Given the loads of Non Player Characters, monsters, and bosses. It's no doubt that there's a character list for Terraria.
Now split into the following subpages:
- NPCs: For friendly Non-Player Characters.
- Bosses: For boss enemies.
- Biomes: For the various biomes and enemies found within.
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The Player
The player character starts off with nothing but a bottom tier shortsword, pickaxe, and axe (If you bought the Collector's Edition, you also get a carrot which you can use to summon a pet bunny). Over the course of the game they will explore the world, build a home, find treasures, defeat ever more challenging foes, and eventually, plunge the world into a battle between the ancient spirits of light and dark.
- The Ace: Architect, engineer, tactician, warrior, mage, technician, electrician, inventor, alchemist, savior, destroyer. The Player is all these things and more. There is no weapon they cannot wield, no metal they cannot forge, no creature they cannot slay, no power they cannot control, and no challenge they cannot conquer.
- Ambiguously Evil: Their intent is a complete enigma; they'll kill anything inhuman (although they do treat the Goblin Tinkerer and Witch Doctor like the other NPCs, building homes for them) for loot and they don't care much for the consequences unless they can lead to even more power. While they do kill a lot of evil abominations, nothing's stopping them from killing innocent critters on purpose and they have to sacrifice the Guide to summon the Wall of Flesh, which is explicitly noted in the lore as the world's guardian protecting it from the true horrors of the Corruption/Crimson and Hallow. Ultimately, it's up to the player to determine their morality since they're the only one who defines them.
- Anti-Hero: In order to progress, the player must commit some questionable acts during their journey - most notably, murdering the Guide by destroying his voodoo doll. Beyond that it’s largely up to you where in the scale your PC falls into.
- The Archmage: A near-endgame to endgame mage player will be able to wield elements natural and unnatural with terrifying power and elasticity, the sheer strength and magnitude of their abilities outstripping any mortal magic user in the game bar none and rendering them almost, if not as powerful as the godlike creatures that challenge them themselves.
- Badass Normal: Beyond getting extra stats from Heart Crystals, Mana Crystals, Health Fruit and all other sorts of permanent consumables, there's nothing special about them. All of their powers come from diligent exploration and crafting.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Possibly. They seem to alternate between evil and good behaviors quite casually. They kill evil monstrosities, but also an innocent guide. They protect NPCs, but kill the guardian of the planet. They take out the cult trying to summon the Moon Lord, then take out the pillars sealing the Moon Lord, only to then take out the Moon Lord.
- Blood Knight: Possibly. They willingly summon monstrosities purely to kill them, with some causing more harm than good when killed.
- Brought Down to Normal: If you die on Mediumcore difficulty, you drop all of your equipment and respawn without it. For a very powerful character, this can be quite jarring, as they no longer have any of the augmentations and abilities that their equipment was providing them.
- Celestial Body: They can acquire this with the hardmode-exclusive Twilight dye.
- The Chosen One: As the world's champion, it falls to the player to stop the return of Cthulhu.
- Clothes Make the Superman: The large majority of the player's power resides in the clothing and accessories that they wear. Often, these items are additionally enchanted to bestow minor stat perks in addition to their function.
- Combat Pragmatist: While the game doesn't force you to be, being one will make your life much easier. The game doesn't start easy and late game enemies and bosses can be very nasty, especially during invasions. You can fight using much more than your weapons and accessories, you can create arenas that will drop spike balls, spit darts, or trap doors making enemies fall in lava, or give you many advantages like higher life regeneration or better movement speed to even the odds.
- Crazy-Prepared: In a world where almost everything is out for your blood this is a must. Being prepared is also a necessity to overcome most bosses as fighting them without taking proper precautions is very difficult, bordering on suicidal against the latter ones. Crafting armor and weapons is the tip of the iceberg, crafting an entire arena and filling it with traps is not uncommon to deal with much bigger foes.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: As the player becomes more powerful, they will start becoming able to steamroll enemies that previously put up a good fight. Even bosses aren't safe from this.
- David Versus Goliath: Even when properly equipped bosses are always bigger and much sturdier and stronger than the player character. However the player will always triumph over them with enough preparation and/or persistence.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Many of the bosses the player character fights are Eldritch Abominations — in some cases, they are literally parts of Cthulhu himself. By the end of the game, they beat the Moon Lord, which is Cthulhu possessing an incomplete physical vessel and the closest this game gets to facing the real deal himself.
- Fish People: When they are in water, they will become a merfolk if Neptune's Shell is equipped.
- Fog Feet: The Djinn's Curse item, when equipped will turn their legs into genie-like smoke, giving them slowfall.
- Heroic Mime: The player character has no dialogue, but communicates with NPCs just fine.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Eventually after punching out many a Eldritch Abomination, the amount of sheer power that the character gains effectively makes them one themselves.
- Humanoid Abomination: An end game character is both much more durable than the average mortal and fully capable of wielding weapons and magics that are nearly cosmic in scope. They can have minions made of star matter, armor forged solar energy and other worldly metals, weapons that summon falling meteors with every swing, ect. Very little about how the player fights is at all human in the end and a battle involving a high tier player can look outright terrifying from an outside perspective. On a side-note, the more stranger dyes can also turn you into one visually as well, if you wish to complete the image. However due to the game’s mostly gear based progression, you can return to normal just by unequipping all of your gear, although permanent consumables can't have their effects disabled.
- Instant Expert: No matter what weapon or item the player gets their hands on, they are able to wield it flawlessly. Be it swords, bows, guns, magic spells of untold power, yoyos...
- Kleptomaniac Hero: You can take everything. Literally everything. Found an underground cabin? You can loot any treasure chests that are in it. Then take the chest. Then steal all the light fittings. Then disassemble the walls and take those too.
- The Minion Master: a Summoner-class player will be able to spawn minions, ranging from a single powerful one to a small army, to fight for them. As of 1.4 it’s possible for the player to augment their minions by using whips on their foes.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: The game's progression has you kill almost every boss you come upon for materials, weapons or other causes. Most notable is how they handle the Moon Lord; first they kill the cultists trying to unseal him, then they kill the Lunar Pillars keeping the Moon Lord sealed, then they kill the Moon Lord himself.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By killing the Wall of Flesh, the player turns a slightly corrupted world into one threatened to be overrun by huge, competing, pockets of Hallow and Corruption or Crimson.
- The chain of defeating bosses eventually breaks the seal holding the Moon Lord from coming to take revenge on the world.
- One-Man Army: The player will kill thousands of enemies over the course of a full game. The game awards the player with banners for every 50th kill of a particular enemy, and the player can also obtain a Tally Counter which tells them exactly how many enemies of each type they have killed. In some of the special events, such as the Goblin Invasion, they actually do take on entire armies single-handedly.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Can become a werewolf if they have the moon charm accessory equipped at night. They look like a humanoid wolf like the other werewolves in the game, except they have brown fur instead of the others blue-ish grey fur. Also, unlike the usual depiction of werewolves being feral, berserk killers attacking anything that moves, the player is unaffected mentally while transformed, with the only effects being slight boosts to some of the player’s stats.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The amount of devastation you can wreak is cataclysmic. It also doesn't help that your weapons tend to be stuff along the lines of Wave-Motion Prisms, rapid-fire rocket launchers or swords that literally pull stars from the heavens and send them crashing onto your enemy.
- Snake People: Can become one with the Lamia tail equipped.
- The Spook: This dangerous, mute lunatic is an enigma through and through, compounded by the fact that the lore makes no mention of them. All we really know about them is that they can take down tons of EldritchAbominations and are willing to build housing for NPCs.
- Super-Toughness: By consuming crystal hearts (and later on, Life Fruits), the player can increase their resilience five-fold over the course of the game, becoming truly superhuman and able to take blows that would eviscerate a starting player. They can also consume Vital Crystals and Aegis Fruits to increase their health regeneration and defense, but unlike their unshimmered counterparts they only apply once.
- Took a Level in Badass: You start out with a copper sword and a measly 100 health and 20 mana to your name, but after a bit of mining you'll be ready to kill powerful bosses, scaling the ladder from boss to boss until you eventually can slay the Moon Lord. Subverted if you unequip all of your armor and accessories, as you only have a few meagre boosts from permanent consumables.
- Villain Protagonist: Possibly. In order to progress past a certain point, in this game that averts Death Is Cheap when it comes to the NPCs, they need to summon, then kill, an Eldritch Abomination by sacrificing the current guide. Although how they feel about this depends on how they view the Guide and his frustrating quirks.
- Was Once a Man: Subverted The player starts out perfectly baseline mortal, although as time goes on and they start both gathering all sorts of energies and weaponry, they eventually become an unnatural Physical God. However they can go back to normal (minus the miscellaneous stat increases such as health and mana) the second they take off their gear.
