Maesters

The maesters are an order of scholars, healers, and learned men who serve the noble houses of Westeros as counselors, physicians, tutors, and keepers of knowledge. Trained at the Citadel in Oldtown, they are the closest thing the realm has to scientists and record-keepers, and a maester is found in nearly every castle of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Order

A maester forges his chain at the Citadel, the seat of the order, earning a link of a different metal for each branch of knowledge he masters: silver for healing, iron for warcraft, gold for sums and coin, Valyrian steel for the higher mysteries of magic, and many more. When his learning is judged sufficient, he takes vows renouncing lands, titles, family, and the fathering of children, and is sent to serve a lord, holdfast, or town.

Duties

Maesters tend the sick, advise their lords, instruct their children, manage ravens for the sending of messages, and keep the records and histories of their houses. The grand maester serves the king himself on the Small Council in King's Landing. Through their ravens, the maesters form a web of communication that binds the realm together.

Knowledge and Skepticism

The maesters value reason and recorded fact and are often skeptical of magic, prophecy, and the supernatural, regarding much old lore as superstition. This rationalism serves the realm in ordinary times but leaves the order ill-prepared for the return of dragons and the stirring of the Others. Within the Citadel itself, archmaesters debate matters that touch the deepest mysteries of the world.