Kernel Hearts Babel, NPCs, and Bonds
The last city at the foot of the Tower — masks, lab backups, and people who remember.
Kernel Hearts sells four pillars: combos, chips, transformation, and bonding. The first three have combat pages. This one is the city. Official copy: after a run, the M.A.H.O.U. memory returns to backup in a laboratory on the outskirts of humanity’s last holdout. You walk Babel, talk, gift, then climb again. Skipping every NPC trains a score-attack habit the game is not only about.
Playable units stay on Fernet, Spika, Laika, and Dolce. This page is everyone else the demo and trailers actually name.
The Gematsu character short above is the studio and the character artist putting names on faces that trailers skip: Mikolaj, Fang, and the squad around them. Use it for tone. Use the town for flags.
The city
Babel sits outside the Tower. Residents wear masks and cloaks so falling ash does not own their lungs. Community pages note mask design nods to Pyre. Early development even used Unreal mannequins and a borzoi sprite before settlers existed. You do not need that trivia to play. You need to know the hub is safe, the Heavens are not, and Daiki is the lobby contact who moves units between domains. Map context: Tower and Heavens.
People you will actually meet
The Creator. Architect / engineer in the lab. Maintains MAHOU units. Heterochromia with a scarred gold eye, glasses, green parka, missing arm, glove, tattoos, sling bag. Works in solitude, hoards machines with sentimental weight. Lost family including a sister. One gold eye matches the units. He is why backups exist as a story, not only as a roguelike rule. Trailer line: each death, a new model wakes.
Scavengers’ Guild — Rhea and Haru. They find what the world forgot. The mask protects from ash. Haru is a gold mutt with a red scarf; community trivia says she was the game director’s real companion. She bites. Rhea is the human half of the two-person guild. Talk to them. They explain the world’s leftover tech better than a loading tip.
Tofu and Toke. Artificers who run Camelot in the Tower. Tofu is a therian wolf, scarred muzzle, goggles, utility belt, big heart for artifacts, hates being treated like a pet. Toke is the brash human partner in matching earth tones. Demo story for both is thin. They are shop-adjacent flavor until a patch prints a craft tree.
Momo. Bar owner of the Pink Wink Cupid, with employee Nura. Long purple hair, pink dress, boa. Community note: named after the game’s character designer. Hands-off manager. Do not hold a pug here for ten minutes unless they asked. Co-op.
Daiki. Lobby boy who ferries MAHOU units between domains. If you are looking for the “elevator guy,” this is the name community pages use.
Nura. Rabbit-eared magician behind the bar at Pink Wink Cupid. Tarot, first-talk relic, bond ranks that cap early in the demo (community notes say rank 2). She is a Tower ally, not only a Babel street NPC. Map: Tower and Heavens. Shop: mementos and relics.
Mikolaj. “Ravenous soldier,” Polish-coded, First Expedition about a decade earlier. Chest full of bullet holes — community line: angels are not usually the ones shooting. He is why the Tower is not only a monster closet.
Fang. A living magical girl from a later expedition. Hunts “Dreamers” who stayed too long in the Heavenly Curse. If you are looking for the person who is not an android, this is the name the character short uses.
Caius. Named on community hub lists. Thin public writeup. Talk if the client shows him; do not invent a quest.
Settlers. Masked leftovers of the war. Some hopeful, some not. They are the chorus, not a quest log.
Director lore, kept short: the Tower burns humanity’s memories into ash and erases people who live too close. MAHOU units are androids restored from backup data of historical magical girls. Akira has described an alt-history Cold War seed — Soviets win the space race, a moon birth, a magical-girl arms race, then a war that raises Babel — that started in a jam game. You do not need that essay to gift Momo a trinket. You need it so the lab backup is a story, not only a roguelike rule.
Director note on promises: each NPC can give one quest per playthrough. Pick carefully. We still will not print fake affinity tables.
Gifts and bonds
Store feature: interact with unique inhabitants and give them gifts to deepen your bond. Previews compare the social layer to a Persona-like link sitting next to a Hades-like loop. The demo will not finish those arcs. That is fine. Flag NPCs now so launch week is not the first time you learn the bar exists.
We will not invent affinity tables, gift IDs, or romance routes. If your client shows a gift item, give it to the person the UI highlights. If it does not, walk away and chip your OS instead. Chips and builds.
Why this is on the Players hub
Because “who is the Creator” is a search, and because skipping Babel makes Kernel Hearts feel like a worse spectacle fighter. The units are androids. The city is why they bother. Read the players hub for the squad, then come back here before you treat the lab as a skip button.
Related
Getting Started for the first walk through town. Demo walkthrough if you want Fields, not dialogue. Official Links for Discord if you want datamines we will not host.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers before you climb the Tower of Babel.
Is Babel a combat zone?
No. It is the safe city and lab between Heavens. Fights happen in domains like Folktale Fields. See Tower and Heavens.
Who is the Creator?
The engineer who maintains MAHOU units and the backup lab. Not a playable character. Trailer and in-game dialogue both lean on him.
Do I have to do bonding?
You can skip it in a demo speedrun. Official features list it as a pillar next to chips and transformation. Flag NPCs even if you do not finish routes.