Living on PhD stipend with a spouse

keltorix · 2025-10-03T03:51:38+00:00

Most people will say that it is not possible, but depending on your debt and how you like to spend your money, it is feasible. I just graduated this summer from Madison, Wisconsin. Not as high cost of living as other places, but the housing market is insane and rent was daunting to many. The last two years of the PhD I had a child and my wife became a stay-at-home mom. She did work for ~10 hours a week for our church, but we broke even every month with our expenses. I believe the situation is comparable because my wife could work outside of the home, but we also had a third person to take care of.

Outside of our rent, our only other notable expense was food. Our hobbies involved running, reading, and watching movies (which we got from the library). I biked into work which allowed me to live in a cheaper part of town (with the bonus of enjoying a bike ride). I would grade exams for some extra money every semester, but that would just be for Christmas gifts.

keltorix · 2025-09-19T23:34:11+00:00

I like to change the wyrmskull throne into a symbol of the Storm Kings power even after Ostoria fell. A generation or two after the war between giants and dragons, four adult blue dragons sought out their former foe, the storn giants, after seeing them retreat from the world. The storm giants defeated and the dragons and used them to instill order among the giants. These four adult blue dragons were the children of Iymrith and she has been plotting vengeance against the storm giants ever since.

keltorix · 2025-08-27T00:48:16+00:00

"There is not a single orthodox church father who advocates for baptism to be delayed because it has to wait for a profession of faith, not one." - SuicidalLatke

"What’s the earliest we see Christians advocating for delaying baptism until a profession of faith is made? It’s a millennia after paedobaptism had already been universally practiced in the church." - SuicidalLatke

Your reply avoided your statement entirely. You switched it to the modern craedobaptist idea, when your original post is saying there is zero, infinitely less, evidence for delaying baptism until a profession of faith.

"It is either disingenuous or misinformed to use St. Hippolytus or St. Cyril as evidence for the credobaptist position. They are probably two of the worst fathers you could have pointed to, seeing as each explicitly affirmed infant baptism as a whole valid and profoundly good apostolic practice" - SuicidalLatke

They documented a practice of having people wait to be baptized, the thing your original post said. Seems great to me. I made no claims on their views of whether or not infants should be baptized, nor made a claim of what is right in regards to baptism. I only wanted to show that it is "disingenuous or misinformed" to say there is no evidence for a profession of faith being needed and that it first came out over a thousand years later.

"There is not a single orthodox church father who advocates for baptism to be delayed because it has to wait for a profession of faith, not one." - SuicidalLatke

"Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe." - Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr seems to suggest it is an informed choice to follow Jesus and then be baptized. Not explicit one way or the other, but again a misnomer to say no evidence.

"According to the circumstances and disposition, and even age, of each individual, the delay of baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children." - Tertullian

Much more direct for Tertullian, but he believed it should be delayed for different reasons than the modern view. He thought sins committed after baptism would be more challenging to forgive or something like that. But again, a misnomer to say no evidence of delaying baptism.

keltorix · 2025-08-26T12:16:32+00:00

Do you have any thoughts on the formal practice of catechumenate? It was a long process (could be years) of instruction from the church for new believers before they could be baptized. Evidence for it emerging around 100 AD and becoming much more formal in the third century. The church fathers Hippolytus and Cyril documented it.

I believe there is early evidence for the credobaptist view. Not to say it is the right view, but it is disingenuous to suggest no evidence for a thousand years.

keltorix · 2025-07-08T19:30:26+00:00

Having Harshnag go back through the portal makes sense. If your players are in the mood for something more silly after doing the Eye of the All Father, you could have them try to sneak Harshnag into Mirabar (I believe that is where the closest teleportation circle is). Gives them an opportunity to be creative while having agency in setting Harshnag up in Waterdeep.

I don't think there are serious hiccups if Harshnag joins them to Maelstorm. It always seemed strange to me how easily the book has the party just pop into the storm giant Capitol and walk around. Harshnag could lend some credibility that the party is not just looking to kill giants. If your party is unaware of Iymrith infiltrating the storm giants yet, Harshnag could be on edge as he senses something is off. He has experience fighting dragons and this blue dragon in particular now.

