: if you are at the mercy of any creature that's sufficiently supernatural, and you swear by your God that you'll come back and let them kill you later, I will probably let you get away with it. But be aware that Gods never like it when you swear on their name in vain.