Thirty-three keepsakes, four rarity ranks, one irreversible swap rule. That is the whole system, and almost every tier list gets the strategy wrong for a structural reason rather than a judgement call.
Here is the thing worth knowing before any ranking: the 33 keepsakes are not 33 options. They split into three families that interfere with each other, and one of those families switches itself off the moment you touch another.
- Family A — the nine Olympian keepsakes (9). Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hestia and Ares. All nine have the same effect: that god’s boon is likely to be offered, and you can Rarify one of their Common, Rare or Epic blessings once.
- Family B — the three Fates’ Whim keepsakes (3). Jeweled Pom, Calling Card, Time Piece.
- Family C — the twenty-one utility keepsakes (21). Everything else.
9 + 3 + 21 = 33. The interesting part is why A and B cannot coexist.
The rule that invalidates the standard advice
Family B’s keepsakes all begin with the same condition, word for word on both the Hades Wiki and Fextralife:
This night, you have had 0 Change of Fate and avoided Olympian-summoning Keepsakes.
Read the second half again. If you equip an Olympian keepsake at any point in the night, you have no longer avoided Olympian-summoning keepsakes — and the wiki is explicit about the consequence: equipping one “will immediately disable any remaining uses of the Fates’ Whim keepsakes, and will not allow any of those keepsakes to be selected for the rest of the night.”
So the rotation every tier list prints — open with your target god’s keepsake, then swap to Jeweled Pom once the god lock has triggered — cannot work. Jeweled Pom arrives already disabled. The two most-recommended keepsakes in the game are mechanically unable to appear in the same run.
You have to pick a family before region 1, and the pick is permanent for the run:
| You commit to | You give up | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Family A (one Olympian keepsake early) | Jeweled Pom, Calling Card and Time Piece for the entire run | You need a specific god’s boon to make the build function — Hera for King’s Ransom, Hephaestus for omega burst, Apollo for Lucid Gain |
| Family B (Jeweled Pom and friends) | Every god-lock keepsake, and any Change of Fate reroll via Arcana | Your build already works with whatever gods show up, and you want levels and rarity instead of control |
| Family C only | Nothing, but you also get no god control and no boon levels | Survival, economy or a specific fix — a second life, max Magick, boss damage reduction |
There is a second trap inside Family B. The Fates’ Whim condition also breaks if you have any Arcana Card that references Change of Fate equipped — those have to come off before the keepsake will fire. A run built on Change of Fate rerolls and a run built on Jeweled Pom are the same run trying to do two opposite things.
The five universal S picks
“Universal” means the effect does not depend on your weapon, your god pool or your build plan. Five keepsakes clear that bar.
| Keepsake | Giver | Effect (rank 1 → 4) | Why S |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engraved Pin | Moros | At 0 HP become Doomed: invulnerable 10s, then heal 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 if you clear it | A second life that costs nothing and cannot be misplayed. It counts as a Death Defiance, so it does not stack with the Strength Arcana — and unlike other revives it grants no Last Gasp bonus damage |
| Luckier Tooth | Schelemeus | At 0 HP automatically restore 51 / 76 / 101 / 151 HP, once | The bigger raw heal of the two revives, but no invulnerability window. Also counts as a Death Defiance, so the same Strength conflict |
| Jeweled Pom | Hades & Persephone | Fates’ Whim: a random Hades blessing, and most boons arrive at +1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Lv | The highest ceiling in the game — the level boost applies to every god, so there is no opportunity-cost cliff when the offered god mismatches your build. Costs you all nine Olympian keepsakes |
| Adamant Shard | Hephaestus | Hephaestus boon likely; Rarify one Common/Rare/Epic blessing | Hephaestus is the omega-damage god. Rarity is where his percentage scaling lives, so this lifts burst aspects hardest of the nine |
| Blackened Fleece | Medea | After 250 damage taken, Ω moves deal +20 / 30 / 40 / 60% damage | The only S-tier damage keepsake that is not a god lock. The 250 threshold accumulates all night and healing does not reset it — but damage reduction does slow it, because only damage actually taken counts |
Two more belong in the conversation. Silver Wheel (Hecate) gives +50 / 75 / 100 / 150 max Magick and, unusually, the Magick stays after you unequip it — the single best keepsake to fire-and-forget early. Gorgon Amulet (Athena) is conditional in a way most lists miss: it only activates when you have no Death Defiance at all, which means it is actively anti-synergistic with Engraved Pin, Luckier Tooth and the Death Arcana.
