Cretin's Tournament

"Fella down the pub last night told me last year 3 people exploded - and that was just the poetry readings!"
 - Excited spectator, in town to see the games for the first time. Shockingly, he may even be understating things.

Of all the celebrations held throughout The Empire, nothing quite reaches the insane levels of the Cretin's Tournament. 2 straight weeks of near constant eating, drinking, and general celebrating for the spectators (which might as well be a byword for 'citizen'), while contestants compete in huge numbers of different competitions for the most prestigious of all trophies: the title of Most Cretinous. Upon first hearing of this tournament, I spent some time determining whether the cretin had some kind of different, more glorious meaning on Nalan, yet it appears to mean the same here as it does on every world.
As is the case with most tournaments, the martial contests are by far the most celebrated. They are separated into a few different categories, though the crowd favourites appear to be the Duels, in which two people fight one on one using any means at their disposal (including, terrifyingly, reality bending magic and weapons capable of levelling buildings), and the Team Fights, in which multiple groups battle it out to be the last team left standing.
Despite the clear preference for events such as this, there are competitions for both poetry and song, and bards being bards these are often just as dangerous for their entrants as martial tournaments.
While all this is incredible dangerous, and now tournament is complete without a stray fireball narrowly missing a crowd of people, the entire arena is surrounded by an antimagic field courtesy of the Cretin's University, which ensures that spectators are ultimately safe for poorly aimed spells. As well as this, an impressive number of Clerics are always stationed both in the crowed (in case of stray arrows) and around the edge of the arena all of whom have the means of resurrecting a recently deceased combatant free of charge.

History

The tournament is said to have begun when the founder of the city, the elusive original cretin, decided he needed a new bodyguard. Rather than have a sensible selection process, he opted instead to host an enormous tournament, inviting not only members of his own guard who had applied for the position, but anyone from throughout his burgeoning city.
Although the tournaments conclusion is lost to history, the common belief is that a Gnomish woman won the title by disintegrating half the combatants, then scaring the other half into submission.

"New Regulation: No vendor may charge more than the value of 10 suns for popcorn within 500 meters of arena"

With all good natured celebrations of culture comes the inevitable and rampant commercialisation. The Cretin's Tournament marks by far the most valuable time in the Empire, in any city. The price of food and lodging reaches an all time high, and although legislation such as the above does technically exist, I failed to see it enforced. So cemented in the minds of all spectators is the desire to spend ridiculous amounts of money on memorabilia, snacks, and merchandise that many will save the entire rest of the year just to cover the massive expenditure of celebrating the event 'properly'.

Primary Related Location

Cretin's Gate