Loot Distribution Argument Enters Third Day as Cleric Insists 'Need Before Greed' Applies to Gold Coins

A five-member adventuring party has been camped in a cleared dungeon corridor for three consecutive days, unable to proceed with their campaign because a dispute over the distribution of 4,200 gold pieces recovered from a dragon's hoard has reached what the party's bard describes as 'a diplomatic impasse of legendary proportions.' The conflict centers on Brother Cedric, a cleric of the Order of the Balanced Ledger, who has invoked the party's standing 'Need Before Greed' loot agreement to claim the entire treasury on the grounds that his temple requires extensive renovation. 'The roof leaks,' Brother Cedric said, seated cross-legged atop a pile of coins he has arranged into a defensive perimeter. 'The nave needs new flagstones. The vestry hasn't been painted since the Second Age. These are needs. Genuine, documented, structural needs. Your desire to buy a new sword is greed. My desire to waterproof a house of worship is need. The agreement is clear.' The party's fighter, Krag Ironjaw, has contested this interpretation. 'Need Before Greed means if you can use an item and I can't, you get first pick. It doesn't mean you get to claim four thousand gold pieces because your church has a drip. My armor has a hole in it. There's a hole where my kidney is. That's a need.' The rogue, who goes only by 'Needle,' has proposed a mathematical split of 840 gold per party member, a suggestion the cleric rejected as 'secular reductionism.' The wizard has suggested an arcane appraisal of each member's relative contribution to the dragon fight, a process that would require two days of ritual casting and a component that costs 500 gold. 'So we'd spend 500 gold to figure out how to split 4,200 gold,' the bard observed. 'That's already worse than just splitting it.' The bard has been composing a ballad about the dispute, which currently runs to fourteen verses and includes the chorus: 'Five brave souls who slew the wyrm / Now argue gold while bodies squirm.' The dragon's corpse, still in the adjacent chamber, has begun to smell. Attempts at mediation by a passing merchant caravan were declined after the cleric determined that the merchant's proposed arbitration fee of 200 gold constituted 'a needless expenditure from a fund that is, as I have established, needed.'