The Broken Hourglass Monday Update

Planewalker Games' official website has received its usual Monday update for The Broken Hourglass, this time featuring some "unpublished notes of Imperial economist Redethe Hektor."
Narimir's layer of precious stones and metals may be depleted (met grizzled old miner, 80 years if he was a day, rattling on and on about old days and fist-sized opals and etc.), but there is an untapped vein in the MN hippodrome. Legal and above-board exemption from Imperial bloodsport ban has intriguing (but v. long and not v. important) history. What matters is enormous and untapped revenue potential for Imperial coffers, plus potentially useful/dangerous platform for public gathering. (perhaps why ban was instituted in the first place? Must phrase recommendations carefully. Some senators forget to bathe regularly but are very long on riot-control precedents.)

Attended arena "tournament" today. Stands remarkably full, and not just with poor/indigent/delinquent/etc. Show mediocre at best (dreadful shield technique, some fighters employed like had wet fish strapped to arm, had to refrain from screaming) but crowd utterly enraptured by four fights no fatalities, no maimings, practically choreographed. Learned from snotty young man seated next to me that outcomes identical and virtually blow-by-blow identical to last week's show.