History VideoGame / Terraria

''[[http://www.terraria.org/ Terraria]]'' (pronounced similar to "Terrarium") is a very detailed 2D WideOpenSandbox indie game, created by Andrew "Redigit" Spinks and Jeremy "Blue" Guerrette. It was made available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} on May 16, 2011 and has received a ton of massive updates ever since. The game has since been [[PortOverdosed ported to nearly every seventh- and eighth-generation console available]],[[note]]excluding the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}[[/note]] and versions have also been developed for [=iOS=] and Android devices.

[[caption-width-right:350:Killer Unicorns, Sharknadoes, Eye Demons, and [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking rocks]]! 2D exploration at its best!]]

''[[http://www.terraria.org/ Terraria]]'' (pronounced similar to "Terrarium") is a very detailed 2D WideOpenSandbox indie game, created by Andrew "Redigit" Spinks and Jeremy "Blue" Guerrette. It was made available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} on May 16, 2011 and has received a ton of massive updates ever since. The game has since been [[PortOverdosed ported to nearly every seventh- and eighth-generation console available]][[note]]excluding the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}[[/note]], and versions have also been developed for [=iOS=] and Android devices.

Being hugely popular (having sold [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/terraria-pixel-piracy-in-steam-summer-sale.19526/ more than six million PC copies]], and that's not covering the console and mobile sales), ''Terraria'' also received its own line of toys, and there was an (aborted) attempt at making an online animated series based on the game. (The released episodes of the series can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnVrQgGuTfZ_QSaScacTNkdZiAPIZjywh here]].)

[[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/03/terraria-2-announced/ According to Redigit]], a sequel, currently titled ''Terraria 2'', is in the works. A small team will continue to work on the original Terraria however. [[http://www.terrariaotherworld.com/ Terraria Otherworld]], an Alternate Universe spinoff, was once in development, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1HpkvoMXnw a trailer]] was shown at GDC 2015. However, as of April 13th, 2018, it has been declared [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/this-is-the-end-otherworld-development-cancelled.68594/ cancelled]] due to the team considering that [[DevelopmentHell its development was excessively time and resource-consuming while leading nowhere]]. Its soundtrack has since been reincorporated into an alternate set of tracks for the main game.

Eight years after its release, the developers announced at E3 2019 that the original Terraria would receive its fourth and final major update called [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/re-logic-announces-terraria-journeys-end-at-e3.80018/ "Journey's End"]], which released on May 16 2020, the game's ninth anniversary. Some of the major things it includes are an even more difficult [[NintendoHard Master]] mode, a [[MonsterCompendium bestiary]], and golf. [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/1-3-tmodloader-a-modding-api.23726/ tModLoader,]] the long-standing [[GameMod mod loader]] made by the fanbase, was also announced as [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/full-steam-ahead-tmodloader-to-launch-as-free-dlc-for-terraria-with-journeys-end.88057/ being added to the base game as free DLC on Steam]].

Eight years after its release, the developers announced at E3 2019 that the original Terraria would receive its fourth and final major update called [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/re-logic-announces-terraria-journeys-end-at-e3.80018/ "Journey's End"]], which released on May 16 2020, the game's ninth anniversary. Some of the major things it includes are an even more difficult [[NintendoHard Master]] mode, a [[MonsterCompendium bestiary]], and golf. [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/1-3-tmodloader-a-modding-api.23726/ tModLoader,]] the long-standing mod loader made by the fanbase, was also announced as [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/full-steam-ahead-tmodloader-to-launch-as-free-dlc-for-terraria-with-journeys-end.88057/ being added to the base game as free DLC on Steam]].

%%

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smallaria_6848.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Killer Unicorns, Sharknadoes, Eye Demons, and [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking rocks]]! 2D exploration at its best!]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:A-B]]
* AbnormalAmmo:
** There is a host of arrow and bullet types that have odd or unique effects from setting [[ArrowsOnFire an enemy on fire with a cursed flame]] to arrows that summon a star to hit the target.
** There are also weapons which fire things such as stars, coins, snowballs, candy corn, stakes and explosive Jack 'O Lanterns.
** Taken even further with a few bows, the Bee's Knees and the Hellwing Bow, that fire bees and flaming bats respectively. They still use normal arrows, however.
** The Explosive Bunny takes the cake, however, due to being fired from a specific cannon that has no other use.
* AbsurdAltitude: The game lets you visit the uppermost layer of the world, named Space. Depending on your gear and the size of your world, you could reach it in a single leap.
* AchievementMockery: The achievement "Watch Your Step!", which is awarded for dying to one of the traps that are randomly generated underground.
* AdvancingBossOfDoom: The Wall of Flesh in the Underworld.
* AfterBossRecovery: Most bosses throw out a whole bunch of hearts upon death. During Frost/Pumpkin Moon events, these hearts can be life savers.
* AIBreaker:
** Enemies only know how to reach you in a straight line, meaning a simple thin lava pit on either side of a house means infinite money as the enemies stroll in and immolate themselves. On the flip side, this will usually destroy loot in the underground areas where the lava is too deep. Enemies are also too stupid to walk around an obstacle when you're above them, since they only target you by the y-axis. This allows to effectively lock some enemies on a higher level of blocks. Most events throw in some teleporting and flying enemies to help make up for their ArtificialStupidity.