Build-locker A picks
These are not better than the S picks in the abstract — they are the ones a specific build cannot function without.
| Keepsake | Giver | Effect (rank 1 → 4) | Locks in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iridescent Fan | Hera | Hera boon likely; Rarify once | King’s Ransom is the only boon in the game with three independent multiplicative axes, and it is Hera-exclusive |
| Moon Beam | Selene | Selene reward likely; next Path of Stars grants +3 / 4 / 5 / 7 upgrades | Every Hex build, and nothing else — the Path of Stars is Selene’s alone |
| Harmonic Photon | Apollo | Apollo boon likely; Rarify once | Lucid Gain, which anchors every omega-cast and omega-special build |
| Silken Sash | Arachne | +30 Armor, then +2 / 3 / 4 / 6 Armor after each Location while you have at least 1 Armor | Armor stacking — the only keepsake that grows during the run rather than at a swap |
| Transcendent Embryo | Chaos | A random Common / Rare / Epic / Heroic Chaos blessing, replaced every 8 Encounters | Chaos runs. Unequipping it stops the replacement, which makes the current blessing permanent — a real exploit, not a bug |
All 33 keepsakes, ranked
Every keepsake in the game with its actual rank 1 → 4 values. Tiers are assigned from those numbers, not copied from another list.
| Tier | Keepsake | Giver | Effect (rank 1 → 4) |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Engraved Pin | Moros | At 0 HP become Doomed (10s invulnerable); clear it for 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 HP |
| S | Luckier Tooth | Schelemeus | At 0 HP restore 51 / 76 / 101 / 151 HP, once per night |
| S | Jeweled Pom | Hades & Persephone | Fates’ Whim: random Hades blessing + most boons at +1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Lv |
| S | Adamant Shard | Hephaestus | Hephaestus boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| S | Blackened Fleece | Medea | After 250 damage taken, Ω moves deal +20 / 30 / 40 / 60% |
| S | Silver Wheel | Hecate | +50 / 75 / 100 / 150 max Magick; persists after unequipping |
| A | Knuckle Bones | Odysseus | Next Guardian loses 5 / 10 / 15 / 25% max HP; you take −10% from Guardians |
| A | Gorgon Amulet | Athena | Only with no Death Defiance: Athena may appear once with Common / Rare / Epic / Heroic boons |
| A | Iridescent Fan | Hera | Hera boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Moon Beam | Selene | Selene reward likely; next Path of Stars grants +3 / 4 / 5 / 7 upgrades |
| A | Harmonic Photon | Apollo | Apollo boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Cloud Bangle | Zeus | Zeus boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Vivid Sea | Poseidon | Poseidon boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Barley Sheaf | Demeter | Demeter boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Beautiful Mirror | Aphrodite | Aphrodite boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Everlasting Ember | Hestia | Hestia boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Sword Hilt | Ares | Ares boon likely; Rarify one Common / Rare / Epic blessing |
| A | Silken Sash | Arachne | +30 Armor, then +2 / 3 / 4 / 6 Armor after each Location |
| A | White Antler | Artemis | +20 / 25 / 30 / 50% critical chance for one region, max HP locked to 30 |
| A | Transcendent Embryo | Chaos | Random Common / Rare / Epic / Heroic Chaos blessing, replaced every 8 Encounters |
| A | Gold Purse | Charon | +100 / 125 / 150 / 200 Gold at the start of the night |
| B | Metallic Droplet | Hermes | Move, strike and channel 20% faster for 200 / 250 / 300 / 400 seconds |
| B | Lion Fang | Heracles | +30 / 40 / 50 / 70% damage, losing 5% of that bonus per Encounter |
| B | Concave Stone | Echo | 25 / 50 / 75 / 100% of the time, take one extra random boon after choosing one, once |
| B | Fig Leaf | Dionysus | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Regions may contain one foe-free Encounter; 37% per skippable room |
| B | Aromatic Phial | Narcissus | Fountains restore +20% HP; the next makes one random Common boon Rare / Epic / Heroic |
| B | Crystal Figurine | Circe | After the next Guardian, activate 2 random inactive Arcana Cards of rank 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 |
| B | Calling Card | Zagreus | Fates’ Whim: Rarify Olympian blessings up to 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 times |
| B | Time Piece | Chronos | Fates’ Whim: purge most rewards for Gold up to 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 times |
| B | Discordant Bell | Eris | After each Encounter, +0.5 / 0.75 / 1 / 1.5% damage dealt — and the same amount taken |
| B | Evil Eye | Nemesis | +20 / 25 / 30 / 40% damage to the last foe that vanquished you |
| B | Experimental Hammer | Icarus | One random Daedalus Hammer for 10 / 15 / 20 / 30 Encounters |
| C | Ghost Onion | Dora | On exiting a Location, fully restore HP up to 50 / 75 / 100 / 150 total for the night |
That is the complete roster — 6 in S, 15 in A, 11 in B, 1 in C. If a list you are reading ranks fewer than 33 keepsakes, it is describing an older patch.
