Elden Ring
Elden Ring

Character Creation

Elden Ring Character Creation: Choose your class, Keepsake, and customize your Tarnished for the best start in the Lands Between.

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Character Creation

Your journey in the Lands Between begins with the crucial step of character creation. This is where you define your Tarnished's appearance, choose a starting class, and select a Keepsake. While appearance is purely cosmetic, your class and Keepsake significantly influence your early-game experience, stats, and available equipment. Making informed choices here can give you a head start.

The character creator in Elden Ring offers a robust suite of options for customizing your Tarnished's physical features. You can alter everything from facial structure, skin tone, and hair style to body type and markings. While these choices have no impact on gameplay, they allow for deep personalization, letting you craft a unique hero (or anti-hero) to inhabit the world.

Starting Classes: Your chosen class determines your starting stats and equipment. Each class is designed with a particular playstyle in mind, but any class can eventually be built into any archetype with enough leveling. However, some classes offer a more direct path to certain builds.

  • Vagabond: High Vigor and Strength, good for melee builds. Starts with a Longsword and Heater Shield.
  • Warrior: High Dexterity, excels with fast weapons. Starts with Scimitars.
  • Hero: High Strength and Vigor, ideal for heavy weapon users. Starts with a Battle Axe.
  • Bandit: High Arcane and Dexterity, good for status effect builds and critical hits. Starts with a Great Knife.
  • Astrologer: High Intelligence, the primary choice for sorcery builds. Starts with a Staff and Glintstone Pebble.
  • Prophet: High Faith, the primary choice for incantation builds. Starts with a Finger Seal and Heal.
  • Samurai: Balanced Dexterity and Endurance, starts with a Katana (Uchigatana) and a Longbow.
  • Prisoner: Balanced Intelligence and Dexterity, good for spellblade builds. Starts with a Estoc and a Staff.
  • Confessor: Balanced Faith and Strength, good for hybrid melee/incantation builds. Starts with a Broadsword and a Finger Seal.
  • Wretch: Starts at level 1 with 10 in all stats and only a Club. Offers the most flexibility for min-maxing but is the most challenging start.

Keepsakes: These are starting gifts that provide a small, early-game advantage. You can only choose one. Some are more universally useful than others.

  • Crimson Amber Medallion: Slightly raises maximum HP. A solid choice for survivability.
  • Lands Between Rune: Grants a small amount of Runes, useful for an early level-up.
  • Golden Seed: Allows you to increase your Flask uses by one. Highly recommended for most players.
  • Fanged Imp Ashes: Summons two Fanged Imps to fight alongside you. Useful for drawing aggro.
  • Cracked Pot: A crafting material for throwable pots.
  • Stonesword Key: Used to open imp statue-locked areas.
  • Bewitching Branch: Can charm certain enemies.
  • Boiled Prawn: Temporarily boosts physical damage negation.
  • Shabriri's Woe: Attracts enemy aggression.
  • None: You can choose to start with no Keepsake.

For new players, the Vagabond or Samurai classes are often recommended due to their balanced starting stats and decent equipment. The Golden Seed is generally considered the best Keepsake for its immediate impact on your healing and FP recovery capabilities.