In Salt And Sacrifice, your Crime determines your starting items - here are what they do and which one is best.

What crime you committed in Salt and Sacrifice to turn you into a mage hunter doesn’t matter all that much. Most enemies will be too busy killing you to care whether you are a drunk or a heretic. But the game’s unique character creation question isn’t there just for roleplaying purposes. Instead, your crime determines what special item you start out with.

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Like gifts in Salt and Sacrifice’s main inspiration, Dark Souls, these items have quite a bit of impact on your beginning game but, also like Dark Souls, some of these items are more useful than others. Who knew choosing between a bottle of wine and cursing the gods could actually matter?

The item you get for having committed the crime of Sumptuousness is... nothing. Well, basically nothing. The item description for this small signet ring simply says that it is “a charm.” Nothing. No status upgrades, no key secret. Just a ring.

Knowing the tendency items in Soulslike games to have hidden properties, it’s likely that some players may find a use for the Signet Ring, but it’s not exactly a safe bet, especially if it's anything like Dark Souls' infamous pennant. In a game as difficult as Salt and Sanctuary, you’ll want to go for something that actually helps instead of just sitting around on your finger.

Choosing Drunkenness as your crime rather appropriately gives your character five Cracked Wineskins. You can guzzle on these to not only show the game that you are still set in your ways, but also gain a little health in return.

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Having some extra healing early on in the game is useful, but not as much as you might think. Throwing yourself again and again at the game’s mages will drain your supplies quickly. Fortunately, there are a lot of other healing items you can use, but that really only lessens your Wineskin’s usefulness. Useful for new players to help through the game’s learning curve, but not much else.

If in you choose to have your marked inquisitor like fire more than most things, you’re in luck! You’ll start the game with five firebombs to lob at your enemies so that you can revel in the blaze, even as you combat the mages you’re sworn to kill.

Speaking of mages, these bombs are particularly useful against Uryks Necklace-of-Ears, the first boss that you’ll face, especially if you don’t have much in the way of ranged weapons. Since the boss has no ability to hit you at range himself, you’ll be able to sit back and rain fire down on him without breaking much of a sweat. All of Salt and Sacrifice’s encounters are difficult, but this item can ease the burden a bit, if that’s what you want. There are several firebombs lying around Pardoner's Vale, however, making this choice less unique than you might think.

Compared to some of these crimes, practicing Alchemy barely feels like an issue, but if you’ve committed the vile act of making cool things in flasks, you’ll get to bring along three beakers of Phlogiston Decoction. When touching a surface, the liquid in these handy little vials will burst into flame, covering it, and any creature unfortunate enough to be inside the radius, to burn like the dickens.

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While quite useful at first blush, the ability to make the floor erupt would seem awesome, you’ve only made three batches, so you’ll run out fairly quickly. That being said, the Phlogiston Decoction is very handy early on when you're trying to figure out the controls, and need something to obliterate that group of goblins that keep slashing at you with their notched swords.

It makes sense that a person charged with lending at too high of an interest has a bag of 1,000 silver pieces. It also makes sense that they’ve been condemned. Let’s be honest, no one likes a moneylender.

But in Salt and Sanctuary, this bag of silver can be incredibly useful. Not only can you use it to buy items and upgrades from merchants, but the bag stays with you when you die, which is a big benefit in a game that takes away ten percent every time a random monster takes a chunk out of you. Of course, after you use the bag, the silver you receive will be susceptible to the same tax, so use it wisely before you go out adventuring again.

The Cutthroat's Dagger, the item you start with after deciding you’re a hardened brigand, isn’t a weapon as you might expect. Instead, it is a charm that increases your max stamina. You’ll find other charms like this later on in the world of Salt and Sanctuary, but if you’re a Soulslike veteran, you’ll know that it’s important to have as much stamina as quickly as possible. After all, running out means almost certain death.

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Like many other items on this list, the Cutthroat’s dagger will help you early on in the game, but has the potential to keep you going even later on in your quest. It can’t be consumed and is also extraordinarily useful. How could you go wrong?

Why does someone who's committed the sin of blasphemy start the game off with something called the Censer of Harmony? At this point, it is not clear, and may never be, but you’ll be glad that you cursed the gods when you realized this item’s true potential. While it’s not particularly useful early on, the censer is invaluable in PvP, since it causes creatures to attack hostile invaders. It’s a bit like Elden Ring’s White Cipher Ring, except that you don’t have to depend on poor internet connections for your help.

Being a blasphemer doesn’t necessarily help you defeat the mages you’re sworn to slay, but it makes fighting other players much easier, if you’re into that. It’s also the only item of the game of its kind, suggesting you might want to snatch it up before it’s too late.

Similar to Blasphemy, the items given by committing these five crimes won’t help you at first. You can’t throw a wooden doll at an enemy, and a lock of hair won’t do you much good on the battlefield. However, these are actually key items, and, unlike the signet ring, are guaranteed to open up areas of the game later on, or at least allow you to access some new aspect of the story.

While they won’t bump your stats or make you a better swordfighter, these backgrounds are the best, because without them, you’re missing out. Which you choose depends on your personal preference, but all of them will help expand the game, giving a richer experience than if you’d chosen differently.

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Dan Christmann is a writer, editor, educator, and artist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's worked as a freelance writer for over seven years, and has been gaming for a lot longer than that. His current Elden Ring Build is a bleed samurai, and he doesn't see that changing anytime soon.