I need some early game guidance

I love Caves of Qud. I really do. I think it’s nothing short of a masterpiece, a magical thing thats sort of if a book sprang to life in the form of a video game. I own it on both the Steam Deck and the Switch.

But I’m stuck on it. I really do not know how to proceed.

I’ve played quite a number of saves. (I want to say around 20?) In one of them, I reached the Barathumites under the Grit Gate. In all others, I died way before this. My average experience is spawn in Joppa, do the Gershling on Red Rock, do the Copper Strand on Rust Well, explore a bit of the world around Joppa and/or the salt desert, maybe reach the city on the top left of the map. And that’s it. I always die on the way in or on the way out of the desert city.

It’s very demotivating having to do the two starting quests over and over again, and never getting to see the rest of the game.

I really want to play in Classic mode. I don’t know why, and I have this voice in my head that keeps saying “stop being silly, go play in Roleplay mode!”, but I don’t want to listen to it. I know the game is beatable on Classic, and I want to keep trying Classic. Plus, I don’t exactly mind dying and losing my progress; what frustrates me is that I don’t feel like I learn much on each death and I don’t seem to make more progress on each subsequent run.

I’m not even sure of what, exactly, I’m asking here. I just want some advice. Your advice doesn’t need to be a direct response to any of these, but I’m going to write a few direct questions to help you in giving me advice:

- Is there a guide that you could point me to? I’d love something that includes a character build, since I’m tired of not knowing if my characters are bad and/or using the presets that say “high survivability”. I’d love a guide that would tell me “here’s a character, and here’s roughly how you should play it”.

- Are there other ways to do early leveling up? Do I need to do Red Rock and Rust Wells every time?

- What’s the safest way to level up after I’ve done Red Rock and Rust Wells?

- How do I know I’m strong enough to not die to random bullshit on the way to The Barathumites?

Please help. My dream is to reach Golgotha so I can listen to the next episode of the Eggplant podcast that’s doing a deep dive on Caves of Qud. It’s a great listen, but I had to stop listening because I started an episode that said it was going to have heavy spoilers for anyone who hasn’t reached Golgotha yet, and I don’t even know WHERE Golgotha IS!

Thanks…