No, look.
You make a plane. This is like taking one face from a cube. It's a flat two dimensional square. Lets then say that you put a texture of a sphere on it, so that way you can have the illusion of a circular object, without all those polies (much like the sphere at the top of the priest's staff.)
You then make sure the pane is facing directly forward when at standard view, and then give it the setting "Billboarded."
Now when you look from any direction, it will follow and always be facing directly at you, creating the spherical illusion.