These objects are usually used in an interactive way. They are integrated into some game that teaches an aspect of shape shifting. These objects are the temporary possessions of a given individual or group. Possession may move from one individual or group to another as a function of the game strategies. Possession of the object is symbolic of possession of the aspect of shape shifting that it illustrates.
Possession gives the owner a specific role in the game.
The universities act as evolutionary interfaces, allowing the students to leap across millions of years of painful evolution in a single period of education, perhaps within a single Earth century. Once shape shifting is learned, the student's evolutionary path is no longer fixed to one species or level, but can move through multiform in freedom from any particular planetary lineage.