- Weak, but Skilled: They're really squishy without sufficient armor, even with maximum health, can't harm anything without a weapon, and can't collect resources without tools. However, they're able to make a plethora of weapons, armor, and tools with whatever resources they have, and they put them all to good use to take down beasts many times their size and strength and mine ores and resources no one else can.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Some interpretations. They will stop at nothing and commit some very questionable actions to complete their goal, which is slaying the embodiment of evil. That is, however, assuming that they aren’t in it just for the powerful gear.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Without the Shimmer, there are only two NPCs they are willing to take in who aren't human, the Goblin Tinkerer and Witch Doctor. Compare this to the scarcity of human enemies throughout the game; the biggest variety are from the Pirate Invasion, as well as the Clown if you consider it one.
Minions
In general
With the right equipment, Players can summon several different minions to aid them in combat. They are crucial to the Summoner class set up, and a small yet helpful addition to the others. All of them are summoned from magic staffs.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Zigzagged. If the player is separated from the minions and moves too far away from them, they will spawn/fly over to the players location. . . Most of the time. If the minions in question can't pass through walls and are still on screen, they won't be able to get beside the player unless they are re-summoned. Thankfully re-summoning them is quick and needs little mp.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Without certain gear or buffs, a player can only have one minion active at a time. The highest cap is 11 on computer, and 9 on mobile and console versions. Some armor sets meant for summoning minions will grant an increase in minion damage rather than an increase in the minion cap.
- Can't Live Without You: They disappear if the player dies.
- Friendly Fireproof: The Minions attacks cannot hurt the player, and the player's attacks cannot hurt the minions.
- Gameplay Ally Immortality: None of the minions can take damage or die, but will de-spawn if dismissed, or the player dies.
- Good Counterpart: Most of the minions are loyal ally versions of enemies the players fight, and likely encounter first. On a more meta level, the Minions were not originally in the game when it first came out, and started being added in later updates.
- Leeroy Jenkins: They will rush off to fight any enemies they can get to, regardless of wether or not the player is actually fighting them. None can get hurt, so it works out well.
- Loyal Animal Companion: All of them are loyal minions for whomever summons them, though only a handful of them are actual animals.
- Summon Magic: All of the minions are summoned from magic staffs. The minions damage is based on the stats of the equipment used to summon them.
- You and What Army?: The achievement for having nine minions at once is called this.
Baby Finch
- Killer Rabbit: Downplayed. While it is the weakest minion, it's still a small baby bird capable of killing zombies.
- Starter Equipment: Journey Mode characters start with one, giving them a jump-start in exploration protection.
Baby Slime
- Black Bead Eyes: Has these.
- Blob Monster: A tiny slime.
- Blush Stickers: Has these to make it look cuter and younger.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: As the second-weakest minion, fighting just about anything stronger than a zombie goes like this.
- Good Counterpart: The first slimes encountered by players are enemies, while baby slimes are loyal to the player who summons them.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Is a baby slime that, like other minions, cannot die.
- Rare Random Drop: The Slime staff that summons it has the lowest drop rate of any item dropped by an enemy. In normal mode, The lowest drop rate is 1/10000 (0.01%), while it's "best" drop rate is marginally better, at 1/100 (1%), but the latter only applies to Pinky. By the time a player obtains one, they probably have the means to get the Hornet staff, or even the Imp staff instead, making the Slime staff and the Baby slime by extension more of a Bragging Rights Reward.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Is tiny, with Blush Stickers, beady little eyes,and a pacifier.
Vampire Frog
- Loyal Animal Companion: Is a large frog that is loyal to the player who summons it.
- Overly-Long Tongue: Its method of attack is to lash enemies with their tongue.
Hornet
- Beware My Stinger Tail: The hornets method of attack is firing poisonous stingers.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Is a hornet almost as big as the PC.
- Good Counterpart: The first Hornets the players encounter are enemies, while the summoned ones are loyal to the player who summons them.
- Loyal Animal Companion: A large Hornet minion loyal to the player who summons it.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: Can be invoked if you summon a lot of Hornets.
- Status Infliction Attack: Its stingers can inflict the "Poisoned" debuff on enemies.
Imp
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Water puts out their fireballs on contact.
- Good Counterpart: The first imps encountered by the players are enemies, while the summoned ones are loyal to the player who summons them.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: They have bat like/devil wings on their backs which they use to fly, but they only attack their summoners enemies.
- Playing with Fire: Attacks enemies with fire balls.
- Secret A.I. Moves: Played with. Enemy Imps have the ability to teleport, but player summoned Imps lack this ability. Instead, player summoned Imps have wings and can fly, an ability enemy Imps lack.
- Sequence Breaking: Prior to the 1.4 Journey's End update, it was possible to skip over the other pre-hardmode summon weapons by fishing up a Reaver Shark (a pre-hardmode pickaxe that was able to mine hellstone before the 1.4 update) and using it to mine the hellstone needed to craft the Imp Staff.
- Status Infliction Attack: It's fireballs inflict the "On fire!" Debuff on enemies.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Is the best pre-hard mode minion- unless water is involved. Its fireballs are extinguished the moment they come in contact with water, making Imps useless for underwater combat.
Enchanted Dagger
- Armor-Piercing Attack: They ignore most of an enemy's armor, compensating for their low base damage.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: The tooltip for the buff you get when they're summoned says this. It's also present in gameplay due to their low base damage and high attack speed.
- Flying Weapon: A flying dagger that hovers over the player's head and shoots away at high speed to slash away at any nearby enemies.
Spider
The three variants from left to right: Jumper, Venom, and Dangerous spider.
The weakest Hardmode minions, but the easiest to obtain, Spiders are summoned from the Spider staff, which is crafted from 16 spider fangs at an anvil and above.- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Spiders that are about as big as the player character's head.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Is a Spider that is loyal to the player who summons it.
- Palette Swap: Has three possible sprites with minor differences.
- Spider Swarm: Invoked if the player summons more than one.
- Status Infliction Attack: Inflicts the "Venom"note debuff on enemies.
- Wall Crawl: Spiders can climb background walls.
- Zerg Rush: Each spider only takes up 3/4 of a minion slot, allowing you to squeeze in more minions than with other summoning items.
Sanguine Bat
- Animalistic Abomination: An unnatural flying mass of glowing red energy with the outline of a bat summoned by the Sanguine Staff, and the fact that it’s dropped by the demonic Dreadnautilous, itself an example of this trope, certainly renders the nature of this creature very suspect.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being a very strange creature with connections to the blood moon, it's as loyal and helpful as any other minion.
Twins
Left: Spazmamini, Right: Retinamini
Smaller versions of The Twins in their second form, called Spazmamini and Retinamini, respectively, are summoned from the Optic staff, which requires souls of sight obtained from defeating The Twins as one of the crafting materials.- Eye Beams: Retinamini fires these.
- Fun Size: Essentially tiny versions of the Twins, and are allies instead of enemies.
- Good Counterpart: To Retinazer and Spazmatism, being miniature versions of them.
- One-Steve Limit: Downplayed. To lessen confusion between these minions and The Twins, they are just referred to by the Optic staff as "Twins".More
- Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Like The Twins. Retinamini fires Eyebeams, while Spazmamini charges enemies.
- Zerg Rush: Both do 30 base damage (only 4 more than a Spider), but each pair of Retinamini and Spazmamini count as one minion, meaning that a fully geared and buffed player can have 18 or 22 at once, depending on what version they are playing.
Pirate
- Dressed to Plunder: There are three different sprites for the Pirates:
- One has an Eyepatch of Power.
- One has a Pirate captains hat.
- One has a beard, although it's a bit hard to tell due to the Pirates size.
- Palette Swap: Has three possible sprites with minor differences.
- Pirate: Tiny pirates.
- Pirate Parrot: If they are too far away from the player, a Parrot will carry the Pirate to them.
- Shout-Out: To Pixel Piracy, a game Re-Logic published.
- Toilet Humor: Occasionally the Pirates will poop. This has no functional purpose.
Pygmy
- Javelin Thrower: They fight with throwing spears.
- Palette Swap: Has four possible sprites with minor differences, mainly the colours on their faces. They are: Blue, red, yellow/orange, and purple.
- Poisoned Weapons: Their spears can inflict Poison and Venom on enemies.
- Required Party Member: The Pygmy Staff must be in the players inventory when talking with the Witch Doctor in order to buy the Tiki armor, Pygmy Necklace, and Hercules beetle.
- Shout-Out: The four different Pygmy sprites have colours on their faces that match up with the masks worn by the Ninja Turtles.
- Sky Surfing: They can fly by riding on their spears if they need to catch up to the player.
Desert Tiger
The three stages the tiger can become
A white tiger that is summoned with the Desert Tiger Staff found in the dungeon's desert chest. Instead of summoning more tigers, each use of the Desert Tiger Staff will increase its damage and alter its appearance. The tiger will appear as a baby if the staff is used 1 to 3 times, an adult if it is used 4 to 6 times and an armored adult if it is used 7 to 9 times.- Panthera Awesome: It's a white tiger Attack Animal that's wearing golden armor in its fully-upgraded form and will tear your foes to shreds.
