Twenty-five of the twenty-seven noble families of Breland have strong ties and interests in Sharn, along with all of the dragonmarked houses. But the majority of the wealth of the city lies in the hands of the gentry: merchants and landowners who have built their fortunes through centuries of hard work and clever investment. There are hundreds of powerful families in the City of Towers, but a few stand out from the rest. These are known as the Sixty. Sharn was built with the gold of the ir’Tain family, and today the ir’Tains are the most powerful and influential family in the city. Once each month, they hold a grand party for the aristocracy—The Tain Gala. When the ir’Tains were building their new manor on Skyway, Lady Shala told the architects to make the banquet hall large enough to seat sixty families and their servants. The Sixty of Sharn are those with standing invitations to the Tain Gala—the clear sign of success. It should be noted that other people may attend the gala, as it is uncommon for all sixty families to bring all of their family members and servants, and the hall was designed to hold entertainers as well as guests. But a single invitation, while prestigious, is entirely different from being invited to join the Sixty.
While many members of the Aurum are also members of the Sixty, the two organizations are quite different. The Aurum is a highly organized conspiracy that carries out carefully orchestrated plans to provide its members with greater power and wealth. The Sixty is more of a social club—a visible manifestation of the most powerful families in Sharn. Members of the Sixty discuss politics and business at the Tain Galas, and these discussions can have an impact on adventurers, Sharn, or even Breland. But the Sixty almost never act as a concerted unit, and many members are actually bitter rivals beyond the walls of the Tain Manor.
All of the noble families and the dragonmarked families are members of the Sixty; this means that any Sharn resident with the ir’ or d’ prefi x on his last name could be found at the Tain Gala. Other members are generally identified as such in their descriptions. A standing invitation can always be revoked to make room for a more deserving candidate; one of the greatest fears of Councilor Sorik Senso is that his family will be displaced to make room for Councilor Javan Tomollan.