** Doors open in either direction, but zombies normally can't open them if they're shut. This changes during the Blood Moon, but zombies only gain the ability to kick doors ''in.'' Due to the way the game handles sprites, putting anything other than a wall tile on one side of a door will prevent it from opening in that direction, meaning that if you simply hang a colored banner or torch behind a door, it only opens outward and is thus zombie-proof. By the same token, if you dig a deep enough pit in front of the door, they can't touch it.
* AirborneMook:
** Pre Hardmode: The Demon Eyes, Cursed Skulls [[note]]Formerly called Burning Skulls[[/note]], Hornets, Eaters of Souls, Meteor Heads, all kinds of Bats, Demons, flying fish, Vulture, Harpies, Antlion Swarmers, and Granite Elementals.
** Hardmode: The Wraith, Corruptor, Wandering Eye, Crimson's Floaty Gross, Hallow's Pixies, Gastropods, [[ChristmasElves Elf Copters]], {{Pirate Parrot}}s, Martian Drones, Desert Spirits, and ''several'' of the Lunar Event enemies. Besides, Wyverns make an appearance if you go high enough in the sky.
* AlienInvasion: The Martian Madness event, where Martians and their machines attack in a manner similar to the Goblin/Pirate Invasion, and the Lunar event that has you fighting the invading armies of the moon.
* AllDesertsHaveCacti: Taken to the LogicalExtreme; not only does every variety of desert (normal, corrupt, crimson, and hallowed) have cacti, there is a chance for cacti to grow on ''any'' full sand block on the surface and exposed to air, unless it's in ocean range.
* AllNaturalGemPolish: Once you mine a gem, it appears in its cut and polished form in your inventory.
* AllYourPowersCombined: The entire point of [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Tinkerer%27s_Workshop everything in the Tinkerer's Workshop]]. It allows you combine multiple useful accessory items into a single item. This is extremely useful because players are limited to five accessory slots. Most of the examples to follow are created using it.
** The Neptune's Shell and the Werewolf Charm can be combined into the Moon Shell, which gives the player the power to become a Werewolf at night and a Merfolk when submerged. The powers are mutually exclusive, however, so you lose the wolf transformation if you become submerged at night.
** The Sun and Moon stone accessories gift you with stat boosts only during the day and night, respectively, but when fused together, the resulting Celestial Charm provides the boost all the time. Combine this charm with the above-mentioned Moon Shell and get all their buffs at once in a single slot with the Celestial Shell.
** Most of the X in a Bottle accessories can be combined with Shiny Red Balloons to make the X In A Balloon items, which can then be fused together into a Bundle of Balloons that gives you three additional midair jumps. The individual balloons can also be fused with the Lucky Horseshoe to form Horseshoe Balloons.
** Hermes Boots can be combined with the Rocket Boots so you can run fast and fly. Combining the resulting Spectre Boots with the Aglet and the Anklet of Winds creates the Lightning Boots, which increases base movement speed. Then you add the Ice Skates to create the Frostspark Boots, which allow for mobility on icy terrain.
** Water Walking Boots can be fireproofed with an Obsidian Skull and a Lava Charm. The resulting Lava Waders lets you walk on lava, water, and honey, and grants temporary protection from lava damage.
** For interior decorators, the Extendo-Grip, Brick Layer, Paint Sprayer, and Portable Cement Mixer can be combined into the Architect Gizmo Pack.
** The Diving Helmet and Flippers can be combined into Diving Gear. This can be fused with the Jellyfish Necklace to get light while diving deep into dark waters, and then you can add the Ice Skates to this to also add mobility bonuses while on ice.
** The Yoyo accessories added in 1.3 (Counterweight, Yoyo Glove, and Yoyo String) can be combined into the Yoyo Bag, which will give you all their benefits in a single inventory slot (namely, additional Counterweight and secondary Yoyo projectiles that will orbit and dance around, plus improved Yoyo reach).
** Taken UpToEleven with the Ankh Shield, which is eleven different items fused into one: the Obsidian Skull, Cobalt Shield, Trifold Map, Fast Clock, Vitamins, Armor Polish, Blindfold, Nazar, Megaphone, Bezoar, and Adhesive Bandage. It grants immunity to 10 debuffs[[note]]Weak, Broken Armor, Poisoned, Bleeding, Slow, Chilled, Confused, Silenced, Cursed, and Darkness[[/note]] as well as to knockback and fire blocks. You can't get more compact than ''that''.
** The Cell Phone, added in 1.3, beats the Ankh Shield by two items, requiring 13 different items to make. It combines the twelve informational items into a single PDA which provides the combined functionality of all 12. When held in your inventory it outputs fishing information, weather, moon phase, elevation, distance east/west, time, nearest valuable treasure, player speed, current DPS, number of monsters killed, rare nearby creatures, and number of nearby enemies. ''Then'' you can combine the PDA with a Magic Mirror to create the Cell Phone which both displays info and lets you teleport to your bedside.
