Objects containing minds

There is a crystal shard item that works as a repository of knowledge, up to and including a full mind… an FR item, if i recall correctly.

There is also a PS item with similar effects, a metal skull.

Way back when, the Forgotten Realms novel Azure Bonds addressed this issue: whether Alias (the novel’s protagonist) had a soul. Long story short, Alias and her sisters derived a soul from a piece of soul split from the soul of the Saurial Paladin, Dragonbait.

Alias (and some others) figured that they were less than human because deriving their soul from a piece of another soul inevitably meant they didn’t have a ‘full’ soul.

Olive Ruskettle (halfling thief/bard) argued that Alias’ analysis was incorrect. A soul is an infinite thing so if you split a piece of a soul off, you still have the original infinite thing and the new infinite thing, derived from the original.

Horcruxes in HP seem to work differently from the above (so each Horcrux isn’t, individually, an entirely separate being, rather a soul shard repository).

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