Monster bits are actually an excellent source of early game cash. The trick is you need to identify each type first. Not for every single monster - just one each of any eye, heart, bone, and skin. These sell for triple digits even for basic creatures, and the yields only get even higher as you go late game. Yes, you have to pay for the initial identify, but again, each part is now going to sell for its proper price for the rest of the game. This is a general fact about everything not-equipment - you'll need to have identified its item class at least once in your lifetime before you can start selling it unidentified for proper price.
Escort and "Before It's Too Late" are good choices for job board quests. Be familiar with how long it takes you to reach any given town from your current town to make sure you can make the journey. In these two cases all you have to do is make it there in the time limit. Don't take "Beauty and the Beast" quests early on - those have a chance of out-of-depth ambushes so if Hunting quests are eradicating you then it's best not to touch them. Note that Yowyn/Palmia is the shortest route in the game.
If you pick up Gardening early on, the Harvest Time quests (of which you can usually find pages worth in Yowyn) are a simple money earner. They don't pay as much as the other quests in terms of gold, but it's very fast for Platinum coins.
Cargo trade is a great way to earn some early money, though your performance in this department is dependent on your traveling skills and some measure of luck (or enough scrolls/rods of teleportation). The "traders" in each town sell cargo - this doesn't stash in your inventory, but instead in your "cart", which is a separate inventory space that starts off with about 70s worth of capacity. Cargo has different prices in each town - the trick is to buy where it is cheap, and sell for major profit. Well, major profit will be much further down the road once you start being able to regularly make it to Noyel, so before them you'll just have to settle for "nice profit". The main threat here is the Rogue Boss, a special encounter that shows up if you have cargo - they will wipe the floor with you early on, or you have to fork over your goods and money. Hence, bring some teleportation items to just zip out without having to give away your goods. The best sales are done with the farther distances, so until you can reduce your travel time this is more of a background money earning than something you want to actively work on.
Every town has a voting box - use it once a week in-game to increase your voter rank. This adds a small boost to your salary. It's not huge but it's free money twice a month.
Lastly, one trick is that the Puppy Cave tends to spawn scrolls of oracle. These sell for four digits even at the start, so once you're at a point that a stray kobold won't ruin your day and cause you to drop your stuff in a dungeon to be permanently erased since the dungeon randomly generates itself... then diving in there is a decent way to make some quick early-game cash.
This primarily covers the early game means of earning money. Later on, you'll be primarily earning money by a lot of other things. All of the above will still factor in, except for the Puppy Cave dives which aren't all that fun as you're levelled up, nor as fast as what you can do when you're levelled up. Some of the notable sources of money as you go further in the game:
- Your salary (which you improve by performing in the arena, pet arena, joining guilds, operating a museum, and clearing dungeons)
- Operating a Shop (which has high maintenance costs each month so until you know what you're doing, wait on that - but it will sell your dungeon dive junk for better than you can usually)
- Getting an easy craft that sells for good money (Gardening in a Farm, hoarding certain corpses/goods/slaves in a Ranch, or using the crafting skills with special note to Jewelry for a disproportionate ratio of ease-of-material to price-of-goods)
- Dungeon delving (Random dungeons not only influence your salary but also give scalingly healthy heaps of gold on clear, in addition to the prizes)
- Party Time quests (Those with high enough Perform can make five digits or more in these quests easy)
- Long distance cargo hauls (Selling goods between Noyel and Port Kapul can earn you 20k or more a trip, which you can enhance by upgrading your cart)
- Gambling (Casinos use Casino Coins that you gather for free, so the goods you get for winning at the casino can be sold if you are spotted for cash)
- The world's oldest profession (Requires your target to be drunk, takes Karma, and may make you insane, but it both trains Charisma and it can make a quick spot of cash if you hit a rich mark.
- Panic and Challenge quests (Similar to Hunting except they are worth more, but they also tell you your opponent beforehand, making it a whole lot safer to know if you'll make it)