** The [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Angler_Tackle_Bag Angler Tackle Bag]] combines the benefits of all three fishing accessories, preventing line breaks, adding a bonus chance to save bait, and boosting your fishing power.
** The [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Multicolor_Wrench Multicolor Wrench]] takes one each of the wrenches of all colors plus a wirecutter and turns them all into a multi-tool. Combine it with a Ruler, a Mechanical Lens, and some wire, and you get the [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/The_Grand_Design Grand Design]], which makes it even easier to work with wiring. You don't even need to keep it equipped; the ruler and wire-viewing abilities function as long as it's in your inventory, though wire cutting and placement require equipping it.
** Unrelated to the Tinkerer's Workshop is the Night's Edge, which is crafted by combining the Blade of Grass, Fiery Greatsword, Muramasa, and the Light's Bane at a Demon/Crimson Altar. This is followed by the Terra Blade in Hardmode. You have to combine the Night's Edge with the Broken Hero Sword to create the True Night's Edge, forge Excalibur from Hallowed bars and combine it with another Broken Hero Sword to create the True Excalibur, and ''then'' combine the two to make the Terra Blade. It's well worth it, though, as the Terra Blade is one of the best swords in the game.
** And then that got taken BEYOND Eleven with the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Zenith]], which requires the most items in the game to craft. To note, it requires, in total, a Blade of Grass, a Light's Bane or Blood Butcherer, a Fiery Greatsword, a Muramasa, an Excalibur, two Broken Hero Swords (All of which is to make the aforementioned Terra Blade, which is one of the Zenith's ingredients), a Meowmere, a Star Wrath, a Horseman's Blade, an Influx Waver, a Seedler, an Enchanted Sword, a Starfury and a Copper Shortsword. To add to this, the Zenith's attack animation even features all of the swords that build up to it (as well as the Bee Keeper and Terragrim, which don't).
* AlwaysNight: The surface mushroom biome; it automatically turns to night whenever you enter. Daytime's still preserved outside of the biome.
* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: Entering the range of the Lunar Pillars causes a colossal moon to appear in the sky, as well as a special lighting effect and background element corresponding to the pillar (orange and showering meteors for Solar, green and a lightning storm for Vortex, etc.). Thankfully, this makes it significantly easier to see around you at night even without any torches. You can also replicate these effects by activating a monolith (built with the fragments dropped by the respective pillar).
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The players have the option to select some unusual skin colours for their characters.
* AnchorsAway: Fishing in a Hardmode world occasionally nets you an Anchor (either directly or from wooden crates) that can be used as a flail-like weapon.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes:
** Several rare mobs and mini-bosses can drop clothing items.
** Defeating Skeletron unlocks an [=NPC=] that sells clothing.
** During the Halloween seasonal event, enemies have chances to drop Goodie Bags, which can have one of several different sets of...you guessed it, costumes. {{Non Player Character}}s will also sell extra vanity items during this time as well, many of them being their own outfits. Same with the Christmas seasonal event and the dropped Presents, although presents have a chance to contain usable items that are quite powerful if acquired early.
** While playing in Expert Mode, bosses drop bags that contain their boss drops as well as an Expert unique boss item. Bags from the hardmode bosses will sometimes have very rare developer costumes in them, and the Eye of Cthulhu's bag will contain a unique pair of CoolShades if you beat it with a Hardcore character.
** "Strange Plants" can be traded for dyes. The dyes themselves are usually very flashy and rare, but it's the only purpose the plants have.
* AndYourRewardIsEdible: As of 1.4, a wide selection of foods and beverages can drop from fighting various mobs. Killing harpies will give you chicken nuggets, slain skeletons will drop milk cartons, and much more.
* AndYourRewardIsInteriorDecorating:
** Bosses can sometimes drop Trophies, which are wall mounts with parts of the bosses hoisted on them (for example, the Eye of Cthulhu's teeth, or Skeletron's bone). Additionally, defeating bosses in Master mode will always give you golden Relics, which you can place as a trophy.
** For a more conventional example, killing Skeletron has a chance to give you a furniture item called [[https://youtube.com/channel/UCkfTUab0xxTMPRTNgs9vMCQ Chippy's Couch]].
* AnimalMecha: One of the hardmode bosses, the Destroyer, is a giant mechanical worm.
* AnimatedArmor: One of the enemies is the Possessed Armor. The Paladin may also be this.
* AnimeHair: Some of the hairstyles the player can choose from a character.
* AntiAir:
** The Crawltipedes fought around the Solar Pillar. They'll ignore you if you're standing on a surface, but as soon as you take to the air they'll home in on you very quickly, causing crazy amounts of CollisionDamage.
** The [[MeaningfulName Aerial Bane]] is specifically designed for this: It fires a spread of explosive arrows that deal increased damage to airborne enemies.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** The Guide offers an option to view items that are craftable with the materials you have, and what those recipes would require. Furthermore, the gameplay tips he offers for newbies are contextual; he won't try to tell anyone what a Heart Crystal does if they have already used one, and he'll only explain what a Blood Moon is when the information would be immediately relevant.
