That_Old-Hammer

If the fetch is ever destroyed, the shaman dies. Pg 356 on my copy of Runequest I've been thinking about this quote a lot recently, and have come to realise I have very little idea what it really entails. "Destroyed" wouldn't be something as simple as losing all it's magic points right? If that were the case then any instance of Spirit Combat would constitute an enormous risk to the Shaman, because losing, which could already result in them being bound or otherwise contained would instead result in their immediate death. Is there some known instance of Fetch death? What would constitute the proper qualifications for "destruction"? I could see losing all of it's POW as resulting in destruction but as far as I know there's no way to steal someone's POW outside of maybe some Chaos features, or a thusfar unknown Vivamort Rune Spell. As an aside, would it be possible to a revive a shaman who died from having their Fetch destroyed? Either from the Resurrect Rune Spell or maybe even the Self-Resurrection Shamanic Ability? Though that one might be tied to the destroyed Fetch.

Hi first time caller, long time listener. I was reading through the section on Shamans in the Runequest- Roleplaying in Glorantha corebook and came across this passage. Now I understand the necessity of the Shaman in tribal life, guy who lives in that shack we keep pretty far from town who we go to if spirits start to get weird but I'm specifically talking about the latter half of the paragraph that states that the tribal deities can remove the shaman's fetch. This goes pretty far against my understanding of what Shamanism is in Glorantha. I always assumed that it was a separate system from the Theistic model and that one could, if only rarely, awaken one's fetch and become a shaman without the aid of a god. Horned Man appearing above the bed, not crying out, that stuff but if a god or nebulous tribal deity can take the fetch away wouldn't that indicate that indicate that the Shaman is bound by way of force to the tribe's local deity? I always imagined that there were rogue shamans living in the wilderness communing with the Spirit World far from the trivial matters of Man like a hermit wizard. Or a shaman being cast out of their community and coming back for revenge against them with an army of spirits. That the Fetch was an intrinsic thing, one that whilst capable of being destroyed or broken, was not granted by a god so, unlike Rune Points could not be taken away by a God. The awakened part of the soul. But this passage seems to indicate that such a person would lose their fetch and connection to the Spirit World. Does this track with what everyone else thinks about shamans? Is there any examples of this happening in established lore?