Three notes on the tiers
Discordant Bell is the most mis-ranked keepsake in the game. Its numbers look tiny — 1.5% at rank 4 — but the effect persists after you unequip it and keeps climbing with every encounter cleared for the rest of the night. Equip it in region 1, swap it out at the first boundary, and it has already paid for itself. The catch is that you take the same percentage increase, so it is a damage race you have to be winning.
Ghost Onion is the only C, and it is not bad — it is redundant. It heals up to 150 across the night, which sounds comparable to Luckier Tooth’s 151. The difference is that Ghost Onion heals slowly and only on Location exits, so it does nothing in the fight that actually ends your run. Healing that arrives after the danger has passed is not the same resource as healing that arrives at 0 HP.
Experimental Hammer’s real value is not the hammer. The temporary upgrade it grants does not appear in your Daedalus Hammer selection pool, so if you dislike what it gives you, you have effectively removed one option from the pool and improved your odds of drawing what you want. That interaction is worth more on hammer-dependent builds than the ten encounters of random upgrade.
The swap schedule
You get one swap per region boundary, so at most three per run. Spend them in this order:
- Region 1 — commit to a family. Olympian keepsake for your target god (Family A), or Jeweled Pom (Family B). Not both; not in sequence.
- After the region 1 Guardian — the multiplier. Family A swaps to Blackened Fleece or Silken Sash. Family B swaps to Calling Card if you want rarity more than levels.
- After the region 2 Guardian — the insurance. Engraved Pin or Knuckle Bones. By now you know which boss is the problem.
- Before the final Guardian — nothing new. Equipment you have not used by region 4 is not a plan, it is a hope.
If you cannot name the boon you are swapping toward, equip Silken Sash plus Luckier Tooth instead. Armor that keeps growing and a free revive beat a god rotation you did not plan, and neither of them cares what the game offers you.
Four common mistakes
- Swapping back. You cannot. The swap is permanent in both directions — once a keepsake is off, it is off for the night, and that includes the one you just took off.
- Taking Blackened Fleece in region 1. The 250-damage threshold takes time to reach, so the keepsake does nothing during the region where you least need help and everything during the region where you do. That is the wrong order.
- Running Gorgon Amulet next to a Death Defiance. The keepsake silently never fires. If you have the Death Arcana, Toula, or Chaos’s Defiance, Gorgon Amulet is a dead slot.
- Expecting Olympian keepsakes to work in every room. They guarantee a god’s boon only where a boon is already the reward. Shop boons, mystery boons and Charon’s offers ignore them unless four or more Olympians are eligible.
Player-type starting points
| Player | Start with | Long-term priority |
|---|---|---|
| New | Silver Wheel or Luckier Tooth | Meet two or three gods, then unlock Kindred Keepsakes so you can swap at all |
| Casual | Luckier Tooth, then Silken Sash at the first boundary | One defensive keepsake plus one Olympian covers most builds |
| Optimizer | Olympian keepsake for the target god, Family A all run | Rank your two most-used Olympian keepsakes to rank 3 (50 encounters each) |
| Completionist | Rotate honestly — equip each keepsake for 25 encounters | Quickening of Sentimental Value halves that to 13; do not bother pushing anything to Heroic without Cherished Heirloom |
Related guides
- Best boons in Hades 2 — what the Olympian keepsakes are actually locking in
- Best Duo Boons — all 37 Duos, including Cherished Heirloom, the only route to a Heroic keepsake
- Best Arcana builds — Grasp budgets, and which cards break the Fates’ Whim condition
- Best Vows — the Fear settings that change how much a second life is worth
- Familiars guide — the other slot you equip before a run, ranked