Before the Final War, the Kethians were known for their truculent independence and industry. Kethian culture exalted owning what one worked on and worked with, whether land, workshops, a horse, or arms and armour. No Kethian would happily serve a lord they never even met. So they lived in individual earldoms, often in conflict, only nominally answerable to a King. Some were heroic warriors, who fought for their lords and as mercenaries for other causes, but they formed no large armies. Others were poets who sang sagas of the distant Second Age and its romantic and doomed heroes.
During the Final War, the Kethians achieved a sense of unity, but after a valiant fight, the Nameless
Emperor enslaved almost all of them. The Minister of Chains still occupies their homeland, and most
Kethians are enslaved there. Some manage to escape, going on to fight for the freedom of their people.