#slomen

[yellosnacc]

A collection of differently aged sloman chicks and an adult with a meg on his back, shown translucent to view the inside.

Here are sloman chicks. When a sloman hatches by tearing and biting through the megg, it's either lightly or fully covered by fuzzy feathers with little color. They feed on "soup" from their mother's chest pouch with some help from the father, who, however, isn't always able to make more soup after baby hatches. More megg detail (some visuals slightly outdated).

Unlike mammals, slomen have a less refined feeding system, and the chicks have to puncture the pouch to get to the "soup". The holes are very small, much like the tips of the drinking teeth of the babies. The teeth aren't very visible in the image, but they form a triangle from the bottom jaw that directs flow into the mouth. They also help with breaking the megg, these chicks have no other teeth. The younglings generally start walking on their feet no later than two months. This is when they are fully covered in fuzz and may start growing new teeth. Though that walking isn't exactly competent. Much like baby birds, they wobble around and fall at every step, especially if they try to run. Before their famous good-enough-walk they often crawl around on their ankles, with a few just ignoring that they have legs, instead dragging themselves by their arms everywhere (a behavior important to correct early).

Slims start getting their stripe-fluff latest by half a year. These feathers are more solid than the cottony covering and all show a unique stripe pattern. While they may walk just fine, they aren't yet good speakers, and even among their age, they use signs a lot more than speech. Complex words and signs come with a better understanding of concepts. Before any of that, they can't be trusted running in the fields without an older sibling. It can sometimes take over a year before a running child can be trusted with running. By this point, some children will also slowly gain new coloration that, in some cultures, will decide their gender early. This isn't always a good idea, with how long the coat takes to develop and how much assuming has to be made based on older siblings and parent colors. So most slomen until a certain age are not gendered. The new colors always start higher on the body. So most often, the face is the first to become fully covered in "adult" feathers. But yes, this transition takes their whole childhood and only becomes faster at puberty, where other changes come.

When it comes to scent, the youngest chicks share a very similar scent that is recognized as the baby smell. Later, they develop their more personal one to be recognized by by their peers easily among the many. It's only in puberty that a personal scent can tell someone which sex someone may be. Until older, slomen also have much smaller scent glands on their face, which makes their faces a lot flatter than an adult's. The air space in the area also grows.

[yellos2]

Sizes aren't perfect, but they are hugable

Also, slomen actually have "plushes" in use, which has, in rare cases, evolved into toy plush making. But the original use is for workers, primarily travelers. They are called 'sailor bags' in simple, and serve as company for isolated slomen who are either too sick to be with others or their job has them away from their unit for a longer period of time. They are very simplified and don't actually look like specific people unless one draws a bit on them. It's really about the base shape; many won't even have limbs.

A bigger ships might just have a room with a bunch, filling them with resources that may be used in an emergency or just having them single purpose. Ships on long trips can't always afford large squads, and having the feeling of a familiar embrace can help with the stress of a long voyage. Slomen tend to sleep all grouped up.

And just to make sure, they are not used for adult purposes

[freshrranchfirefestival]

Im never finishing my fucking ref man

[the1andonlyvoid]

Neal and Bioman for @yellosnacc

[yellosnacc]

An old story

Approximately 23 years ago, a young man of uniimic biology is taken in by the court to serve in the coven. As he is taught the high ways, he is told about an event of the recent past, described as old.

Not even 6 years earlier, the nation of Ciwa had a stable relationship with a sky uniima collective from the southern islands, giving them an open gateway to the ueema and the rest of the central land.

This relationship was greatly weakened after one of many intercontinental trips taken by the two species, when one of the uniima envoys was lost in Kuiqua, the political and religious capital of Upli'ta-kaw (Ciwa).

Death is not considered a rarity for those traveling to alien lands, where one can easily get poisoned by local sources or badly kept rations. It was automatically assumed the uniima would have died. However, it would be quite unlikely for an alien body to come unnoticed.

