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How much do we know about how these work? Could they, in theory, be re-purposed by a powerful or skilled psyker to hold the soul or souls of humans?

Not much is known how they work exactly.

Eldar go to Crone Worlds and collect them. They are then given to Eldar when born and are psychically attuned to them. Upon death, the Eldar spirit is sucked into the Stone instead of the Warp, and returned to Craftworld until needed.

In theory, a human psyker could possibly re-purpose them to hold human souls, however, what good would it do?

 Happyjew wrote:

In theory, a human psyker could possibly re-purpose them to hold human souls, however, what good would it do?

If you can't think of a dozen uses for having a pocket full of souls, you need to study your dark grimours more.

Don't have time to set up an alter and carve up some sacrifices? Just pop a few stones and you have the souls you need to fuel your dark magics!

Need to make sure a soul stays put, locked in a cage for all eternity, rather then going back to the warp/it's final reward? Soul stone.

Want to piss of Eldar? Point out that one more pointy eared freak is going to visit She who Thirsts, while some lame non-eldar soul is taking up prime real estate in the pretty gem you have.

For extra fun, swap human filled gems for eldar ones, and watch the hilarity unfold. "We've secretly replaced these gems about to be attached to the the Infinity Circuit with human filled ones, lets see if the eldar can tell the difference!"

Just remember, when the Inquisition come knocking on your door, you might want to sneak out the back... Those guys aren't the biggest fan of necromancy.

Sure, but you have to realize the souls of non-psychic humans are of very little use. They don't maintain awareness past death, so are little more than a little packet of energy. Not that it couldn't be useful, but you would basically have to be a psyker to use the Spirit Stone for its original purpose on a human.

In short, you could do it, but it wouldn't be useful enough to bother with. There are plenty of other easier ways to catch human souls.

There is nothing that says either way as far as I know. They could only work on eldar souls or any soul or they could require willing them to work as you die or work automatically forcing the soul in. I am not sure humans in 40K would have the self control of their soul to move it into a spirit stone. Remember that eldar are to humans what monkeys are to us.

Spirit stones seem to work in conjunction with every eldar's psychic abilities. They can feel them, and they react to emotion. I don't think just any human could be utilize a spirit stone. Maybe a particularly skilled psyker, but they'd probably have to find a blank one, because those in the possession of adult eldar are strongly connected to their bearer.

Thank you for the information, guys.

The concept behind my question is that a few Chaos Sorcerers are attempting to use a wealth of plundered and 'blank' Spirit Stones to capture the souls of their human sacrifices. Then, they're essentially going to mash a bunch of them together to create semi-sentient, yet easily controllable entities that they intend to fuse with the frozen corpses of a lost Astartes Chapter.

Seeing as how just about anything goes when you're dealing with the Warp, I thought this would make a neat mystery for my roleplay buddies to figure out. My only hang-up was the Spirit Stones themselves, but if it can be done, then let there be Space Marine Zombies!