The Kobold in the Cellar

     This is the first installment in a series of adventures specifically written by Chrissy for the purpose of playing with children. Min maxers are not welcome here.

     The Kobold in the Cellar is perfect for first level characters.

     Start with this music

     The story takes place in the Red Dragon Inn, a small place in a little village called Willow Creek. The village has many houses, a few businesses, and a small creek that flows all year long.

     The characters are in the tavern doing their thing, when they hear word that the innkeeper has some work for them.

     But the innkeeper isn't behind the bar, instead his wife Becky is there, an overweight and overworked woman with long hair pulled into a bun.

      Sitting at the bar is a young man named Leif. He's unshaven and unkempt, and drinking the cheapest beer dregs the Inn has to offer. Leif hears things at the bar and is a good source of rumors. He will accompany the characters if they need some help, is a level 1 fighter that wields a dagger and a shortsword. He wears no armor, as he lost some of it gambling and sold the rest for beer money.

      Becky shouts rudely for her husband when the characters ask her about the work that needs to be done, and Mr. Henderson appears from the kitchen. He is a very large man wearing a big greasy apron, which he dries his hands on. He tells the characters that he has a theft problem in the cellar of the inn,  and he thinks it might be rats. He wants the characters to go take care of them, and will pay a reward.

     The cellar of the Inn is a large rectangular room. On the left are bags and bags of flour, dried fruit and vegetables,  and beyond that a large rack spanning the wall of wine and mead of different ages. On the right are boxes in disarray, and beyond that many barrels of beer. 

     As the characters round the corner they are attacked by three kobolds.

      After the battle, spot check (8), if successful there is a tunnel behind the far side of the wine rack where the kobolds came in.

     The characters tell Mr. Henderson what they found. In return, he pays them three silver for each kobold killed. If Leif is with the party, Leif takes 4 silver from the loot and heads to the bar.

     The next day, the town magistrate finds the party. His name is Oglethorpe, and you get the impression that he is not just an elected official, but rather, a resident who genuinely cares about the community. He tells the party that later on the evening Mr. Henderson discovered that the inn's savings box had been stolen,  presumably by the kobolds, and could the characters find it? Oglethorpe says that Mr. Henderson has offered a magic item as a reward, and that the town will give them a place to live if the characters can take care of the kobold threat permanently.

     The adventurers set out to find the kobold nest, following a trail of destruction through the tunnel under the inn. After an hour of travel, some of which was crawling throigg the tunnel, they come upon a narrow entrance to a cave. The sounds of kobold activity can be heard echoing from within.

     Play this music 

     The Nest: As the adventurers enter the cave, they find themselves in a large chamber filled with kobolds. The creatures are armed and dangerous, and they immediately attack the intruders. The adventurers must fight their way through the kobold forces, facing traps and obstacles along the way.

 

    The Boss Battle: 

Play this music 

     At the back of the chamber, the adventurers face off against the kobold leader, a cunning and powerful foe. The battle is intense, but the adventurers ultimately emerge victorious. With the kobold leader defeated, the rest of the nest scatters, and the adventurers are free to search the cave for any valuable treasures.

     The Reward The adventurers return to Willow Creek and present their victory to the village elder. He thanks them for their bravery and offers them the promised reward. The village is now at peace, and the adventurers have made a name for themselves as the heroes of Willow Creek.

      From here, there are some additional rumors about a wizard in a tower who has been performing experiments on young people that he charms to his tower.

     Only to find out that he was trying to create a slave to pilot a spelljammer he acquired.

Where did all the Supermoms go?

Last week I was at the park with the youngest one. He needs exercise, and he loves to play with rocks and sticks. So the park is a natural outlet for him. 

It was a nice day, about 78 degrees, sunny, and clear. It was early in the morning, but after I had taken all the older kids to school, so not too early. Here in Florida you have to hit parks early in the day before it gets too hot, and we have been going to the park early for years and years, since the oldest was a tot.

But we were there all alone. No other kids at all. Just older adults playing tennis or giving out religious pamphlets.

Do you think the parents and grandparents were all working? It seems odd that over the years there went from some kids at the park to none at this time of day. They say the unemployment rate is very low nowadays. Do you think that's the reason?

Are the kids better off for that, or not?

Overnight Ferment (Fake) Sourdough Dill Bread

         The best thing about this bread is that it has all the benefits of being sourdough bread without the necessity and mess of maintaining a starter, something that I did for years. What are the benefits of sourdough? Better gluten for a better structure, better taste. To make this bread, you mix some of the ingredients together the day before you make the bread, let it sit out overnight on the counter, and then add the rest of the ingredients for the loaf. This is called making a poolish. Dill bread is exceptionally tasty and makes for a mean grilled cheese sandwich.

