1. Requiring no (real) skills
a) Old stumps
This one doesn't require any skills at all. Look into old tree stumps and logs. If you're lucky, there will be dried snakeskin in there which you can sell in boston to the white stalls for 4s each. It might not sound like a lot, but it adds up fast. In the (VERY) rare case that you do stumble upon a Whispering Snake Skull (WSS), consider yourself very lucky. They can go for a lot of silver (500-1000s), but the prices can fluctuate a lot. Try the Trade-Wind subforum to sell them. Don't expect to ever see one though, they are extremely rare.
This method will also see you ending up with a lot of inspirationals, so this one is perfect when you are still roaming the world as a newly arrived settler. If you don't like to restrict yourself to a single area, get the "Hiking" skill, which will allow you to build your own leanto's for 2 pieces of hay and 10 woodblocks. Personally I found it to be the easiest to just gather some hay in the boston town claim and then start from the leanto you currently have, sticking to forest areas (which typically have more stumps than other terrains).
b) Savage charms
For this you need the skill "Indian Tracking" (not strictly required, but it is a rather low skill and will greatly increase spotting chance on the indian artefacts). Gather indian arrowheads and indian feathers, and craft them into savage charms. These'll sell for a decent price to the white stalls (35s). Feathers are generally more rare than arrowheads, so focus on those when you see them.
2. In for a fight
a) Cricket Teams
Cricketsare relatively weak (but still twice as strong as bunnies! They have 5 hitpoints). Killing 11 of them will allow you to craft the "Cricket Team" inspirational which can be sold to white stalls for 40s each. This is a lot more reliable than foraging savage charms, and is generally accepted as the best method for early-server moneymaking (e.g. 15-20 humours and no real player trade going on yet). As well, the fights will give you a first experience with salem's fight system. Note that killing them requires "Small Game Hunting", which shouldn't be too restrictive. Due to a (once recent) update, crickets now actively run away from you. This makes fighting them a lot more irritating (or challenging, whichever you prefer). With only the basic fighting skills, a slingshot is probably your best shot (pun fully intended) at initiating combat with them (after which they will make a beeline for your shins). If you have some fighting skills, bullrush or stomp can be handy to aggro them.
b) Stronger monsters
Once you have raised some of your biles, gotten a few combat skills, and have a semi-safe place to dry hides (which will probably require you to have a claim), you can try your hand at real animals. Bunnies can be good if you don't have any decent hides to dry at that moment, but generally try to focus on beavers (12s per hide) and bears (60s per hide). For actual fighting strategies, there are several threads floating around, just don't get killed
Turkeys (obviously) don't give hides, and deer hides only sell for 4s, so you probably shouldn't really hunt them for hides (but if you have the hides for whatever reason, go ahead). Relatively new monsters (Argopelters) will give 250s per 2 kills, but you will have to add an oiled board. Argopelters and bears are most definitely out of your league if you need to read this.Ornery wrote:About silver, another easy-ish way to get it is to get hideworking and patrol around the game trails in dark forests. Deer and bears often spawn close by each other, and the bear's roar can aggro deer into decimating them with spam-charges for some easy bear skins to sell for 60s each. It's not uncommon to just come across an already dead bear and a smug-looking deer by a trail while stump farming.
3. Stuff other people tend to buy, and are too lazy to get themselves
A general hint: simply calling out in boston is generally not a good way to sell this stuff. try the irc channel #salem-trade, or if you want to be a long-term seller, consider a thread in the Trade-Wind subforum
a) hay
Hay goes for about 4-5s on most servers nowadays, and anyone that is somewhat into farming will need a lot more than they can get their hands on. Can be gotten through farming cereal (which you probably can't do yet, or shouldn't do without a claim), or through crafting them from 5 handfuls of autumn grass. THE no-brainer mind-numbingly boring moneymaker if you really want that claim ASAP without any skills and if you don't want to rely on luck from finding snakeskins/indian artefacts.
b) random forageables
Depending on your server, there are probably some traders that are interested in buying stuff like mushrooms (for mushroom pies) and other forageables, depending on their need. Have a look in the Trade-Wind subforum, and look for threads prefixed with the name of your server, for example "[ROANOKE] Buying Hay". Some expansive shops with a personal title will also buy hay, without listing it in the thread title.
c) Lime (courtesy of Mereni)
Mereni wrote:Lime is also a good one, comparable to hay. It does use more phelgm if you haven't gotten laboring and a pickaxe yet, but the time it take to gather each piece is less.
Gathering lime can be a good method, but it will require a lot of storage, or people that buy from you as you mine them. Requires the quarrying skill (which probably puts it out of the league of very new players), a solid source of food, and a lime quarry. You can always simply pick up any lime you find, but don't expect to find a lot of them just lying around (certain skills, such as "essential mineralogy", increase this chance). Lime is a prime requirement for efficient iron smelting and always required in great quantities. It also has an important use as a plenty-raising farming fertilizer, so there is usually a demand to fill.
4. Salem Store
As pointed out to me by Droj, the Salem Store is probably a solid option for some players (sadly, not me
).For example, the Pioneer's pack which is currently for sale in the store will give you a spiffy Pioneer's outfit, a backpack, a quality metal axe, and the skills + items to claim your first piece of land. If you're simply looking for the cash to start a claim, silver can also be bought directly from the store. I will not post a link here, because as far as I can see you can only access the page with a recipient character already chosen. It can be reached by login in (top left on the page you are currently reading), and then choosing the "Store" button which appears, again in the top left
Please, if I have forgotten any flagrant methods, post them
I'll add them to the post. Note that I will only add methods geared at the very early settler's life.