** A good number of recipes that call for Corruption-based components will work perfectly fine with their Crimson counterparts, and vice versa. For example, Night's Edge can be forged using the Blood Butcherer in place of the Light's Bane, and the Battle Potion can use Vertebrae ''or'' Rotten Chunks as ingredients and still work. The main exception is potions: the Wrath Potion can only be crafted using ingredients from Corrupted worlds and the Rage Potion can only be crafted with components from the Crimson, though both are functionally similar.
*** If for any reason you're adamant about your world either having Corruption or Crimson, a later update added an option when generating a new world so you can choose which evil you'd like. For those who liked the previous 50/50 chance, a random option is available so it can still be a surprise.
** Every metal has a counterpart that works just as well. Recipes that call for a specific ore will work with the counterpart ore. For example, the Slime Crown used to summon the Slime King can be made with either a Platinum Crown or a Gold Crown, depending on which one your world generated. There are some slight differences (e.g. a Tungsten pickaxe can mine Meteorite while its counterpart, a Silver Pickaxe, cannot), but for the most part, it's all the same.
** The Extractinator and the Crates acquired via fishing can provide you with the alternate metals that were not generated in your current world, reducing the need to world hop for crafting ingredients. Now with a little patience, you can fish for Titanium in hardmode if your world generated with Adamantite instead.
** It used to be a little troublesome to retrieve the drops of The Hardmode Boss, ''The Destroyer'', as they used to spawn where the head was on death, even if it was deep underground. Version 1.2.3 on the PC fixed this by making the drops spawn at the player's location instead, saving you the trouble of having the scour the ground to recover the Souls of Might and Hallowed Bars.
** The 1.3 Update adds a UI hot button to the Inventory subscreen so you can now Quick Stack items from your inventory into ''all'' adjacent storage chests with a single click. No more need to manually open each chest just to hit the Quick Stack for each one now.
** In previous versions of ''Terraria'', some players had serious concerns that the spreading Corruption or Crimson could overwhelm and completely engulf the Jungle Biome. This became a bigger concern in 1.2, as the Jungle was expanded to add new bosses and unique Hardmode loot. As of the 1.3 Update, Chlorophyte can now influence the spread of Mud blocks and prevent/limit the spread of Crimson and Corruption, allowing the Jungle to better protect itself from being overwhelmed by the Corruption or Crimson.
** A number of players have commented on the rarity of Solar Eclipses in 1.2. 1.3 solved this by adding a Summon Item in the vein of the Frost and Pumpkin Medallions that causes the Solar Eclipse on demand, although you ''will'' need to harvest the components for it from the Jungle/Lihzahrd Temple. Likewise, 1.3.0.5 adds a Summon Item to trigger a fight with [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] without having to go through an entire Invasion Event to make them spawn.
** In all previous versions of ''Terraria'', worlds generated with what players dubbed "land mine traps," Explosives Blocks cunningly buried inside the ground with a barely-visible pressure plate wired to them, causing many a Hardcore player some real grief. Version 1.3 overhauled this by adding a different encounter with the Explosives Block above ground wired to a giant plunger to activate it and atop a massive pile of ore. The original trap still exists, but is significantly rarer than before.
** In Expert Mode, any player who fights a boss will get his/her own bag that is filled with boss drops. Outside of Expert Mode, it's a mad grab to try and get boss items, leaving co-operating players always left short of an item, and leaving people who are with more antagonistic or greedy players to hope that they don't get the short end of the stick by someone managing to steal all the boss drops. On Expert, each bag is filled with the full range of boss drops, so every player that fought it will get at least one unique boss item when opening a bag. To keep this from being exploited, Bosses gain more HP based on the number of players participating in the fight.
** Players can 'uncraft' a few items such as platforms and walls, so they don't have to worry about leftovers while constructing settlements.
** Prior to 1.3, the Avenger Emblem could only be crafted with a Sorcerer Emblem, Warrior Emblem, and Ranger Emblem together. Since those items all drop from the same boss, the boss' summoning item is uncommon, and there is a variable delay before the boss can be resummoned, it could take hours before one could craft the Avenger Emblem, which is itself an ingredient in many endgame accessories. In the current version, the Avenger Emblem can be crafted from any single Emblem plus Souls from all three Mechanical Bosses.
** The 1.3.1 update added a "sort inventory" button that reorders the items in the player's inventory based on type, and the 1.3.2 update made it possible to sort container contents.
** Your reward for catching fish is selected from money, potions, decor, and a few very, very desired tools and accessories, but completely random. However, every fiftieth quest completed, the chance of getting a non-potion, non-decor item increases; for instance, the Tackle Box has a 1/40 base chance, but after the 100th quest it's 1/6. The 1.4 update made fishing rewards even less tedious by making it so that the player cannot get a copy of a Cell Phone component when one is already in their inventory, unless the Cell Phone is already completed.
** The Wall Of Flesh's drops are encased in a box made from either Crimson or Corruption blocks the moment it is defeated. This is to prevent the items from possibly dropping into the lava of where the Wall spawns, which would not destroy them (as items above a certain rarity don't burn in lava) but would make them a pain to pick up.