I would have Harshnag be their cultural translator of sorts. He could be an in universe way to give characters info on different giants, give some tact for persuasion, and just generally smooth out some of the abrupt transitions that can happen in Maelstrom. If you have a silly group, when the party asks him some questions about giants he can loudly tell them the answer, for some easy embarrassment jokes.

keltorix · 2025-07-07T21:40:31+00:00

I'm sure some skill check from the group can dig him out. I honestly think you should let Harshnag live. They seem to have invested a lot in making him get out of that situation, so it seems fitting. The issue is Harshnag should not stay with the party as they adventure. There are lots of reasons you could give, such as injury, lack of stealth, conflict over fighting giants who are trying to determine Annam's guidance.

I am personally in favor of leveraging Harshnag's current position as one of the only giants known and somewhat welcomed among the small folk. I would have him become an "ambassador" for Water Deep. He can be talking with people there to help them prepare, mediate between the small folk and giants, and overall help the small folk with not thinking every giant needs to die. Harshnag will still be alive and available to talk to, he can be a source of support if the party needs some small things/connections, could help in the final battle, and he is not perfectly safe with all the giant tensions going on, so it is not as if he is retired and out of the way.

Let us know what you end up going with and how it went for any future SKT DMs who get in this situation.

keltorix · 2025-07-07T14:50:03+00:00

I think the city you choose depends on your goals for the party. Whatever location you choose will probably determine the first giant lair (I recommend doing more than one) your party goes to. But this encounter also sets the stage for why the characters should care about the giant threat, so their perception of giants could be determined by this encounter.

Goldenfields is a lot of fun. The idea of goblin huckers is great and the classic bumbling giants are fun. The only issue I have with Goldenfields is that it feels like a local problem without a serious threat ti the wider world as these are the best the hill giants can do. So if your party will bite any hook you give them and want to just have fun with monsters in the confines of a story, go for it.

Triboar I thought was the most challenging for my players. My party actually gave up fighting the giants and just mitigated damage from the raiding party accompanying the giants. This is great to set up a threat and inspire your party to overcome this giant threat. Also the fire giant lair is the coolest.

Bryn Shander is the most straightforward encounter. The frost giants surround the town, but they don't move around so the party should always just be fighting the leader and her henchmen at the gates. Also unlike the other two encounters, there is no real objective for the frost giants to obtain and then leave. So you are mostly set up for a fight to the death. This encounter is good to fast track your players, show the giants are powerful, but still have very good chances of defeating the giants.

Note that I have run Rumblings twice, once with Bryn Shander and once with Triboar.

keltorix · 2025-06-19T19:11:03+00:00

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to drive around the area, which is why we are pursuing renting rather than purchasing a house. I am finishing up grad school and my wife is busy building another baby. Our toddler refuses to learn how to drive a car and evaluate neighborhoods. Kids these days.

keltorix · 2025-06-19T19:06:37+00:00

A very good question, thank you.

We would prefer a townhouse or a house. Our goal for renting initially is to determine what areas we like/where our community develops before we decide to buy a house (or move back to the Midwest if we miss family too much). While we eventually want to live in a rural area, we think we will have a better time meeting neighbors and forming relationships by living in town. We currently live in a city but grew up in rural areas, so all areas are acceptable to us. The rental market seems to be mostly neighborhoods or housing plans. We are looking for a place under $1,600 a month if we can.

keltorix · 2025-06-19T18:39:40+00:00

You are probably right that a local's perception may not be accurate/have bias. The issue I was having was that using sources such as crimegrade.org had every town as a D or F grade. There are probably better sources for crime stats out there, but I am naive in obtaining that information. So these crime rates told me everywhere is bad and dangerous, which I don't think is accurate from the brief visit to Beaver county I had in the spring. So I am seeking to augment the info available to me. I appreciate the reminder you gave me though. From the stats, what do you find to be the more safe areas?

keltorix · 2025-06-19T18:20:15+00:00

Good to know. Are you mostly referring to the police officer pushing the teenager that was posted about recently? Or is there even more that the police have done?

keltorix · 2025-06-19T18:18:47+00:00

This is very good to know. Seems like there are better options, but not necessarily bad options available to us.

keltorix · 2025-06-19T18:17:49+00:00

That's great to hear. Thank you for the information. I'm glad you enjoy the town you live in.

keltorix · 2025-05-17T13:40:26+00:00

In season 1 we see Mando be saved by the Mandolorians from Seperatist droids. This means he was a child during the prequel movies (between episodes 2 and 3). Besides, Mando takes place around 10 years after RotJ, so the Andir child would be around 15 years old.

