Eros

* Human Eros
* God Eros

**Eros** is the infamous God of Love and the main character of Eros Conquers All. Attractive and highly charismatic, he is adept at manipulating most social interactions to his benefit. As the god of love, Eros must feed on a person's capacity to love in order to sustain himself.

## Appearance

In his human form, Eros is a tall man with tan skin and grey eyes. He has curly dark brown hair with bangs that he parts at his left side. His facial features are sharp and androgynous. His body type is average with some overall muscle definition. He normally dresses in business-casual or formal wear, but will dress more casually if the situation calls for it,

In his god form, Eros has gray skin that fades to black towards his lower extremities. All clothing is burned off of him, leaving him nude. His eyes turn red and his pupils glow white. Curved horns grow from his head and his hair turns white as well. Several orange and red glowing patterns appear on his skin, some of which appear similar to veins. His fingernails sharpen, elongate, and turn black. Some of the muscles and organs in his torso (mainly his heart) and arms appear to glow orange from underneath his skin and extremely large angel wings grow from his back.

While Eros seems to be able to transform at will, he partially shifts into his god form after feeding from either an arrow or his dagger, and he seems to have little control of the transformation until he comes down from the initial satisfaction of feeding. His white hair, wings, horns, and glowing skin patterns will manifest, albeit smaller than his full god form, and his clothing will partially burn off.

## Personality

When he is in control of himself and not attempting to manipulate someone, Eros is laid-back, good-natured, and even kind towards humans. He has openly expressed admiration for their changeable nature, and seem to dislike hurting innocent people. He also seems to express regret or guilt for his past actions, wondering whether there is hope to change. Conversely, his clear dislike for his fellow gods is evident, thinking of them as nothing but monsters. He has no problems killing fellow gods, and would rather spend time in the Human Domain than mingle with his kind.

Eros also has a cynical side, often questioning his nature and purpose. His cynicism stems from his existentialism; he does not know why he exists, or if he will ever amount to anything more than his hunger. This question reflects the main theme of *Eros Conquers All*. He expresses his inner turmoil through jaded humor and sarcastic remarks to others, and philosophical internal monologues to himself.

He participates in community service, or goes out of his way to help humans as part of an experiment suggested by Lavi to satisfy his hunger for love without hurting humans. Because of past experience, Eros believes that the experiments will fail, but goes along with it anyway. Lavi has also suggested starting a church so that Eros may sustain himself on people's worship of him, but Eros has declined on account of him being unworthy of worship.

Although, he appears to be self-aware enough to feel guilt, Eros is self-serving and does not let his guilt stop him from achieving what he wants. Eros is cunning and chooses to end conflicts through manipulation and careful planning rather than direct combat. When faced with an enemy, Eros can appear cruel and sadistic.

Eros has a second personality that emerges when he is feeding. This side of Eros is selfish, vain, and gluttonous. It will stop at nothing to possess and/or devour the entire world and genuinely believes Eros is capable of doing so. It does not care about the harm it causes, only about satisfying its insatiable hunger. Eros usually feeds in isolated locations to prevent this side of him from being tempted by potential prey. If this second personality emerges in public without Eros' consent, he struggles to control and suppress it, but is capable of doing so.

Eros likes to learn and is currently enrolled in five majors at a local university. He claims that it helps him keep up to date with current social norms.

## Background

The exact time of Eros' origin has not been specified, but he is younger than Sol and much older than Belial. In keeping with the practice of gods like Eros naming themselves after figures in human mythology, Eros named himself after the Greek god of love and sex.

Eros was once an extremely powerful god, capable of controlling most other gods who existed at the time. For unknown reasons, he relinquished his control and power over other gods, which has wrought turmoil amongst them. It is implied that Eros is fully capable of reclaiming his prestige.

At one point in time, Eros encountered a young woman in a white dress with long blonde hair and bangs. She is the one who first posed the questions about Eros' existence. Eros' encounter with this woman has stayed with him for several years. When recalling her, Eros remarks that she changed him, in some ways for the worst. It is possible that Eros' encounter with this woman is what led him to swear off using the full extent of his godlike powers.

## Abilities

### Feeding

Eros sustains himself by feeding on a person's capacity to love. He can passively feed on people's love for him by being in close proximity to those people, but his main method of feeding involves physically reaching into a person's chest to take their love, which manifests as a glowing red arrow. Eros can store this arrow until he is ready to feed, at which time he will cause the arrow to spontaneously combust until it turns into a kind of food depending on the shape of the person's love, which Eros can consume at his leisure.

### Domains

Eros can manipulate his own domain at will and he is capable of performing rituals that allow him access to another god's domain. These rituals sometimes require permission to enter from the owner of that domain, but under undisclosed circumstances, Eros may also enter another god's domain without their consent or knowledge.

Eros can also subsume the domains of other gods, giving him complete control over them. He has been depicted using this power to manifest illusions in order to manipulate the domain's original owner.

### Dagger

Eros owns a dagger that will satisfy his hunger when it is used to kill a human. At this point in time, the dagger is not in Eros' possession; it was stolen by Belial. Using it causes Eros to lose control of himself, and it is implied that he himself has not used it in a considerable amount of time.

