The Svarits are a race of rodent-like creatures living underground. That is why they make such excellent miners.
Gold plays an enormous part in the society of the race: the more gold a Svarit has, the more successful he is.
Out of this grew a genuine art — the weaving of golden clothing. It is not especially pliable, but it carries great value, and a Svarit wears his wealth on his own back.
On a Svarit's neck sit particular glands able to register the slightest deviations in the atmosphere underground. That is how the Svarits find deposits of metal — going by smell alone.
Their eyes see excellently in all but complete darkness.
A Svarit is a squat creature covered in thick russet fur, with a hairless mauve face, blue eyes and a wreath of fleshy appendages around the mouth, with tusks protruding beneath them. Hands and feet are mauve as well, and clawed.
In the illustration he wears a canvas shirt with straps, over it a breastplate of golden panels set with turquoise, and in his hand a golden mace.