UFO
- Energy Weapon: The UFO fires laser beams at enemies.
- Flying Saucer: Is a small one.
Raven
- Creepy Crows: Dark purple Ravens with orange eyes that are acquired during a Halloween-themed event.
- Loyal Animal Companion: A Raven minion that is loyal to the player who summons it.
- Purple Is the New Black: The Ravens are a dark shade of purple.
Terraprisma
- Bragging Rights Reward: While it is a very powerful summon weapon, it can only be obtained by defeating the Bullet Hell that is the Empress of Light during a time when she is capable of killing any player instantly, so anyone who gets it is probably skilled and well-equipped enough to beat the game without it.
- Flying Weapon: They normally hover behind the player until an enemy gets too close, at which point they shoot off and slice the foe to ribbons.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Terraprisma possesses the highest base damage of any minion in addition to having very fast and precise attacks, even beating the Stardust Dragon in consistent single-target damage. That said, it does fight the spot for strongest summon as the Dragon can still crank out big numbers at max length.
- Odd Name Out: The Terraprisma is the only minion-summoning weapon that does not have "staff" in its name.
Sharknado
- Shout-Out: To Sharknado.
- Victor Gains Loser's Powers: Are the same type of sharknados summoned by Duke Fishron.
Deadly Sphere
- Palette Swap: After it attacks three times, its sprite changes, to one of four sprites, two of which are the exact same except for the colours on their protrusions.
- Shout-Out: To the 1979 film Phantasm, and one of the possible sprites for it looks a lot like a TIE Advanced from the front.
Stardust Dragon
"Who needs a horde of minions when you have a giant dragon?"
A dragon summoned from the Stardust Dragon Staff, which is crafted from 18 Stardust fragments. Instead of summoning more dragons, each use of the Stardust Dragon Staff will increase its length and damage.
- Achilles' Heel: It's a powerful minion, but it's still just one minion, and is thus relatively ineffective against hordes of enemies as it can't be everywhere at once.
- Awesome, but Impractical: In multiplayer. Due to how the hit detection works any target the dragon is currently attacking is nearly immune to all other forms of damage, this includes most bosses. If you are solo and not planning on fighting at all yourself then it is by far the strongest minion, but if you have teammates or are attacking with other weapons the dragon will completely invalidate most of the other hits. This makes the Cells more suited to summoners who have other forms of damage output. The other problem is its floaty movement, making speedier bosses harder to kill because it can't keep up.
- Draconic Abomination: A large, serpentine Energy Being comprised of celestial energies that can massacre entire armies of enemies without slowing down.
- Energy Being: It's less of a Dragon and more of a Dragon-shaped mass of eldritch energy.
- Good Counterpart: The Stardust Dragon operates like a player friendly version of a Wyvern.
- Infinity -1 Sword / Infinity +1 Sword: A single summon Stardust Dragon has a base attack of 40 while the Stardust Cell does 60. On paper, the Cell does more damage than a one-segmented Dragon. In practice, a single max length Stardust Dragon, however, is more than capable of shredding through bosses with ease than a single Cell.note . Its killing potential is contested with the Terraprisma, which has a higher base power and can stay fixated on enemies easier, but doesn't strike as rapidly as the Dragon can due to how the latter behaves in combat.
- Lightning Bruiser: When it's on the attack, it moves faster than the player.
- One-Man Army: Invoked. The Stardust Dragon at full power tears enemies, both mooks and bosses alike, to shreds.
- Our Dragons Are Different: It's a blue and yellow wyrm, and it attacks enemies by flying through them instead of using some kind of Breath Weapon. It also gets longer as the player summons it more.
- Power Floats: How it flies, gliding effortlessly around.
- Power Glows: As it moves, it leaves behind a small trail of blue sparkles that provide some temporary light.
- Ramming Always Works: Despite being a dragon, it has more in common with the Wyvern than Betsy, as it will instead charge and ram into and through it's targets. Although it doesn't make it any less lethal.
- Segmented Serpent: Instead of spawning another copy of it, using it instead makes it longer by adding more segments.
- Shamu Fu: Despite being a dragon, it closely resembles a shark as well.
Stardust Cell
"Cultivate the most beautiful cellular infection"
A minion summoned with the Stardust Cell Staff, crafted from 18 Stardust Fragments.- Boring, but Practical: The Cells are just balls of light that float around and shoot smaller balls of light at things. However, their ranged attacks are very fast and track targets, they teleport into attack range instantly, and their attacks cause a very powerful DoT effect. They might not look like much compared to the Dragon, but are easily its equal.
- Damage Over Time: The Stardust Cell fires "mini cells" that latch onto enemies and damage them for 30 "ticks".
- Flash Step: Will do this to get closer to enemies out of range.
- Good Counterpart: It's essentially a good version of the Star Cell enemies fought at the Stardust Pillar.
- Homing Projectile: Its mini cells.
- Infinity -1 Sword / Infinity +1 Sword: Is the second-strongest individual minion due to its base damage of 60, while the Stardust Dragon has a base damage of 40, but will increase in attack power and length with each use of the Stardust Dragon Staff making it stronger than the Stardust Cell. Unlike the Stardust Dragon, multiple Stardust Cells can be summoned, giving it an edge in crowd control.
- Personal Space Invader: The mini cells that the cells fire attach onto enemies and deal constant damage to them.
- Power Floats: Stardust Cells float around.
- Tele-Frag: They teleport on top of any target that is out of their immediate range which causes impact damage. This can easily kill most non-boss targets instantly. They occasionally use this ability rapid fire provided each target dies on contact.
Enemies
Lost Girl/Nymph
Deceiver of Fools
- Lost Girl Entry: Naked and afraid, this girl stands still, deep in the world, as if waiting for someone to rescue her and lead her to the surface.
Nymph Entry: Masterfully deceives explorers by posing as a lost girl, then attacks with ferocious might, blood-lust in her eyes.
What appears to be an NPC named "Lost Girl", similar to the ones the player can rescue. Approaching her, however, has her transform into a green-skinned nymph that will maul unsuspecting players with potent melee attacks.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Her skin is green in her true form.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: She's depicted as fully naked, but lacks nipples or genitalia. Probably a display of modesty more than limitations of the art style.
- Curtains Match the Window: Her eyes and hair are the same light blue in her disguised look.
- Exposed to the Elements: She is naked and can spawn in the Cavern layer of any biome, including the Ice Biome. This does not appear to trouble her.
- Fan Disservice: She is a naked woman that is either covered in blood or has parts of her body "rotten" away. Or she just has reddish-brown patches on her skin, but she's still trying to kill unsuspecting players.
- Full-Frontal Assault: She wears absolutely nothing while trying to kill the player.
- Godiva Hair: Her sprites appear to have this for some reason, instead of sharing the same Barbie Doll Anatomy with her genitals.
- Lightning Bruiser: She hits like a truck by Pre-Hardmode standards, moves twice as fast as normal mooks, and is harder to knock back.
- The Little Detecto: She has a 50% chance of dropping a Metal Detector, which is increased to a guaranteed drop in Expert Mode.
- Luck-Based Mission:
- Finding her in the first place is luck, because unlike other enemies she doesn't move until provoked. Unless you have the Lifeform Detector, it's entirely possible you'll pass right by without even noticing her, and even if you do have a Lifeform Detector, it's often difficult to find the Nymph before she despawns.
- She has a 50% chance of dropping the Metal Detector, one of the items needed to craft the Cell Phone. Considering her rarity, this can make obtaining it pretty annoying. In Expert Mode, thankfully, it's a guaranteed drop. Prior to the 1.3 update, getting her banner was even worse, as the drop rate is only 0.5%. From 1.3 onwards you just have to kill 50 of her. Good luck with that.
- Luring in Prey: The Lost Girl stands in darkened areas, waiting for the player to find her. She has the appearance of a naked woman and seems to be an NPC in need of rescue. If the player gets close, though, she transforms into the Nymph and attacks.
- Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed because of the limited art stylenote , but she is one of the very few humanoid characters in the game who is completely naked. Becomes Fan Disservice when she turns green and has what appears to be blood or body rot on her hands, mouth, and between her legs.
- Naked People Trapped Outside: Subverted. The other "lost" NPCsnote are tied or webbed up while she appears just fine but naked, suggesting to unsuspecting players that she lost her clothes in an incident that left her stranded in the caves. She instead reveals her equally-naked true form and tries to kill the player.
- Our Nymphs Are Different: They're cave-dwelling monsters who lure in people to kill them, and have no signs of being any sort of nature entity beyond the name. Whatever connection they have to the Dryads, if any, is unknown.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her eyes are red in their true form, and they are blue in her disguise.
- Schmuck Bait: Hey, it's another NPC. I'll just go up and—"Player's flailing about was finally stopped by Nymph". Subverted if the first encounter is in Hardmode, and due to her rarity it likely will be. Despite the scare, her stats are laughable at that point (and she does not gain an Expert/Master boost after Wall of Flesh or Plantera), so she likely ends up luring the player character in to her own death instead.
