Combat
The first and most common method for making councils is through combat. New players are known for loving Project: Gorgon's combat, so why not make money while doing it? The first step you'll need to take is to go to a dungeon. I recommend Serbule Crypt, but there are lower level dungeons for newbies as well. While there, pick up every piece of gear and loot from every monster you kill (or can manage to loot). Take the loot to Serbule town and sell it all to NPC's. Each NPC has a "wallet" full of the amount of money you can get from them per week. Once you have sold them enough loot to reduce that amount to zero, you will have to wait a week before you can sell anything to them again.
...Or do you? Favor is an important element in Gorgon. For example, if you have an inventory full of Gear that you want to sell to Joeh, but you see that you can't sell him anything else until next week, you just need to increase your favor with him in order to sell more to him. In his case, I suggest checking his Small Talk tab and seeing that he likes meat, then making him some Bacon or buying it off Fainor in the inn. Getting Joeh's favor level to the next tier will make him more comfortable, and you will be able to sell him more gear immediately.
And checking the wiki can also inform you which vendors buy which items (if you don't mind spoilers).
Surveying
Surveying is a necessary and relaxing gathering skill in Gorgon. The most dedicated surveyors can gather top-quality gems quickly and sell them to other players at a good value mark-up in the grey player stall area within the southern gates of Serbule town. If you're just starting out, gather redwall crystals and you'll also get other bonus gems. You should be able to sell these quickly over /trade channel during peak play hours. Surveying is also a very important skill to level up if you wish to be able to craft your own gear. Follow the guide on the wiki if you want to begin surveying.
Cooking
Cooking in Gorgon involves killing guilty and innocent beasts of all kinds, harvesting their flesh, and roasting it on a fire until the fat drips. It's dinnertime so I'm getting hungry. I recommend killing some pigs and deer outside of Serbule town, visiting Fainor in the inn, and selling that food to him or to other players over Trade channel. The better the food you can make, the more money you can make off of it.
Skinning/Leatherworking
Skinning is an easy way to gather materials for a great starting profession. Seriously, if you want to craft gear and sell it to other players or just use it for yourself, leatherworking is the easiest crafting profession to begin with! Just skin some animals and go check Kleave's "Buy New" tab in Eltibule for the novice skill book to get started. There are also some NPCs in the game who love to buy skins/leather rolls if you don't need them. They tend to sell quite well for the effort.
Work Orders
North of Serbule you will find a dock. There is a large bulletin board there. If you check it, you can find Work Orders that you can complete anytime. Just buy 1 of each that you like. Each 3 hours, this board's available Work Orders refreshes with different ones, so come again later if you are finished with the ones you have or if you just want to see if any better ones have been posted. IMPORTANT: You can only complete each work order once every 30 real life days. For example, Collect 10 Cotton can only be turned in 1 time each month. Completing work orders this way levels up your Industry skill. Turn these low level Work Orders in to Fitz the Boatman at the docks. As you level higher, you will find other bulletin boards around the world that hold higher level Work Orders. ***In addition, leveling Industry up will provide you with the opportunity to open a Player Stall in the southern area of Serbule town.
Player Work Orders
Completing these work orders do not reward experience toward your Industry skill. Inside the walls of Serbule, just outside of the southern player stall area, is a large bulletin board. Any player can post a work order to this board. For example, I could post that I'm looking for 20 Redwall Crystals and that I'm willing to pay 3000 councils for them. Then, you could visit the board, look through the requested items, and see if you have any of the player work orders in your bank. If you complete my work order, 20 redwall crystals will be removed from your INVENTORY and 3000 councils will immediately be added to your wallet! This is an incredible way to make money in Gorgon and many people forget about it. High level players need the weirdest things and are often willing to pay way more than their value to get what they need quickly.
Lost Opportunities
At some point, you will most likely sell something such as a Poetry book or Stomach to an NPC or player for a very low price. Making mistakes like this is part of the Project Gorgon journey. I suppose one way to avoid this is to ask experienced players how much a suspicious item you've found is worth. An alternate method is to hoard everything you find, that way you are prepared for all possible scenarios--or to your complete loss of sanity. Either way I'm sure you'll be just fine
Conclusions
I hope this guide has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below. If you have a suggestion to add to the list here, simply format it similarly to my own list and post it to the thread. Those who come here to read this in the future will be very grateful for your knowledge as well.