Valdemar has mandatory schooling for children, which is conducted in the temples. Children must attend every morning until they can read, write and solve basic mathematical equations. Most students accomplish this by the time they are twelve-years-old (the age at which they start training in whatever career they will follow as an adult). A hot breakfast is served to the children every morning in these temple schools by order of Queen Seleney.
Children of nobles may have private tutors for their children instead of sending the children to the temple schools. These tutors tend to be priests. When noble children have completed the level of education covered in the temples, they may become Blues.
Blues are Unaffiliated students (that is, they are not Herald, Herald-Mage, Bardic or Healer Trainees). Blues must either be the child of someone who works in the Palace at Haven or of a noble who is required to be at the Palace or they are studying to be Artificers (Inventors) or Scholars. Blues who are studying to be Artificers or Schoalrs must have demonstrated some elite skill in science, engineering, mathematics, or architecture. Many of the Blues who are training as Artificers or Scholars and those who are children of Palace workers attend on scholarships. Nobles must pay for their children to receive this sort of education. Blues return to the Palace to sleep in their parents' quarters. If a Blue is attending on a scholarship rather than because a parent is assigned to the Palace, s/he may have a room assigned in the Herald's Collegium.
The Blues take their name from their light blue uniform, which otherwise matches the uniform worn by the Herald trainees.
Blues can take a number of paths after they graduate. Those who are of noble blood may claim whatever position they have inherited without any additional training. Those who follow in the footsteps of a parent as a Palace worker do not need extra training either. But the Blue who graduates to become a Master (a scholar/teacher of Blues), an Artificer (inventor), or a member of the Guard.
Products that are possibly Guild-produced, but which can probably trace their origins to the Blues and their Masters, include:
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