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Best Ways to Farm Money
March 24, 2026 at 08:56 AM
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Silver is the lifeblood of Pywel. Every weapon upgrade, camp improvement, and cooked meal costs money, and you are never going to have enough of it. Crimson Desert uses a three-tier currency system: 100 copper converts automatically into 1 silver, and 500 silver can be exchanged for 1 gold bar at the bank. This guide ranks every repeatable and one-time farming method in the game, from quick techniques you can use in Chapter 1 all the way to endgame investment strategies that generate passive income while you sleep at camp.
If you are looking for a short summary of beginner tips, see the How to Make Money Fast and Early article. The guide below is a deep dive into every method with exact numbers, locations, and efficiency comparisons.
Before diving into farming methods, make sure you understand how the three denominations work. Copper accumulates automatically from enemy drops and converts into silver once you hit 100. Gold bars are strictly for banking.
Denomination | Value | Primary Use |
|---|---|---|
Copper | 1 copper | Enemy coin pouches, small vendor purchases |
Silver | 100 copper | Gear, crafting materials, cooking ingredients, camp services |
Gold Bar | 500 silver |
Enemies drop Copper Pouches in several quality tiers, from Shabby Small Copper Pouches up to Heavy Bulging Copper Pouches. These stack in a single inventory slot. Open them from the inventory screen with the "Use All" option to convert them into currency instantly.
The table below compares every major farming method by estimated income per run, time investment, difficulty, and the chapter in which it becomes available. Methods marked as repeatable can be farmed indefinitely.
Method | Silver per Run | Time (Minutes) | Difficulty | Available From | Repeatable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
50-200+ | 5-10 | Medium | Chapter 2 | Yes | |
Fort Perwin Loot Farm | 80-150 | 20-30 | Medium | Chapter 3 | Yes |
Fundamentalist Goblin Masks | 60-100 | 10-15 | Easy | Chapter 1 | Yes |
Red Croton Flower Farming | 40-60 | 10 | Very Easy | Chapter 1 | Yes (weekly) |
Bank Robbery | ~25 | 5 | Easy | Chapter 2 | No (one-time) |
1-25 per target | 10-20 | Medium-Hard | Chapter 2 | No (limited) | |
14-18 per deposit | 5-10 | Easy | Chapter 3+ | Yes (slow respawn) | |
Trading (Wagon) | Variable | 30-60 | Medium | Chapter 3 | Yes |
Archery Contest | ~80 copper | 5 | Easy | Chapter 2 | Yes |
Bank Investment (Passive) | 75-275 per cycle | 0 (passive) | N/A | Late game | Yes (every 3 days) |
Selling Unnecessary Items | 10-30 | 2-5 | Very Easy | Chapter 1 | Yes (ongoing) |
5-15 + bags | 10-20 | Easy | Chapter 1 | No (finite) | |
Stolen Wagons | ~15 per wagon | 5-10 | Medium | Chapter 2+ | Yes |
These methods are available within the first few hours of gameplay. They require minimal gear and no access to distant regions.
Head to the Sunrise Plains, south of the Greymane Camp in the Howling Hills region. Bands of Fundamentalist Goblins roam this area and have roughly a 25% chance to drop Crude Devil Masks on death. Each mask sells for about 13.71 silver at any vendor. In a focused 10-minute run, you can clear several groups and walk away with 60 to 30 to 55 silver worth of masks.
The goblins respawn when you leave the area and return, making this one of the most reliable early farms. Loot everything from their bodies, including coin pouches and any gear they drop. Sell the gear you do not need to a merchant on your way back.
Tips for maximizing this farm:
Bring a ranged weapon to pull individual goblins out of larger groups and avoid getting surrounded.
Loot bodies immediately. Corpses despawn after a short time, and any uncollected drops vanish with them.
Expand your inventory before attempting long farming sessions. The more bag space you have, the fewer trips back to town you need.
Combine this with coin pouch farming. Open all pouches at once from your inventory to save time.
One of the easiest farms in the entire game. Roughly 1,000 meters southwest of Hernand sits a fast travel point surrounded by dense fields of Red Croton flowers. There are hundreds of them packed tightly together. Ride through on your horse, hold the gather button, and fill your inventory in minutes.
Red Crotons stack in groups of 50 per inventory slot, so even a modest bag can carry a substantial haul. Sell the full load to any merchant. Small insects buzzing among the petals can also be caught and sold for extra copper.
The flowers respawn after approximately one in-game week, so treat this as a periodic farm rather than a continuous one. Each trip yields enough silver to cover early gear upgrades and food purchases.
