This week’s One Shots roundup serves up equal parts horror and heart with in-game photography fresh from Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Players submitting to the community column are discovering that some of their favorite pets and questgivers come with stomach-turning etymologies.
A snapshot featuring the perennially adorable Carbuncle has FFXIV fans reeling after player Minimalistway realized the mascot-style summon shares its name with an unsightly medical condition that resists description. Meanwhile, a monochrome portrait from WoW’s Earthen-Watch storyline captures the solemn hand-off between the retiring Earthen smith and the shoreline setting, a moment-quest that proved too impactful for one reader to skip on repeat playthroughs. Over in DDO, an underground chase ends with a rooftop parley against Algernon the Cranium Rat King, complete with sly reference to the classic cartoon duo Pinky and the Brain.
Combat fashion also takes a visceral turn as a Death Knight front-and-center shows off a new silk transmog set marred only by the too-real intestines still dripping from two overzealous undead bodyguards behind her. The gallery underscores a longstanding unwritten law: never Wiki-search an MMO term just because the name sounds cute. Community snapshots that want to join the next edition need to measure at least 880 px wide and arrive by email with a short story for context.
