Designing our asset – inspiration and concept art

As I mentioned earlier, from H.P. Lovecraft short stories, particularly those of the popular Cthulhu Mythos, are some of my favorite weird tales. In these stories, intrepid investigators come into contact with objects and creatures born of madness, along with the servants of dark and terrible gods. Using this idea as inspiration, we once again turn to Google Images in search of more inspirational writings and images. A quick search provides interesting ideas. The Elder Gods are often depicted in art as otherworldly. Tentacles, screaming mouths, multiple eyes, uneven physiques, and more, are depicted, mixed with more human elements. So how might we take these ideas and incorporate them into a design for a game asset that will not look out of place on a space station in the far future?

Time to sketch our concept:

Sketch of the Artifact

My initial thoughts were to create some type of container, like a Pandora's Box, that when opened unleashes a...