Thamos the Ledgerless

Exemplar of Austerity, Truthful Poverty, and the Unrecorded Gift

Thamos was once a successful factors’ apprentice in the trade city of Vardune in Bythnadocia, known for meticulous accounts and brilliant speculation in textile futures. But after a vision during a temple ceremony on Accounting Day, he abandoned all ledgers, refused to track profits, and took a vow of material obscurity. His peers were scandalized — Minos is the god of commerce, after all — and his rejection of bookkeeping was seen as heretical. Yet Thamos wandered from city to city, trading only by voice, giving away all excess, and asking no compensation beyond sustenance. He was often destitute, clothed in donated robes, yet somehow never lacked what he needed. Some say Minos tested him. Others say Minos used him to teach a different kind of wealth. Thamos was last seen in the mountain town of Ossana, where he purchased a single loaf of bread with a pearl he'd been gifted, then gave the remaining change to a beggar. The beggar, it is said, was a disguised inspector from the Temple. Thamos vanished that night, and in his abandoned room was left a ledger full of blank pages, the inkpot beside it dry.

Thamos is represented as a hooded traveler with an open hand and a blank ledger clasped to his side. His symbol is a bound book without marks, and his temples maintain one such “Ledgerless Volume” to commemorate him—left on the altar, always open to the first page. He is invoked by paupers, itinerant monks, debtors seeking mercy, and merchants weighing the value of integrity over excess. His followers believe that commerce without compassion is just tyranny with a price tag. Thamos is unique among Exemplars in that he is not invoked for gain or fairness, but as a reminder: wealth is only virtuous when it remembers the poor.