Twink

To "twink" is to hand down a high quality item to a lower level character, generally an item that that character would never have found for themselves at their level. Twinking is usually done by experienced players in order to help their new characters level up more quickly. Low level characters who are well-outfitted in quality gear they did not find themselves are called "twinked" characters.

Twinking is also done between higher level characters; if your Wizard found a great sword you might "twink" it to your Barbarian, but the term is not used as often for high level exchanges.

Some players, often referred to as purists, do not twink at all, or at least not to certain characters. Players might want to keep their new character pure, or they might be playing with some severity of LotL (Live off the Land) rules, and are only using items they find themselves.

Twinking is sometimes considered a cheesy technique, but it becomes fairly ubiquitous amongst the low-level characters created by long time players of a game, and is a largely accepted fact of online play. Online buddies will often help twink, or rush a friend's new low level character.

In Diablo 2, it was useful to create and stock a twinking mule; one storage character with all sorts of low level gear. That made it easy to find the items you wanted to temporarily use on a new character, and it was quick to load them up with good starter gear, then reclaim it and exchange it for higher level goods as the new character leveled up.

It's not yet known how much twinking will be possible in Diablo 3, since little has been revealed about Clvl requirements and the quality of uniques and other good items for low level characters.