Welcome to Elderfield Gift Guide
Last updated: 2026-09-27 · 9 min read
Gifting is the biggest friendship lever in Elderfield, and the game keeps its own record of what each character likes in the Social tab. The problem is that the useful part is buried: there are hundreds of individual gift preferences across the nine characters, they do not follow the obvious logic, and at least one gift is a genuine trap. A wrong gift costs you friendship you spent days building, so the order of your route matters.
If you only remember three things: Leather is liked by seven of the nine characters and hated by none, Pale Empress Moth is loved by five and hated by none, and Odd Sandwich — despite being a favourite of Blorph — is hated by six of the nine. Giving to as many characters as you like costs you nothing; the only hard limit is that you can marry one.
The Gift Rules
These are the rules worth planning around.
- There is no gift penalty for giving widely. Hand a gift to as many characters as you like; the only hard limit is that you can marry one.
- Gifts are one of three friendship inputs, alongside talking to the character daily and completing the tasks they give you. A gift is the largest of the three; talking is the cheapest.
- Friendship can drop. Two achievements cover it — Bad Friend for ten decreases on one character and Oblivious for fifty in total. A disliked gift is one of the ways that happens.
- The game tracks preferences for you. The Social tab records what each character loves, likes and hates, so you are never guessing a gift after the first interaction.
- Farm output is giftable by design. Harvests can be sold, given as a gift or cooked, which makes crops the cheapest repeatable gift source once the farm is running — see the farming guide.
- Cooking is a gift source too. A cooked meal is a gift several characters accept, and cookies are cheap to make in bulk — see the cooking guide for what is worth keeping in the bag.
- Die items can be gifted. Lucky Die, Crimson Die and Cursed Die were incorrectly blocked from the gift menu in an earlier build; the September 22 fix makes this item category giftable as intended.
The Trap Item
Start here, because it is the single most expensive mistake in the system. Odd Sandwich is loved by Blorph and hated by six of the other nine characters. If you found one, delivered it as a gift to your romance target and watched the meter go the wrong way, this is why.
The same applies to a cluster of items that look like a safe generic gift — Tooth, Slimefish, Rot Puffer, Bloody Skin, Healthy Platter and Vegetable Smoothie are each hated by three or more characters. There is no safe fallback gift category in this game.
Check the Social tab before the first gift to any character. Preferences in Elderfield are thematic rather than nutritional: Blorph rejects almost everything cooked, Alice rejects anything bone-related, and Celeste rejects anything soul-related. Guessing a gift from the item name will burn it.
FIG. 01 — Making a gift: pick the item on the left, then Offer. Nevermind backs out without spending it.
Gifts That Work Everywhere
These items are loved or liked by multiple characters and are hated by none of the nine. They are the safe gift to hand over when you have not checked the Social tab, or when you are working several friendship tracks at once. Every entry is a gift you can produce rather than buy.
| Item | Loved by | Liked by | Hated by | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leather | — | 7 of 9 | None | Common drop and crafting material; the cheapest broad win in the game |
| Pale Empress Moth | 5 | 1 | None | Bug catching in the Old Woods; also the required catch for Farmer Hans's "Bug Catching" task |
| Shadewing Moth | 4 | 3 | None | Bug catching, Old Woods |
| Gorgon's Eye | 4 | — | None | Nursery flower seed, 12 nights, sells for 300g — grow it for gifting |
| Recall Potion | 3 | 2 | None | Craftable |
| Spectral Rain | 3 | — | None | Not a farm crop — sourced from late areas |
| Pickled Eyeballs | 2 | 2 | None | Preserved farm produce |
| Sturdy Cookie / Soft Cookie | 2 each | — | None | Cooking |
Two items worth separately flagging: Beating Heart is loved by seven of the nine — the broadest high-value gift in the game — but Celeste hates it. And Soul Fruit is loved by several characters, but Celeste hates that too. Both are excellent gifts, just never for the librarian.
