The Shvar race is distinguished by neither wide renown nor large numbers.
The Shvars prefer to settle in large, close-knit communities of five hundred to several thousand individuals. Only in exceptional cases do their settlements grow into giant cities of a million inhabitants.
The Shvars are drawn to communal living and traditionally work in farming or related trades, providing for the needs of their communes.
The race owes its special, at times scandalous, fame to the sale of its own milk. This biological product has peculiar properties: on members of many other species it acts like a powerful drug.
In many countries trade in Shvar milk is strictly banned, but that does not stop the black market. Drug cartels often work with the Shvars, buying the raw product from them for further distribution.
Shvar physiology and reproduction are unique as well. They are in effect hermaphrodites, possessing the primary sexual characteristics of both sexes.
Roles are assigned in the mating season, which comes in spring. The Shvars take part in so-called "ritual duels" — real fights in an arena that go on for many days from morning to night. The fights settle the hierarchy in a pair: the winner becomes the active partner and fertilises, while the loser becomes the passive one and carries the offspring.
Children born of such unions are raised by the whole community.
This custom is known as the "Shvar Spring". The many duels draw not only the Shvars themselves but members of other races too. A whole entertainment industry has grown up around this ancient tradition, turning the mating season into a spectacular show for viewers from all over the world.
In the illustration a Shvar is a stocky humanoid covered in yellow-brown fur, with dark stripes on its arms and a bushy tail. Its head is elongated, with a dark muzzle, large black eyes, curved fangs and a pair of thin horns. It wears purple trousers.