Varvarski are enormous humanoid creatures, rarely exceeding the wit of a human child of five, yet dangerous in the extreme. They stand up to nine feet tall, with thick, grey-and-white mottled skin that serves as both armor and camouflage against snow and stone. Most wear crude furs for clothing and wield rock axes and spears of their own making alongside whatever metal tools they manage to steal in their raids on isolated villages and poorly defended towns.
They dwell primarily in mountain caves or in ramshackle settlements clustered around sites they revere as holy. Communication with them is possible, but laden with peril; they are quick to fear and quicker to violence. Sailors and traders speak of other varvarski across the sea with different hues, living in different climes, but if such varieties once walked this continent, they were likely exterminated millennia ago by the forebears of humanity as they pushed outward to dominate most of the land.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, “Magi the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