For day one:

One cup of water

One teaspoon yeast

One cup of flour

For day two:

Take the day one ingredients and add:

2 1/2 cups of flour

Three tablespoons water

2 teaspoons of dill

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

2 or 3 tablespoons of oil, I use lard

Put into the breadmaker on 1.5 pound setting.

This State Park is the Perfect Zombie Apocalypse Survival Location

      Have you ever considered what you would do to survive the coming zombie apocalypse? That's a loaded question, because it implies that there is going to be a future apocalypse requiring survival. Still, it's a fun thought experiment, and I have often wondered what would happen if there was a societal reset. Who would be the survivors and would they prosper?

     Ellie Schiller State Park in Homosassa Springs is my go-to for a survival situation. Clean water, mostly gated park, with the possibility of growing an abundance of land-based food. In the coldest part of winter, manatees float lazily around. During the warmer months, the place is teeming with fish. Not that I'm saying I would eat the manatees, but in a survival situation who knows what would be on the table.

     I would bring my rabbits with me and some of the water hyacinth. Water hyacinth is a survival food for sure. I would probably bring the cannas too. They grow in water pretty well.

Early Retirement Extreme

 

    

     I finished reading all of the blog posts from one of the first financial independence blogs, called early retirement extreme. Jacob, the author, does a fairly decent job of pointing out one way to get financial independence, which is to slowly adjust your lifestyle expenses downward so that your investments can support your life. 

     While he never really gets into the meat and potatoes of his investments, he does state that they are all financial and from earned income, rather than inherited or heavily real estate based, which I appreciate. He speaks a lot about his journey, with his wife, as they move from an expensive apartment into an RV, which I appreciate.

     And then things go sideways.  He gets a lot comments from people that he is not really retired because he does things that he wants to do that also earn money, like editing specialized scientific texts and writing online for cash. Then the posts slow down, and Jacob sells the website. He later writes to sat that he and his wife have moved into a real house and he found an amazing dream job.

     So all the posts have a happy ending, whether true or half true. 

     I have no doubt that all the wussipants naysayers on the internet cajoled Jacob into retreating from writing, sadly. Or perhaps he came to the end of his inner content, which, if true, is fine. I would like to read his book sometime when I get the chance.

     That being said, this website is about one man's journey with financial independence. It does not really talk about investing other than to stay heavily stock invested.  

     One thing Jacob doesn't talk about much is that he retires from working but his wife still works. She splits all the bills with him and does half of the shopping and cooking. While I think that is admirable and something we should all aspire to, it decreases his cost of living by half. Or it increases his cost of living due to needing to be near her job. It's unclear what the case is with them during the time of the writings, but it is interesting.  

Save Money by Hand-Washing All Your Laundry

     One of the ways I have been experimenting with getting things done is to wash all of my laundry by hand. Supposedly clothes will last forever that way,  and I find it especially helpful for washing those delicate synthetic clothes like my work uniforms. 

     Now, I'm not saying that I wash all of the family's clothing by hand. For one, it would take me quite a while to do that. Each load takes at least 10 minutes, and the overly large laundry basket full of clothes would take about 2 hours to wash. Really that's not longer than the machine takes to wash that amount of clothing. For two, spinning the laundry agitator takes quite a bit of upper arm strength, as I don't have a really good counter to use the washer with so the suction cups are usually not deployed. One arms spins the agitator, one arm stabilizes the washer. 

     I think it would be pretty easy to use outside sitting on the ground, or perhaps on a picnic or folding table. It has a small drain pipe which could easily hook into a larger and more permanent drain pipe, to take the laundry water away from the table area. Right now I have it next to the sink for easy drainage, and when I'm finished using the washer I drain the soapy water into the sink.

      What kind of soap works the best? After doing a little bit of experimenting, I have decided that standard clothes washing detergent isn't awesome. It tends to be hard to rinse clean and also it really dries out my skin if I manually squeeze the extra water out of the clothes. What I really like to use is Meyers hand soap, which has a nice smell and rinses well. I previously used to make my own laundry detergent, and I may start doing that again in the future. Homemade laundry detergent, recipe featured here, has washing soda and borax as main ingredients so will require significant rinsing. I recently bought some bar soap to use on the clothes, if using fels naphtha or something similar you would grate a half teaspoon of flakes for each small load.

     One obstacle I have yet to overcome is wringing, right now I do this by hand.

     Whether washing cothes by hand or by wasing machine, bra hooks still catch on everything.

The Wonderwash, the Best Washing Machine for sale at Amazon