This happened to me but the non perma death modes have helped haha. I want to get more into it

You start out a bit fragile in the game. Qud tends to, IME, get easier over time (though one needs to learn how to deal with the goatfolk when one runs into them).

Giant centipedes are generally harder than crocodiles and snapjaws. Giant beetles too.

Start in Joppa, which is the default.

Can you kill a single crocodile in the nearby salt marshes in surrounding maps?

If so, you’re good. Just don’t get aggressive. Don’t fight more than one at once. Back off if you’re low on health and heal up – important for the game in general. You can run if things start to go badly (especially if you take starting perks perks that let you move more quickly).

You can start with some kind of “burst” ability. Like, a marauder has the ability to lop a limb off, which will not only gimp the enemy in various ways but cause bleeding for a while. Espers can start with damage-causing abilities like Freezing Ray or Light Manipulation. Using that to kill the first few monsters and letting the ability recharge after each is desirable.

If you want to try to get a starting level of two, go to talk to Argyve in the southwest corner of the starting map. Get his “find an artifact” quest. You can loot chests in houses in Joppa without angering the citizens if you close the doors first ((o)pen them again) so that nobody can see you. You’ll likely get an artifact or two, which lets you complete his first and second artifact quest.

IIRC, you can also get some experience from examining the statue in the northeast of the map and another on the map immediately to the north of the starting map.

In the north-western corner of the Joppa map, there’s a secret passage in the water that you’ll find if you walk in the water. That will take you to a tunnel that leads to the bottom level of Red Rock, gives you a reliable early way to get underground. I think that the enemies there are generally harder than the ones on the surface, but there are snapjaws, and they’re easier (and they also are a good source of dropped equipment for a starting player). Don’t go below the first level underground at first.

Don’t try to rush to the rust wells for Argyve. And you might want to gain a few levels before you do Red Rock for the warden of Joppa. Same, but more so for trying to cross the salt desert to the Six Day Stilt for the zealot who is also on the starting map.

I like Qud – didn’t at first – but I feel like it kinda plays out similarly each time, at least with the chimera-marauder build that I like. Like, I’m not really forced to deal with drastically-different situations each run, which is kind of a core element of roguelikes.

The Qud Survival Guide was critical in getting me started