As you explore Hernand City and the surrounding towns, you will find recipe pages in houses, on tables, and as quest rewards. Once you read a recipe to learn it permanently, the physical page has no further use. Sell it to any vendor immediately. Individual pages are not worth much, but they add up quickly, especially in the first few chapters when you are picking up recipes constantly. This is essentially free money since you would read the recipe either way.
Beyond recipes, your inventory will fill up with items that serve no gameplay purpose. Old books, documents, and posters picked up during exploration take up valuable bag space and have no use in quests or crafting. Sell them to any vendor as soon as you notice them.
Damaged gear is another consistent source of silver. When your own equipment breaks or when you loot defeated enemies, you will often pick up items labeled as damaged. These cannot be repaired, so there is no reason to hold onto them. Sell every piece of damaged armor, every chipped blade, and every cracked shield. Individually these items fetch small amounts, but over the course of a chapter they add up to a meaningful sum.
Collectibles are another category worth evaluating. Paintings, vases, and decorative objects can be displayed in your home or gifted to NPCs, but if you need silver more than decoration, they sell for respectable prices at regular merchants or at the Goldleaf Tradepost black market.
After you gain access to Lioncrest Manor (northwest of Hernand City, during the Bruna's Request chain), you can participate in the archery contest. Each round challenges you to hit ten randomly appearing targets faster than your opponent and rewards roughly 80 copper on completion. It is repeatable without cooldown, so you can grind it for consistent small payouts between other activities.
Hostile bandit camps are scattered across the countryside. Clearing them grants Contribution points, loot drops, and coin pouches. The key to profitability is looting every single body before it despawns. Bandits in the Hernand Highlands drop Crude Devil Masks (about 12 silver each), while those at Fort Perwin carry Scarlet Blades Gas Masks that sell for roughly 14 silver. Even if you are not deliberately farming, always loot camp enemies for their silver pouches and sellable gear.
The notice boards in Hernand and surrounding towns post commissions from local townsfolk. Look for NPCs with orange dot icons on your minimap, as these indicate quest givers with tasks available. Most Hernand Commissions reward a Medium Bag (adding an extra inventory slot) along with crafting materials and a small silver payout. While the direct silver reward is modest, the inventory expansion makes every other farming method more efficient. Think of commissions as an investment: each extra bag slot lets you carry more loot per run before needing to visit a vendor.
Prioritize commissions early in your playthrough. The inventory space they provide has a compounding effect on all your future farming sessions. Check the commission board and nearby lantern posts regularly, as new requests appear as you progress through the story.
These methods become available once you progress past Chapter 2 and begin exploring regions beyond Hernand.
Duo is the single fastest way to make silver in the game, bar none. The card game deals five sticks with numbers colored yellow or red. Three sticks combine to total 10, 20, or 30, and the remaining two form your hand. The AI opponents have a well-documented tendency to call all-in bets early in a match, even when holding weak cards. You can exploit this by pushing all-in whenever you have a strong hand (Five Points or better), draining the table in a single round.
The strategy is straightforward:
Create a manual save directly outside the gambling den before entering.
Sit down at a table and check your hand. If you have Five Points or higher, go all-in immediately.
If multiple opponents call (they usually do), you win the entire pot, often 50 to 200+ silver in a single hand.
If your hand is weak or you bust, reload the save and try again.
After playing enough matches, you may notice some opponents glowing with a blue outline. This means they are cheating. Observe this behavior three separate times to permanently unlock the Cheat ability for Kliff, which lets you peek at other players' hands. Once unlocked, your win rate increases dramatically.
Five-Card tables work on a similar principle. The risk is the buy-in fee, but over time the all-in exploit nets far more than you lose. Combined with save-scumming, Duo is effectively risk-free.
Bounty notices appear on boards in major settlements and as purple markers on your minimap around Hernand. Visit Pedro at the Hernand Guard Station to pick up capture targets. Rewards range from 1 silver for easy marks like Jeffrey up to 25 silver for dangerous targets like Warren. Track down the outlaw, apprehend them (alive if specified), and deliver them to the Guard Station.
Bounties are not infinitely repeatable since each target can only be caught once, but they provide solid payouts alongside combat loot. Prioritize Bandit Camp Clearout bounties over escort missions. Clearouts are faster, have zero fail conditions, and let you loot all the enemy chests and corpses along the way.