** Two items were patched in basically to help with early games lacking some convenience items players are dependent on later in the game.
*** The Magic Mirror has a consumable variant called the "Recall Potion" that has the exact same effect, but is a far more common drop from chests and pots, allowing players to return to their spawn quickly at any point in the game. The reusable Magic Mirror is somewhat rare, and it's entirely possible you won't find one before hardmode. The potions are practically useless after you get the mirror, but the simple luxury of returning to spawn from any point of the map without dying to quitting is useful any time in the game. They also make a good backup if you died and need to grab your stuff (mirror included) and make a hasty retreat. Compared to the Magic and Ice Mirrors, Recall potions have a much shorter delay before teleporting you back to your spawn point, which makes them a little more convenient for retreating from a hectic battle.
*** Rope and its variants were added as a supplement to early game exploration. Ropes are extremely common, found in pots, chests, and craftable from vines (using an item) and cobwebs/silk. Like blocks, rope can be anchored to a single block on the ground and then built straight up or down. Unlike blocks, ropes are not solid, allowing players and objects like meteors to pass through them. All rope has a built-in climbing mechanism that allows you to travel up and down it at full speed. Finally, it has an inherent +3 to range, allowing you to build ahead of yourself much easier than with blocks, and if that isn't enough it can be crafted into rope coils to place rope from a distance. This can make falls that would impede players without items to prevent fall damage, such as double jump or a grappling hook, doable well before these items could be found or crafted.
** With the advent of the multi-tools in the Multicolour Wrench and the Grand Design, a minor UI tweak was made to make them more convenient to use: Their 'make the ruler and wires visible' UI toggles were tucked away beside the player's lifebar, and you right-click to open the toggles for changing the tools between wire placement and removal.
** The Graveyard mini-biome is created when dead players drop tombstones. Since Hardcore characters die permanently if killed, and thus can't drop tombstones without being deleted, the game makes it so that worlds containing Hardcore characters will have the [=NPCs=] drop tombstones instead when killed.
* AntlionMonster: Antlions make up several pre-hardmode desert enemies—not only the larvae that burrow in the sand, but also the winged adult.
* AprilFools: [[http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/duke-fishron-and-the-aquarian-horde.137907/ In the form of a joke post about a new boss and new invasion that came alongside it.]] This becomes {{Foreshadowing}} when it turns out the boss, Duke Fishron, is a real thing (sans the invasion). Further foreshadowing with the same boss, the April Fools post claims that Duke Fishron demands a fair fight, and will scale its HP based on how many players are in the server. In 1.3's Expert Mode, this is actually the case, where Duke Fishron's HP will increase the more players there are.
* ArmCannon: You can get one from the Martian Madness event: [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Charged_Blaster_Cannon the Charged Blaster Cannon]].
* ArmsDealer: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Arms Dealer]] [=NPC=], which sells you guns and ammo once you have found a gun.
* ArrangeMode: In the "Expert" mode, the difficulty is greatly increased, enemies and bosses have new attack patterns, the player takes extra damage and drops 3/4 of their coin inventory in Softcore mode, and bosses drop special Treasure Bags upon defeat, which contains greater quantities of their normal drops, as well as Expert mode exclusive items. In addition, one of these Expert mode exclusive items gives you an additional accessory slot. The Master Mode, added in the 1.4 patch, increases enemy damage and health even further, and has players drop all coins upon death. In addition, when bosses are defeated, they'll drop a Relic statue of the boss, and also have a chance of dropping an item that summons a pet based on the defeated boss.
* ArrowsOnFire:
** The game allows you both to craft flaming arrows by combining a torch with a few normal arrows, as well as craft a Molten Bow that makes normal arrows fired by it flaming arrows instead. Either way the weapon deals a bit of extra damage and has a fairly high chance to set enemies on fire, something that's quite practical as it makes monsters light up in the dark and be very visible targets no matter ambient lighting.
** Also includes frostburn arrows and cursed arrows, which are covered in ColdFlames and {{Hellfire}}, respectively. The console and mobile editions have spectral arrows, which inflict spectral flames.
* ArtificialAtmosphericActions: Your [=NPCs=] will interact with each other through pictorial speech bubbles, such as playing RockPaperScissors.
* ArtificialGill:
** A breathing reed enables the player to stand in deeper water and still access air and also doubles the time they can stay underwater without breathing.
** Flippers allow the player to swim, meaning it is easier to move around in water and avoid drowning.
** Diving helmets improve how long the player's air meter lasts.
** The diving gear -- a combination of the flippers and diving helmet -- grants both benefits.
** There's a potion that allows you to breathe underwater for 2 minutes, the Gills potion, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin makes you grow gills]].
** There's a magical shell that turns you into a merman when you enter water, making drowning impossible and granting normal movement underwater. It is combined to form another charm but retains the original effect.