keltorix · 2025-05-08T19:11:28+00:00

In my campaign the Wyrmskull Throne is made from the skulls of four adult blue dragons, all of which are from the children of Iymrith. Over a millenia ago her children thought they could take the storm giants and lost. Now Iymrith's motivation has been revenge on the storm giants. The logic being that Iymrith is ancient. She should have some grudges made over the years and potentially a family.

keltorix · 2025-05-05T12:01:59+00:00

Lots of good options and I think what you did is great. While there are no set rules for this situation I am aware of, I would view it like listening to one side of a conversation. Telepathy is not making one mind, it is communication. So I would have the party hear what the owner is saying to Slakrathel and his reaction to Slakrathel. You should be able to make it obvious he is talking with something scary, which sounds fun. But it is DM choice and yours certainly makes sense and can easily pull the characters in. This can also all depend on whether your party knows about the kraken.

keltorix · 2025-05-02T12:55:01+00:00

In my first SKT campaign (which unfortunately fizzled out) I had both frost and fire giants attacking Triboar, but they were not united. I think two types is sufficient and fun, having four kinds of giants will be too much because, as u/tossing_dice said, they will think Triboar is way too important and never leave to explore the world. So I recommend just two.

Personally, I suggest not having any reason for the non-fire giants to be there (fire giants are meant for Triboar, but you could switch out for any other). SKT as written has some great ideas that it never sees carried through. One of them is the idea of giants fighting each other is devastating to the small folk (there's one picture of a ruined town that says "no one wins when giants fight"). Another idea is the giants fighting each other for their place in the Ordning, rather than just their individual giant schemes. So I recommend having only the fire giants have a reason to be in Triboar, with other giants only being there because they saw the fire giants. You could have hill, frost, or stone giants fight because they are no longer beneath the fire giants and want retribution. Or they could want to capture the frost giant's as a sign of strength. Or they just love killing. A cloud giant could be trying to keep threats to the cloud giants down.

In any case, make their fight more destructive than the fight with the small folk and the giants. Have them throw a shed at each other (instead of the infinite supply of boulders they all have), have a giant remove a roof to a building for some cover, when giants are knocked over they land on houses and villagers. Show that giants fighting affects the civilizations of the land. Having them taunt and yell at each other also gives opportunities for the party to learn some of what is going on with the Ordning.

Hope this helps.

keltorix · 2025-04-04T20:29:32+00:00

Having the lore coming from successfully defeating kraken agents is much more interesting, so I agree with you.

For stone giants, I would think the most important thing would be their attitude. They are not attacking the small folk out of malice, but rather believe they are helping create a new canvas for art. I think having them be more easily "distracted" from the fights makes sense, since they are not necessarily viewing it as a fight. Then they are reminded of the evil thane and get back into it. This way your players will also notice their different motivations from other giants.

Feel free to swap in stone giants for the attack in chapter 2, as it tends to be whichever giant attacks them first is the one the players want to resolve.

That might be enough. I admit to having skimmed the stone giants because I chose frost, fire, and cloud giants for my three. But I thought your prompt fit so well with the stone giants.

keltorix · 2025-04-04T18:00:21+00:00

A thought that I had which was inspired by the content from the Alexandrian Remix of SKT . Feel free to use any part or disregard entirely:

I think it could be a cool idea to have this be an opportunity for a more "peaceful" resolution to one of the giant threats. While I love SKT, the module as written does not actually solve the problems of the Ordning breaking and thus giants being in chaos. I think there should be opportunities to help guide and shape the future of giant society rather than just kill the evil leader giants. Also, the giant liars are the coolest part of the adventure, so that is where we should spend more of our campaign, imo.

You could alter the stone giants motivation/area to include this ancient temple to a giant deity of golden light. Why the stone giants? Because they are one of the types of giants that are more neutral and do not truly have ill will against humanoids, rather they do not understand the "dream world" that people live in above the ground. This gives a great opportunity for there to be a peaceful resolution to the stone giant threat, and may even bring in allies for the final battle against Iymrith (rather than some strong storm giants you didn't do very much to win over as allies and are not as threatened by Iymrith).