- Shapeshifting: Downplayed, she is capable of making her skin shift from green to a human skin tone and hide her blood stains when disguising.
- Shout-Out: Her Bestiary entry as a Lost Girl begins by saying she's "Naked and Afraid".
Clown
- His origins unknown, this creepy fiend balances himself on a ball while hurling explosive destruction at everything around him.
- Ambiguously Human: He looks more human than Zombies or other common humanoid enemies, but he only appears during Blood Moons, which otherwise have a pretty strict blood and zombie theme to their exclusive enemies. Him being a Monster Clown with unknown origins complicates things further.
- Enemy Summoner: The Journey's End update gave it the capability to throw chattering teeth enemies at the player.
- Griefer: Prior to Patch 1.2, it was capable of damaging and destroying blocks, including your NPC houses.
- Mad Bomber: Its modus operandi.
- Monster Clown: An evil clown that balances on a ball and chucks happy face bombs at you.
Sand Elemental
- The most intense sandstorms draw forth powerful earth elementals. With this feminine form, her tornadoes tear all asunder.
- Deadly Dust Storm: Is only encountered during a sandstorm in Hardmode.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Attacks with sand-based tornadoes.
- Elemental Embodiment: Called an elemental of sand. The Bestiary entry suggests that this is a sub-category of earth elementals.
- Foil: To the Ice Golem:
- Both of them only appear during a storm, but the Sand Elemental is found in the hot Desert biome and appears female, while the Ice Golem is found in the cold Ice biome and appears male.
- The Sand Elemental attacks indirectly by conjuring sandnado traps as compared to the Ice Golem who fires ice beams in a more direct approach.
- The Sand Elemental's Forbidden Fragments are used to craft the Forbidden Armor that benefits Magic and Summoner, while the Ice Golem's Frost Cores are used to craft the Frost Armor which benefits Melee and Ranged.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: While the Sand Elemental possesses a pair of glowing yellow eyes by default, they produce a bright flash when she decides to use her sand-tornado attack.
- Sentient Sands: Is made of sentient sand.
- Tornado Move: Her only attack is conjuring several "sandnados" which hurt you upon touching them.
- Victor Gains Loser's Powers: When she's beaten, she drops Forbidden Fragments that allow you to craft the Forbidden Armor set. Wearing the full set gives a Set Bonus that allows you to use the same sand tornado attack she uses.
Ice Golem
- Sub-zero temperatures, blinding snow flurries, and being blasted apart by an icy construct are some of the dangers of blizzards.
- Cold Flames: Obtaining its Frost Cores will allow the player to craft the Frost Armor set, and wearing this set will give a Set Bonus that causes the player's Melee and Ranged attacks to cause the Frostburn status.
- Eye Beams: Shoots Freeze Rays at the player from its eyes.
- Foil: To the Sand Elemental:
- Both of them only appear during a storm, but the Ice Golem is found in the cold Ice biome and appears male, while the Sand Elemental is found in the hot Desert biome and appears female.
- The Ice Golem fights more directly by firing ice beams aimed at the player as compared to the Sand Elemental's Sandnado traps.
- The Ice Golem's Frost Cores are used to craft the Frost Armor which benefits Melee and Ranged, while the Sand Elemental's Forbidden Fragments are used to craft the Forbidden Armor that benefits Magic and Summoner.
- Freeze Ray: Its Eye Beams have a chance of chilling or even freezing the player.
- Golem: One that's made of ice.
- An Ice Person: Its attacks deal icy damage and can freeze the player.
- Mighty Glacier: Moves slowly, but can deal a good amount of damage to the player via its Eye Beams and has a huge amount of health.
Wyvern
The Wyvern sometimes appears in high altitudes in Hardmode. It is a long, white serpentine dragon that curves around similar to the Worm-type enemies, but through the sky. The Wyvern is the only enemy that drops Souls of Flight, which are needed to make most of the wings in the game.
- Achilles' Heel: Each segment of their body is a separate hitbox so piercing weapons will absolutely shred their health in seconds.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: It's a normal (if uncommon) enemy that can spawn without warning, comes packing more HP than most pre-Hardmode bosses, and hits like a truck. What really puts them in this category, however, is that it does not get detected by the Lifeform Analyzer, unlike most uncommon enemies.
- Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff" / Our Dragons Are Different: Despite having the name of a variant of Western Dragon, the design of this one is more Eastern.
- Essence Drop: Drop Souls of Flight when slain, which are used to craft many of the various wings in the game.
- Flight: Sky-bound serpentine dragons that easily fly through the air. Killing them nets you an Essence Drop in the form of Souls of Flight, which are used to craft wings.
- Lightning Bruiser: Fast moving, lots of health, and very painful.
- Non-Indicative Name: They resemble Eastern-style dragons rather than the traditional depiction of wyverns.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The only ones in the game, not counting Arch-Wyverns in the Legacy Console version, and Betsy and the Stardust Dragon in 1.3 onward.
- Segmented Serpent: While they don't look segmented, Wyverns are treated as having multiple body segments akin to worm-type enemies. Piercing weapons are your friend at high altitudes.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Ever try teleporting back home just to get away from these beasts in 1.2? Don't, because when you're least expecting it, they'll swoop out of nowhere from the sky to finish the job of killing you.
Slimes
All slimes behave the same: They hop to get around and all but a few drop slime gel upon death. They come in all different colors and sizes such as green, blue, red, purple, yellow, black slimes that inflict darkness (reduced light vision), mother slimes and their baby slimes, Pinky, Jungle Slimes, Dungeon Slimes that drop keys instead of gel, Lava Slimes that turn into lava in Expert Mode, and The Slime King. In Hardmode, they are joined by the Toxic Sludge that can poison the player, Corrupt slime and its slimelings that can also inflict darkness with a Shadow Slime variant in the Console version, the slimer that flies on bat wings, and the glowing Illuminant slime that's found in the underground Hallow, above ground is the Rainbow Slime that can rarely spawn in rainstorms and drop rainbow bricks. The Crimson on the other hand will have Crimslimes that don't have the splitting or darkness inducing effect of Corrupted (or Shadow) slimes.
- Blob Monster: Naturally, given that they are gelatinous monsters.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: One can tell the power of the "basic" Slimes by their color. From weakest to strongest, they are Green, Blue, Red, Purple, Yellow, and Black, with Black Slimes sharing stats with Yellow Slimes but also dealing the Darkness debuff. Queen Slime's spawns are also color-coded, something their Bestiary entries take note of.
- The Goomba: Slimes are generally the first enemy you'll encounter in Terraria. They're also some of the weakest and most numerous in the game.
- Holiday Mode: Slimes can spawn in seasonal variants depending on the holiday, such as wearing bunny masks for Halloween, or wearing gift ribbons for Christmas.
- Informed Attribute: The gel they are made of is apparently rather tasty (particularly Pinky's, which is said to be "bouncy and sweet"), but it's impossible to eat it raw without crafting it into a potion.
- King Mook: The King and Queen Slimes are this to the Slimes in general. The King Slime can be seen as the King to the Blue Slimes specifically, while the Queen Slime's mooks are enemies unique to her fight.
- Metal Slime: Rainbow Slimes. They show up very rarely in the Hallow during rainstorms while you are close to pure land, and drop the sought-after Rainbow Bricks.
- Money Spider: Jungle Slimes, pre-hard mode. Most other enemies drop maybe one silver coin if they're high tier and you get lucky, while Jungle Slimes drop four or five silver coins as standard, aren't particularly hard to kill, and spawn in droves.
- Rare Random Drop: The Slime Staff has a 0.01% chance of being dropped by most slime variants. Hours upon hours upon hours can be spent trying to get the staff.
- Spike Shooter: Spiked Blue Slimes, Spiked Jungle Slimes and Spiked Ice Slimes can fire spikes at the player. The latter two can poison and chill you respectively.
- Status Infliction Attack: Darkness (reduced light vision) and poison. The lava slime originally counted for fire since they turned into lava when killed before a patch removed that trait, until it was added in again as an Expert Mode trait.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Green Slime in Expert Mode. It starts pretty weak, but in Hardmode its maximum life shoots up from 28 to 246 and its attack from 12 to 86. Once Plantera is defeated, its HP and attack go up to 338 and 118.
Pinky
- The smallest slime ever recorded, their extreme cellular density makes them incredibly durable for their small size. They eat money.
- Blown Across the Room: Pinky is more susceptible to knockback than just about any other enemy in the game, meaning that it often goes flying across the screen after a single hit. This also makes it harder to kill, since you often have to alternate between hitting it and running after it for another hit. Given the gels it drops is "bouncy and sweet", it can be chalked up to Pinky itself being much more...well, bouncy, compared to the common slime.
- Glacier Waif: Pinky may be the smallest slime of the game, but it's only second to King Slime in terms of health when it comes to all of the slimes available before hardmode and it drops dozens of Pink Gel in contrast to its size.
