Kernel

A wizardly construct containing the master copy of the physical and wizardly laws governing a given volume of space. This master copy is a single complex statement in the Speech that lists all properties of matter and energy in that volume of space and the values to which those properties are set.

It is probably simplest to think of a kernel as a bundle of software regulating how the hardware to which it's attached -- meaning the kernel's associated matter and energy -- will work. The values laid into a kernel for the behavior of properties like gravity, lightspeed and so on can be changed. But this is a complex business and requires considerable practice to get right, which is why wizards embarking on a course of kernel studies are normally sent to an aschetic universe so that they can get to grips with the finer points of kernel management without breaking a real universe and thereby really annoying everything that lives or exists in it.

Kernels come in an almost infinite variety of sizes and "strengths", ranging from kernels that manage the natural laws for whole universes (or multiples of universes) right down to kernels regulating the operation of single bodies and beings. Normally the largest-scale kernels are concealed to keep members of their indwelling species from tampering with them or otherwise casually altering the operation of worldwide or universe-wide natural laws. Wizards operating at the planetary level may do so much work with their world's kernel that it becomes intimately associated with the wizard's own kernel -- with sometimes unpredictable effects on the wizard.

At the "microkernel" or personal level, a wizard familiar with the structure or operation of a personal kernel can make changes in it that will change the way the body to which it's attached is operating. This is the kind of work with which Nita becomes involved, on her mother's behalf, in TWD.

At this level there is a (perhaps) understandable tendency to attempt to equate the human or personal version of the kernel with the concept of the soul: but the real relationship between / among spirit, matter and kernel is far too complex and subtle to be described by such a simple correlation. (TWD et al.)