Gift Reactions and Exact Preference Lists
Every gift falls into one of four reactions. A loved gift gives +8 friendship, a liked gift gives +6, a neutral gift gives +4, and a hated gift removes 8 friendship. The reaction is fixed to the character, not the item, and a neutral result is still progress — the real mistake is handing over something from the hate list.
| Character | Loves (+8) | Likes (+6) | Hates (-8) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tanner | Aged Rum, Beating Heart, Eldersprout Pizza, Harvest Stew, Shadewing Moth | Corn, Leather, Pumpkin Muffin, Pumpkin Pie | Bloodwing Moth, Eyeball, Ice Cream, Odd Sandwich, Snow Pearl, Stealth Musk, Tooth |
| Sam | Beating Heart, Expert Garden Salad, Pale Empress Moth, Void Crystal Bar, Void Dinner, Voidbloom | Cup of Coffee, Firefly, Pizza, Raw Void Crystal, Shadewing Moth, Slime Pizza, Voidberry | Fog Eel, Ghost Flounder, Harvest Stew, Mud Perch, Odd Sandwich, Pearlfish, Pumpkin, Pumpkin Muffin, Pumpkin Pie, Rock-Dweller, Rot Puffer, Slimefish, Stalktopus |
| Ellie | Beating Heart, Bloodwing Moth, Gorgon's Eye, Greater Death Crystal, Greater Deep Crystal, Greater Dream Crystal, Greater Ghost Crystal, Greater Light Crystal, Greater Moon Crystal, Pickled Eyeballs, Spectral Rain, Stealth Musk | Bloody Skin, Mana Muffin, Mayonnaise, Radish, Shadewing Moth, Slime Pizza, Stalktopus | Brain Cleansing Balm, Greater Holy Water, Ice Cream, Lesser Holy Water, Odd Sandwich |
| Molly | Beating Heart, Blacksteel Bar, Funneltop, Godscale, Pale Empress Moth, Platinum Bar, Platinum Ore, Steel Bar, Void Crystal Bar | Dense Iron Ore, Green Crystal, Iron Bar, Mystery Sandwich, Rock-Dweller, Scrap Metal, Stonelurker, Verdite Bar, Verdite Ore | Bloody Skin, Odd Sandwich, Slime Pizza, Tooth |
Tanner loves Shadewing Moth but hates Bloodwing Moth. Sam loves void-themed food but hates the entire pumpkin line, including Pumpkin Pie, as well as Harvest Stew. Similar-looking items are not interchangeable as a gift.
FIG. 02 — Tanner's first meeting: "This is the first time I've seen you since school ended." The heart row under the dialogue box is the friendship a good gift moves.
Character by Character
A working gift shortlist for each of the nine. The point is what you can realistically produce, and the things to keep out of your hands.
| Character | Strong gifts | Avoid | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tanner | Beating Heart, Aged Rum, Shadewing Moth, Golden Mushroom, Apple, Rich Cookie, Huge Meat Chunk, Harvest Stew | Odd Sandwich, Tooth, Stealth Musk, Eyeball, Slimefish, Rot Puffer, Vegetable Smoothie | The widest taste range of the nine — 29 loved items, so most meat and drink works as a gift |
| Sam | Pale Empress Moth, Beating Heart, Voidbloom, Soul Stew, Duskmelon, Shadewing Moth, Soft Cookie, Bucket of Paint | Nearly all fish (Pearlfish, Ghost Flounder, Fog Eel, Mud Perch, Rock-Dweller, Stalktopus), all pumpkin items, Bone Honey | Dislikes fish specifically — keep every fish out of a gift for her |
| Ellie | Beating Heart, Gorgon's Eye, Bloodwing Moth, Pickled Eyeballs, Soul Stew, Staring Orb, Goat Horn, Huge Meat Chunk | Only three recorded hates: Odd Sandwich, and both Lesser and Greater Holy Water | The safest character to gift blind — almost nothing offends her |
| Edwin | Duskberry Cake, Gorgon's Eye, Pale Empress Moth, Beating Heart, Golden Mushroom, Soul Fruit, Godscale, Rest Potion | All bone and skull items (Bones, Bone Fragments, Skull, Demon Skull), Holy Water, Blood of the Gods, Starfish, Goat Horn | Do not assume the holy items are safe as a gift because he is at the Church on Sundays |
