As a rogue you need just two things:
1) Brawling (400 gold worth skill at Caran Baru (Sokara))
2) Kris (can be bought for 250 gold in multiple cities who sell at least green tiered items)

If you do this at the beginning of the game, you can just take money reward for the ghoul quest (that you get from priest of Nagil in the first town you see) on the first island, buy and learn brawling, then kill some wolves in Sokara to buy kris.

Once you have the necessary tools, you go to the road of riches... which is actually called River Road and located exactly south from Castle Ravayne (Golnir). There what you need to do is roll 2-5 and slaughter the bandits. These specific bandits each have low hp (4) and a loot worth 372 gold, so with your stabbing tool and brawling skill you can do these fights real fast and therefore get the loot real fast. Even better is the fact that you can sell the loot right to the south in Ringhorn (where you can also heal if need be, though many fights can be done without a scratch even armorless).

So grab a cup of tea, click it through for some time and then go buy your fancy bling from the blue guys!

What else:
I also personally consider kris one of the best weapons in game, since combined with brawling you can deal up to 15 damage per turn, as most fights in the game will be against more than one opponent (enabling brawling), which is better than many(all?) high tier weapons. Sure, this is an offensive playstyle, you don't get the big combat skill bonuses that the high tier weapons give, but it's still pretty awesome. And fast. Perhaps can even be incorporated in a speedrun.