So some of you guys who've watched me for a long time may remember my super old (and very first [official]) species, Soule Feeders. Well, after going through my gallery a little bit ago and rediscovering them, I realized how terrible they look, so I took a few minutes away from my homework and sketched up some concepts for a species redesign (Soule Feeders 2016 Concepts).

This is the product of that work. :> I redesigned the first Soule Feeder (now called "Pitch Hounds"--for their feeding on the "pitch black" emotions of people and/or for the color of their bones). This one used to be called Galileo, but I am changing his official name to "Magpie" because... well, his design is based off of one, ahah.
This is definitely gonna get cleaned up/remade digitally to make the colors, etc. more clear. This was just a doodle to play with a new design.

Since this isn't an official ref sheet and is more of an introduction to the changes in the species, I'll list what I've changed (more to be added once the official species sheet is remade):

Instead of just dogs with weird faces, bones, and toes, I adjusted the species to have a muntjac deer-like skull (though more elongated like a white tail deer skull). They also have a lot less fur—at least as they grow older, because they lose it, kind of like mange. Once all of their fur falls off, it’s not too long before they die. They are still counted as hellhounds, and humans still cannot see them.
Their anatomy is a mixture between maned wolves and deer (though mostly maned wolf based), with long, feline-like tails and bat-like ears added in.Their bones are still black and iron-rich, and their skin tends to lean on the dark side. This time around, they can be colored with less natural color pallets, though those tend to be a bit more uncommon than those with less saturated, natural coloration.
These guys lose their fur because they attach themselves to humans and absorb their negative emotions. Even though it makes them strong, it is actually a poison to them, and from the moment they’re born to the moment they die, they are very slowly dying from that poison. Kind of like chemo therapy, they lose their hair, but for the most part, that’s the only visible effect of taking in humans’ hate, greed, fears, and sadness.
They no longer leak misty stuff from their bodies’ openings, and instead, they excrete a gas from their nostrils (only) which is kind of like Scarecrow(from Batman)’s fear gas. It messes with human physiology and causes an intense reaction which varies between individual Feeders. Some can make people enraged, others can cause depression, and a few Feeders can even manage to trigger more than one negative emotion. It is extremely rare for a Feeder to make a gas which causes positive emotions in its host, and even more rare for those who make it to actually be able to feed off of those emotions. The gases have been known to cause humans to hallucinate, and some Feeders can even control what the human sees—usually creating their worst fears. Feeders must be careful not to overdose the human on the gas, or else the human is likely to die.
Feeders can pinpoint the most vulnerable hosts in an area, and often times, they will fight over them; thus why they have the horns, fangs, and long, sharp, opposable dew claws. The sharp teeth are also used for draining blood from victims/hosts when they do die from the eventual high blood pressure (or sometimes, from taking their own life or someone else taking it, due to their angry outbursts). The blood meal sustains them until they find a new host and the cycle can start all over again.
They are about the size of a whitetail deer, usually, but sometimes, they are smaller or larger, depending on how much sustenance they got when young.
They tend to not have sexes and can reproduce with one another in hermaphroditic relationships. They can have genders, however, as well as preferences as to whether or not they prefer carrying the offspring or making the offspring. Feeders can have exposed, bone-like plates on their backs, and those with the bones near the hind end tend to prefer being the “male” in breeding relationships, because being the “female” would be difficult (because the plate placement makes it hard for “males” to grasp without injury).
Generally, only one or two offspring survive from average litters of four. The weakest ones are killed outright by either the siblings or the parent. The parents will stay together until the offspring are old enough to be on their own (after one year), then all in the family will usually separate and not see one another again. If they do meet, they tend to either not recognize one another or not care, and violence may occur for territorial reasons. They do not interbreed with family members, however, as they can at least tell that much. Sometimes, past mates may return to one another, but competition may drive them apart again, in which case, they just move on and probably don’t meet again.
They can live anywhere, but they prefer to live in warmer climates, due to their fur which thins and falls as they age. Tightly-packed cities are a hotbed for them, as there is a lot of frustration between humans within populous areas. For Feeders seeking the sadder emotions and needing to feed off of depression, they do the opposite and travel to isolated areas, where humans who are lonely are most susceptible.




List of Traits:

Common:

-straight, backward-facing horns

-medium-length snout

-long canines

-open eye socket

-straight ears

-medium length fur

-dewclaws only on forepaws

-long tail

-bone plates near either shoulders or hips



Uncommon:

-forward-facing horns

-long snout

-two sets of canines

-shaped eye socket

-floppy ears

-silky fur

-dewclaws on forepaws and hindpaws

-short tail

-bone plates in middle of back



Rare:

-curved, backwards-facing horns

short snout

-upward-curved canines

-connecting eye socket

-folded ears

-short fur

-two sets of dewclaws on forepaws

-no tail

-bone plates on back of neck, elbows, or heels



Legendary:

-side-curved horns

-hairless (yet still healthy/in prime)

-skull plate deformities (e.g. extra sockets)

-three pairs of canines (can be upward-curved)

-long, pointed ears

-single, forward-pointing horn

-two sets of dewclaws on hind paws

-elongated tail

-bone plate[s] on tail

-bone plates on ribcage