Financing for the Young Ruk

by Steven DesJardin
Reprinted from the Kabuki Kronicles Issue VIII - The Newsletter of the Disciples of Light - Originally released April 1994

On turn 24, Mudlark Limetree left Dallor's Far Post equipped with gator armor and with 75 oculars in his pocket. Another mudwalker left Dallor's at about the same time, nearly broke except for the four gator hides he had finally gained enough wealth to acquire. Chris Meyer suggested that the hillocks Mudlark had been exploring were the source of his exceptional wealth; I was pretty sure that wasn't true, so I dug up all my old turns and figured out exactly where my money had come from, with the following results:

• koala teeth - 43
• dactyl hides - 42
• ancient graveyards - 40 (inc 10 carrion talons)
• hillocks - 19 (inc 12 gaba stones)
• crab exoscales - 13
• spider springs - 10
• stench glands, squzskins, purple lotus leaves - 8 each
• porququills - 6
• purpumpkin - 2

So koala teeth and dactyl hides have been the big winners for me, with a combined total of 85 oculars. Ancient graveyards account for another 40 (and that's a bit low, since I also got treasure I can sell at far inns). With a payoff in the neighborhood of 7 oculars for one combat, these are good candidates for fast money. Miscellaneous creature parts account for 45 oculars. None of these creatures individually will give you a big payoff, but many of them (like mandibular crabs or porqubeasts) are easy kills, and it's worth going out of your way to hit them.

My advice to the eager young ruk hoping to make a killing is to use your maps and use your A order to do just that - kill. Try to fight five or six creatures per turn, if you can (Mudlark is averaging about four kills/turn, and I'd like to get that up a bit higher). Think of health as a resource; in return for 10 health lost fighting a killer koala bear, you get 7 oculars back in the form of koala teeth. Every battle has some ratio of oculars gained to health lost. Seek out those creatures for which the ratio is highest (wimps like squeezy snakes, valuable parts like dactyl hides).

Keep your healthiness low enough that you're healing 20 points a turn, unless you have good reason to fear Shroudian attack; you don't get oculars for not getting into fights. Avoid fights that have no reward. There's no point losing 20 health battling a smite if you already have a smite pike. (Fighting other players is even worse. Keep your friendliness high.) Try to carry a calabash pipe and umber grass at all times (you won't be able to, but try). Pass lotus plants when you can - they're free money, after all. I'd like to reemphasize the usefulness of the A order. 16 points spent practicing your weapon is less effective than 6 points spent getting into a fight. And you can spend the 10 action points you save on jazzercise, and build up both your health and muscle. (Remember what I said about health being a resource? Jazzercise gets you the resource that gets you oculars.) Generally speaking, you should only quest for knowledge when you're trying to get a particular blurb, and do weapon practice only in unusual circumstances.

Mudlark hasn't visited a far inn yet. Once he does, the strategy will change. Treasure, in the form of coins and baubles or unwanted weapons and armor, will take on a greater importance. The tomb of mumi is a good place to explore. A couple of easy battles (for the well-equipped monster) yields a typical payoff of around 10-20 oculars, and it's generally safe to go in twice per turn. Once you have a shovel, graveyards are also a lucrative source of treasure. (Part of Mudlark's success is due to his looting an ancient graveyard with a large clam shell and getting a Tuvian shovel as treasure.) Hillocks are still worth exploring -- three times. Once you have all the jagged bodkins you can carry, the treasure isn't worth the health it'll cost you, unless you plan to go all the way and clear the hillock.

Caves are great fun to explore, a good source of creature blurbs and voodoo ingredients, and generally the treasure you get is well worth the health it costs you. But both kinds of caves have a down side. Large caves cost 60 action points to enter, which makes it difficult to do much else that turn, and require three torches (which you may not be able to replace quickly). Small caves are cheaper and more cost-effective, but if another monster's visited one recently, the cave will be empty and your order will be wasted. [In short, large caves are expensive, and small caves are risky.]

Don't overlook rattler darts; at 12-18 oculars for six of them at a Far Inn, they're a great source of revenue. Remember what I said about health being a resource? An I 5 or an I 3 order is worth the oculars if you spend that health wisely. Go into a Far Inn in a blaze of glory, hitting graveyards and tombs and creatures for all you're worth, and use the inn to recover. You can't be attacked at an inn, so it's a safe place to push your luck to the limit.

And of course it's better to do something than to do nothing. Entering a hillock may not be a great investment of resources, but if you're going from point A to point B and there's nothing else interesting along the way, then you may as well kill a Knolltir or two. If you can't find anything at all worth doing on the route you want to travel, consider taking an extra turn to reach your objective and see if that expands the range of possibilities to something interesting. And while this article is solely about making money, Monster Island is not. You might face a choice between a hillock and a mandibular crab: the crab is a cheap and lucrative kill, but the hillock is more fun. A common dilemma is whether to travel on or off the map; on the map is generally more profitable, but off the map travel adds to the DoL database and can lead to more exciting discoveries. As the game progresses you will discover many goals, only some of which require money; if you play wisely, it will not be long before wealth is at best a secondary consideration.

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