Editing Xvart (section)

==Attempts To Buff This Smurf-Turd==
Xvarts appeared in 4th edition's [[Monster Manual]] 3 - this means they're one of the few races that've actually appeared in every single edition, which isn't bad for a race defined as a low-quality knock-off [[goblinoid]]. The 4e version renames them '''Xivorts''' so they don't sound so much like a humid gas-pass. It also tries to un-redundant them - by tying them to a demihuman race, in this case the [[gnomes]] like [[spriggan]]s and [[svirfneblin]]. Xivorts are a gnomish subrace born out of their long slavery to the [[fomorian]]s. Specifically, the xivorts descend from the gnomish slaves of [[Fomorian|formorian]] colonies either in the [[Shadowfell|Shadow]][[Underdark|dark]] or in close proximity to a portal leading from the [[Feywild|Fey]][[Underdark|dark]] to there: a prolonged exposure to the eerie energies of the [[Shadowfell|Shadow]][[Underdark|dark]] gave them both their ability to speak to rats & bats and a natural affinity for shadow magic that manifests in an innate ability to reactively teleport from danger. Whilst the bulk of the race was freed from slavery by a [[hag]] coven that wanted to piss the fomorians off, others still linger in slavery. Even the free xivorts are a dangerous menace, because they want to make all of the bigger races suffer for what they went through. Races of their own size are okay, though; in fact, they regularly team-up with evil [[gnome]]s and [[halfling]]s.

The Xvarts have the dubious honor of being a race who received a 5th edition rewrite that pretty much changed everything about them in Volo's Guide to Monsters. In 5th edition, Raxivort was once a fiend of some kind who used to serve as the treasurer for [[Graz'zt]], until he stole a powerful magical artifact called the Infinity Spindle. This ascended him instantly to the rank of demigod, after which he fled Graz'zt's domain and founded his own territory in [[Pandemonium]]. Naturally, even if he'd outgrown the power that the Spindle could give him already, Graz'zt was kind of pissed off at this, and so got creative about expressing his displeasure: he went and told pretty much everyone what the Infinity Spindle could do. As you might expect, a lot of unpleasant characters promptly went after Raxivort, scaring the piss out of him. So, he used the Spindle to visit world after world, creating countless inferior magical duplicates of himself to throw off any efforts to track him down. Those magical constructs are the Xvarts.

So, yeah, they went from actually being fairly peaceable, for goblin-folk, to being shoddy knock-offs created as expendable body-doubles. Worse, the xvarts know this, and so they seethe with jealousy and frustration. Greedy, conniving, and obsessed with loot, they're constant thieves who steal everything they can that looks like it might be valuable. Also, because they're desperate for their "father's" approval, they tend to kidnap people and sacrifice them to him. On the rare occasions they do entice him to show up - Raxivort appears like any other xvart, save for being nine feet tall - their creator steals all of the treasure that the "lucky" tribe has gathered and then pisses off without saying a word. What an asshole. He will sometimes grant low-level warlock powers to an xvart who manages to steal magical items and sacrifice them to him, though.

Yeah, this does kind of make the 5e xvarts into essentially a race of thieving, evil, Smurf knock-offs.