Elden Ring Best Starting Keepsake Gift Guide

Wondering what is the best Keepsake (starting gift) in Elden Ring? This guide explains what’s best to pick. The Keepsake is selected in the character creation menu. Make sure you pick one, it’s a free bonus item you start with. In short: pick the Golden Seed, it’s the best.

You can still get all of these Keepsakes elsewhere in the game, none of these are unique items. They can all be collected somewhere in the world too, so it’s nothing truly missable.

What Starting Keepsakes are there?

1. Crimson Amber Medallion – increases health by +26
2. Lands Between Rune – gives +3000 runes (XP) when used from inventory
3. Golden Seed – gives +1 flask (health/mana flask) when redeemed at a site of grace in the flask menu
4. Fanged Imp Ashes – allows you to summon a fanged imp spirit to fight alongside you, but only after getting the Spirit Calling Bell key item, and there are other Ashes that are better
5. Cracked Pot – Gives 3 cracked pots, required for crafting cracked pot items but these are frequently found in the world too
6. Stonesword Key – Gives 2 stonesword keys that can be used to break imp statues, thus opening up locked paths, one statue is found at the first site of grace
7. Bewitching Branch – 5 usable items to bewitch pierced enemies, disappears after use
8. Boiled Prawn – 5 usable items to temporarily reduce damage taken, only 1 use per item, not a permanent buff
9. Shabiri’s Woe – equipped item that constantly draws enemies’ aggression, good for co-op if you want to help others, but no use playing solo, can be unequipped

Where to select Starting Keepsake Gift?

During character creation, you can select the “Keepsake” section and pick one of the starting keepsakes. This lets you pick which starting item you want. The keepsakes are what the “Starting Gifts” were in previous Souls games.

This is missable! If you forget to pick a Keepsake it will show as “None” by default. It’s highly recommended you pick one, preferably the Golden Seed.

What is the best starting Keepsake Gift?

The best Elden Ring Starting Keepsake is the Golden Seed. This can be redeemed for +1 flask, allowing you to carry 1 more health flask or 1 more mana flask. You can redeem this at any site of grace (campfire) in the flasks menu. There you can select to add a charge to your flask, then assign the extra flask to either health or mana.

Being able to heal one more time or restore one more mana bar will let you stay in battle for longer. This makes bosses easier because you have an extra heal and can afford more mistakes. This is by far the most useful starting gift of them all. You can still find many more Golden Seeds to upgrade the flasks further. See All Golden Seed Locations.

Best Starting Keepsakes Ranked

Below the best Starting Keepsakes are ranked from best (1st) to worst (9th):

1. Golden Seed – having one more flask makes a huge difference for boss fights, especially in the early game. Without question the absolutely best starting gift.
2. Stonesword Key – There aren’t super many Stonesword Keys to find in the early game and they are useful to open up alternate paths that are otherwise blocked off, so for exploration purposes this is a good starting gift.
3. Crimson Amber Medallion – having more health doesn’t hurt, but the same can be achieved by leveling up vigor once. Still, this is an all-around useful talisman.
4. Lands Between Rune – getting 3000 runes right away lets you buy some level ups, but the same can be achieved by grinding runes for a few minutes. See Best Rune Farming Method (300,000 Runes per Hour Early Game)
5. Fanged Imp Ashes – relatively useless, you can’t use this in the early game at all, and there are much better ashes to use
6. Bewitching Branch – can only be used once then disappears, nothing permanent
7. Boiled Prawn – can only be used once then disappears, nothing permanent
8. Cracked Pot – you can find enough cracked points elsewhere, you shouldn’t have trouble finding these throughout the game, not very useful for the early game
9. Shabiri’s Woe – pointless for solo play, and makes your life harder when playing co-op because all enemies will focus on you

More Guides:

• Elden Ring – Best Starting Class Guide
• Elden Ring Wiki & Strategy Guide
• Elden Ring – Walkthrough
• Elden Ring – Boss Guide (All Bosses)
• Elden Ring – All Sites of Grace Locations
• Elden Ring – All Spells Locations
• Elden Ring – All Weapon Locations
• Elden Ring – All Armor Locations
• Elden Ring – All Talisman Locations
• Elden Ring – All Golden Seed Locations (Flask Amount Upgrades)
• Elden Ring – All Sacred Tear Locations (Flask Strength Upgrades)
• Elden Ring – All Ashen Remains Locations (Spirit Summons)
• Elden Ring – All Ashes of War Locations (Weapon Skills)
• Elden Ring – How to Use & Equip Skills
• Elden RIng – How to Summon Ashes
• Elden Ring – Where to Bring Great Runes
• Elden Ring – Infinite Runes Farming Exploit