- Metal Slime: And an actual slime to boot. Slaying this tiny slime drops a single gold coin and some Pink Gel, but happens to have the highest health of any pre-hardmode slime. They are also rare and are extremely sensitive to knockback, the latter making it likely to send them flying off a cliff and despawning if fought wrecklessly underground.
Zombies
Once night comes, slimes stop appearing, and zombies come instead. They're just like your standard zombie, being slow but coming in great numbers. They're especially dangerous during a blood moon, when they appear in greater numbers and gain the ability to open doors.
- Elite Mooks: Blood Zombies are tougher, faster, and more powerful versions of the regular zombie that only spawn during a blood moon. Expert Mode also adds zombies wielding severed arms as weapons, letting them hit harder and from longer range than your average zombie.
- The Goomba: While slightly tougher and more numerous than Slimes, Zombies are still as basic as enemies get.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Some zombies in Expert Mode come wielding severed arms as weapons. Additionally, almost all zombie variants have a chance of dropping a Zombie Arm that can be equipped by the player.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: The basic zombies also have Raincoat and Eskimo variants which spawn in rain and snow biomes respectively.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Literally, since they only spawn at night.
- Palette Swap: Zombies have a very wide range of possible sprites. Interestingly, each variant of zombie actually has slightly different stats, and some have different drops as well.
Doctor Bones
A zombie that spawns rarely in the jungle (both above and underground) during the night, wearing an archaeologist's hat, who drops it when killed. It's tougher than the regular zombie as well.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: Doctor Bones is dressed in archaeologist gear.
- Metal Slime: Tougher than the standard zombie and is a rare encounter in the Underground Jungle, but killing him gets you his hat.
- Shout-Out: Like the rest of the archaeologist's vanity set, to Indiana Jones.
The Groom
A zombie wearing a top hat that spawns during a blood moon, the top hat is also dropped upon death, like Dr. Bones, he also has higher HP than the regular zombie.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: Ever see a zombie in a wedding tuxedo?
- Metal Slime: He only appears during a blood moon, and even then, only rarely, and has much higher health than a regular zombie. He drops his hat when killed.
- Shout-Out: It may be a reference to the zombie groomsman in Shaun of the Dead.
The Bride
A zombie wearing a wedding gown and veil that spawns during a blood moon. Like the Groom, she has much higher HP than your average zombie, and her clothing is dropped on death.
- Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Attacks you in full wedding wear.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: In her case, it's a wedding dress.
- Metal Slime: She only appears during a blood moon, and even then, only rarely, and has much higher health than a regular zombie. She drops her veil and dress when killed.
Skeletons
You spend a lot of time battling skeletons in the game so here's a list of them: The first type of skeleton is found underground and drops hooks occasionally. Then, there's the undead miner and Tim. Skeletron is fought to get into the dungeon. Once you get to the dungeon, you find angry bones that come in their normal size, along with big boned and small boned sizes. Also present are dark casters and then the cursed skulls (which can curse the player, rendering them unable to use items). In the underworld, you will find the bone serpent. On hard mode, the player fights armored skeletons and their heavy variants underground that poses a threat of breaking their armor (halved defense for five minutes) and skeleton archers that shoot flaming arrows at the player. And, finally, there is Skeletron Prime.
- Dem Bones: A whole collection of them, no less!
- Sniper Rifle: Skeleton Snipers in the Hardmode dungeon after beating Plantera will use these. They hurt a lot and from a great distance too.
- Status Infliction Attack: Cursed (unable to use items) from the flying cursed skulls, broken armor (halved defense for 5 minutes) from armored/heavy skeletons, and fire from skeleton archers.
Undead Miner
A skeleton that appears underground, wearing a glowing mining helmet. When killed, it can drop bombs, a hook, or mining pants/shirt. They're easy to spot due to the glow of their helmets, and they can help illuminate undiscovered caverns.
- Metal Slime: Quite rare, and killing it is the only way to get the Bone Pickaxe and the Mining Armor.
Tim
A skeleton sorcerer that can spawn underground. Like other casters, it will teleport around and fire projectiles until you kill it. When killed, Tim drops a wizard hat that can be used to increase magic damage or simply as a vanity item.
- Metal Slime: Appears very rarely, and killing him is the only way to get the Wizard Hat, as well as giving you the achievement.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Wears a wizard hat that drops on death, and complements the gem robes very well.
- Shout-Out: To Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Rune Wizard
Appearing in the Hardmode Caverns, the Rune Wizard is an extremely rare enemy with one of the most powerful attacks in the game.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Killing the Rune Wizard allows you to nick his robe and hat for your own use, although unlike with Tim’s hat they’re purely cosmetic in effect.
- Glass Cannon: He can dish out some incredible pain, but he can't take a hit.
- Teleport Spam: Not to the extent of the dungeon mages, but he does warp around if you can't kill him quickly.
Paladin
Appearing in the 1.2 Hardmode Dungeon, the Paladin is a heavily armored knight that throws giant hammers that pass through walls.
- Achilles' Heel: Paladins cannot attack while they are being attacked. The problem is focusing them down while getting mobbed by a dozen other enemies.
- Light Is Not Good: It has really bright armor, and it starts not-so bright chaos.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: It carries a shield which can drop as a defensive accessory when the Paladin is defeated.
- Mighty Glacier: With its very high offense, it can easily maim you in seconds while you struggle to kill it.
- Sword Beam: In the form of hammer projectiles.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: They throw giant hammers at you to attack. They will sometimes drop from dead Paladins, and allow you to do the same thing.
Events
The Torch God
- An unseen deity responsible for a torch's eternal flicker, however easily angered by the unsightly, ungrateful abuse of torch placement.
- Disproportionate Retribution: He seems to believe that anyone who puts too many torches underground at once should die.
- Fireballs: What the torches will fire at you when the event starts. Each torch will fire once.
- The Ghost: The actual Torch God is not seen, he only attacks the player through the torches placed. His Bestiary entry just uses a single torch to represent him and says that he himself is unseen even in-universe.
- Guide Dang It!: Nothing in the game tells the player how to begin the event or that it even exists, and the way to start it is not something usually done by accident unless it is part of an elaborate building project.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: The game itself says he is easily angered and he will try to kill players who put too many torches together.
- Hollywood Torches: The Torch God is the very in-universe justification for torches never fading out on their own.
- Interface Screw: The player's vision is reduced while the event is active. Since it's through the Blackout debuff rather than the Darkness debuff, the Blindfold and its upgrades cannot be used to combat this.
- Optional Boss: Surviving the Torch God's challenge is completely optional and gives an item that helps with luck.
- A Wizard Did It: According to his Bestiary entry, he's the reason why Torches in the game never die out over time.
Blood Moon
The Blood Moon has a 1 in 10 chance of occurring each night with a visible moon so long as a player with 120 health or more is in the world. Unlike other events, the Blood Moon incorporates biome specific monsters as well as their event specific monsters into the fray. In addition, certain harmless critters, such as rabbits and goldfish, turn hostile during the event, and will attack the player. Zombies and other monsters gain the ability to open doors, making them a much larger threat then they are usually.
- Animalistic Abomination: While the Hemogoblin Shark and Wandering Eye Fish border on this, being grotesque, mutant hybrids of various creatures brought into being by the power of the Blood Moon, the Blood Eel and Dreadnautilus straight up cross into this territory, explicitly being called demons in the bestiary, with their supernatural abilities only serving as the icing on the cake.
- Airborne Mook: Dripplers are weird flesh-and-blood abominations that slowly float towards the player and only appear during Blood Moons.
- Bad Moon Rising: A blood-red moon that summons horrifying-looking enemies, one after another.
- Body Horror: Blood Zombies are overflowing with blood to the point where they look like walking piles of exposed flesh, while Driplers are an amalgamation of Demon Eyes fused into a bloody ball with eyes all over it.
- Jerkass Ball: During this event, female NPCs become rude and irritable.
- Killer Rabbit: Those cute goldfish, bunnies and penguins turn into evil biome-specific counterparts that are hostile to the player.
- Non-Human Undead: Zombie Mermen will occasionally appear as one of the hazards a fishing player faces while a Blood Moon is taking place.
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: Possibly, as real-life blood moons are actually lunar eclipses.
- Zerg Rush: A few unique enemies aside, the Blood Moon's main effect is to massively increase the spawn rate of regular night or biome enemies.
Slime Rain
The Slime Rain occurs once the player(s) have 140 life and 8 defense or it can occur before that with a lower chance in Expert Mode, at a ≈%10 chance per day pre-hardmode and a ≈%6 chance during hardmode. When it occurs, Slimes literally start falling from the sky even when enemies normally do not spawn such as being near NPCs. The event ends 24 (in-game) hours after it begins or when the player kills 150 slimes then it will summon the King Slime, after which the event ends when the King Slime is defeated. Subsequently, the chances of a Slime Rain occurring after defeating the King Slime are roughly halved and it only requires killing 75 slimes the next time a Slime Rain occurs.
- It's Raining Men: The idea behind this event. The background even changes accordingly to feature this.
