The Creation of Souls

Every sentient being on Seori is endowed with a soul, from the lowliest goblin to the mightiest dragon. Even titans, ascendants, and true gods have souls. Souls can be created in one of two ways. In the natural way, a soul is created through the efforts and existence of another soul. For example, two humans, mortal souls, can produce a new mortal soul by having a child. The natural methods create souls of equal potency to the parent soul(s). However, the parent souls have very little control over the process, and have no innate authority over their offspring.
Souls can also be created from minds. In these cases, great minds will conceive of every element of a new soul, controlling it with exacting precision. There is a trade off, though, in that it is impossible for a mind to create a soul of equal potency to its own. Souls created in this way are always lesser than their creators.
Because of these general rules, it is possible to consider various tiers of souls, categorized by how they came into being, following their ancestors souls through the two methods of creation. On Seori, there are generally four accepted levels of soul potency, although some scholars are beginning to argue for the addition of a fifth. It should be noted that, while generally speaking, higher tiered souls are more powerful than lower tiered, this is by no means always true, and there are lots of counterexamples. For instance, the oldest dragons (immortal souls) are more powerful than some local deities (titanic souls).

Divine Souls

These are the souls of true gods and Ascendants. On Seori, there are only 105 known divine souls: the 10 true gods, the 4 Óvættrs, and the 91 Ascendants descended from them. It should be noted that the divine souls of the Ascendants are tied to the power and not the individual, who retains their own soul, as well. Some scholars argue that the the weaker combinations of powers should constitute Divine Souls, but most agree that the argument at that point is semantic. Certain other scholars assert that Seori itself has a divine soul, and there is a moderate amount of evidence for this hypothesis.

Titanic Souls

The original titanic souls were created by the original ten true gods to aid in the forging of Seori. They themselves often create lesser souls as servants. In the modern world, titanic souls are often minor local deities, demigods, and powerful celestials.

Immortal Souls

Immortal souls were originally created by titans as servants, laborers, and, after the arrival of the Óvættrs, armies. Examples of immortal souls are dragons, elves, and many lesser celestials and fey.

Mortal Souls

The origin of mortal souls is one of the most hotly debated topics in theology. Some argue that mortal souls were originally created by immortal souls to be servants or subjects. Most point to the strong resemblance between elves (immortals), and humans (mortals), arguing that ancient elves created humans, and possibly other races, as some sort of servant classes. Others dismiss these claims, noting that giants are also immortals, and have the same humanoid shape. These scholars suggest that one or more of the original titans had humanoid shapes, and the appearance of humanoids are either an homage, or evidence that some mortal souls were created by titans instead of immortals. Dwarven scholars are particularly fond of this theory, as they claim to have evidence they were created in the image of the titan known perjoratively as "The Stuntling".

(Souls of Artifice)

Modern artificers are creating arcanotechnical works that blur the border between machine and sentience. Some more extreme researchers claim that their most advanced creations should qualify as sentient, and thus they must have souls created by a mortal, which would require a fifth tier of soul. Prevailing theological dogma dismisses these claims outright, and some even denounce them as blasphemy, but it is clear that the surge in arcanotech in the Age of Ascendants will mean these questions need to be answered sooner or later.