Golding (Player Guides)

"Golding" is a commonly used term on The Two Towers which means gathering gold from NPCs and other sources for your character. Gold is very important on this game, as with gold you can train your character, which in turn allows you to level up and advance.

There are several popular sources of gold that you should be aware of:

1. Pelts - Introduced in tutorial, gathering animal pelts is one of the most common ways of getting gold for low level players, even if a bit boring. Animals are usually easy to kill (they do not carry weapons nor armour), and their pelt may hold a significant value to certain merchants. You will find a great variety of peltable animals in the wilderness. Once you kill an animal, you can get its pelt through the "skin" command. Remember that you will need a knife or survival gear to skin. There are also pelt strings that allow you to store and carry multiple pelts with you.
2. Killing NPCs for gold and equipment - You will find that while animal pelts yield decent sums of money, it is often better to just get raw gold from an NPC that carries it or loot its corpse for equipment to sell. You may hunt for NPCs with gold and equipment on the main map similarly as you do with animals, but due to randomness of such hunting, most players prefer to "raid" various camps, caves and quest areas, "emptying" them from NPCs. The efficiency of golding this way is greatly improved if you have a mount with panniers or a wagon.
3. Freebie quests and items - There are many quests in Arda, and not all of them require violence (combat) to solve. These are often called "freebies", since once you get to know such quest, you can complete it with minimal time cost and risk on your part, particularly if you use an alias. Gathering freebies is a common way of golding for low-level alternate characters of otherwise high level players; they are known to just run from one place to another and use "freebie aliases". While it may take time to learn the whereabouts of such quests, it is definitely worth it in the end. Do note, however, that high level players may not be very willing to share their tactics in this part, so asking others for quest info of this nature is usually not a good idea.
4. Stealing - While mostly restricted to the thief profession, stealing gold from NPCs is a quick way to get rich. If you know the "right" NPCs, you can "visit" each of them every now and then and obtain the contents of their pockets.