Progression? Crafting supply lines? Question marks?

Howdy folks, a few questions for you all.

1. In Hidden Vale (or somewhere fairly near it, as this is just a test) where are some 2 skull and 3 skull places I can try and see if my skills are good enough? I'm tired of doing 1 skull stuff, but I've only found 4 or 5 (cant recall which) skull stuff around there aside from the Kings Road 1 skull.
2. Suggestions for raising my hitpoints? I've done target dummy with all skills (or most) paused. But... geez. Its slow or I'm doing it wrong. ~250 hitpoints seems to not be good enough to move up the chain of difficulty.
3. I've been farming (garden type) and was wondering if anyone really does supply agreements? I'm not sure where to look in-game to try and set these up or find people. I know my guild is awesomely friendly and might be interested, but I was curious how most folks setup supply agreements. ie: Every week you want X nightshade for Y gold. I've done it in other games, so I imagine this game has those setups as well.
4. Population? Aside from my guild members, I rarely see anyone. Owls Head / Kings port / New Brittany... no where but 1 or 2 on world map now and then, and of course guildmates. Am I just in an underpopulated area?
5. Not a question, just a big thank you to my guildies and every random player who has interacted with me thus far. Between waving, playing music, and smoking pipes together, it has been a refreshing take on my evening gaming sessions. Thanks.

 

I live in the Perennial Coast Region (in Soltown).. most of my adventuring has been for resource gathering... but I started in West Veiled Swamp... and when that was too easy I went to Solace Forest... after that I went to North Brightbone Woods and haven't needed a new place to hunt yet.

Hope this helps.

 

1
Here I would advice using SotA maps.
You can find it in game using the top right icons, the one that looks like an arch.
On the overland you can check the scenes and see their skulls without having to load.
Also Google Sotamap and the website is great.
2
HP comes from the Health skill and the Strength skill.
But what usually makes a big diff early is eating two types of food to get Health buffs running. Especially Health regen.
You can also seek out devotionals and bathe in their water for two additional buffs.
Grunding training dummies only work as long as you have XP in your pool. Open the 'K'-key window and check your pool.
3
This is usually handled by Buy orders on Vendors.
When you talk to a vendor there are a sell and a buy tab. if they have an order out you can sell directly.
But also what you can do is check the buy order and check the name of the player, then go to a bank and send them a Post message asking if they want to arrange something.
Mostly people get drop off points with containers where you can deposit but not withdraw.
4
Pop in general is low.
But it ebbs and flows with releases. The week of a new release is double, while the last week of a release is half.
5
Cheers *gulps down some mead*

 

in the vale, just staying in the central wooded areas, the progression goes

1: north valeway, south valeway, and kingsroad
2: west ravenswood
3: north ravenswood
4: south ravenswood
5: deep ravenswood and greymark

yes, the vale is less populated. it's also a good starter area. you can advance well at lower levels by doing quests and there are quite a few that start in braemar and owl's head.

 

Awesome, thanks for the info folks. I'll check out west ravenswood. I'll also try to see the skulls on world map. I know I saw one at kingsroad, but didn't notice them elsewhere. Time to get my glasses checked