### Manipulation

In addition to his extremely advanced social and intellectual skills, Eros has accumulated approximately two centuries' worth of wealth and resources over the course of his existence. These resources allow him to manipulate people with tangible goods, such as when Eros buys a collector's item for Mira or manipulates the stock market to trap Belial in a corner.

### Blood Control

If Eros is wounded and bleeding, he can manipulate the exposed blood and use it as a weapon. He can massively increase the amount of blood and use it to restrain or destroy his enemies.

## Relationships

### Kai

*Main Article: Kai*

Kai is Eros' human priest and assistant. Eros trusts him to carry out his orders without fail, and Kai is unwaveringly loyal to Eros to the point that he would willingly sacrifice himself to obey his commands. Eros also respects and cares for Kai; he supplies him with a liquid that is meant to help with an unknown condition that Kai has, and is not above apologizing to him. It is yet unknown how long Eros and Kai have known each other.

### Sol

*Main Article: Sol*

Eros gives Sol the respect he is merited due to his status as an ancient god, but does not genuinely respect him. Eros disagrees with Sol's view that they have the right to seize ultimate power simply because they can. In turn, Sol believes that Eros is a fool not to use his full power, and laments the poor state in which Eros left godkind.

### Lavi

*Main Article: Lavi*

Eros attends anthropology classes taught by Lavi at a local university. Lavi knows that Eros is a god and has made it her personal mission to find a way to stop him from feeding upon humans. She is under the false impression that he has not fed in approximately two years. It is implied that part of the reason Eros volunteers and helps out humans in need is because Lavi suggested it as a way to satisfy his hunger. Despite going along with her suggestions, Eros knows that they will not work the way she thinks it will. Eros refuses to let Lavi start a church in his name because he believes he is unfit for worship. Lavi treats him like a celebrity. Eros does not believe that Lavi is pure of heart, but trusts her enough to act as his proxy to meet with an ancient god.

### Rue

*Main Article: Rue*

Eros temporarily took custody of Rue in order to prevent them from running amok. Eros does not fully understand what Rue is, and Rue themself has little control or understanding of their powers, so he doesn't know what to expect of them. He treated them like a lost child, which did not bother Rue. He has displayed some concern over their wellbeing and attempts to teach her safety and social skills, but brushes off any insinuation that they're fond of him as their desire to feed. When Rue accidentally insults him, Eros responds coldly but does not lash out in anger. He has also apologized on her behalf when she speaks rudely.

After a fight with Rue in which they stole a piece of his sadness, Eros lost contact with them. Rue has gained an insatiable desire to consume the rest of his sadness.

### Mira

*Main Article: Mira*

On paper, Mira is Eros' lawyer. She meets a very specific set of qualifications to work under him, so it is difficult to find other employees like her. This leads Mira to end up taking on a lot of managerial and accounting work that doesn't fit her position, which irks her. She has tried to complain about her workload to Eros, but he usually avoids addressing her issues with careful responses and rewards in the form of exclusive collector's items. Her revenge for these actions involves a website called *webnovelmaker.fyr*.

### Belial

*Main Article: Belial*

Eros is angry with Belial for stealing his dagger and has spent a considerable amount of time and resources planning his downfall. Belial was hired by an unidentified person to retrieve Eros' dagger from the Void and gave it to Cairn. He refused payment, saying that seeing Cairn's plans for Eros come to fruition would be payment enough.

After Eros subsumed Belial's domain, he terrorized the younger god as punishment for stealing his dagger, but also told him the truth about the god he'd been idolizing and invited Belial to join his forces.

## Trivia

* Eros' known aliases are Mark Gillem, Liam, Ian, and Adrian Rois.
	+ Since Eros has fed on the person he was targeting while using the name Mark Gillem, he has retired that alias.
	+ Mark Gillem is a reference to a character from *CUPID - A free to play Visual Novel*. The character Marquis Guilleme served as inspiration for Eros and *Eros Conquers All*.
* Eros is confirmed to be pansexual and panromantic.
* Eros likes eating ube with cheddar string cheese, fries, and mayonnaise.
	+ It is possible that, rather than that specific combination, Eros just likes eating strange foods.
* As of this point in the story, Eros has three confirmed victims: Nina Belle, Nathan Reis, and Nash.

## Gallery

### Official Artwork

Eros partially transformed.Eros pulling an arrow from Nina's chest.Eros deleting the "Mark Gillem" social media account.Eros as he was perceived in older times.Eros in casual wear.Eros volunteering for a local hospital.Eros preparing to request an audience with Sol.Eros as remembered by Sol.Eros as he appears to Sophie.The first glimpse at aspects of Eros' god form.A closeup of Eros' fully realized god form.Eros in a meeting with his allies.
### Unofficial Artwork

Art uploaded at @ameliori on Instagram.Art uploaded at @ameliori on Instagram.Art uploaded at @ameliori on Instagram.Eros hosting a cooking livestream.Eros dressed as a character from the webtoon Purple Hyacinth.