Hoben: The Red Moon

Hoben is the smallest of the two moon in Hysal's sky. The difference in size and appearance between them is stricking. Unlike Veos Veos, it does not seem to be covered in bands of blue clouds as its surface is exposed and visible to the naked eye. It appears to be quite rugged, rocky and covered in a reddish hue. Its lunar cycle is trice as long as that of Veos and it cannot eclipse the sun thanks to its small size. Due to that and its reddish colour, it only emits a dull, red light during the night, and is regulary outshined by Veos, who is both bigger and brighter.

Geography

Its surface appears to be quite chaotic. While most of the moon's surface is coloured by various shades of reds, quite a few spots are of a darker shade, appearing almost grey and brown. These seem to be hills or mountains cutting through the land and separating the otherwhise relatively flat surface of the moon into bassins and depressions and wide valleys

Localized Phenomena

Lunar Eclipse

Unlike when Veos is eclipsed, a lunar eclipse on Hoben does not change its colour in a spectacular way. Instead, it simply fades into a much darker reddish brown hue, emitting next to no light. It also happens much less frequently than with Veos because of its slower cycle and each eclipse is shorter, lasting only about 35-45 minutes.

Partial Solar Eclipses

Hoben is unable to fully eclipse the sun because it is significantly smaller than the sun in the sky. Unlike Veos, which during one of its eclipses, covers the whole sun, leaving only a thin ring of light visible, Hoben does not. Instead, it hides about 2/3 of the sun, leaving a rather thick circle of light, resembling a doughnut, while the middle of the sun hides behind the moon's dark shadow. On the ground, it gives off the effect that the sun would be setting, but the angles of the shadows are of course missplaced. The temperature is known to drop, but not as much as during a Veosian eclipse.

Ashen Glow

During both the waxing crescent and waning crescent, when the part of Hoben illuminated by the sun is only a thin crescent of its surface, the rest of the moon takes on a bluish-grey tinge, barely visible to the naked eye.

The name of the phenomena simply comes from the fact that the colour the moon takes on resembles that of ash flakes.

History

For the most part, Hoben tends to be ignored in the historical records, say for some mentions beside Veos whenever a double solar eclipse occured or in relations to its presence's supposed effect on Elemental Mages.

Type

Planetoid / Moon

Location under

The Celestial Plane

Lunar Cycle: The lunar cycle of Hoben lasts 97 days, which is about 3 months and 7 days of the Common Calendar. It is more than three times longer than Veos's lunar cycle. In practice, this means that each lunar phase of Hoben also last trice as long, causing Hoben to dissapear from the night sky for weeks before finaly reapearing and growing slowly for a month or so, reaching its biggest and brightest form after about 40 days. It remains full or nearly full for about 2 weeks, which opens the possiblity of both of the moons being full at the same time. This happens about 2 times a year, as the lunar cycles of Hoben and Veos aren't syncted perfectly together. On these rare occasions, they both offer the brightest nights in Hysal.
Alleged Magical influence: Hoben has long been rumoured to have an effect on on the magic abilities of Elemental mage, in a similar way to how Veos, Hoben's sister moon, does on Soulmages. However, this was never officialy confirmed and remains entirely anecdotal.