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Survive the Lands Between with these Elden Ring guides
Elden Ring guide: Conquer the Lands Between
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Elden Ring dungeons: How to defeat them
Elden Ring paintings: Solutions and locations
Elden Ring map fragments: Reveal the world
The Elden Ring character creation process is comprehensive, to say the least. Sure, you can choose the standard archetypes if you just want to get playing, but you could be staring at this person for the next 100 hours, so it's worth taking your time. You may not be interested in tweaking eyelashes and scars, but character creation has always been one of the best roleplay elements in the Souls games. That, and creating an utter monstrosity your foes will look upon, and despair.
Returning Souls players will be happy to hear that the infamous "Similar Face" button still exists, and lets you distort your character's likeness in unsettling ways. But looks aren't everything: you can also choose a starting gift called a "keepsake" to level the playing field.
In this Elden Ring character creation guide, I'll run through the process of making a character, so you can create a Tarnished worthy of your first foray into the Lands Between.
Elden Ring character creation guide
The character creation process in Elden Ring is unsurprisingly similar to other Souls games. You can choose the various aspects of your character, including name, age, and (very detailed) appearance. The base template option lets you choose from several presets, and you can fine-tune—to a certain extent, at least—aspects of your character, like voice, skin colour, face, and hair.
While many of the options in Elden Ring's character creator are purely cosmetic, a couple of choices should be given more attention. I'll go over these below:
Classes
When you first fire up a new game, you're presented with ten classes—or "origins"—to choose from, each gives your character different base stats and starting level. This choice also determines the weapons with which you'll start the game.
The classes are:
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- Vagabond
- Warrior
- Hero
- Bandit
- Astrologer
- Prophet
- Samurai
- Prisoner
- Confessor
- Wretch
I've broken down the details in our Elden Ring classes guide if you're still having trouble choosing between them. Don't panic, though; you can change your mind before finalising your character.
Keepsakes
Once you've settled on a class, you're prompted to pick a body type before moving to the more traditional Souls character creation screen. This is where you can fill in the rest of your character's details and where you get to pick your keepsake.
These items are similar to Dark Souls' Life Ring or Estus Shard. They mostly offer you a boon, such as increased health or damage reduction, to help you survive. That said, there's one that appears to increase enemies' aggro range, so make sure you pick carefully.
The keepsakes are:
- Crimson Amber Medallion
- Lands Between Rune
- Golden Seed
- Fanged Imp Ashes
- Cracked Pot
- Stonesword Key
- Bewitching Branch
- Boiled Prawn
- Shabriri's Woe
You can find more info on these starter gifts in our Elden Ring keepsakes guide, where we break down what we know about each of these items.
Sarah James
Guides Writer
Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.
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