Alright, here's what I found out to help with surviving the meat grinder early game. After getting your initial equipment together (I recommend joining the paladins for a free weapon, and unlimited food, healing, and horses) go find the archdruid. There'll be a location on the map north of Rampart marked with an X. It'll be surrounded by mountains. Anyway, go there, and walk through the shrine in the north center to find a hidden area behind it. On your left you'll see some stone walls. Search a few times near them to get past. Behind those are the archdruid, whom you can speak to to complete your first quest and get a bunch of experience. The level ups you gain will make the starting dungeons a bit less impossible.
I've also heard that when you have a bank account open with money in it, there's a random chance of banking errors, which can supposedly add thousands of gold to your account, so it's probably worth keeping a single coin in an account just in case.
You can also open an account, set a password, and then log in using a different password to rob someone else's account. This should give a few thousand gold, but you won't be able to use the bank again in the future.