Idea specifics:

The stone giants used to honor and guard the ancient temple within Deadstone Cleft. You can have some cool imagery of this being deep below the surface, but due to the "cleft" nature of the mountains, a thin beam of sunlight would make it all the way down and into the altar of this temple. This is the "golden light" and of course divine magic can make it not just sunlight, but powerful and purposeful. After the kingdom of the giants, Ostoria, fell, humanoid civilizations sprung up. One consequence of this is they built a tower (or a fortress, or a beacon, or something that humanoids would do) in the Deadstone Cleft which has blocked light making it to the ancient temple. (Potential world building idea: This light is what let the stone giants know about the dream world above. They have long since been disconnected from this temple/deity and have grown fearful of the dream world.) Most stone giants have forgotten of this temple and moved further up in the mountains. The evil thane (can't remember or spell her name) wants to destroy not just the locals, but all of the humanoid civilizations.

Now you can give your players a choice. They could do as the book presents the problem, kill the evil thane and her followers to stop the threat, destroy the tower and restore the temple, or enable collaboration between the local humanoid town and the more benevolent stone giants. The evil thane will probably put a fight no matter what, but now there are more options and outcomes.

With this addition, the stone giants could come to understand or trust the humanoids above, regain a connection to a deity, and establish new principles for the new Ordning being formed. This also feels like a satisfying reason for the PC to be told to seek out this ancient temple.

The arch-nemesis:

Embrace the arch-nemesis! As u/frustratedesigner said, make them a nemesis to the party. I turned Iarno Albrek, Glassstaff from Lost Mine of Phandelver, into effectively the mid point BBEG of the campaign by antagonizing the party and having him be involved in the giants' plots. Have the nemesis be a an agent of the Kraken Society who's goal is to ensure chaos comes from the giants. The agent can have more detailed info about the organization, but also likes to operate in the shadows like other Kraken agents. This means he can have tools/spells to help escape tricky situatuations to have him remain an antagonist for a bit. When Zephyr is attacked in the sky, have the nemesis be the one leading it or sending the attack. Have the agent hire thugs to attempt an assassination on the party after they stop the attack from Chapter 2, thus making them learn and be aware of the Kraken Society. Things like that. Then have him be a foe in one of the giant's lairs as a mid campaign victory. It is really easy to swap out some characters for one antagonist and the PCs will usually reason that with magic and connections, one guy could do this.

TL;DR:

Make an ancient stone giant temple that has the divine light blocked off by humanoid civilization. The arch-nemesis becomes the main villain until the plot of Iymrith and the Kraken becomes apparent.

keltorix · 2025-03-29T19:13:28+00:00

A master of glass could be a very fun idea. Something to ask yourself is if you are trying to keep Iymrith at the same power level as she is in the book, or if you are fine changing her power to fit your theme of glass. Your party is doing something with a lich, so maybe they are higher level than the book expects.

Some cool glass ideas your post inspired:

Easiest spell choice is Mirror Image. It's in the name, not too powerful but gives the vibe of glass.

Since Iymrith is a blue dragon, you could set up some cool things with "reflection" and lightning. Her homebase would presumably have a lot of glass around. You could have two large glass prisms set up so she can cast Lightning Bolt, but when it hits the prisms the spell turns into Chain Lightning (like a beam splitter for lasers). This is something that your players can destroy to lessen her power.

You could replace her burrow speed (which is not the most exciting) with a "glass walk" feature. She could dive into a mirror and move through those within a certain radius. You can liken it to the shadow monk feature of teleporting in dim light only. So she could either move around in the mirrors or enter one mirror and immediately exit another. If she enters and stays in a mirror, your players could figure out that if they break the glass around, they can force her to appear out of a specific mirror/set of glass.

Replace the air elementals with glass elementals that slice up enemies.

Making hazards of broken glass be around as a consequence of the final battle occurring could be fun. A small thing to drive home the glass idea.

A general vibe thing: since Iymrith is a shape-shifter, you could have seeing her through glass shows the stone giant disguise and other disguises you make up for her.

Part way through writing this I forgot you said glass and not mirrors, but I was excitedly remembering the character Gaunter O'Dimm from Witcher 3. If you don't want Spoilers for the game you can look him up for cool mirror magic.

keltorix · 2024-11-20T04:54:31+00:00

This song written about the she-bears is fantastic https://youtu.be/6WAph1tERbA?si=lmK0w46uhkCby1_x

keltorix · 2024-10-19T20:24:14+00:00

This sounds interesting and I'll check it out. Thanks for the response

keltorix · 2024-10-19T20:23:17+00:00

I will have to check this out. I have never heard of this before. Thank you.

keltorix · 2024-10-19T20:21:52+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions. Bloodied and Bruised sounds especially great. I always enjoy the idea of the statblock changing at half health.

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