Common Souls Terms | Dark Souls 3 Wiki

This page is for players who are new (or relatively new) to the Souls games and might be confused by some of our common terminology.

The list is evolving, so please feel free to add to it, but please try to keep it simple and alphabetized. 

BB, DeS, DkS, DkSII, DkSIII: Abbreviations for various Souls games (Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III).

Git Gud: Offensive slang directed towards someone who dies often, makes mistakes, or uses controversial strategies when playing.  Is also often used as a rude dismissal of complaints about various aspects of the game.

Toon: A player-created character (derived from cartoon).

SSD - Summon Sign Down

Twink: A character with gear which they normally wouldn't have access to at their progress level (e.g. someone who hasn't beaten Vordt wielding his greathammer, which normally requires beating him to acquire).  Also used as a verb to refer to the process of creating such a character.

AOE - Area of Effect
BK - Black Knight (usually tacked on as a prefix to another term)

GA - Greataxe

GS - Greatsword
BS - Back Stab
BP - Black Phantom
CHSM - Crystal Homing Soul Mass
CMW - Crystal Magic Weapon
CSS - Crystal Soul Spear

GCFO - Great Chaos Fire Orb

PW - Power Within

TOD - Tears of Denial
DB - Divine Blessing
DGA - Demon Great Axe
DM - Dark Moon
DMB - Dark Moon Blade
DSS - Dragonslayer Spear
VOS - Vow of Silence
UGS - Ultra Greatsword

FUGS - Fume Ultra Greatsword
CGS - Curved Greatsword
GC - Great Combustion

Ganker - A player that intentionally camps in one or more game areas in which they purposefully do not defeat the area boss, instead with the goal of killing invaders for their souls or for general entertainment.

• Gankers are often characterized by the use of unbalanced or cheap tactics (or outright hacking), group attacks on single invaders, the camping of spawn sites, and the use of insulting gestures upon victory.

Considered a particularly distasteful type of griefer as defined below.
Ganker/Ganking - A host who summons other players and, upon being invaded, waits with those other players around the invasion spawn point, in order to attack the invading player immediately upon spawning. Generally associated with dishonorable play.
Griefer - A player who takes actions with the sole intent of causing a negative experience for another player. Common forms of griefing you should look out for include:

• A low level PvP invader with very good equipment that cannot normally be obtained until a much later point in the game and/or having much higher skill in PvP settings that focuses on invading lower level beginner areas such as the Undead Burg or Parish.
• A player who utilizes lag-switching, the act of starting a large download of something at the same time they connect to another player in an attempt to deliberately increase lag for that multiplayer session.  Lag-switching itself is derived from the shameful strategy of temporarily disconnecting one's router for a few seconds in order to exploit the game's lag-compensation mechanics, thus allowing for easy kills or backstabs.
• A player who leaves a misguiding and/or unhelpful message, such as "Try jumping" at the edge of a bottomless pit.
• Players who host fights in worlds that engage in farming other players by deliberately abusing the numbers advantage they have over invaders, and ganging up on invaders in 3v1 fights.

HSM - Homing Soul Mass
MLGS - Moon Light Greatsword
NG - New Game
NG+ - New Game Plus
NPC - Non-Player Character (i.e., a computer controlled entity)
OHKO - One Hit Knock Out
PvE - Player versus Engine/Environment
PvP - Player versus Player
SL - Soul Level (the overall level of the character, representing a culmination of the levels of all stats - also used for matchmaking purposes)
Sunbro - A Warrior of Sunlight covenant member
WoG - Wrath of the Gods