Old One's Army
A special crossover event (from Dungeon Defenders 2). Triggered by placing an Eternia Crystal on an Eternia Crystal Stand, the objective is to protect the Eternia Crystal from waves of enemies seeking to destroy it. Unique in that the event's difficulty depends on when you trigger it: The first tier of the event is available after defeating the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu (as that is the condition for finding the Tavernkeep), the second tier unlocks after defeating one of the Mechanical Bosses (The Destroyer OR The Twins OR Skeletron Prime), and the third tier unlocks after Golem is defeated. When triggered in its hardest version, the event ends with a fight against a "boss", Betsy.
- Action Bomb: Both Kobolds variants attack by blowing themselves up, among the only enemies in the game to do this.
- Airborne Mook: Etherian Wyverns, Etherian Lightning Bugs and Kobold Gliders. Their ability to fly makes them dangerous enemies.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Fighting the Old One's Army is entirely optional for progress, although tackling them yields some nice loot from both the bosses and the Tavernkeep. However, with the sheer number of enemies and the various restrictions, you'll have to put in some serious work to get their exclusive items.
- Degraded Boss: The Dark Mage serves as the final boss of the easiest version, while the Ogre serves as the boss of the second version. On the final and hardest version, both of them show up as regular enemies.
- Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Betsy (fire) and Duke Fishron (water). Betsy has an attack pattern very similar to Duke Fishron's, both alternating between charging, a blowing attack (a fire breath and several bubbles, respectively), and throwing projectiles (fireballs and sharknados, respectively). They're meant to be fought at roughly the same moment of the game (soon after defeating Golem), and accordingly they have the same health (although Betsy has lower damage and defense since it's part of an event, while Duke Fishron is a stand-alone boss).
- Fluffy the Terrible: The post-Golem boss of this event is a massive, fire-breathing dragon called... Betsy. Yep.
- Flunky Boss: The Dark Mage has the power to summon Old One's Skeletons.
- No Fair Cheating: Trying to block enemies from the Crystal by placing walls in the way will only have them walk through the walls. Furthermore, you are unable to place blocks during the duration of the event to prevent cheesing it (not that it stopped players from cheesing it anyway, most notably by using actuators to get around the "no placing/removing blocks" rule).
- Our Dragons Are Different: Betsy is the only enemy in the game based on a Western dragon (other dragon-like enemies like Wyverns or Phantasm Dragons resemble more Eastern dragons).
- Our Monsters Are Different: An interesting case. The enemies that appear during the event are all based on enemies from Dungeon Defenders 2. However, many of those enemies (namely skeletons, goblins, wyverns and lightning bugs) happened to share a name with creatures previously found in Terraria, even though all of them are very different from the already-existing version (the normal lightning bug is even a critter). To distinguish them, the new version has "Etherian" or "Old One's" in front of his name.
- Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Ogres appear as a mini-boss during this event.
- Shockwave Stomp: One of the Ogre's attacks.
- Status Infliction Attack: Several of them. Lightning Bugs can reduce your damage while Wither Beasts can reduce your defense. Ogres throw you a snot ball that slows you while Betsy is able to burn you.
- Time-Limit Boss: Betsy's diving attacks will damage the Eternia Crystal, putting you on a timer to defeat her before she destroys it.
- Tower Defence: As expected from an event inspired by Dungeon Defenders 2.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Your goal in the game is to prevent hordes of mobs from taking out your crystals.
Goblin Army
Once the player has over 200 health and has destroyed either a Shadow Orb (if they are playing in a game world with Corruption) or a Crimson Heart (if the game world has Crimson), then the goblin army may invade at the start of a random day.
- Airborne Mook: The Warlock can fly around to evade your attacks.
- Berserk Button: Apparently you can start a war with them using a flag made of tattered cloth. The Goblin Tinkerer mentions that they have quite the Hair-Trigger Temper.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: The Goblin Warlock, who only appears in Hardmode, is much beefier than the rest of her army and summons homing projectiles on you.
- Fragile Speedster: Thieves - weak but fast, and they can open doors faster than other goblin types.
- Glass Cannon: Archers: they're not as fragile as the wizards, but they are made short work of if you get close to them.
- The Goomba: Goblin Peons are the weakest and most expendable units, although they do have the ability to break down (not open like Blood Moon Zombies, break down) doors.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Peons and Thieves have a smaller hitbox than their sprite, allowing them to squeeze through smaller areas.
- Informed Ability: The Goblin Thief doesn’t do any stealing despite his title (unless it’s expert or higher, and even then it’s nothing exceptional), coming off more as a quick-footed knife user than anything.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Goblin Warlock, despite using a combination of summoning and chaos magic to assault you with, is not a Squishy Wizard, being able to fly around at astonishing speed, pack a punch against early hardmode players and possess a four-digit health bar, making her the toughest foe in the entire event.
- Mighty Glacier: Goblin Warriors. They're big and slow and can take more hits than the Peons.
- Non-Indicative Name: Parodied. The Goblin Warlock was once named the Goblin Summoner and it does use Summon Magic to spawn shadowflame apparitions to attack you, but since it never dropped any Summoner equipment, the devs changed its name.1.4.4.6 devlog: It has come to our attention that the Goblin Summoner does not, in fact, drop any Summoner items. This is an unacceptable discrepancy, so the Goblin Summoner has been demoted to Goblin Warlock.
- Squishy Wizard: Sorcerers, who are commonly offed with a single hit. Subverted with Summoners, who have much more health than the rest.
- Teleport Spam: Goblin Sorcerers move around by teleporting, allowing them to enter even your otherwise-safe airborne houses.
- Zerg Rush: A single goblin (aside from the Warlock) is barely a threat, but given that they come in an army, they can still pose a threat to weaker characters by weight of numbers.
Goblin Scout
A semi-rare enemy that appears above 0 depth, during the day, around two-thirds away from the center of the map (the same area in which the King Slime can spawn). Scouts will not spawn on sand or in the corruption, nor will they appear among the other goblins during the goblin invasion.
- Metal Slime: Quite rare, only spawn on the outside of the map, and killing several of them is the only way to get the summoning item for the Goblin Army.
Frost Legion
The Frost Legion will invade if the player uses the Snow Globe that can be acquired from Present obtained during the Christmas. The enemies are various kind of snowman gangsters, and defeating them allows Santa Claus to move in.
- Long-Range Fighter: Snow Ballas and Snowman Gangstas attack from distance, the former by throwing snowballs, and the latter shooting targets down with tommy guns.
- The Mafia: They're a mafia made up of snowmen, with Snow Balla's bestiary description outright referring to him as a mafioso. They don't seem to do any mafiaing, though, instead simply murdering people left and right when summoned.
- Psycho Knife Nut: The aptly-named Mister Stabby is a maniacal snowman armed with a knife with which he seeks to stab anyone he gets his hands on.
- Snowball Fight: Snow Ballas attack the player with snowballs. When snowballs land, they create a Snow Block on impact that ends up serving as an obstacle.
- Snowlems: The Frost Legion is an army of gangster snowmen.
- Stealth Pun: "Snowman" is a slang term for "gangster". And they all are snowman gangsters.
Pirate Invasion
The pirate invasion can occur during Hardmode by a 6.22% chance at the start of any day or if the player uses a pirate map (dropped from enemies in the ocean) and approaches much like a goblin invasion. The force consists of Deckhands, Deadeyes, Corsairs, Crossbowers, Captains, Parrots, and the "boss", the Flying Dutchman.
- Airborne Mook: Parrots are fast flying enemies that deal large amounts of damage if they hit you.
- Battleship Raid: To defeat the Flying Dutchman, the player has to destroy all four cannons on its side.
- BFG: The Pirate Captain carries a gun with a huge cannon strapped to it that fires out very painful cannonballs.
- Boss in Mook Clothing:
- Captains, which come with high HP, are immune to knockback (although constant DPS and DOT does keep them from attacking) and carry a rapid fire machine gun with a cannon strapped to it like an M203.
- The Flying Dutchman, a large flying pirate ship that rains cannonballs and drops pirate mooks into the fight. It has four high health cannons that must be taken down in order to be beaten.
- Flunky Boss: The Flying Dutchman will drop various types of Pirates onto you, while also attacking with its cannons.
- Glass Cannon: The Parrots have rather low health for Hardmode enemies, but they move fast and hit surprisingly hard.
- Ghost Pirate: Any Pirate Captain killed by the player will quickly come back for a second try as a Pirate’s Curse, a floating skeletal torso with an eyepatch and a cutlass. Thankfully, they stay dead after you kill them the second and final time.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The Deckhands and Corsairs will attempt to charge the player, and while the Deadeye and Captain do use ranged weapons, they still attempt to move towards the player to deal collision damage. The female crossbower however stays in the back lines firing flaming arrows.
- The Juggernaut: Pirate Captains are completely immune to any form of knockback, keep moving towards the player, and have huge amounts of health.