Bounty Target | Reward (Silver) | Difficulty | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Very Easy | Pickpocket in Hernand east district; rewards a Mask on first capture | |
5 | Easy | Found near the outskirts of town | |
8 | Medium | Armed and will fight back | |
12 | Medium | Often guarded by accomplices | |
15 | Hard | Dangerous combatant | |
18 | Hard | Well-equipped outlaw | |
20 | Very Hard | Located in a heavily guarded area | |
25 | Very Hard | The most dangerous bounty target in Hernand |
During the Continuing Concern faction quest for House Roberts, you assault Fort Perwin in southern Hernand. The quest objective is to deplete the enemy faction bar and defeat the boss. Here is the trick: even after the faction bar drops to 0%, enemies continue to pour out of the fort until you actually kill the boss. By ignoring the boss and farming the endlessly spawning soldiers, you can accumulate massive quantities of loot.
Enemies at Fort Perwin drop Scarlet Blades Gas Masks (roughly 14 silver each), Copper and Silver Pouches, and various weapons and armor. The loot generation is so heavy that you will likely need multiple trips to a vendor to sell everything. After clearing your inventory at a merchant, return to the fort and keep farming until you have had your fill, then finish the boss to complete the quest.
This is one of the highest-yield repeatable farms in the mid-game. If you have already completed the quest, similar faction assault missions at other locations can sometimes produce the same infinite-spawn behavior.
Once you acquire a pickaxe (complete Rhett's request in Hernand), mining becomes a steady income source. Ore deposits are scattered across the world, with each one yielding up to 6 units. The main road to Varnia in the north is lined with Scolecite and Azurite deposits.
Ore | Sell Price (per unit) | Yield per Deposit | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
0.95 silver | Up to 6 | Road to Varnia, northern regions | |
Scolecite | 1.03 silver | Up to 6 | |
2.28 silver | 6-8 | Caves and craters (see below) | |
High (premium) | Variable | Late-game regions, Steel Mountains |
Diamonds are the most valuable common ore, selling for 2.28 silver per unit with deposits yielding 6 to 8 pieces. Diamond locations include a cave at the bottom of the southeast Howling Hill crater, the southwest corner of the Demeniss region, south of Tashkalp town in the Crimson Desert region, and along the road near Trader's Expanse heading toward Varnia. Once discovered, deposits stay marked on your map permanently. Respawn rates are slow (several in-game weeks), so mark every deposit and revisit them periodically.
The most accessible early diamond deposit is inside the Hernand Highlands Cavern, located south of Hernand City just beyond the Hernand Highlands. Follow the narrow cave opening to the back of the cavern to find roughly 10 diamonds in a single deposit cluster. At 2.28 silver per diamond, one trip nets around 23 silver for a few minutes of mining. Combine this with any Azurite or Scolecite veins you pass along the way.
A mining run along the Varnia road can net around 60 silver if you hit every deposit. Activate all the fast travel points along the route so you can teleport back later without walking the full distance.
Wild animals roam the forests and plains outside every settlement. Deer, boars, and other creatures drop hides, meat, and bones when skinned. Sell the raw materials directly to vendors or use excess hides and leather at the blacksmith to craft leather armor. Selling upgraded leather armor earns a bigger profit than selling the raw materials, though it costs time and additional crafting materials. Target groups of deer near Hernand for the densest spawns.
These methods either require significant story progression, starting capital, or access to late-game regions.
Wagon trading is the game's dedicated commerce system. To unlock it, progress the Greymane questline at Howling Hill far enough to recruit Brice, the wagon manager. From there you can build a wagon at camp and begin hauling goods between trade posts for profit.
The core trading loop works as follows:
Buy trade goods at a trade post or Goldleaf Tradepost where prices are low.
Pack the goods through Carl at your camp (costs 100 Alms per item from camp funds).
Load packed goods onto your wagon or horse at a stable or depot.
Transport them to a different trade post in another region where they sell at a higher price.
Sell the packed goods for profit. Packed goods transported by wagon or horse sell for significantly more than unpacked items sold directly.
Prices vary by location and region, so the key principle is buy low, sell high. Keep an eye on prices at the Goldleaf Merchant Guild and the Royal Trading Post north of Hernand Castle. Buy in stacks of at least 25 for the best margins. Black market vendors at Goldleaf Tradeposts (unlocked in Chapter 3) will buy any item from you, which is useful for offloading stolen trade goods.
The most profitable trade goods to look for include Calligraphic Paintings, Tobacco, Red Ginseng, and Ceramics. These items have the highest price margins when transported between distant regions. Black market vendors at Goldleaf Tradeposts (unlocked in Chapter 3) will buy any item from you, including stolen goods, making them useful for offloading items that regular merchants refuse.
