Making Money
The definitive list of get-rich quick schemes in Caves of Qud!
Big Game Hunting (Salt Kraken)
Kill a 
salt kraken, drag its extremely valuable, extremely heavy corpse to a merchant, make bank.
You will need:
- A salt kraken
- A way to kill a salt kraken
- Lots of
water - Lots and lots of empty containers
- A Recoiler with its location set to a merchant hub. (Seriously. A Kraken corpse is worth 15,000 drams.
Tam, dromad merchant won't cut it.)
Steps:
- Wander through the Great Salt Desert until you come upon a salt kraken. Do not be discouraged if it takes a bit, they are rather rare. Trust me, they are out there.
- Once you find the salt kraken, you now must kill it. There are many, many ways to do this, but attacking at range, using companions, or other low-personal-danger methods are preferable for obvious reasons.
- When the salt kraken dies, there is a 9/10 chance for it to leave a corpse. If, unluckily, it did not drop, you now must repeat steps 1 and 2. If it did, pick up the corpse and use your recoiler to teleport away.
- You should now appear in the merchant hub you chose. Pick the merchant you want to sell the Salt kraken corpse to. This should be a merchant with lots and lots of high-value goods.
- Drop the Salt kraken corpse, move one tile towards your merchant of choice, then, using your interact nearby keybinding (ctrl + direction by default), pick up the Salt kraken corpse from the adjacent tile. Repeat this step until you are close enough to sell it to your merchant of choice.
- Sell the Salt kraken corpse in return for what will likely be the merchant's entire inventory.
Notes:
Killing a salt kraken is far easier than killing a dromad-aligned 
great saltback, the other creature with an extremely high-value corpse, but, because multiple great saltbacks appear in a caravan, Caravan Poaching is far more lucrative.
BurgeonCane Farming
Using the Burgeoning mutation, summon and harvest large numbers of 
yonderbrush.
You will need:
- The Burgeoning Mutation at a level which will create yonderbrush
- The Harvestry ability
- Optional: the Meal Preparation skill (For those who are willing to drop a bit of profit for convenience)
Steps:
- Find an uninhabited, empty map tile relatively close to a merchant or merchants. (The portion of the Great Salt Desert just outside the Six Day Stilt works great for this)
- Using a combination of Burgeoning and wait 100 turns, fill the screen with summoned plants. Then, carefully walk through, harvesting the
yondercane and making sure to avoid any aloe-type plants. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you are satisfied with the amount of yondercane you have aquired. - If you have Meal Preparation, build a campfire and preserve all of your yondercane into
fermented yondercane.
- (You will lose 25 commerce value on each yondercane you preserve, but this is balanced by the fact that fermented yondercane is an incredibly convenient currency due to its weightlessness and low value per unit)
- (You will lose 25 commerce value on each
Caravan Poaching
Kill an entire dromad caravan and steal all their stuff.
You will need:
- A dromad caravan which you are fine with killing
- A method of defeating a dromad caravan
- Plenty of inventory space
- Lots and lots of empty containers
- A Recoiler with its location set to a merchant hub. (Seriously. A Saltback corpse is worth 15,000 drams. Tam, dromad merchant won't cut it.)
Steps:
- Find a dromad caravan. They can spawn pretty much anywhere, but the rapid pace at which tiles can be explored in the Great Salt Desert makes it particularly suitable for searching, if you need to look.
- Somehow, kill every member of the caravan. Keep in mind that the
caravan guards are almost always very well-armed, and great saltbacks can be very dangerous. - Mark the location of the dead caravan on your map. You will be making multiple trips back and forth, and this is very useful.
- Steal and sell their items. The
dromad trader is an obvious target, but keep in mind that caravan guards often wear fairly high-tier armor and carry fairly high-tier weapons. It may be convenient to use a recoiler here to lower the number of trips, but this step can be completed, albeit slightly slower, without a recoiler. - If the great saltback (or great saltbacks) dropped a corpse, pick one up. Then, activate your recoiler.
- You should now appear in the merchant hub you chose. Pick the merchant you want to sell the Great saltback corpse to. This should be a merchant with lots and lots of high-value goods.
- Drop the Great saltback corpse, move one tile towards your merchant of choice, then, using your interact nearby keybinding (ctrl + direction by default), pick up the Great saltback corpse from the adjacent tile. Repeat this step until you are close enough to sell it to your merchant of choice.
- Sell the Great saltback corpse in return for what will likely be the merchant's entire inventory.
Getting the Most Value Out Of Weight
A more practical solution would be to budget weight correctly and save space in your bag for the most valuable items to get the most value per #. This is helpful in the late game deep underground where valuable items are plentiful, but your pack space is not.
Below is a table that lists all items with their commerce value divided by their own weight, and sorted from most expensive to least.
| Item | Value per Pound |
|---|---|
| Hand-E-Nuke | 10,000.0 |
| Kesil Face | 10,000.0 |
| Shemesh Face | 8,000.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Rermadon | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Bethsaida | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Qas | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Qon | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Shugruith | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Agolgot | 7,500.0 |
| circle of light in the chord of Ehalcodon | 7,500.0 |
| Earth Face | 6,500.0 |
| cloning draught | 5,000.0 |
| Levant Face | 5,000.0 |
| brain brine | 4,932.0 |
| warm static | 4,000.0 |
| Olive Face | 4,000.0 |
| sunslag | 4,000.0 |
| Null Face | 4,000.0 |
| timecube | 3,000.0 |
| mental aggregator | 2,265.0 |
| tri-hologram bracelet | 1,500.0 |
| Kah's loop | 1,500.0 |
| phial of brain brine | 1,233.0 |
| phial of sunslag | 1,000.0 |
| dazzle cheek | 999.0 |
0 Weight Items
Items that weigh nothing are also highly valuable since they do not take up weight. Note that the majority are food and cybernetics.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Otherpearl | 33,333.0 |
| black mote | 1,666.0 |
| optical multiscanner | 600.0 |
| social coprocessor | 600.0 |
| taco suprema | 500.0 |
| cybernetics credit wedge 3¢ | 450.0 |
| penetrating radar | 360.0 |
| holographic visage | 360.0 |
| cybernetics credit wedge 2¢ | 300.0 |
| phase-adaptive scope | 240.0 |
| Schemasoft [high-tier] | 240.0 |
| precision force lathe | 240.0 |
| equipment rack | 180.0 |
| dopamine synth | 180.0 |
| intravenous port | 180.0 |
| custom visage | 180.0 |
| bionic liver | 180.0 |
| Skillsoft [high sp] | 180.0 |
| Schemasoft [mid-tier] | 180.0 |
| Skillsoft plus | 180.0 |