- Long-Range Fighter: Crossbowers will stay a distance from the player and shoot Arrows on Fire at them. Their ranged damage is far greater than their melee damage too.
- Mighty Glacier: The Captains are immune to knockback and can both dish out and endure heavy damage. However, they are quite slow.
- Money Spider: Pirates tend to drop golden furniture, most of which can be sold for quite a bit of money, in addition to quite a few coins. If you have a decent defense against them, fighting Pirate Invasions can be very lucrative in early Hardmode. They also have a very small chance of dropping money-based items like the Discount Card and Gold Ring.
- Obvious Rule Patch: The 1.4.0 version makes Pirate Captains spawn a Pirate's Curse when killed, which flies, phases through blocks, and is immune to all traps. Its sole purpose is to counter AFK farming the Pirate Invasion with traps/lava.
- Pirate Girl: The Crossbower is one of the few female humanoid enemies in the game.
- Pirate Parrot: The parrots, which appear alongside the pirates.
- Position of Literal Power: The Captains are the toughest to deal with out of all the types of pirates.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Unlike most other events, none of the pirates' attacks go through blocks. Many players exploit this by walling themselves off underneath a shallow lava pit and waiting out the invasion as the pirates wade into the lava and kill themselves. This is now subverted with the Pirate's Curse spawned by Pirate Captains on death, which is immune to traps/lava and flies through walls.
Solar Eclipse
After a Mechanical Boss has been defeated, there is a 4% chance that the entire day may be a Solar Eclipse, where monsters straight out of horror movies appear in droves to attack the player. It can also be summoned by using the Solar Tablet during the day. The monsters include Swamp Things, Vampires, Eyezor, Frankenstein, The Possessed, Fritz, and Creature from the Deep. Reapers and Mothron appear after all three Mechanical bosses are beaten, and Butchers, NailHead, Deadly Spheres, Psycho and Dr. ManFly appear after Plantera is beaten.
- Airborne Mook: Vampires can transform into bats to fly into you, while Mothron and Deadly Spheres are capable of flight all the time.
- Armored But Frail: Deadly Spheres. Their 350 health is fairly low for the point where they appear and is one of the lowest among Solar Eclipse enemies, but they also boast one of the highest defense ratings of any enemy in the game at a massive 80.
- Boss in Mook Clothing:
- Mothron is counted as a normal enemy, but it has nearly boss-level health, a powerful dash attack, and can spawn eggs that hatch into smaller versions of itself.
- Nailhead is counted as a normal enemy but also has nearly boss-level health. Every time he is hit, nails will fly off his head to strike you.
- Eye Beams: Eyezor fires lasers from the huge singular eye on its face.
- Monster Mash: Loads of classical and horror movie monsters spawn during this event. Skeletons and Werewolves are absent, however, since the former only spawns underground and the latter appears on the night of a full moon, and this event takes place at "day" in the overworld.
- Moth Menace: Mothron is the strongest enemy encountered during a Solar Eclipse.
- Original Character: Eyezor is the only enemy not based on an existing character.
- Shout-Out: Nearly all of the enemies are based on various horror movie monsters.
- Swamp Thing: Swamp Thing.
- Frankenstein: Frankenstein
- Fritz: Fritz
- The Possessed: Posessed Regan
- Creature From The Deep: Gillman
- Mothron: Mothra
- Butcher: Leatherface
- Psycho: Michael Myers
- NailHead: Pinhead
- Deadly Spheres: Sentinel Spheres
- Dr. ManFly: Seth Brundle
- Spike Shooter: Nailhead shoots nails off from his head when he takes damage.
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: It's in the name. A solar eclipse takes up the entire day, spawning monsters that will keep the player busy.
- Wall Crawl: The Possessed can climb on background walls toward you. It's also immune to knockback while doing so, forcing you to try and wear down its health before it reaches you.
Martian Madness
When traveling around the map after Golem is defeated, one may spot a Martian Probe. If the player gets into its sensors, it will attempt to fly away, and if successful, the Martian Madness event will trigger. The force consists of Martian Walkers, Martian Drones, Martian Officers, Brain Scramblers, Gigazappers, Gray Grunts, Martian Engineers (and their spawned Tesla Turrets), Scutlix, Scutlix Gunners, Ray Gunners, and the boss, the Martian Saucer.
- Action Bomb: Martian Drones attempt to kamikaze on the player and explode. This explosion can hit through walls.
- Airborne Mook: Martian Drones fly around and attempt to kamikaze the player.
- Alien Blood: Their blood seems to be purple in colour, considering the color of the flesh on their gibs.
- Alien Invasion: The whole theme of the event is about Martians invading your world.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Their first instinct upon detecting life with the Martian Probes is to invade and start killing indiscriminately.
- Attack Drone: The Martian Drones. These do not have guns, and instead use a Suicide Attack to explode on the player.
- Battleship Raid: In order to defeat the Martian Saucer, the player must destroy all of its missile launchers and laser turrets. Then, on Expert and Master difficulty, they can attack the main core.
- Boss in Mook Clothing:
- The lightning-quick Martian Saucer. It has four high health cannons that provide it with a plethora of attacks such as Beam Spam and Macross Missile Massacre, and a Death Ray it will use that deals huge damage. When those four cannons are destroyed... it becomes vulnerable, but will then repeatedly use the Death Ray attack. Thankfully, you can spare yourself from the beam by hiding underneath some blocks. The game even displays a "Martian Saucer has been defeated!" message when one is destroyed as it does for bosses, and the Saucer has its own trophy.
- Journey's End hit the Martian Saucer with several Nerfs: it doesn't have its speedy, Death Ray-spamming second phase on Normal, instead just dying once all its cannons are destroyed. It is also slower and spawns less frequently. However, its Death Ray now penetrates blocks.
- Boss Rush: It's not uncommon for a new Martian Saucer to show up as soon as you destroy one.
- Beam Spam: The entire event packs enemies carrying various Tesla Turrets and ray guns. You will be on the receiving end of this when enough of them show up. The Martian Saucer also has two laser machine-guns included in it's armament and will occasionally stop to rain a hail of painful energy bolts upon your position.
- Deflector Shields: The Martian Officer sports these, allowing him to take more damage than the normal martians. It also regenerates if taken down.
- Energy Weapon: They're pretty big on these. The Martian Saucer is the most prominent user, but most of the regular Martians come with ray guns that can pelt you with energy bolts.
- Flying Saucer: The Martian Saucer. It can drop a Cosmic Car Key, which allows you to ride your own.
- The Greys: The martians are based off these.
- Guide Dang It!: A very mild version. Nothing really suggests that this event is in the game and unlike the other optional invasions there isn't a craftable summoning item that you might stumble across when checking the guide for recipes. Even worse it's triggered by a rare enemy in a specific part of the world that you wouldn't otherwise have a reason to hang out in and is prevented by killing that enemy which goes against every instinct by this point in the game where regularly wiping screens is just a thing that you can do without thinking about it. However, it's somewhat mitigated by the oceans being a convenient teleport destination so you can reasonably stumble into the probe by accident and even though the event has a lot of unique loot none of it is necessary for finishing the game.
- Horse of a Different Color: Scutlix Gunners ride Scutlixes, which appear to be some kind of fast-moving slug-like alien creature. You can get the Brain Scrambler Rare Random Drop to summon a Scutlix Mount if you kill the gunner on top first.
- Kaizo Trap: When the Martian Saucer explodes, it launches bits of scrap that can still deal contact damage.
- Little Green Men: Ray Gunners, Scutlix Gunners, and Brain Scramblers appear to look like green-coloured greys.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Martian Saucer possesses two missile launchers on it's sides, and will use them to let loose a sizeable volley of homing missiles upon your position.
- Mind Rape: The Brain Scrambler, as its name suggests. Its ray gun fires lasers that can inflict the Confused status.
- Mook Maker: The Martian Engineer spawns Tesla Turrets that will fire at you.
- Outside-Genre Foe: Most of Terraria is mainly fantasy with a few Schizo Tech guns and machines thrown in. Then the Martians with their highly advanced technology show up.
- Sequential Boss: In Expert Mode, he Martian Saucer requires you to destroy its two turrets and two missile launchers, before the main body becomes vulnerable to damage and constantly uses its laser attack.
- Shock and Awe: The Gigazappers and the Tesla Turrets deployed by Martian Engineers. Both can even cause an "electrified" debuff that deals constant damage, more so if you're moving. The Martian Saucer can drop the Electrosphere Launcher.
- Status Infliction Attack: Tesla Turrets and Gigazappers can inflict the Electrified debuff, which acts like poison but deals even greater damage if the player moves. Brain Scramblers inflict the Confused debuff that reverses your controls.
- Tripod Terror: The Martian Walkers.
- The Turret Master: Martian Engineers can spawn Tesla Turrets which attack you.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Martian Saucer has one of these.
- Weaksauce Weakness:
- Prior to the Journey's End update, the Martian Saucer had no attacks which could pass through blocks. A simple box thick enough to block splash damage from the missiles would render it harmless, provided you leave a hole for something to shoot through or something that shoots through blocks.