Trading takes longer per run than other methods, but the profit scales well as you learn the routes and expand your wagon capacity. It also pairs nicely with exploration since you can haul goods while traveling to new areas.
The bank in the northern district of Hernand offers a passive investment system. You need 600 silver to get started: 500 silver to purchase one gold bar and 30 to 55 silver for a Personal Strongbox Permit. Once set up, deposit your gold bar and select one of three risk profiles.
Risk Profile | Return per Cycle | Downside | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
Low Risk (Conservative) | 0-2% profit | Essentially zero loss | Safe long-term parking of wealth |
Medium Risk (Bold) | 15-20% profit | Small chance of minor loss | Recommended balanced strategy |
High Risk (Aggressive) | 50-55% profit | Possible total loss of investment | Experienced players with backup savings |
Investment cycles pay out every three in-game days. You can change your risk strategy every 15 in-game days. A single gold bar on Medium Risk generates 75 to 30 to 55 silver per cycle with minimal downside, making it the best option for most players. High Risk can return 250 to 230 to 55 silver per cycle on a good roll, but you can also lose the entire gold bar.
Gold bars can be exchanged back into 500 silver at any time, so your capital is not permanently locked. Once you have surplus silver from other farming methods, funneling it into bank investments creates a passive income stream that pays out while you focus on quests and exploration.
If you are willing to risk your reputation, stealing offers a fast but risky path to silver. You need a Mask equipped to steal. Masks are available from back-alley vendors for 10 copper, or you can loot one from your first bounty target (Jeffrey). With a mask on, you can steal from chests, shelves, and dressers in houses and faction buildings.
Pickpocketing works by sprinting into an NPC and pressing the steal prompt. It yields coin purses and small items. Be warned that all theft costs Contribution points with the faction that owns the stolen goods, whether or not you get caught.
High-value theft targets include:
Hernand Bank Strongboxes: Roughly 10 boxes upstairs, yielding 1-5 silver each (about 25 silver total). One-time only.
Paintings and Vases: Stolen from wealthy homes and sold at the black market vendor (Groks) at the Goldleaf Tradepost. Higher value than regular stolen goods.
Faction Headquarters: Drawers and strongboxes in faction buildings often contain coin purses and artifacts. Explore thoroughly.
Puzzle Box Artifacts: Locked puzzle boxes found during exploration sometimes contain equipment or valuable items worth selling.
After stealing, you must stay hidden until the crime timer expires to avoid imprisonment. Sell stolen goods at black market vendors since regular merchants will not accept flagged items. The net income from a full theft run through Hernand (bank, homes, and faction buildings) totals around 90 silver on the first pass, though the bank strongbox alone yields roughly 25 silver, but contribution losses can lock you out of faction services if you overdo it.
Occasionally you will encounter a rare goblin carrying a treasure chest on its back. These Treasure Trader Goblins wander the world and are difficult to spot. If you find one, follow it until it separates from other enemies, then get behind it and kick it to dislodge the chest. Loot the chest for a chance at a gold bar, all without triggering combat or losing any Contribution.
This is purely opportunistic since their spawn rate is very low. Do not go out of your way to hunt them, but always keep an eye out during normal exploration. A free gold bar (worth 500 silver) is an enormous windfall at any stage of the game.
If you already have a Mask for stealing, wagons and carts offer another avenue for silver. Merchant wagons travel the roads between trading posts, and you can hijack them while masked. Drive the stolen wagon to a Wagon Fence NPC to sell it for roughly 15 silver per delivery. The earliest Wagon Fence is located east of Hernand, along the Nas River.
Stolen wagons can only be sold at Wagon Fence locations (also called the Wagon Black Market). Regular merchants and Trading Centers will not accept them. Like all theft, stealing a wagon costs Contribution with the owning faction, so weigh the reputation hit against the silver. The best wagons to steal are those traveling between Goldleaf Tradeposts and major cities, as they tend to appear frequently along well-traveled roads.
Wagon theft tip: If you have the Great Thief's Gloves from the House Serkis quest line, you can steal wagons without triggering the wanted system. The gloves have a 30-minute cooldown, which roughly aligns with the time it takes to drive a stolen wagon to the nearest Wagon Fence and ride back for the next one. Look for stealable wagons parked near the Royal Trading Post or along the road toward the Goldleaf Guildhouse. Each wagon sells for approximately 15 silver, making this a low-risk repeatable income source once you have the gloves.
