A closer look
Paracelsus was a brilliant 16th-century toxicologist, but he was also a legendary drunk who formally classified fairies like a Victorian biologist. He wrote an entire treatise dividing elemental spirits into four specific categories: gnomes (earth), undines (water), sylphs (air), and salamanders (fire). Before him, European folklore was just a messy soup of random goblins. By applying strict medical taxonomy to completely imaginary creatures, this belligerent Swiss doctor accidentally provided the worldbuilding blueprint for every fantasy role-playing game and novel we have today.
