Pomerius the Young

Patron of Apprenticeship, First Contracts, Just Testing, and the Integrity of Entry

Pomerius was born the youngest son of a scroll-merchant in Venzador, a town in present-day Aescalapea and then a sprawling port city where guild rank determined a person’s very right to speak in council. Apprenticeships were hard-won and often sold to the highest bidder, with poor and orphaned children often denied entry to any craft. Pomerius, despite being book-learned, was rejected by multiple guilds due to lack of standing and wealth. At age thirteen, he began compiling lists of overlooked apprentices, those dismissed, ignored, or exploited by greedy guildmasters, and began training them himself in a rented cellar. He copied trade laws, drew schematics from memory, and devised tests of merit that evaluated skill, not bloodline or coin. At fifteen, he famously stood before the Council of Trade in Venzador and petitioned that all apprentices, regardless of station, be tested openly and fairly under Temple oversight. The Council laughed — until the temple of Minos intervened. After a public trial of skills, the “Cellar Apprentices” outperformed the city's own registered students. Pomerius was given a provisional license to formalize his work. He used it not to enrich himself, but to create the Rite of Fair Measure, the foundation for Minoan temple-sponsored apprenticeships today. He died of illness at seventeen, having never completed his own Master’s trial. On his deathbed, he reportedly said: “I do not need to bear the title, if others may earn it rightly.”

Pomerius is typically depicted as a slender boy in a half-length cloak, holding an open ledger in one hand and a chisel, needle, or stylus in the other, depending on the region. His sigil is an open scroll tied with a broken chain, symbolizing freedom from unjust gatekeeping.