Something of a Souls game tradition is the ‘gift’, which in Elden Ring is known as the Keepsake. This is an option during character creation that lets you choose an item to take on your journey.

The Keepsakes are vital items – and it’s one of the first combat-impacting choices you’ll face as you begin your journey into the Lands Between. Furthermore, you’re asked to make the choice without much context – but we’re here to help you make an informed decision.

What’s the best Keepsake in Elden Ring?

The Crimson Amber Medallion is a solid choice for your first playthrough, and any other runs for that matter.

But before we get into the Keepsake choice in detail, there’s one major factor that you should know, and that’s this: all of the Keepsake items can be found out in the world.

Whatever you choose here, consider it a shortcut to that item, basically. You will have the opportunity to pick up at least one of each of these items later, otherwise. You ultimately have ten different Keepsake options during character creation:

• None - you get nothing. Which does nothing
• Crimson Amber Medallion - increases your maximum HP
• Lands Between Rune - gives you a bunch of runes, which can be used to level up
• Golden Seed - can be used to reinforce flasks, which gives you one more HP or SP restoring flask
• Fanged Imp Ashes - a summonable spirit that can join you in battle
• Cracked Pot - a container that you can use to craft grenades. The more of these you have, the more grenade-like items you can carry
• Stonesword Key - opens certain seals and doors throughout the world, but it’s a one-time use
• Bewitching Branch - 5x of this item, which power up your attack when used
• Boiled Prawn - 5x of this item, which boosts your defenses against physical attacks when used
• Shabriri’s Woe - a trinket that, when equipped, attracts enemy aggression - even more than you normally would

As you can see, there’s a few accessories that can be equipped on your character, like the Medallion, Imp Ashes, and Shabriri’s Woe, some upgrade or upgrade-enablers, like the Golden Seed and Cracked Pot, and a bunch of consumable one-time use items.

But which is best? As we said, we think the obvious choice is the Crimson Amber Medallion; we’d call this the best starting Keepsake in Elden Ring. This is an accessory that boosts your maximum HP fairly significantly - and it’s the sort of item you can basically leave equipped all game.

While you might be tempted to grab the Stonesword Key, especially because there’s a locked area that asks for one of these right at the end of the tutorial area, we generally wouldn’t advise you pick that. These keys are rare, but are also available throughout Elden Ring, and can be purchased from many of the game’s vendors. And that aside, if you pick the Stonesword Key, using it on the area at the end of the opening is a huge waste - as that area is far too difficult in the game’s opening - you’ll need to come back many hours later.

The other useful item right off the bat, however, is the Golden Seed. This can be used at a Site of Grace to give yourself another charge of your healing flasks - which can be a huge help. You’ll get access to many more flaks and many Golden Seeds as the game progresses - but this can be a very useful head-start, if you’re willing to give up having the Crimson Amber Medallion early on.

For more help with the dizzying amount of items in The Lands Between, here's our Elden Ring Guide.