Mantis-kinden

Mantis Kinden

Mantis-kinden are an Inapt and generally reclusive race who live in hidden forest holds throughout the world. Famed warriors, they served as enforcers for the Moth-kinden during the Days of Lore, and are still valued as mercenaries and bodyguards. Following the Apt Revolution they largely retreated to their holds, and have played little role in the events of the modern era.

Mantis-kinden are generally tall, slim and pale. They are faster and more agile than most other kinden, and are excellent hunters and trackers thanks to their hunter-gatherer society. Their culture is very conservative; Mantids eschew technology and treat outsiders with suspicion. They value martial skill, and often use combat as a way to resolve disputes. Mantis-kinden Weaponsmasters are the best fighters in the world, and must earn their badges by travelling to the sacred isle of Parosyal and fighting the giant mantis which guards the idol at the heart of the island.

Culture

Mantis-kinden are proud, taciturn, and violent. Honor is extremely important to Mantis-kinden, and they have a strict code which rules their lives, to the point that many of their actions and motivations seem opaque or extreme to other kinden. Mantis-kinden do not form casual bonds: they have lifelong friends for whom they would die without question, or enemies they will hunt to the ends of the earth. Everyone else they treat with cold indifference. Mantids choose partners for life, and if their partner dies they will never take another, no matter how long it has been since their death or how strongly they feel about someone else. They tend to feel emotions very strongly, and their honor code seems to regulate their actions by giving them a pre-determined way to channel their feelings so that they do not pose a threat to those around them. They are very accepting of their own deaths when they feel that honor demands their sacrifice, and when driven to extremity they will even slaughter their own kin in order to avoid a dishonourable fate for their people. Most Mantids believe the only proper death for one of their kind is a violent, bloody one, surrounded by slain enemies. Mantis honour often perplexes outsiders, and even those who have known a particular Mantis-kinden for years usually find them overly intense and difficult to deal with. However, those lucky enough to have earned a Mantis's loyalty have a friend for life, to the point that a Mantis's ghost may have trouble passing on while their friend is still alive. Mantids abhor slavery, a rare point of commonality between them and their Beetle-kinden neighbors. Most leadership positions among Mantids are held by women.

The Mantis-kinden of the Lowlands have a deep hatred of Spider-kinden. Many Lowlands Mantids will kill Spiders at any opportunity and feel no remorse. The origin of the feud is lost to the mists of time (The Masters of Khanaphes claim to have knowledge of it). Mantids of the Commonweal have shown no particular aggression towards Spider-kinden.

Like many Inapt cultures, Mantids despise artifice with a special hatred for modern weaponry like snapbows. Mantids also look down on industry and those who hoard wealth, though they are happy to work for such people as bodyguards and swords for hire. Mantis-kinden are generally despondent at the state of their race in the modern age. Many see no future for themselves but continual decline.

Mantis-kiden revere magic and magicians and tend to defer to the strongest magicians around them. For hundreds of years, the Mantids of the Lowlands served the moths faithfully as their enforcers giving rise to the adage "Masters of the Grey, Servants of the Green". When the Mantis holds of Etheryon and Nethyon decide to become a power in the world once more to ally against the Wasp Empire, they seek the guidance of the Moths of Dorax first. The Mantids of the marshes outside the city of Khanaphes were cowed into submission by the Masters of Khanaphes when their power was still at its apex.

History

Mantis-kinden were servants of the Moth-kinden during the Days of Lore, acting as their soldiers, enforcers and bodyguards. The Moth-kinden warlord Argastos had hundreds of Mantids in his personal guard, and they played a key role in the War of the Worm. After the Seal of the Worm was created, Argastos and his Mantid guard were doomed to deathless vigilance in Argax, watching over and guarding the primary Seal. 

As the Apt Revolution overturned the status quo in the Lowlands, the Moths of Tharn and the Mantids of the Darakyon joined together to conduct a terrible ritual designed to cast the uprising Beetle and Ant-kinden back into terror and slavery. The ritual went terribly wrong, cursing the Darakyon and mutating the participants into undead part human, part vegetation, part insect shades. The Darakyen totem was transfigured into the Shadow Box, inside which some of the ritual's ringleaders such as Laetrimae were imprisoned. Their malevolent shades continued to conspire despite their imprisonment in the Box, and would have made Empress Seda their puppet had the Box not been destroyed by Tisamon.   

