Manti'vess



Manti'vess was a great colony established by an enclave of aqir in the southern parts of Ancient Kalimdor during the later stages of the war between them and the trolls, roughly 16,000 years BDP. Under the roots of the great kypari trees, these aqir, known thereafter as mantid, established a new empire. They saw no purpose in continuing a battle they knew they were not strong enough to win. They believed that the best way to serve the Old Gods, whom they still fervently worshipped, was to conserve and refine the mantid's strength rather than expending it. While a revered empress ruled over the mantid's day-to-day activities, a council known as the Klaxxi controlled the insectoids' destiny. Rather than seek retribution on the trolls, the Klaxxi turned their gaze eastward to the nearby Vale of Eternal Blossoms and its mogu guardians.



The mantid found themselves drawn to the Vale; though they did not know it at the time, they were in fact drawn to the lingering essence of the deceased Old God Y'Shaarj, whose heart had been sealed below the valley by the mogu and their former master, Highkeeper Ra. To seek out this dark essence, the Klaxxi launched a surprise attack on the mogu, who narrowly withstood the swarm and drove the insectoids back to the kypari forests. The Klaxxi did not consider the defeat a failure, for their surviving warriors had matured and grown more powerful and cunning. They patiently waited one hundred years before launching another assault. Once again, the survivors returned stronger, and so the mantid cycle began. Every century, a new clutch made war on the mogu, culling the weak and allowing only the strongest mantid to return to the kypari. Within only a few cycles, mantid society had become tightly honed and rigid. The mogu marked the change with concern and launched a campaign into Manti'vess itself to ensure the permanent end of the cycle. The attack came decades before the next clutch of warriors would hatch, and the mogu initially devastated the mantid ranks, until a single warrior by the name of Korven turned the tide of battle, driving the mogu back and sending them into a retreat. The Klaxxi elders proclaimed Korven a "paragon" and promised that his deeds would become legend, but Korven was not satisfied, as he knew that it was only by chance that he had arisen in his race's hour of need. Thus, after years of experimenting with kypari sap, Korven devised a way to preserve a living creature in amber, potentially for thousands of years, allowing them to be reawakened by the Klaxxi should the need arise. Korven, named "the Prime" by the Klaxxi, was the first to be preserved, the first of many paragons, and the cycle he had almost single-handedly saved continued unbroken for generations.

Speculation
Manti'vess is very likely the original name of the Heart of Fear, as both fit the role of the mantid capital and the location of Manti'vess on the map of old Kalimdor matches the location of the Heart of Fear in modern-day Pandaria. This term is never used for it, only variations of "Shek'zeer's palace".