Thread:User talk:An American Nihilist/Writing advice/reply (9)

See if this makes sense:

Souls exist in another, intersecting plane. Most sufficiently intelligent animals have special, evolved cells that make souls 'grab' onto all ones with the same signature (same DNA sequence, basically) in the near vicinity. As the organism grows, the attached soul grows as well, becoming like another, invisible organ. Souls mainly allow the animal to use valkain [magic], but they also normally provide some other benefits that depend on the species. Even today, souls are mysterious and largely not understood -- for example, scientists don't know fully how they work or the extent of their abilities, how a person can use atypical forms of valkain without one and how somebody can live with two, whether there's an afterlife that souls go to, etc.