Maester
The maesters are the scholars, healers, and advisers of Westeros in A Song of Ice and Fire, trained at the Citadel in Oldtown and marked by chains of many metals, serving in nearly every castle from A Game of Thrones onward.
Present from the first chapters of A Game of Thrones, the maesters are the order of scholars, healers, and counselors of Westeros, sometimes called knights of the mind. Nearly every castle keeps one. Trained at the Citadel in Oldtown, a maester earns a chain worn about the neck, each link of a different metal marking a different field mastered, from medicine to ravencraft to the higher mysteries. On taking service a maester sets aside his family name, swears vows of celibacy and service, and is bound to his castle rather than to the house that happens to hold it. Maesters tend the ravens that carry messages across the realm, teach highborn children, and advise their lords. The order's senior member, the Grand Maester, sits on the king's small council in King's Landing.
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