>> I'm guessing that the answer ought to be yes - For example a Fly spirit
>> fetish might include a feather, while a Combat fetish includes a
>> predators tooth.
>
>I'd say that it depends on your play style and players. In Gloranthan
>Reality, I'd say probably "Yes, it matters very much".
That's what I figured. "Common sense" suggested that different spirits would be held in different (sorts of) fetish. It also suggested that, particularly in a game where equipment and money are virtually reduced to "optional" rules, it needn't be an important factor.
>
>Now, in HeroWars, you can drive your plots by making the heroes get the
>absolute correct items for their fetishes, or you can ignore it.
Or do both, depending on the immediate needs and concerns of your game. To pick up on your "Arming of Arnie" example, sometimes the hero just whips out a gun and shoots it without a lot of foreshadowing...
>One way can
>be a lot of fun and lead to many strange adventures ("tell me again, *why*
>are we climbing this incredibly tall and hazardous cliff?" "I need to get
>droppings from the Cooroo bird for my 'Animal speech' fetish, and this is
>the only place it nests"), but it can also be a *lot* of work ("uh, Mr.
>narrator sir, I want a fetish for a 'Leap far' fetish. What do I need to
>make it?").
If it's "not important" for the session you are running, this could just be a "Tradition Knowledge" roll - Success - You know and can get it, Marginal Result - you know but can't get it, Failure - You don't know, Fumble - You think you know, but it turns out to be useless (You try and store one of Frog Womans "Leap Far" spirits in a fetish made from a cricket wrapped in copper wire).
>As far as "refilling" fetishes, whta is meant is that your "fetish quota"
>may be "refilled" between adventures, not that the physical fetish is
>"refilled". Some 1-use fetishes may be destroyed by the act of invoking the
>spirit within - "throw this packet into the fire to summon the spirit",
>"smash this gourd", "eat this leaf"...
That makes sense, I admit I hadn't looked at it that way.
I seem to recall reading a story in which the hero (or heroine, it might have been Jean M Auel's series) had a small leather bag which held a number of spiritually important items. This could give you a single "fetish bag" capable of holding any "normal" spirits from your tradition (where "normal" means any that the Narrator does not want to invent special fetishes for).
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