Anyways back to the thing I actually wanted to talk about!
Eldritch deity Howard that also has Blood Flower biology!
Now I can properly explain and gush about this mini post-golden ending scenario where Howard finds out he's an eldritch horror now!
Some notes about my design/interpretation in my head (some of which that I have visualized through the moodboard here):
Howard hates being an eldritch blood flower deity with every fiber of his being. Mostly because Howard could not care any less about shedding or correcting his humanity, but also because becoming an essentially immortal eldritch deity robbed him of the most natural and normal human experience of all... DYING. He will inevitably outlive Phillip and Angelique and Nessie and anyone else he grows close + attached to. He will never get to die and see his mother again in the afterlife.
Howard hides his newly gained eldritch form and powers the best he can when in front of other people, but because doing that take so much of his energy (there goes that devolving quality of the Blood Flower again), he is forced to let the illusion of his former human body drop every once in a while or he'll pass out for days and feel like shit for a good week afterwards.
You will notice that I have two Howard death screen faces in the moodboard, the madness from darkness and the madness from seeing things cosmic and weird. Howard has the former happen to him when he is in a state of extreme distress or when he's royally pissed off (he smiles to distract from the real anger/distress, it's false, and the person has five seconds to distinguish if he's mad or distressed before they get influenced by his aura). He has the latter happen when he's in a state of euphoria or bliss (this aura can also effect people too, but humans who encounter it usually grow drowsy due to the sudden rush of oxytocin and stress reduction). The eye in the top middle of the board is how Howard's eyes look when he's in eldritch form but is more in control of his emotions after he finally learns how to control his eldritch powers.
NOW ONTO WHAT HIS BODY LOOKS LIKE. Okay so, this is gonna be weird to explain (which... he's half eldritch so that's just gonna be a given). If I had to give a rough description, it would be that his body from the neck down looks like a Blood Flower tree? Or like a bunch of them growing on one singular stem? But like... his body is still humanoid shaped, if that makes sense! Like there's blood flowers blooming from multiple places on his body like his legs, arms, even his hands have smaller ones blooming. His fingers and feet look more like thorny roots than human extremities. His hair looks like a bunch of blood was dumped on his head, but the strands of hair turns into little leaves and has flowers blooming throughout the vines, just like on his body.
Howard can still drink and eat human consumables if he wishes to (he doesn't have to anymore though). However, to satiate the Blood Flower biology within his body now, he does need to take blood from a donor (this got easier when he finally told Angelique and Phillip the truth that they pretty much already knew and he is able to get blood from them). And yes, Howard CAN smell blood and it is intoxicating to him when he hasn't satiated his need in a while.
Howard now can, because eldritch deity shit, manipulate human minds to do as he wishes. He also figures out he can go into dreams and read said human minds. He doesn't take advantage of that because it freaks him out quite frankly.
