World Rings

The World Rings (世界リング Sekai Ringu?) are a set of seven magical rings that appear in Sonic and the Secret Rings. They bind together the world of the Arabian Nights, although many residents of that world believe that they are a myth. They are similar to the Chaos Emeralds, such as their ability to enable transformations similar to a super transformation. The collector of the rings must be sacrificed in order to control their power.

In the game, the evil Erazor Djinn used Sonic to get his hands on the rings, so that he could use them to conquer the Arabian Nights.

Colors
The Seven World Rings come in the same colors as the Chaos Emeralds. Each one represents an emotion.
 * Blue = Prayers/Hope
 * Purple = Sadness
 * Red = Rage
 * Green = Hatred
 * Yellow = Joy
 * Aqua = Pleasure
 * White = Wishes/Desire

Powers and traits
Much like the Chaos Emeralds, the World Rings possess great amounts of power and can cause transformations that are similar to a super transformation. Unlike the Chaos Emeralds, however, the World Rings can initiate a transformation without all the rings; while Erazor Djinn uses all seven to become Alf Layla wa-Layla, Sonic required only three to become Darkspine Sonic. This form is similar to Super Sonic in power, except Darkspine Sonic is not invincible, and his power is not reliant on Ring energy. The nature of these transformations however, seem to have a strong influence on the mind of the user; Erazor Djinn was driven utterly insane, and Darkspine Sonic became more ferocious and violent (although this is presumably due to using the rings of Sadness, Hatred and Rage).

It seems that the individual rings have some powers of their own. For example, the water blue ring could create storms and rain and the white ring could open the doors to the Erazor Djinn's palace. According to the Erazor Djinn, the seven rings bind together the pages that make up the world of the Arabian Nights.

When all of the World Rings are collected, they can produce catastrophic results. Sonic fears their energy could open the very Gates of hell itself. For someone to unlock the power and complete control of the World Rings, the life of the collector of the rings must be sacrificed as a part of a ritual. However, if another life is sacrificed instead of the collector, the ritual will be somewhat fulfilled, but the user will be unable to control the transformation they grant, such as when Erazor Djinn ended up killing Shahra, instead of Sonic (who collected the rings) and ended up transforming into the monstrous and incomplete Alf Layla wa-Layla.

Each World Ring has a certain intense emotion sealed up inside of them (Prayers/hope, sadness, rage, hatred, joy, pleasure, wishes/desires), each of which embodies one of the emotions that makes up the stories of the Arabian Nights. Just by touching the rings causes a powerful jolt that makes someone feel, as Sonic describes it, "a whirlpool of emotions" and is the reason why people using the World Rings become more emotionally unstable. Those who inhabit the world of the Arabian Nights are unable to touch the rings physically, as they will simply go right through them. Only people who are not natives to the world of the Arabian Nights are able to touch them. The rings also seem to respond to their specific emotions: when Sonic witnessed the death of Shahra, the rings of Rage, Hatred, and Sadness burst out of Alf Layla wa-Layla and were absorbed into Sonic since they were the emotions he was feeling. After the battle of Darkspine Sonic and Alf Layla wa-Layla, the World Rings were expelled.

Trivia

 * Because of the certain locations the World Rings were found in, they might represent  specific elemental areas: Ring of the Desert (yellow), Ring of the Jungle (green), Ring of the Sky (blue), Ring of the Sea (cyan), Ring of the Volcano (red), Ring of Light (white), and Ring of Darkness (purple).
 * In Sonic and the Black Knight, there are unlockable stages called Legacy stages. If the stage is finished, there is a possible chance to buy one of the World Rings with enough ID points. If all seven World Rings are collected, Crush 40's version of "Seven Rings in Hand" will be available in Gallery Mode to listen to.
 * Also in that game, the Blue Ring contains Hope, which was actually Prayers in Sonic and the Secret Rings