Elden Ring is exactly what so many people have been looking for from a Soulslike game. It features a massive open world, a ton of bosses, and so much more to keep players entertained for dozens of hours. However, this open world comes at a massive cost. There are so many choices, and sometimes the choices are not very obvious at all! Even before you’re done with character creation, you’ll hit a weird one; what keepsake should you choose in Elden Ring? Like many Souls games before it, these keepsakes can be a little obscure… Or super obscure. This guide will go over each of them so you can decide which Keepsake is best.
Which Keepsake to Choose in Elden Ring
Your keepsake choice will not be too impactful to your Elden Ring journey. However, some options are better than others. The best keepsake choice is the Crimson Amber Medallion, Golden Seed, or the Cracked Pot. These are all upgrades to your general kit, and will help you on your journey. The other Keepsakes are fine, but they will become outdated eventually.
Our Recommended Keepsake Choices
For our top 3, we have 2 permanent upgrades to your character. The last one, the Crimson Amber Medallion, is available once you explore south. However, it’s so useful early on that we just had to include it.
- Golden Seed: Improves your number of Sacred Flasks, or healing items, by 1. This is pretty great, and might be on-par with the Medallion. As long as you know when to back up and heal, an extra healing item means you can make more mistakes.
- Cracked Pot: This allows you to hold more crafted Firebombs and Sleep Pots, alongside other thrown items, at once. This is pretty good, as long as you remember to use it. Crafting firebombs is an effective method of luring enemies, as well as disabling explosive traps.
- Crimson Amber Medallion: This item increases your maximum HP by a bit. In general, this is perhaps the best Keepsake for early-game and new players. More health means you can make more mistakes.
The Other Options
Nothing down here is too bad, but they aren’t permanent upgrades and aren’t as good for your first few fights in Elden Ring.
- Stonesword Key: This unlocks rooms full of collectable items. There are dozens of these scattered across the map. If you know exactly what Imp Statue you will unlock, then this can be handy. However, there are enough Keys early on that this should only be an option for rushing to a specific weapon or item.
- Lands Between Rune: 3000 runes. This is actually a fair amount, as long as you save it for merchants or when you’re ready to level up. However, over time, 3000 is really not that much. Choose this if you really want your early-game build to get to a specific stat. Otherwise, the Stonesword Key is basically this, since that unlocks rooms with items that could net you 3000 runes or more!
- Fanged Imp Ashes: This is a Spirit Item. Used nearby Summoning Pools once you reach a certain point of the game, you can get a pair of Imps who help you in fights. You can only have one spirit at a time, and you get spirits when you get the Bell that allows you to summon them. This isn’t too useful.
- Bewitching Branch: A consumable that will temporarily charm enemies. Not very useful, and can be crafted later. If you select this, use them wisely. Charmed enemies can make fights significantly easier, though only having 5 of them is a chore.
- Boiled Prawn: A consumable meal that improves your damage reduction for a time. Like the Bewitching Branch, these food items aren’t awful. However, you only have 5 of them to start. Can be okay for some fights, but not worth it if you’re looking for the best Keepsake.
- Shabriri’s Woe: This item makes enemies aggro to you slightly easier. This will make stealth significantly harder, but can allow you to group enemies up quickly. Overall, this just improves the game’s difficulty by negating stealth as an option.
- None: We do not know if there is any benefit for selecting “none” as a Keepsake option. This may simply improve the game’s difficulty. If you wish to select None, then the Stonesword Key is basically none, but you can get some fancy loot later on.