Captured wild animals and spare horses can be sold for silver. Animals caught during exploration can be traded at the black market, while horses you no longer need can be sold at stables. If you have been hoarding tamed creatures, liquidating your collection can yield a lump sum of silver. See the How to Sell Animals article for specifics on pricing and locations.
For stolen livestock specifically, you need a Livestock Fence NPC rather than a regular merchant. The earliest Livestock Fence is located southeast of Hernand at the end of a path near Grimrak. Regular animals you have tamed through non-criminal means can be sold at stables and regular merchants. Horses are particularly valuable if you have collected extras beyond your active mount. Check the How to Sell Animals article for a complete breakdown of pricing and which NPCs accept each type.
Regardless of which methods you favor, these general tips apply to all money-making efforts.
The biggest bottleneck to farming is bag space. Complete side requests in Hernand City to unlock up to 3 additional inventory slots per quest. Buy inventory expansion bags from merchants whenever you can afford them. Check your journal to see which faction quests reward "Bags" by hovering over the quest description. More space means longer farming runs with fewer trips to the vendor.
Always activate fast travel points as you discover them, especially along farming routes. The ability to teleport back to a vendor and then return to your farming spot saves enormous amounts of time. You can also press R3 on the map to access the sky island and skydive down to any unlocked point.
If you have excess animal hides from hunting, visit a blacksmith to upgrade them into leather armor. Selling upgraded armor fetches a higher price than selling the raw hide. This is especially useful when you have a surplus of crafting materials and want to squeeze maximum value out of every material.
Do not sell coin pouches to vendors. You cannot sell them, and they have no value until opened. Pouches stack in one inventory slot, so let them accumulate during a farming session and use the "Use All" option from your inventory to cash them out all at once.
The most efficient farming sessions layer multiple methods together. For example, ride south from Hernand to gather Red Crotons, clear goblin camps on the way back for masks and coin pouches, sell everything at the vendor, then hit the Duo tables before logging off. Each method takes 10 to 15 minutes, but combining three or four in a single loop can yield 200+ silver per hour.
Rather than sticking to a single method, the most efficient players chain together multiple farming activities in a single loop. Below are suggested routes tailored to your story progress.
Start at Greymane Camp and ride south to the Sunrise Plains. Clear Fundamentalist Goblin groups for Crude Devil Masks and coin pouches. On your way back, swing through any Red Croton fields you pass. Sell everything at the nearest vendor. If you have already unlocked the archery contest at Lioncrest Manor, run a few rounds for extra copper before returning to camp. Expected yield: 80 to 130 silver per loop.
Pick up bounty notices from the board in Hernand. Complete one or two bounties on the way to the Duo gambling den. Play several hands using the all-in strategy (save beforehand). On the return trip, clear any bandit camps along the road and loot every body. Sell all masks, gear, and loot at a Hernand vendor. If you have a pickaxe, detour through the Hernand Highlands cavern for diamonds. Expected yield: 150 to 250+ silver per loop.
Once wagon trading is unlocked, buy high-value trade goods (Calligraphic Paintings, Tobacco, Red Ginseng, Ceramics) at a low-price Tradepost. Pack them through Karl at camp and load your wagon. Transport the packed goods to a higher-price region and sell for profit. Along the route, mine any ore deposits you pass. On arrival, check the local bounty board and gambling den. Deposit surplus silver at the bank as gold bars for passive investment income. Expected yield: 200 to 400+ silver per session, depending on trade margins.
It helps to know what to buy so you do not waste silver on things you do not need yet.
Inventory Expansion Bags: The single best early investment. More bag space means more efficient farming loops.
Weapon and Armor Upgrades: Buy or forge better weapons and armor only when your current gear is noticeably holding you back in combat.
Cooking Ingredients: Meals are your primary healing source. Keep a steady supply of ingredients from food vendors.
Crafting Materials: Needed for crafting upgrades and special items. Buy when prices are fair.
Gold Bars: Only buy these when you have 600+ silver to spare and plan to invest at the bank.
Camp Upgrades: Spend camp funds (Alms) on Greymane Camp improvements to unlock new services like the wagon workshop, blacksmith, and kitchen.
Knowing what to sell and what to hold onto saves time and prevents you from accidentally discarding something valuable. The table below breaks down the most common item categories and whether you should sell, keep, or evaluate them on a case-by-case basis.
