Mere minutes before the launch of Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish on November 28, developer Bungie revealed a new emblem called Tributary that will be released on December 5 when the Iron Banner activity returns.
“Bring your whole bunch. 🍌” the tweet reads. “Lord Saladin offers a new way to express your support for the Iron Banana. Add the Tributary emblem to your collection when Iron Banner returns on December 5, 2023!” The emblem features a white-eyed wolf standing next to a bush with bananas growing out of it, and it includes a sigil reminiscent of classic Iron Banner crests. There’s a wolf face, some antlers, and four bananas dancing above the wolf. It is beautiful.
“Iron Banana” is one of the Destiny community’s oldest jokes, but none of us really know its origins. Colloquially, we all just sort of call the “Iron Banner” event “Iron Banana” or even just “Banana.” Entire teams have dressed in yellow to honor the occasion, and you can even buy an Iron Banana t-shirt on Amazon. For Bungie to recognize the in-joke in an official capacity is a glory worthy of the Iron Lords themselves.
“Iron Banner” is a special event hosted by the NPC Lord Saladin Forge that takes place in the Crucible, Destiny’s PVP arena. Though the event has evolved over the years, it started out as a high-stakes activity where level advantages are enabled for 6V6 matches where players usually fight to control three zones.
Why is this emblem called Tributary? Not to be confused with the Distributary, the pocket universe in which the Awoken were born, “tributary” is the term for a freshwater stream that feeds into a larger body of water. This sort of makes sense because bananas grow best in the acidic soil of river valleys, and it’s easy to imagine them growing on a tree right next to the river in a tropical rainforest. Wolves also tend to stay near rivers for the freshwater, except they migrate away from tropical climates. Therefore, wolves probably wouldn’t encounter bananas in the wild. But that only makes this new emblem that much more comical.
Fun fact: A medium-sized banana contains 0.31 grams of iron.