** [[AllYourPowersCombined Combining]] Diving Gear with a Jellyfish Necklace makes a set of diving gear that not only lets you move better and breathe longer underwater, but gives off a subtle glow to help you see a bit better underwater as well. Adding Ice Skates to ''that'' creates the Arctic Diving Gear, which has the properties of both the Jellyfish Diving Gear and the Ice Skates' extra mobility on ice.
* ArtStyleDissonance: The game takes much the same philosophy as ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' and gives it the backdrop of a cutesy cartoon style. Want to build that nice, big 8-story house filled with expensive furniture and decorations and gold bricks? Well then be prepared to face those [[NightOfTheLivingMooks zombies and skeletons]] and DemonicSpiders that made Minecraft a living hell, only this time with {{Eldritch Abomination}}s thrown into the mix.
* AscendedMeme:
** The Stardust Guardian summon that comes from the Stardust armor set bonus is ''not'' originally a ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' reference; WordOfGod said that the artist who designed its sprite had never seen Jojo. However, fans kept drawing comparisons between the two, and now as of 1.4, the Stardust Guardian has a new RapidFireFisticuffs attack style; the devs stated that [[https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/what-was-old-is-made-new-again-revisting-the-terraria-experience.88174/ "all resemblance to a certain anime is purely coincidental."]]
** The Moon Lord's Legs, a meme among the fans who speculated that they might be added into the game, is now made available in Journey's End, [[spoiler:as a legging item that you can find in chests only if your world seed is "05162020".]]
** The "Do it with a Copper Shortsword" meme has been acknowledged as part of the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Zenith's]] crafting recipe, which requires several end-of-game swords, a few rare pre-hardmode swords... and the Copper Shortsword.
* AsteroidsMonster:
** Mother Slimes, a giant slime which breaks into three Baby Slimes when killed.
** The King Slime boss, which splits into smaller Slimes as you attack it.
** The Eater of Worlds, a boss monster that will split in two every time one of its segments is destroyed, unless one would be shorter than two segments. It has fifty segments, and each new Eater of Worlds obeys the same rules. It is entirely possible to have several Eaters of Worlds at once.
** The Corrupt Slime, which acts much like a stronger Mother Slime and splits into several Slimelings upon defeat. Also, on the console version, a slightly stronger Shadow Slime that does the same thing.
** The Star Cells that accompany the Stardust Pillar will split into a few smaller cells when killed. If these smaller Star Cells aren't killed fast enough, they'll grow back to full size, allowing them to split again. They can easily swarm a player with poor crowd control abilities. It should be noted that each regrown Star Cell ''does'' count as a kill toward breaking the pillar's barrier, while small ones ''do not''.
** Similar to Star Cells, there's also the Alien Queens that accompany the Vortex Pillar. When beaten, they split apart into three Alien Larvae, which if not killed in time, grow into Alien Hornets, which if still not killed, develop into more Alien Queens. All of them except the larvae also count towards breaking the barrier.
* AttackTheTail: The [[CreepyCentipedes Crawltipedes]] can only be damaged in the glowing spot in their tail.
* AutomaticCrossbow: The Repeater weapons that can be earned from Hardmode ores have Autofiring, meaning the player can just hold down the mouse button to fire them.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** The Bundle of Balloons gives you a ''quadruple jump'', but requires three Shiny Red Balloons and the three primary double jump bottles (normal, Blizzard, and Sandstorm) to make. Balloons only appear in chests on Floating Islands and even then likely only once or twice. You either have to create additional worlds to farm for more or fish up Sky Crates from Floating Lakes. The Sandstorm Bottle is even worse, as it can only be found in a chest in a Pyramid, a structure which isn't even guaranteed to spawn in a world, and even if it does you may not get the bottle. Getting it means creating world after world in the hopes that one will eventually spawn the bottle. Assuming you do all that, the bundle of balloons is actually a ''really good'' item that grants even more mobility than most early-mid hardmode wings, with the horseshoe balloons providing the negate fall damage effect but the sheer utter ''luck'' needed to get this item often means that chances of getting it without specifically farming for it are extremely slim and if you're going to try and farm for it, you're usually better off getting the late game wings.
** The Star Cannon is one of the highest-damaging weapons in the game before you hit hardmode. It fires Fallen Stars, which only drop at night in limited quantities scattered across the Surface of your world, and are not reusable once fired. Making a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVqaOg9x9hA star trawler/hoik bridge]] to farm fallen stars helps increase its usefulness considerably, with the weapon utterly shredding through even some of the mech bosses and being extremely useful early hardmode... Provided you can bare the sheer and utter tedium of setting said bridge up, with all the effort put into it becoming pointless once you start getting weapons that easily outpace the star cannon in damage.
** The Shadow Orb or Demon Heart. A light pet item that creates a dim light source that slowly follows the player around. Other lighting items and abilities are both more practical and brighter. At best it is good as a backup—even if it's your only independent light source, you'll still find yourself pulling out those torches so you can see more clearly what you caught in the corner of your eye.
** In the words of the Demolitionist: "Why purify the world when you can just blow it up?" Dynamite and Bombs are among the best ways to clear the Corruption, but you'd need so many of them that you'd quickly run out of money, especially early-game. While bombs can be farmed for free along with the other components to make the upgraded sticky bombs, the more powerful and effective dynamite remains a bit pricey at 20 silver apiece.