Item Category | Recommendation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Damaged Gear | Sell immediately | Cannot be repaired; pure vendor trash |
Learned Recipes / Manuals | Sell after reading | No use once the recipe is learned |
Old Books / Documents / Posters | Sell | No quest or crafting use; free silver |
Crude Devil Masks | Sell | ~13.71 silver each; best early vendor item |
Sell | ~14 silver each; Fort Perwin drop | |
Collectibles (Paintings, Vases) | Sell or display | Good price at merchants; optional home decor |
Keep | One of a kind; cannot be reacquired | |
Life Tools (Pickaxe, Fishing Rod, Logging Axe) | Keep | Essential for gathering; never sell these |
Keep | Needed for upgrades and special items | |
Coin Pouches | Open (do not sell) | Cannot be sold; open from inventory to convert to currency |
Ore (Azurite, Scolecite) | Sell or use | Sell if you have surplus; keep if you need them for crafting |
Sell | 2.28 silver each; rarely needed for crafting |
Ignoring coin pouches: They look like junk, but they are direct currency. Always loot and open them.
Selling items one at a time: Stack items and sell in bulk to save time at the vendor screen.
Skipping the bank: Even if you cannot afford a gold bar early on, start saving toward 600 silver. Passive income from investments compounds over time.
Over-stealing: Losing too much Contribution locks you out of faction shops and quests. Steal selectively and manage your reputation.
Forgetting to loot corpses: Enemy bodies disappear quickly. Loot immediately after every fight.
Neglecting inventory expansion: Running out of space mid-farm forces you to make extra vendor trips, cutting your silver-per-hour in half.
Crimson Desert uses three tiers of currency. Copper is the smallest denomination and drops frequently from enemies in the form of coin purses. Silver is the standard unit that vendors and merchants deal in. Gold bars are the highest denomination and are used primarily for bank investments.
Denomination | Value | Primary Use |
|---|---|---|
Copper | 1 copper | Enemy drops, coin purses, small transactions |
Silver | 100 copper | Vendor purchases, gear, crafting, food |
Gold Bar | 500 silver | Bank investments, high-value storage |
Enemies frequently drop Small Copper Pouches that stack in your inventory. Open them from the inventory screen using the "Use All" option to convert them into currency instantly.
These methods are available within the first few hours of gameplay, before you unlock fast travel to distant regions. They require minimal gear and can be repeated.
One of the simplest and most reliable early money sources is gathering Red Croton flowers. A large field of Red Crotons grows roughly 1,000 meters southwest of Hernand, in the woods near a fast travel point. The flowers grow in dense clusters with hundreds available in a single run, and they stack in groups of 50 per inventory slot. Ride through the field on your horse and gather everything you can carry, then sell the flowers to any merchant. Small insects buzzing around the petals can also be caught for additional income.
Red Crotons respawn after approximately one in-game week, so you can return periodically for another harvest. This method generates enough silver to cover initial gear upgrades and food supplies.
As you explore Hernand City and the surrounding areas, you will find recipe pages in houses, on tables, and as quest rewards. Document icons on the map often indicate recipes lying around in buildings. Once you read a recipe, you permanently learn it, so the physical item has no further use. Sell the recipe page to any vendor immediately after learning it. This is a small but consistent source of income that adds up over time, especially in the early hours when every coin matters.
The bank in the northwestern district of Hernand can be robbed once. Go upstairs, equip a mask (available from a back-alley vendor near the windmill for 10 copper), and steal the Strongboxes from behind the shelves in the corner. There are roughly 10 Strongboxes, each containing between 1 and 5 silver when opened from your inventory. You can also grab paintings and vases to fence at a black market merchant. A single heist can net roughly 25 silver in total. Be aware that robbing the bank triggers a crime search timer; getting caught leads to jail time. This is a one-time opportunity since the boxes do not respawn.
Bounty missions from House Celeste in Hernand City are a reliable early income source. Look for purple page icons on the minimap; these are wanted posters pinned around the city. Examine a poster to accept the bounty, then track down the target via the quest marker. Chase them down, subdue them, and bring them back to the Guard Station in Hernand.
Each bounty pays approximately 10 silver and takes 10 to 20 minutes to complete. Capturing targets alive yields better rewards than killing them. While pursuing bounties, you will encounter enemy groups along the way, and their dropped loot adds to your total income.
Bandits appear throughout the countryside and in hostile camps. Kill them, loot their bodies quickly before they disappear, and sell the dropped weapons and armor at vendors. Even broken gear sells for a few copper each, and the amounts add up after clearing several camps. Coin purses dropped by enemies provide direct currency when opened.
During faction quests, enemies sometimes continue to spawn even after you have reduced the faction bar to zero, as long as the area boss has not been defeated. This creates an opportunity to farm loot indefinitely within a single quest instance. The Continuing Concern quest at Fort Perwin in southern Hernand is one known example.
