Black Friday on Tauber
No one likes paying taxes, but for goblins the amount of taxes they pay is something they take pride in.
Goblin financial (or ‘Friskal', to reflect their pockets being frisked for taxes at the end of it) years run from winter to autumn (Shigday to Rexday, Musive to Barkhollow), as a reminder of the bleakness of a world without goods, money, and other shiny things.
'Black Rexday’ is the final day of the Friskal Year, where everyone does what they can to get the most stuff they can by midnight. The aim is to have so much stuff that you earn the right to fill in the complex financial forms with special black ink, showing that you're paying the Crown a high tithe. Purple, blue and green are the next ink colour brackets, with red being the worst and suggesting you only had the basics to your name. Being 'a white paperer' is therefore an insult thrown at enemies to suggest that they have so little, or are so stingy, that they have nothing at all.
It's worth noting that goblin taxes aren't just applied to monetary wealth, but everything and anything a goblin owns (or is in possession of) at the end of the year. They estimate the wealth of it all (from blankets, to the number of windows on houses, to how many eggs are under chickens) and report that number during Musive (our December), and pay their tithe. Shop keepers have an important role to play in goblin society and so the value of anything they sell during Barkhollow is also factored into their tax return.
It's this approach to money and other goods that has created so many goblin pirates (as goblins' need for things is built into their genes). The pirates very rarely pay their tithes though, so are wanted on Eclypse Isle and have a huge thrill on Black Rexday as they hoard their booty knowing it's all theirs. Even to law-abiding goblins, a poor pirate is someone to mock.
The Friskal Year finishes at the end of Barkhollow, a decision made carefully as Grimblesnacht falls in Musive. The Grimblesnacht holiday provides respite from all the form filling, but also the large gifts bought in the run up count towards the gift-givers' tithe count. The challenge is to buy an expensive gift that won't last until the following year, so that the gift receiver in turn can't claim it.