** The Starfury might drop stars on whatever you point it at, but it doesn't work well underground due to potentially frequent cavities above the one you are in. It no longer uses mana, but relying on the falling stars to deal the bulk of your damage becomes less dependable without pure open space or fully solid material above you to the top of your screen.
** The Sniper Rifle has the highest ranged single-shot damage in the game and the ability to scroll the screen, but it has a very low rate of fire. The weaker, faster-firing weapons can usually dish out almost as much punishment, with less penalty for missing. The Sniper Scope can give any gun the ability to scroll, making it even less appealing. And finally, to put the cherry on top, a new item introduced in 1.3 is infinite basic ammo, meaning you can't even use it to try and preserve your ammo.
** The Drill Containment Unit. Crafting it requires 40 bars each of Hellstone, Meteorite, Chlorophyte, Shroomite, Spectre, and Luminite, the latter only dropped by the FinalBoss and even then you have to beat him at least twice just to get enough. Once you've crafted it, you have a flying mount that chews through all kinds of terrain faster than anything in the game, operates underwater, and is fairly fast (equal to Hermes Boots and slower than the UFO mount). In exchange, precision is extremely difficult, making it less of a tool for mining or building and more for uprooting entire biomes, and it prevents you from using weapons while you're riding it. And, of course, by this point you've beaten the entire game and killed the FinalBoss several times over.
** The Suspicious Looking Tentacle, dropped from [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] in Expert Mode. It's a light pet whose main function is to inform you of when an enemy or treasure is nearby, but you should already have a Cell Phone that does exactly that, while letting you keep the [[WillOTheWisp Wisp]] in a Bottle, which is a better light pet.
** Many of the Expert Mode-exclusive boss items can be considered this. While rendering slimes neutral, increasing regeneration while standing still, or making bee-related weapons more powerful sound good in theory, in practice you are unlikely to want to leave one of your more mundane accessories behind to make room for an Expert one.
** The Coin Gun is probably the ultimate example. Firing platinum coins gives it a base damage rate of over 1700 HP per second, more than almost any other weapon; but this is rather unsustainable, given how long it takes to earn a single platinum coin (you can buy every single NPC store item with less than 20) and the fact that it fires 8.5 of them ''per second''. Firing silver coins instead makes it much more efficient (10,000 silver coins = 1 platinum coin) and comparable in power to the Star Cannon, but this requires a lot of fiddly coin crafting.
** Gem robes give you a massive boost to your mana pool pre-hardmode, but the defense of them is so paper thin that it's often far more worth it to go for the meteor armor or jungle armor first and skip the robes altogether.
** The "Djinn's Curse" vanity pants from the Desert Spirit. When equipped as a vanity item, it gives you fancy FogFeet. If used as armor, it grants a slow fall ability similar to a Featherfall potion. While the latter is cool, the Desert Spirit that drops it only appears in Hardmode, so it's far more efficient to make the effort to earn a pair of wings. You also likely have a Lucky Horseshoe or better, meaning fall damage is not an issue, anyway. On top of that, it grants no defense when used this way, which is sacrificing a fourth of your overall defense for something that wings do even better without that drawback.
** In hardmode you get access to [[ThisIsADrill drills]], which look neat and have constant hitbox while in use, making them good for raw DPS. However, their range is incredibly short, making hitting anything with them difficult, and pickaxes ultimately have a higher mining speed than drills, on top of getting melee modifiers, which can ''further'' increase their mining speed, which in turn makes drills even more pointless by comparison.
** Once you've unlocked the hardmode Dungeon, you have access to a wide variety of shiny, new toys... of which the Master Ninja Gear is not one of. It's a combination of the Tabi, Black Belt and Tiger Climbing Gear, allowing you access to wall-climbing, dashing and 10% chance of dodging any attack only taking up one accessory spot. Sounds fine and dandy except you're already about 85% through the main game at that point and more than likely have access to Wings or a mount that offers more mobility than the Master Ninja Gear would give you. About its only use is the 10% dodge chance but the percentage is hardly worth a spot in your incredibly limited accessory slots and isn't as immediately impactful as, say, a medallion suited to your class or the Celestial Shell.
** The Charged Blaster Cannon, an ArmCannon that lets you fire either FrickingLaserBeams that pierce enemies or a huge laser beam that deals heavy damage. However, like the name suggests, the weapon has to be charged in order to be used to its full effect (a full ''three seconds'' for the beam or just one for the piercing bolt) and fires extremely weak energy orbs if not charged at all, and while firing the beam, you can't change the angle you're aiming at. It's great at slicing through hordes of ground-based enemies, but it's incredibly unwieldy against basically everything else, especially compared to the Laser Machine Gun, the other magic weapon you can get from the Martian Saucer.
* AnAxeToGrind: The axes are considered tools, but can be used to defend yourself in a pinch. Higher-level axes are actually viable weapons that just happen to retain their uses as tools.
* BadMoonRising:
** The Blood Moon event, which happens occasionally. It increases the enemy spawn rate, overrides spawn restrictions in towns, gives zombies the ability to bash doors open, and spawns [[DemonicSpiders Clowns]] in Hardmode.
