Xvart

Xvarts are small blue humanoids that scream and attack with short swords. Their primary strength is numbers and their usual loot is low amounts of gold or gems.

Ecology
Xvarts are a cruel, cowardly race that occupy a place in humanoid society somewhere between goblins and kobolds. They often act as intermediaries between kobolds and goblins, usually dominating and taking their aggression on the kobolds.

Rats and bats help guard their camps. Xvarts will often ally themselves with wererats, helping to shelter the shapeshifters and aid them in their schemes. Xvarts who become infected with the wererat curse are greatly respected among their kind. Some xvart tribes ally themselves with goblins, although they avoid worgs, which will eagerly eat a xvart's pet rat.

Environment
Xvarts live in hilly, cavernous regions, in caves or remote forests. They have a village due west from Nashkel where they live in wooden huts and are even more numerous there.

Typical physical characteristics
Xvarts are blue-skinned humanoids with vivid orange eyes and receded hairlines. They are 3 feet (0.9 m) tall and usually wear loose cloth doublets.

Alignment
Xvarts are usually chaotic evil.

Society
Xvarts live in tribes led by the strongest and cleverest member. They prefer to hunt for their food, but will steal livestock or crops from human farms if hunting goes poorly. They rarely risk violent raids unless a powerful leader or cause unites them.

Although weak individually, they are extremely prolific, and are almost always encountered in large groups.

Language
Xvarts speak Ghukliak, the language of goblins. The more intelligent xvarts also speak Yipyak, the kobold dialect of the Draconic language.

History
Xvarts were originally gnomes enslaved and experimented on by the fomorians. They escaped to the Plane of Shadow thanks to a pact with a coven of hags, where they mutated further, their skin becoming deep blue in order to blend better with the shadows of the plane. Since then, many have spread back to the Feywild and Toril.

Creative origins
Xvarts were created by Cricky Hitchcock for the Fiend Folio 1st edition game bestiary.

Publishing history
In the 4th edition Monster Manual 3, xvarts are renamed xivarts.