A. The Vanaduke mission, though since you can't access that yet, The Royal Jelly mission will give the most (The twins give almost as much, but since less people farm them, the easier to get pulsar and catalyzer (15 tokens compared to 20 tokens for Royal jelly weapons) they sell quickly).

B. Assuming you will be playing vanaduke alot once you reach it, Vog for wolver, Divine for magic. (wearing one of each will get you some normal resistance, without sacrificing fire resistance, but less shadow)

C. You shouldn't focus on trinkets until you've got a solid 5* loadout or two. Heart pendants aren't really needed if you have decent armour and can dodge well, (though are usefull in Lockdown, if your interested in PVP.) For your sealed and snarble, I would go for one CTR and one ASI, they hit hard enough to not really need damage boosts. ( and your sheild will give one anyway).

If your able to get some UVs, go for CTR and ASI on all 3 of your current weapons, and some shock and maybe freeze on armour.

Royal Jelly and RT both give 2000~2600 cr per first 2 levels, (Yes, it DOES change that much... I run it everyday) Or ridiculously lucky 2700. i got that once, when the treasure boxes gave a lot.

Vog cub coat and Divine veil. If you notice, divine veil has the same defense as the divine mantle, and a fiend bonus while the Divine mantle does not.

Divine doesnt have any normal defense, so watch out for vanas mace, trojan slams do a lot of shadow and normal, and wheels. Just wheels. It would be embarrasing if you got killed by a wheel.

Trinkets: heart trinks are good in LD, but not the most important outside. if you are normal on dodging, one heart trinket will do, if you suck at dodging both heart trinkets slots.
You should go for Damage increase on swords seeing as vog already has ASI, You should get gran faust, and Barborous Thorn blade and Storm driver shall handle everything, but Charge time reduct is useless for faust as it curses you. The charge for the barb is good, but you usually wont use that so much.

If you need a fourth slot for weapons, i suggest a elemental sword. Most wont get both DA and GF but you could go for another DA. Otherwise, Brandish line. Combuster or Glacius, or the Voltedge if you LD / BN alot. I would prefer the voltedge. No reasons given.

OH, and if you are ridiculously good at dodging, no heart trinkets, Damage for swords and maybe another dmg swords or Charge time reduct as you will use that brandish/DA charge a lot.

A. What is the best money making method given that using real cash to then sell ce for crowns is out of the question.

For tier 2, I'm personally a fan of Arcade Clockwork Runs. Take a quick skim through the wiki article on gates and such. You'll want to find the gates with the Ironclaw Munitions Factory and the Royal Jelly Palace, taking the one with the most arenas. The bonus for Arcade runs are the recipes Basil sells. With the addition of the Hall of Heroes, a lot of recipes are worthless. At the same time, any weapon line that starts with a Boss Token reward doesn't appear in the Hall of Heroes. By extension, the Twisted Spine Cone Recipe sells for about 9k, while being only 4k at basil. Twisted Snarble Barb Recipe is almost 12k. And the Twisted Targe Recipe goes for almost 14k. The Kilowatt Pulsar approaches 16k at times. A bit of luck can net you HUGE profits from recipes. Most of the people who realize this are Tier 3 knights, so they will farm tier 3 Basil. Because of this, you will make far less profit from 4* and 5* recipes (mainly 4*, there is still good profit from 5* but its proportionally less than 3*). Two or three arenas plus the boss strata is ~80 mist, for around 7k to 8k crowns. As long as you're not going on CE, you'll make a respectable profit.

B. What would likely be the best route on the magic hood and wolver cap upgrades for first 5 star armor given what would likely be the best method for earning crowns.

A lot of people get Vog for their first 5* Wolver set... but I don't like my own TBH. I got my own a while ago and it isn't the best option, especially for FSC which a lot of people think it is. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but Vog Set doesn't mean insta-win in FSC. If you want a devoted FSC set, I would suggest Grey Feather Set and/or Divine Set. I would strongly suggest Divine Veil, because of the fiend damage bonus. The armor can be either, for they both work.

Oh, and Firestorm Citadel (FSC) is the best way in Tier 3 to get crowns. The main damage is from Shadow and Fire, both of which the Magic armor line have excellent (and often under-appreciated) defenses against. Normal damage is also a heavy source of damage (mainly from Trojans), but there aren't any pure normal damage attacks, thus the Divine Set is a viable choice.

Chaos Set is the equivalent of hard mode in the game, with VERY high risk with high rewards.

As for Wolver, I would suggest Skolver or Snarby for some good piercing/shadow defense. The Divine set can cover elemental and shadow well enough (while Grey Feather is excellent for elemental damage). Snarby is harder, so Skolver is the easier and less expensive option.

C. When the day does come that I work on Trinkets more, what would likely be the best trinkets to use considering I primarily want to focus more on swords? Heart Pendants, as well as charge time reduction sword trinkets come to mind for sealed sword, although it could also help the upgraded snarble barb due to its charges range.

In the later ends of tier 2 and through most of tier 3, Trinket/Weapon slots are not as expensive as they seem. On the Auction House, you can find the trinket slots for about 9k, and weapons slots for 16k. Both amounts can be made within two or three days worth of farming (out of 30 days per). I highly suggest getting a weapon slot when you're going from 3* to 4* gear. 3 weapons is INCREDIBLY useful (A 4th weapon slot is not as useful at a 3rd). I bring this up because I would prioritize Weapon Slots over Trinket Slots.

If you do get a trinket, the cheapest trinkets are Heart Trinkets actually. Some dedicated farming can get you from a 1* heart trinket to 3* (or even 4*) within half a week or so. The Status/Damage resist trinkets aren't worth the trinket slot IMO.

I wouldn't get a CTR trinket IMO. I find ASI and damage more useful. Sealed Swords slow you while you are charging, so I don't advise constantly relying on their charge (Especially the Faust with a HUGE charge time in addition to the whole self-curse stuff).