Equipping a mask lets you steal items from NPC homes and faction buildings. Check drawers, cabinets, and shelves for coin purses, artifacts, and puzzle boxes. Check every accessible home in towns for valuable items to sell. Stolen goods can be sold at regular merchants or, for higher prices, at black market dealers.
Several minigames throughout the world pay out silver for winning. These range from quick physical contests to strategic card games.
Minigame | Location | Entry Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
80 copper | Hit 10 targets before your opponent. Rewards increase with consecutive wins. | ||
1 silver | Land 10 shots before your opponent. Rewards increase with consecutive wins. | ||
Free | Button-mashing contest. Pays out silver and faction relationship points. | ||
30 copper | Bare-knuckle fighting. Rewards vary by victory. | ||
45 copper | Spear combat emphasizing distance control. | ||
15 silver | Card game with betting. Potential for large winnings. | ||
150 silver | Advanced card game with higher stakes. | ||
Tomasso | 300 silver | Highest-stake Duo table. Large potential returns. |
The Shot Contest: Bow at Lioncrest Manor (House Alfonso, northwest of Hernand City) is considered the most efficient minigame activity in the early hours. The goal is to hit ten randomly appearing targets faster than your opponent, and the contest can be repeated for steady income.
The Duo and Five-Card card games are available at gambling dens in Hernand, Beighen, and Tomasso. These games offer some of the highest silver payouts in the game but carry the risk of losing your entry fee.
In Duo, players receive five sticks with numbers and colors. The game automatically combines three sticks to sum to 10, 20, or 30, and the remaining two sticks form your hand. Hand rankings from strongest to weakest are: Ten Pair (both sticks are 10s), Pair (matching numbers), Perfect Nine (hand sums to 9), and Points (any other single-digit sum). A Bust occurs when no valid combination exists, resulting in an automatic loss.
Five-Card uses a similar structure but with different hand rankings that prioritize color. The strongest possible hand is a Prime Pair (Red 3 plus Red 8), which is a guaranteed win. Below that are Superior Pair, Ten Pair, standard Pairs, and various One-plus combinations.
A practical strategy for the card games is to save your game manually before sitting down at a table, then go all-in during the first round. The AI opponents have a tendency to call all-in bets early, even when holding weak hands. If you win, you collect a large pot. If you lose, reload your save and try again. The Tomasso Duo table at 300 silver per entry offers the highest potential returns but also carries the steepest losses.
You can also unlock a cheat ability by observing an opponent with a blue outline three times during play. When it is your turn to deal, this ability lets you select specific cards for your hand. Targeting Red 3 or Red 8 in Five-Card is the optimal use of this ability.
Once you have unlocked fast travel to regions beyond Hernand, more profitable farming methods become available.
After speaking to Rhett in Hernandia to obtain a pickaxe, you can mine ore veins scattered across the map. The most profitable ores are found in later regions. Along the main road toward Varnia (the northernmost town), Scolecite deposits yield up to 6 units at 1.03 silver per unit, and Azurite deposits yield up to 6 units at 0.95 silver per unit. A focused mining session along this route can produce 60 or more silver.
The travel time from Hernand to Varnia is roughly 30 minutes, so activate every fast travel point along the way to make return trips faster. Mining deposits respawn slowly, so treat each sweep as a one-time haul and come back after progressing further in the story.
Ore | Sell Price | Per Deposit | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
0.95 silver | Up to 6 | Road to Varnia | |
Scolecite | 1.03 silver | Up to 6 | Road to Varnia |
2.28 silver | 6 to 8 | Various caves (see below) | |
High | Varies |
Diamonds are the most valuable mineable resource, selling for 2.28 silver each with 6 to 8 diamonds available per deposit. Diamond deposits are found inside caves and in hard-to-reach locations. Known locations include a crater southeast of Howling Hill (the cave at the bottom of the crater), the southwest corner of the Demeniss region, south of Tashkalp town, and north of Trader's Expanse along the Varnia road. Diamond locations are permanently marked on your map once discovered. Deposits regrow very slowly; check back after several in-game weeks.
One of the best repeatable farming methods in the mid-game involves killing Fundamentalist Goblins on the Sunrise Plains (south of Greymane Camp in Howling Hills). These goblins have roughly a 25% chance to drop Crude Devil Masks, which sell to any merchant for 13.71 silver each. This is an unusually high sell price for a common enemy drop.
