On the new Aspects and their Hours
I've recently finished my first run after ~60 hours and this is just a collection of thoughts about the new aspects introduced in BoH and possible Hours they may be related to. Unfortunately, having restarted my run I can't easily go back and check the late game items/areas that I reference here so if you see something that's incorrect, please put it in the comments.
Major lore and gameplay item spoilers below.
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**Sky**
> Wind, storm, echo, song; the intricacies of mathematics and the principles of flight. Law's touch is lighter than we sometimes think. [Matters of balance, harmony and necessity.]
Potential Related Hour - The Thunderskin
I initially marked Sky down as an aspect closely related to Lantern and the Name-Hours of the Intercalate (mostly because the first introduction to Sky is the telescope) but a much clearer correlation to an Hour becomes apparent as you unlock the music rooms of the house. Every single instrument has Sky aspect, the craftable Sky tool is an instrument, most of the Song memories have Sky aspect, clearly Sky is heavily related to music. In CS music was generally the domain of the Thunderskin so it seems likely that in BoH he will also be closely tied to Sky through its music connection. To really make this clear we need only look at Memory: Storm and Weather: Storm, both of which have Sky and Heart aspects. This was probably the easiest Hour to place though interestingly the link between Sky and music which I had put down as something like Sky -> air (wind?) -> sound -> music is broken by having Memory: Sound be Heart aspected.
Other Sky related hours are probably the Intercalate hours and maybe some of the bird-form hours, especially the ones mentioned on the Sky Stories skill.
**Moon**
> Secrets are soft; night is softer still; the sea speaks. It is not always wise to listen. [The nocturnal, the forgotten.]
Potential Related Hour(s) - The Meniscate, The Witch-and-Sister
I didn't get a great understanding of Moon through my playthrough so this is a little more theoretical. The Meniscate seems Moon aspected simply because the Meniscate essentially represents the moon/night in the four-part day cycle dictated by the Name-Hours of the Sun-in-Splendour. She also rules the secret reflection of the Mansus which fits nicely to the secret-related Moon aspect.
I put the Witch-and-Sister in because Moon also seems to have a strong connection to the Sea (Tides?). I don't know how much of this is in reference to the Tide but ignoring that most sea / tide related references seem to talk about the tides 'washing away' things on the shore which again fits nicely to the secrets/forgotten aspect of Moon. I think the Witch-and-Sister is the sea-focused part of the Twins but my knowledge on this is blurry, I never learnt Fucine in my run so all three volumes of the Geminiad were still unread when I finished.
**Rose**
> 'The rose which encompasseth all'. Nine directions to new horizons. [Exploration? Enlightenment? Hope?]
Potential Related Hour - The Vagabond
My least favourite aspect. Difficult to craft with, difficult to unlock rooms with, difficult to read books with, nothing to do with flowers. I also came out of my run with more questions than answers when it came to Rose, it seemed to have a lot of connection to dreaming and the Mansus and it also seemed to have a bunch of connections to the unbuilt City (Ys?) which is not a topic I know a lot about. Notedly Fet, described in the Secret Documents as the part of the soul which you use to explore the Mansus, has Rose as its major aspect. I also suspect that the 'Nine directions' it references are the nine branches of the Tree of Wisdom (Does this have any relation to the Ragged Crossroads Skill and 'the four paths not travelled'?).
I'm placing the Vagabond as my most likely guess at a related hour mostly due to half-remembered excerpts describing the (very annoying) recipe for Porphyrine which seems to mirror the Vagabond's entrances into the Mansus and how they keep getting closed. The other tie-in I have is the Path & Pilgrim Skill which is majority Rose aspect and seems to reference the Vagabond (known also as the Pilgrim).
**Scale**
> Hard without, hard within, hard to rouse, harder to subdue. [What is left of the crude powers of the deep earth.]
Potential Related Hour(s) - The Horned Axe, The Red Grail, The Moth
I got a better understanding of Scale during my run as I got pretty deep into Scale through the Archaeologist ending. Three spheres or connections I saw from Scale were: old things (Specifically the Carapace Cross), the earth and the things living beneath it, and animal life (compared to nectar aspected plant life and heart aspected life in general).
Tying in the Horned Axe to Scale is its position as the last God-from-Stone and the multiple refences to horns as the parts of animals that last the longest. Most of the Scale related hous content is in the area underneath the house where notedly three (four) shrines can be found, one of which is to the Horned Axe. I point also to the Horned Axe's strong affiliation with cats and finally the Scale skill I used most often being 'Horns and Ivories'
Slightly weaker reasoning for the Red Grail, here I'm banking on the Mountain-Mother (related to the Earthquake-Name memory?) aspect of the Red Grail as well as its claim of being the first/oldest God-from-Blood. The Red Grail also has its shrine under the house next door to the Horned Axe's one.
Finally the Moth also claims to be the oldest God-from-Blood as well as having lots of ties to animals, not 100% on this one though.
Other options include the Wolf-Divided and really any of the multiple other animal-form Hours.
**Nectar**
> The green wealth in the world's veins; the pulse of the seasons. [Long ago, some called this principle Blood.]
Possible Related Hour(s) - The Crowned Growth, The Malachite
Nectar seemed very closely tied in with Heart, Scale, and Grail as life-related aspects. The three kitchen workstations are a mix of mostly these aspects for example. I didn't explore Nectar too deeply though in my run so again my links here are mostly theoretical.
The Crowned Growth seems the obvious candidate though as a God-from-Nowhere the information on it is limited. It has the strongest ties to plants and growth so it's my first choice for possible Hour. The Malachite I'm picking due to the very strong Nectar - honey/bee connection which is referenced in a few of the Nectar books in game. Honey itself has the nectar aspect and honey is supposedly the blood of the Malachite so I can only assume that the connection passes over.
Possible other options include the Flowermaker but my knowledge of that hour is limited.
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I'd be interested to hear what you all think. With a final note being that I find it interesting that none of the new hours make it onto the diagram representing the Tree of Wisdom.