| Josh | Beating Heart, Filling Platter, Expert BBQ Platter, Bloodwing Moth, Chocolate Cake, Herbal Roast, Gemberries, Aged Cheese | Salads and health food (Healthy Platter, Fruit Salad, Light Salad, Vegetable Soup), Odd Sandwich, Mystery Meat | He rewards rich cooked meals — the inverse of Sam, and the easiest to keep in stock |
| Molly | Ores and bars of every tier (Platinum, Steel, Blacksteel, Crimson, Blackiron), Miner's Potion, Pale Empress Moth, Beating Heart, Godscale, Sturdy Cookie, Gold Plate | Odd Sandwich, Tooth, Slimefish, Slime Pizza, Rot Puffer, Bat Guano | The easiest character to gift once you are mining — she is loved by 43 items, and ore is free |
| Alice | Lesser and Greater Holy Water, Funneltop, Shadewing Moth, Beating Heart, Spectral Rain, Gorgon's Eye, Goldberries, Sweet Cookie, Aged Wine (Strawberry) | Every bone item, every cursed bone item, every void crystal item, Weeds, Wax, Gloom Ale, Honey Mead, Wishbone | She is a skeleton, and the hate list is exactly what a skeleton would refuse. 24 hates — the second pickiest character |
| Blorph | Stealth Musk, Spectral Rain, Godflesh, Godscale, Monkey Brains, Odd Sandwich, Staring Orb, Pickled Eyeballs, Potion of Refuse | Almost all cooked food and farm produce: pies, bread, soup, pizza, tempura, milk, eggs, cheese, corn, wheat, radish, celery, coffee, tea, smoothies | 56 hated items — by far the pickiest. Blorph lives in the Sewers, which is a hint about the gift list |
| Celeste | Spectral Rain, Spiritcap Mushroom, Sign of Death, Greater Offering of Rain, Goat Horn, Pale Empress Moth, Ghost Egg, Wishbone, Iron Chain, Soft Cookie, cursed tombstone and lamp items | Beating Heart, Living Soul, Soul Stew, Soul Fruit, all soul wine and soul jelly, both holy waters' opposites, Cleansing Balm, Rest Potion, Salt, Salt Rock | She is the only dead character you can marry, and she refuses anything with a soul left in it — including the best gift in the game |
If a character is not on your route yet, the safe list above is the best place to start.
The Three Picky Ones
Three characters account for the preference system's logic, and once you see the pattern the rest of the gift list stops looking random.
- Blorph is a sewer-dwelling non-human and the only picky character who is not human-shaped. Blorph hates 56 items and loves 14, and the hate list reads as "everything a farm produces". If Blorph is in your next gift round, pack separately.
- Alice is a skeleton. Every bone, skull, cursed bone and cursed skull item on the list is a hate. The holy water she loves is the reverse side of the same theme.
- Celeste is dead. Beating Heart, Soul Fruit, Living Soul, Soul Stew and the soul wines are all hates — the items most other characters most want as a gift.
Practically: Molly, Tanner, Ellie and Celeste are the ones worth a grown gift pipeline — Molly takes ore, Tanner takes meat and drink, Ellie takes almost anything, and Celeste has a narrow but forageable gift list. Blorph and Alice need their lists checked every time a gift round comes around.
FIG. 03 — Alice, one of the three picky characters, with her opening line on screen: "You seem to be a normal one."
Love Potion
The Love Potion is the only item with a stated friendship value: giving it as a gift increases friendship by half a heart. It costs 125g, can be crafted at the Potion Lab, and also appears as loot from Treasure Map 11.
Half a heart is meaningful because the scale runs to ten hearts. If you are one character short of a threshold and the Social tab has nothing left to give, a Love Potion is the gift that closes the gap without relying on random drops — see the romance guide for what the gift threshold is for.
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