The necromancer was kidnapping people travelling through, I didn't get the impression he had been kidnapping people from the village. I never came across anything about Ketheric, it certainly sheds some light on what Halsin's unfinished business at Moonrise might be.
This still goes into my question about when the Justiciars war takes place, Halsin being an Elf doesn't necessarily narrow it down, but all the relics from the war appear to be ancient, I didn't think the missing children's poster was old enough to have lasted that long, making me wonder if the village had been destroyed twice, or what.
As for the arachnomancer I wasn't sure it it was the same as the necromancer's apprentice, despite finding the corpse there (and the gem) but I guess that makes sense.