The farming loop is straightforward: ride around the Sunrise Plains on horseback, kill every group of Fundamentalist Goblins you encounter, loot the Crude Devil Masks, and continue until your inventory is full or no more goblins remain. Then fast travel to any merchant and sell. Ten minutes of farming can fill your inventory with masks worth a substantial amount of silver.
Treasure Trader Goblins are rare encounters that carry valuable chests. When you spot one, follow it until it is relatively isolated, then get behind it and kick it to make it drop its chest. Loot the chest to receive a Gold Bar (worth 500 silver). This method does not trigger a bounty or cost you any Contribution, but Treasure Trader Goblins spawn infrequently and are not a reliable farming target. Treat them as a bonus when you happen to encounter one during exploration.
The trading system unlocks after completing the Glenbright Manor investigation mission. Trade goods are special items identified by a blue background in your inventory. Examples include Calligraphic Paintings, Tobacco, Red Ginseng, and Ceramics. They come from quest rewards, treasure chests, and stolen goods from wealthy NPCs.
To sell trade goods for maximum profit, speak to Carl (the Wagonmaster, found standing next to the wagon at camp) and select "Manage Provisions," then "Camp Provisions." Choose the trade goods from your inventory and pay 100 Alms per item from camp funds to pack them. Load the packed goods onto your horse or a wagon at a wagon depot, then transport them to a trading post. The closest trading post to camp is typically the Goldleaf Trading Post. Selling packed goods at a trading post yields higher profit than selling unpacked items individually to regular vendors.
The bank is located north of Hernand town and becomes useful once you have accumulated enough silver to invest. First, purchase a Personal Strongbox Permit for 30 to 55 silver. Then convert 500 silver into 1 Gold Bar. Deposit the Gold Bar and choose a risk level for your investment. Returns are paid out roughly every three in-game days.
Risk Level | Return Range | Downside |
|---|---|---|
Low | 0 to 2% | Minimal returns but no risk of loss |
Medium | 15 to 20% | Moderate returns with some risk |
High | 50 to 55% | Large returns, but you can lose your entire Gold Bar |
Investment returns adjust every 15 in-game days. For example, a medium-risk investment might pay out 85 silver (a 17% return) in one cycle and 30 silver (6%) in the next. The high-risk option can produce the fastest returns, but losing your entire 500-silver Gold Bar is a real possibility. Most players start with low or medium risk and move to high risk only after accumulating surplus gold bars.
The Freesword Dispatch System at Greymane Camp provides passive income. After reuniting with companion characters throughout the story, you can assign groups of 4 to 6 mercenaries to off-screen missions. These missions take real time to complete, and the party returns with silver, crafting resources, and other useful items. Run dispatch missions regularly for a steady background income that supplements your active farming.
Method | Availability | Yield | Repeatable |
|---|---|---|---|
Red Croton Farming | Early game | Low to moderate | Yes (weekly respawn) |
Selling Learned Recipes | Early game | Low | Limited by recipe supply |
Bank Robbery | Early game | ~25 silver | No (one-time) |
Bounty Hunting | Early game | ~10 silver each | Limited supply |
Archery Contest | Early game | 80 copper per win | Yes |
Early game | Variable (15 silver buy-in) | Yes | |
Mid-game | 60+ silver per run | Slow respawn | |
Mid-game | 13.71 silver per mask | Yes | |
Mid-game | ~14 to 18 silver per deposit | Very slow respawn | |
Mid to late game | High (150 to 300 silver buy-in) | Yes | |
Trading System | Mid-game | Variable | Yes |
Bank Investments | Late game | 0 to 55% return per cycle | Yes (passive) |
Freesword Dispatch | Late game | Moderate (passive) | Yes (passive) |
Open all coin purses regularly. Enemies drop Small Copper Pouches frequently. Use the "Use All" option from your inventory to convert them into currency without opening each one individually.
Sell equipment you do not need. Boss drops, looted weapons, and armor you have outgrown all sell for decent amounts. Check vendors in different regions, as prices may vary.
Gather everything while traveling. Mining, logging, hunting, and fishing all produce sellable materials. Sell any surplus you do not plan to use for crafting or cooking.
Expand your inventory early. Completing Requests in Hernand City rewards inventory expansion slots (up to 3 additional slots per completed Request). More inventory space means longer farming runs before you need to return to sell.
Save before gambling. Create a manual save before entering any card game or high-stakes minigame. If you lose, reload and try again.
Upgrade gear before selling. In some cases, upgrading leather armor at a blacksmith and then reselling it yields more profit than selling the raw materials.