During the First Lowlands War, the Mantids of the Netheryon allied with the Moth-kinden of Dorax to form the Ancient League and came to the aid of the Sarnesh during the Battle of the Rails. The Mantids of the Felyal attacked and completely destroyed the Imperial Fourth Army, but later the Imperial Second Army learned from their comrades' destruction and fortified their camp, driving the Felyen off with losses when they attempted to same course of action. The Second then retaliated by driving into the Felyal and burning out many villages, leaving a swathe of the forest a charred wasteland. Afterwards many Mantis-kinden sought refuge in Collegium. 

During the Second Lowlands War the Imperial Second Army came down the Lowlands' coast once more and was ambushed by a guerilla force comprised of the Felyal's remaining denizens. The attackers had been misled by Spider-kinden agents and wrongly believed that they would be reinforced; the attack proved futile and led to a second, complete burning of the Felyal, after which every remaining Felyen Mantis sought refuge in Collegium. Later, as the Second Army approached Collegium's gates, the entire surviving population of Felyen Mantids launched a suicide attack, sacrificing their entire people as they saw no future for themselves in the world. 

When Empress Seda arrived at the Netheryon seeking the power of Argastos, the Mantids of Nethyon were swayed to her side and started a nihilistic civil war with their cousins from Etheryon. The war was stopped by Cheerwell Maker, who convinced the Nethyen that they could have a future of their own devising. The Nethyen then joined forces with the Etheryen and attacked the Imperial Eighth Army, declaring themselves an independent power. The united Netheryen then marched with a coalition of Lowlander forces all the way to Capitas, where they were the first to attack the Worm as they erupted onto the battlefield. After the war, the Netheryen sent an ambassador to a meeting of powers held in Collegium. 

Settlements

Mantids live in massive forests and spread themselves out loosely throughout it. They live as hunter gatherers so have to worry about exhausting the area around them of game. These forests typically contain giant members of the Mantid's namesake insect. These creatures are extremely dangerous and will hunt humans. The structures of their holds are mostly huts built into the trees that blend in so well with the forest, it's hard to tell where a village begins and ends. The only two stone structures within a Mantid hold are the meeting hall and the smithy. The holds take their names from the forest they are situated within; If the hold is named Felyal, the forest would be called 'the Felyal'. Mantis holds are not often seen by outsiders, but their existence is usually known. The known Mantis holds are:

• Felyal (Lowlands, destroyed)
• Etheryon (Lowlands)
• Nethyon (Lowlands)
• Darakyon (Lowlands, destroyed)
• Eryon (Spiderlands, presumed)
• Y'yen (Dragonfly Commonweal) 

Abilities

All Mantis-kinden can naturally see well in the dark, though not as well as Moth-kinden.

Ancestor Art

Combat mastery - Mantis-kinden art makes them superior fighters, with enhanced reflexes. Mantis-kiden are famous across the known world for their martial talents. This same Art causes them to revel in the spilling of blood and the testing of their skill.

Arm Spines - Mantids grow retractable razor sharp spines from their arms. They can cut through flesh and light armor with ease.

Flight - Somewhat rare for a Mantis-kinden, some individuals can manifest art wings and fly.

Concealment - Mantis-kinden can make themselves almost impossible to perceive, even if one is standing a few feet away from them.

Art Speech - Some Mantis-kinden can telepathically communicate with the giant beasts the kinden take their name from.

Magic

Though Mantis-kinden tend to revere powerful magicians of other races, some of them can practice magic themselves. According to Maure, herself a competent necromancer, Mantis-kinden are always the best necromancers due to their near religious worship of death. Some Mantis-kinden are seers, at least one such was Loquae of her people. Large Mantis-kinden holds always contain a rotting wooden effigy of a preying mantis. Individuals are sacrificed at this effigy which then drinks in the power released with their death.