5 things that make our skin crawl in WoW

It’s the month of Spooktober October, the spookiest month of the year. And that means it’s time to remind ourselves of why we play the wondrous game of World of Warcraft: to get completely creeped out by some of the most disturbing things ever put in a video game! (…Right?)

So sit back and relax, for this might be the last time you’re ever able to! Here are five things in WoW that will have a revolting effect on you (#1 will make your skin crawl — literally!). Hope you didn’t plan on sleeping tonight.

The Gnoll tents made from Human skin

This one is a classic that’s been around since the days of Vanilla. The Gnolls in places like Elwynn, Westfall, and Redrige may seem like regular enemies, and not even all that threatening; but the truth is that they were not messing around. Those tents, the very abodes they live in? They’re made from the skins of adventurers like you.

Need any proof? Just take a closer look at that picture. Check the human face in the middle of that tent. That’s still in the live game after all these years, and it looks like something out of an older Doom game!

Creatures that were stitched together from multiple people

They come in several flavors, each worse than the previous. You have the regular Abominations, like Stitches, or Patchwerk. These are pretty “mild” — depending on your taste, you might even find them cute.

Think about it: Considering they have served as guards in places like the Undercity, and even Orgrimmar for some time… if you can get past the fact that you can see their entrails while you’re asking for directions for the Tailoring shop, they can’t be that disturbing, right?

I guess the creepiness factor doesn’t kick in while you’re still thinking of those creatures as being made from “random” body parts from unknown people. It’s when those people have names and identities that stuff starts becoming truly distressing.

Such as the Ray-Getz-Kalaba Monstrosity. These guys used to be living, breathing NPCs before the Cataclysm revamp! They were just human farmers trying to make ends meet with honest work — until some Forsaken apothecary decided it would be “fun” to twist them into a horrifying mockery of their previous existence.

And then you have the creepiest of all abomination-like beings: Thaddius. As you enter the Construct Quarter in Naxxramas, you can hear a woman desperately screaming for help — and the screams won’t stop until you defeat the end boss of that area, since the voice comes from Thaddius himself.

The in-game entry for him is clear: he was made from women and children, and their souls can’t rest as long as he lives.

The plantation of human seedlings in Hillsbrad

Disturbing. Disturbing! Nearly everything about Hillsbrad Foothills is deeply disturbing. If the previous monstrosity made from farmers wasn’t enough, you find out that the undead in there have been bolstering their experiments by using living plantations of human seedlings.

That is so wrong that, when questing there, even if you are playing as a Forsaken character, you are given the option to either kill each seedling, or to do the right thing and uproot them. Because even in war, a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Bugs, cocoons, larvae, and assorted insect horror

Now we’re entering trypophobia territory, and this is where it starts getting real bad for some people — myself included. From the enormous Silithid nests in zones like Tanaris and Un’Goro to the entirety of Silithus and Ahn’Qiraj, we’ve had to deal with this stuff for a long time now. And it never gets any easier.

You wanna talk Old God horror? Well, tentacles and purple goo have got nothing on those twitching insect paws that stick out of the ground. The motion they have is so lifelike that it’s hard not to cringe when you first see them.

Kill it with fire! Seriously, I think I speak for all when I say that Sargeras did us a great favor by stabbing Silithus, and the place is very much improved now.

The infested bears

Ugh. Ugh. Why. Seriously, why. I’d like to meet the person who was responsible for adding this monstrosity to the game, and just ask them that question. Why?!

The previous entries in the list are creepy, or give out some horror vibes, but none of them disturb me as much as these bears. Just looking at them makes me really uncomfortable.

I guess it’s the combination of body horror with the desecration of a living creature, forced into a parasitic relationship with a creepy bug. I guess it makes us think of… insect eggs… growing out from inside our own skin, and…

…Okay, it’s time to end the article. Have a happy Hallow’s End, everybody!

Originally posted 10/20/2020. Updated 10/19/2021.