Lightning Ball

Lightning Ball in which two teams pass a ball with a conical end over a net. The conical side is slightly electrified, so that if a player touches it, they will get a slight shock, similar to static shock. Unlike many other sports, in Lightning Ball, the winning team is determined by who has the fewest points at the end of the game.

History

Lightning Ball began with a group of warriors who lived on the island of Spray. Being lightning mages, they fought with electrified sticks, and as part of their training, would pass them back and forth to one another. If one caught the stick by the grip, they were safe from its power. If not, they would be injured. They believed this was a way for soldiers to quickly learn how to handle their weapons (and to dodge those of others.) The training practice was discovered by Romana Danell, who decided to create a toy based on this, which she brought back to Virarona. The first version of the toy was a stick with the two ends painted different colors, so someone could easily see which end was safe to catch. One end had a rubber handle, and the other had a slight electrical charge, enough to give someone a small shock, similar to static shock. Though there was a toy, there were no set game rules.
As Romana watched children play, she noticed that the object of the game was to keep the stick from hitting the ground, and children would purposely catch the wrong side of the stick so as not to gain points. Because it was difficult to keep track of who should earn a point when the stick landed, points were, instead of being awarded, applied as punishment, with the winner being the player who had the least points at the end of the game. Romana decided that keeping the object in the air would be more difficult if it were a ball, and the object was merely to hit it, rather than to catch it. But instead of painting the ball two different colors, Romana this time added a conical part to one end, which was electrified. The conical part again made it easy to see which part was safe to hit, but also changed the way the ball flew through the air. Furthermore, the shape of the object caused an evolution of the rules: one would not gain points until the electrified conical end touched the ground.
To better keep track of scoring, a court was developed: a circle cut into several wedges. One player would stand in each wedge, and if the conical end landed in a player's wedge, they gained a point. eventually, this led to players working together to gang up on other players, and from this, teams developed, with the circle divided only in two. Later, a net was added to prevent the ball from landing on the dividing line and to add an additional level of difficulty to the game. This version of the game, with two teams and a net, remains the most common version of Lightning Ball, though older versions are still played.