After long conversations, messages, and threats, the ciwans had failed to give the collective information about their lost envoy. It's unclear how the parley ended, but the uniima withdrew from Ciwa in relative peace and with a lot of gifts.

Only a few know the whole scale of what happened to the delegation member. But most had heard the old complaints about lack of knowledge, the lack of an upper hand on alien biology. How unreliable aliens are with information. Or how they must have been vivisecting slomen for years. Be it an accident, an intent, or a misstep, nowadays every court member would be against it.

Neal has grown to think in similar ways. But it's not as effortless for him.

------------------------

It's easy to think that nobody would notice one of many visitors disappearing with the lack of oversight and the distance between the political bodies. The slomen had sent many more than the uniima would usually send; they would barely read the loss records, and they didn't ask for the bodies to be brought back unless it came to a higher caste member. Anyone would have been terribly decomposing on the long journey. On the other hand, the uniima sent trained individuals, and read all taken back from the trip. The tension from a war was still palpable to them; many had lived in those times, while most slomen were a new generation. The communication that was taken back about the envoy made it clear that things went wrong. One of their colleagues also said the envoy had a bad relationship with the locals, but never trailed off alone. The last time they would see them, it was after an argument about alien emotions, or the lack thereof. When they met with the slomen, they had acted as if they didn't even know the person. Acting like they couldn't tell them apart, how they don't remember how many came. "It was ridiculous!"

[yellosnacc]

The put-tut, or often among different cultural groups known as 'half a sloman', are contradictory to a common belief, not actually half of a sloman running around the forest at night.

They are a very distant relative to the sloman, with their limb structure being somewhat similar and both having horizontal jaws and more posable head.

Half-sloms eat smaller animals and meggs that they find buried or hidden in treeholes, but if they get a chance, they won't say no to larger ground-dwelling prey. In this case, their arms are largely unused while their legs deliver surprisingly powerful kicks and tears to flesh. They can be found in many areas with some subspecies variation better fitting 'grass'land, forest, and shore environments. However, they are rare to witness, partially due to them being a popular bounty within sloman groups. These slomen believe in an inherent malice of the animal (as featured in folklore and a few religions). It probably doesn't help put-tuts find young slomen to be of suitable nutritional value.

Poobs are closely related to half-sloms but their diet is much more focused on invertebrates. When they do prey on larger animals, it's often a consequence of taking an unwilling hostage. When a poob hides or goes to rest, they don't bother making their own burrow and just find one they like and get in. Sometimes these homes still have residents inside that the poob will kick and scratch until the owner gets tired. Other times they take whatever food stash or baby animals are for grabs at the den as the owner desperately tries to get inside their home. The skull of the poob is thick, even if that means their brain gets to be a bit disproportional. They will also take mud baths and get their head dirty on purpose to better hide their identity.

In the few areas where poob and put-tut species populations overlap, put-tuts have learned to fish the poobs out of their stolen burrows, making for a tough but rewarding meal.

[yellosnacc]

Can we get a beautiful family portrait of neal with his beautiful family? Or at least just him and his parents, idk how big their clan is so idk how annoying it'd be to draw every single slomen lol

Picture of Maaj and slom-Neal close to a Ciwan beach

Neal always had a small family. Only him and his mothers, outcasts to the rest. They lived in a host family, one that had them employed and included them in *some* family activities, but it's hard to say if they would include them in a family portrait. Painting generally isn't much of a thing in Tatlich - Neal's childhood home, so his first was in Ciwa, where he lives now.

A painting is a thing for the wealthy, but he is part of the royal sub-family, and so this is paid for him.

When he moved his mother to Ciwa, she was excited to have a picture with him, but less excited about him requesting to be only painted as a clear sloman.

The first painting was on cattle skin, but it unfortunately got destroyed while being moved to a new place.

The new one was made to be portable. Though it was hard to find an artist willing to make something so small, most ciwan painting is done in groups on a large canvas/wall to be displayed in the wealthy families' large territory, not a single witch's workroom.

[yellosnacc]

struggle man

Just doodles of the nature fellow

He can be a little dramatic when he lets it show