The Keits

The Keit Lands comprise of:

Decendants of the Keit Folk live in a handful of nations along the south-west shore of the Inner Sea. They arrived in the area about two thousand years ago at about the same time as the Cyndigs, to whom they are closely related. At that time the area around the Inner Sea was populated by a race known as the Kallazin, but the Keit Folk quickly settled the southern shores, just as the Cyndigs settled in the north, and the Kallazin were driven back into what is now the Great River Nation. Both the Keits and Cyndigs founded great empires, which survived nearly a thousand years, until they were destroyed by The Great Flood.

The smaller kingdoms which emerged from the ruins of these two great empires were all feudal, with at one end of society the serfs, who were tied to the land; and at the other the king, to whom all the lesser nobility owed allegiance. A few centuries ago, this began to change in the Cyndig lands, as the power of the merchant cities - and in particular, Delmop - increased.

In the Keit lands these events were watched with interest. There, too, a boom was being experienced, but one of a different nature to that in the north. Their fertile farmland allowed them to export food, and those who owned the land reaped the rewards. In sharp contrast to the north, the nobles were becoming richer, while the serfs saw little profit for their labours.

Then, at the end of the last century, a fierce and determined woman called Weillecha became Overlord of Abnain, by far the most powerful and influential of the Keit nations. Weillecha's aim from the first was to break the power of the other nobles within her country, and dismantle the feudal system, as had already been achieved in the Cyndig lands. She was close to achieving her ambition when, in 1036, the Desert People chose to invade Abnain.

The Keit nations have experienced very mixed fortunes as a result of the True People Invasion. Abnain suffered most, with Weillecha's vision of a unified country shattered. Now each major town or city is ruled by its own lord, most of these True People. Kaimoc, too, is now controlled by the True People. However, Vellioc and Ylbin were largely untouched, and here little has changed for hundreds of years, with the feudal system still strongly in place.