- Most of the martians and their attacks are incapable of going through blocks, meaning that walling yourself in and using a strong piercing weapon like the Death Sickle can be a viable strategy.
Martian Probe
A semi-rare enemy that appears above 0 depth, around two-thirds away from the center of the map (the same area in which the King Slime can spawn) with a higher spawn chance in space. It projects a short ranged sensor light below, and if the player touches the light, it will attempt to flee. If successful, it will cause the Martian Madness event to occur.
- Airborne Mook: A flying space probe that can appear in space.
- Army Scout: Scouting probes of the Martian Army with pathetically low collision damage and decent HP. Their main purpose is to detect you to see if the place is suitable to invade.
- Metal Slime: Quite rare, only spawn on the outside of the map, with a better spawn chance if in space. Unlike most Metal Slimes, you want them to get away if you want the Martian Madness event to occur.
The Pumpkin Moon
By crafting a Pumpkin Moon Medallion and using it at night, the player can summon the Pumpkin Moon. The Pumpkin Moon is similar to the Goblin and Pirate invasions, but it also has some special mechanics of its own. The invasion will progress in waves, each one featuring progressively harder batches of enemies to fight. The player can encounter Scarecrows, Splinterlings, Hell Hounds, Poltergeists, and Headless Horsemen. Killing enough enemies will allow the player to move on to the next wave until they reach wave 15, the final wave. Another key difference from the other invasion events is that starting with wave 4, boss-like enemies will emerge. In this case, they are Mourning Wood and Pumpking.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: The Headless Horseman is halfway between the mooks and the bosses, boasting a huge health pool (more than Mothron and slightly less than Mourning Wood), extremely high contact damage, and immunity to all debuffs. It's still counted as a normal enemy, possibly because unlike the minibosses it has no unique attack patterns besides trying to run the player over for contact damage.
- Optional Boss: Both minibosses, as the Pumpkin Moon is not at all required for beating the final boss and both of the minibosses are fairly difficult. Unlike the Goblin Summoner, Flying Dutchman, Mothron, or Martian Saucer, fighting the Pumpkin Moon's bosses is entirely by player choice, so they won't even fight them with bad luck regarding invasions. Note that their items are needed if you want to craft a select few other items, notably the Zenith.
- Scary Scarecrows: The first Mook to show up. A-list Cannon Fodder compared to the other monsters.
- Weaksauce Weakness: The Pumpkin Moon has no airborne enemies aside from Pumpking, and none of the non-boss enemies have projectile attacks. Staying off the ground can render most enemies harmless.
- When Trees Attack: The Splinterlings, which are garden-variety Mooks, and Mourning Wood, which is... not.
- Zerg Rush: The basic premise of the first few waves, before the Mourning Wood appears. After Wave 15, you can end up being zerged by the bosses.
Mourning Wood
An animated dead tree that first appears on Wave 4 of the Pumpkin Moon.
- Flechette Storm: Sprays out loads of burning spikes and splinters.
- King Mook: To the Splinterlings.
- Mini-Boss: Quite a powerful Mook, but not too hard to defeat.
- Playing with Fire: Spits flaming pieces of wood at you to attack.
- Punny Name: On "morning wood", a term for nighttime erections.
- Time-Limit Boss: Mourning Wood will attempt to flee at dawn, when the Pumpkin Moon ends. However, it's slow enough that you can still easily finish it off before that happens.
- When Trees Attack: A dead, burning tree that tries to kill you.
Pumpking
A cloaked figure with vines that end in scythes for arms, and a pumpkin for a head. He appears on Wave 7 of the Pumpkin Moon and is considered to be the boss of the event.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The Pumpkin Moon's final adversary, and the most powerful.
- Badass Cape: He doesn't seem to have a body under it, but he wears a nice black cape anyway.
- Call-Back: Has some similarities to Skeletron, in that it is a floating body that attacks using two disembodied arms. However, Pumpking has some nasty tricks of its own, like firing large scythe-shaped projectiles at the player.
- Sinister Scythe: Has two for arms.
- Playing with Fire: Can conjure flaming scythes and also spit embers at you.
- Power Floats: Constantly floats around the area, making it somewhat annoying to hit him.
- Time-Limit Boss: When dawn breaks and the Pumpkin Moon ends, Pumpking will vanish immediately.
The Frost Moon
The Frost Moon works similarly to the Pumpkin Moon, but features even more difficult enemies to deal with. Crafting and using the Naughty Present will make the player the target of an invasion by nightmarish Christmas-themed enemies: living Gingerbread men, Zombie Elves, Elf Archers, Nutcrackers, Yetis, Elf Copters and multiple Krampus. The Frost Moon also has three "boss" monsters with the Everscream, Santa-NK1 and the Ice Queen.
-
Nintendo Hard: The Lunar Events aside, this is the toughest event in the game yet. It takes immense amounts of preparation to get to the final wave of this event and survive. - Non-Human Undead: Zombie Elves.
- Optional Boss: Like the Pumpkin Moon minibosses, all of the Frost Moon minibosses are totally optional to defeat. Unlike the Pumpkin Moon, none of their drops are used in any crafting recipes, all of them being standalone items.
- Zerg Rush: The basic premise of the first few waves, before Everscream appears.
Everscream
An animated Christmas tree that first appears on Wave 4 of the Frost Moon.
- Flechette Storm: Shoots out a flurry of razor-sharp pine needles.
- Mini-Boss: Has less health than a boss-level enemy, but still a very formidable foe.
- Improbable Weapon User: Can also fire out exploding Christmas ornaments.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Is pretty much a Christmas-themed version of Mourning Wood. However, its attacks can't pass through blocks.
- When Trees Attack: A Christmas tree that tries to kill you.
Santa-NK1
A tank-like mecha with the appearance of Santa Claus carrying a Gatling gun and a rocket launcher. It appears on Wave 7 of the Frost Moon.
- Backpack Cannon: It's used to fire presents that rain down on you.
- Badass Santa: Like the other boss enemies in this event, he won't disappoint in terms of asskicking when he shows up.
- Bad Santa: While Santa himself is not evil in Terraria, Santa-NK1 is a Santa-faced tank that tries to blast the player into bloody chunks with machine guns, rockets, and explosive presents.
- Death from Above: Can make it rain down explosive presents on you.
- Gatling Good: Carries an arm mounted Gatling gun, which he will fire upon you with sometimes.
- Glowing Mechanical Eyes: Its eyes glow with menacing yellow light.
- Heavily Armored Mook: It has one of the highest defense ratings in the game.
- Killer Robot: It's a Santa-based robot that attempts to massacre you with a huge arsenal.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Carries a rapid missile launcher. Unlike the machine gun, the rockets can penetrate blocks.
- Mini-Boss: Has less health than a boss-level enemy, but still a very formidable foe.
- More Dakka: Carries a gatling gun. Can drop the chain gun which is faster
- Skull for a Head: Damage it enough and its face is revealed to be similar to that of Skeletron Prime.
- Spike Balls of Doom: Is capable of deploying spiked balls on the ground that deal massive damage if touched. On Expert and Master Mode, these hurt even more than the Moon Lord's Phantasmal Deathray!
- Tank-Tread Mecha: Like its namesake hints, it's a robot Santa with tank treads instead of feet.
Ice Queen
A large, floating feminine figure that appears to be made of ice. She appears on Wave 11 on the Frost Moon and is considered to be the boss of the event.
- An Ice Person: Quite literally by the looks of it. As well as the fact that almost all attacks she has mainly consist of spewing shards and waves of ice at her opponents.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: She's an ice queen and she is an utter nightmare to face. As well as the fact that she is the deadliest enemy on the Frost Moon.
- Dark Action Girl: When she appears it's a This Is Gonna Suck moment for some players as she is no slouch in her objective to put you down, sometimes succeeding as well. Even exceptional Terraria players sometimes find her a bit of a handful.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Defeating her in Master Mode makes her drop the Frozen Crown, which summons an Ice Queen pet. Unlike other Master Mode-exclusive pets, the tooltip states that this is not just a pet made in her likeness; it's the Ice Queen herself being reborn as a companion for the player.
- Flechette Storm: Fires out loads of ice projectiles.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: The Ice Queen spends much of her time just offscreen using ranged attacks against you, occasionally swooping overhead before flying off again. She's only stationary for her icicle attack, which is fired in every direction.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: She's presumably a queen of sorts, and is an incredibly nasty enemy and the boss of the Frost Moon.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Ice Queen's power is surpassed only by how insanely fast she is. She also has more health than Plantera!
- Power Floats: Constantly floats around the area, making it very annoying to hit her.
- Spectacular Spinning: Can spin around to fire out a huge storm of shards.
- Status Infliction Attack: Can cause you to get chilled or even frozen.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: The Ice Queen is usually moving extremely fast, out of range from your attacks. However, once in a while she stops to throw you ice shards, giving you a chance to attack her.
- Winter Royal Lady: She is the Ice Queen.
