Hey folks another lore doodle from Patreon and some lore to go with it! I am fixing to slow slightly down on them as biweekly doodles are a bit too cramped with my comics and life business so these may slow down to once a month. But enough of that, some lore!

Hey folks sorry this one took so immensely long, University has been crushing me for the past few weeks, additionally its hard to come up with a drawing for something like this as of course pheromones aren't a particularly visable thing. But anyways pheromones!

All the Ëldimor species (Drekir, Ormer, and Mavõtur) Produce pheromones so to keep this narrow lets focus on the most common of the Ëldimor, the Drekir.

Pheromones are immensely important to the day to day lives of drekir, all drekir produce pheromones that are secreted in a wide variety of ways in varying amounts that all serve to provide information to other drekir. how a drek smells can tell someone a lot about them.

Most drekir firstly have a sort of signature "den smell", as those drekir live closely together they often take on a smell and it is often the case where a drek can identify multiple members of the same den by their similar smells.

You can also gleam a lot of biological information such as a dreks rough age group (young adult vs midlife adult for example), you could also tell a dreks sex, if they are hungry or thirsty or fine, if they are healthy or in significant pain/discomfort, if they are sick with an illness or if they are healthy, even if they are pregnant or aroused (pregnant assuming female).

Lastly there is a lot of vague emotional sense that you can gleam from a drek, whether they are generally happy or disquieted, you may smell their anger and frustration from them in quiet moments of rage. A denmate might catch the smell of sadness from a quiet friend in the corner who may need some comfort. A drek who is nervously alert in a tense situation might alert other drekir around them to be on guard just subconsciously through the reek of dread. Drekir are very social, very close set creatures and these smells help them communicate with one another.

So how is it expressed through culture? It's a very important and rarely consciously addressed part of a dreks life, though it obviously shows up in a lot of mannerisms.

As some comic examples

The Seattlens are straightforward about whether or not to smell someone down. It's ok to thoroughly smell through your denmates, and in specific situations when the social environment warrants it (like a confused purple lizard that was once some human named Oli). In regards to strangers it is a common greeting, you are expected to give someone a whiff as it helps expedite the process of getting to know the new faces. Repeated whiffing of strangers or acquaintances is implied to be disrespectful, it starts to creep into "Ok why do you keep getting in my personal space?".

The Scorchers are more aggressive about smelling, it's a common greeting to exchange pheromones with strangers and it is common in a variety of mannerisms. With acquainted dens and with denmates its a common greeting. It can be considered disrespectful to not smell someone you're well acquainted with.

The Broncens tend to ask for more personal space, its considered disrespectful to invade someones personal space to smell them down unless it is requested. Doing that suggests that dreks sense of identity isn't valuable enough to let them give the OK, its an insult to smell someone without permission. Once someone is more well aquainted then it becomes more and more ok to scent pheromones as a respected function of social activity.