Pheromone is a card type that is unique to the Beetles race. Pheromones can only be brought into play by the Pheromone Pod. They are similar to upgrades, but only affect cards in the same location as the Pheromone Pod. There are five pheromones:
- Alert: Reveals all nearby hidden units
- Frenzy: All nearby beetles gain +1 attacking power
- Bind: Reduces the speed of all enemies that enter or leave the location where it is active
- Hoard: All nearby Harvesters may gather twice per turn
- Liquefy: Nearby beetles cannot be suppressed or turned into Festering Corpses
There is a maximum of 1 Pheromone Pod per location, and each pod can only support one pheromone at a time. As such there is a maximum of one pheromone per location.
To activate a pheromone, remove the current pheromone from the Pheromone Pod (if there is one), place the new pheromone face-down underneath the pod, then engage both cards once. When the stack reaches the ready orientation, turn the pheromone face-up; the pheromone is now active.