Challenge the Dragon's Coffers

The land of Halen is a dragonbreed community in which the wealthiest family is given authority over the city.

History

Halen was the largest tribe across the land and had gained recognition for being strong and wealthy. This drew a gold dragon who appeared before the tribe and demanded tribute from the Halen. arrogant and prideful the tribe's greatest warriors fought the dragon and were easily slain. The remaining tribesmen prostrated themselves and asked for forgiveness which the dragon gave in return for the Halen leaders offering a tribute once a year in the form of gold. The tribe asked who was to become the next leader of the tribe and the dragon commented idly that the richest among you should lead and from that point on the richest among the tribe became the leaders. The Dragon then created it's den inside the small mountain the tribe lived on.
As the dragon had was not seen for generations save for the leaders of Halen the surrounded people saw the Halen as easy targets for raiders and bandits making one years the tribute was insufficient to appease the dragon who accused the leader of hording gold she was due. The leader among the tribe was charismatic and told the dragon the problems of the world above but the dragon did not care. The leader offered a compromise that would greatly enrich the people in return for all but a tenth of the peoples wealth. In return the dragon would horde all of the peoples wealth with both leaders and the dragon keeping track of how much gold was to be moved freely about while the rest remained with the dragon. The dragon would appear every ten years to accept this wealth and the people of Halen would make whatever claims needed to make more wealth for the dragon. The gold dragon accepted these terms and the next year she appeared, leaving the mountain for the first time in ages. In that year leading up to the event the town had spread word of a great festival to Challenge the Dragon's Coffers, where the wealth of the city would be carted out for the dragon to judge who among the city was richest. Thieves, scoundrels, and adventuerers all gathered to plunder the town only to be met by the dragon who slew many would be gold hunters and sent the rogues fleeing.
Thanks to the deal with the gold dragon the city only has to give a tribute to the dragon once every ten years . This tribute has become the towns greatest lie as Halen became known as the Dragon's Bank, having crafted the falsehood that the dragon is merely protecting the gold the city of Halen has become the countries most trusted bankers, accepting gold and other wealth for a fee.
In the years since to make the tribute easier a gargantuan scale has been crafted before the entrance to the dragons den so the competing families can easily compare the weight of their old rather than having the people count the coins and appraise the weight of gold in the various objects. The dragon herself has a nose for gold and will remove all objects and coins with insufficient gold purity to insure the weighing is fair. She also confiscates each of these as punishment.

Execution

Once every ten years the combined wealth of each family is carted out to a giant scale to be weighed against the each family. Once the dragon finishes sifting through each pile for fools gold and false weights she will declare which pile is greater and remove the lesser pile from the scales. This process will continue until each family that has had a chance to compete. Finally the family with greatest wealth in gold is then declared de facto ruler for the next ten years and a celebration is held.
In the days after the dragon will count the old herself and offer her accounting to the heads of each families and offer them the seals that will protect those who wish to withdraw their allotted portion from the den.

Participants

Only the dragonbreed families that own land within Halen can participate in the tradition, no outsiders have been allowed to participate save for those in services to the richest dragonbreed families in carting the wealth to the dragon.

Observance

The tradition is held once every ten years on the first day of the tenth month in honor of the day the tradition had been started

Primary Related Location

Halen