** 1.2 brings forth the Solar Eclipse in hardmode, which is even ''worse''.
** And now we have the Pumpkin Moon! Ghouls, ghosts, and fire-spitting trees of death!
** Another moon event, The Frost Moon, which makes all your Christmas joys become nightmares, is now available as well.
* BadSanta: [=Santa-NK1=] is an evil Santa Claus-based {{Mecha}} boss that spawns during the Frost Moon.
* BadWithTheBone: The game has bones as an early-game thrown weapon. Given [[DemBones what sorts of enemies drop the bones,]] you can ultimately end up killing skeletons with parts of other skeletons.
* BagOfHolding:
** Storage items (player inventory, chests, etc.) tend to get ridiculous when you can store spears and swords several times the size of your body in them. The storage items never get any bigger than your character though.
** There are also the Piggy Bank (and its counterpart the Money Trough), Safe, and Defender's Forge items take it even further. Unlike regular chests which can't be picked up until they've been emptied first, they can be picked up even when they're holding items, allowing you to transport an entire chest's worth of items for the cost of only one inventory slot. They can even be placed inside one another to give you even more inventory space. However, you can't use multiples of the same container to get a massive inventory space, as each of these containers shares an inventory with all others of the same type (i.e., if you fill a Safe with 40 stacks of dirt, every other Safe you go to will have those same stacks of dirt).
* BallisticBone:
** There are dungeon skeletons that drop bones which you can throw at enemies. They do a surprising amount of damage, far more than even shuriken.
** The Skeleton Merchant throws bones at non-skeleton enemies.
** In Expert Mode, defeating [[DemBones Skeletron]] will net you the Bone Glove, which makes thrown bones do even more damage and gives you a chance of not consuming a bone when thrown.
* BanditMook: In 1.3's Expert Mode, almost all enemies can pick up money from the ground, and if they escape, the money is lost. Yes, this even includes the money dropped when you die.
* BareYourMidriff: The game has some of this since the 1.1 update, introducing new female shapes along with the rest of the major content, the most particular example being the Hallowed armor. The earliest armor that easily highlights this is the Shadow Armor, and the Jungle Armor outright gives females a bikini top.
* BatOutOfHell: The game has many varieties of bats that all attack the player. Including ''literal'' bats out of hell in the game's Underworld.
* {{BFG}}: All over the place, ranging from the Chain Gun to the Snowman Cannon, which is for all intents and purposes a full-auto rocket launcher.
* BattleBoomerang:
** Boomerangs come in several types, such as the basic Wood Boomerang, the Enchanted Boomerang, the Flamarang, and the Frost Boomerang. Other types of [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang boomerang-type weapons]] include chakrams, throwing hammers, ''bananas''...
** Boomerangs benefit from melee bonuses. This means that they can be combined with a melee knockback accessory to keep waves of monsters at bay. This also gives melee oriented players some ranged capability that benefits from melee bonuses. Possibly their biggest advantage is that they're fairly easy to obtain ranged weapons that require no ammunition at all.
* BeamSpam:
** Several of the player's weapons enable the player to lay down their own BeamSpam on enemies, such as the Space Gun, Laser Rifle and Heat Ray. The Laser Machinegun, however, surpasses all of them with its extremely high rate of fire.
** The Necromancer and Ragged Caster from the Hardmode Dungeon both spams beams quite a bit, the former's bouncing off walls and the latter's going homing in on the player.
** The Solar Eclipse exclusive enemy Eyezor shoots lasers from its eye.
** The Ice Golem fires lasers from its head.
** Ice Mermen fire ice beams constantly at the player.
** The Wall of Flesh begins firing more and more laser barrages as you chip away at its health.
** Hardmode bosses The Destroyer and Retinazer also engage in this.
** The Gastropods in the Hallow tend to spawn in small groups and will fire on the player repeatedly.
** The Golem found in the Lihzahrd Temple fires lasers from its eyes, and fires faster as its health gets lower.
** The Martian Saucer definitely qualifies. In its first phase, it fires ''dozens'' of lasers as part of its attack pattern; in the second phase, it repeatedly swipes a large beam across you and ten tiles around you.
* BeatingADeadPlayer: All monsters hover around the point where you died until you respawn. Other enemies, like casters and ranged enemies, sometimes keep casting or attacking towards where the player died last. This also has the effect, on Expert mode, of having the enemy who killed you steal the money you dropped, forcing you to track the monster down and defeat it before it despawns.
* BeeAfraid:
** Hornets really, but there's dozens of the bloody things in the underground jungle.
** 1.2 took this to a whole new level, adding miniature bees, a beehive sub-biome, and a Queen Bee boss.
** Subverted for the player with certain items, including items that summon bees when the player is damaged, a bee grenade that releases a small swarm, a bee gun that shoots bees, and a hornet gun which is the upgrade to the bee gun.
** If you're DEAD SET on bees, you can grab a Hive Pack by fighting the Queen Bee in Expert Mode to boost your bees.
* BeeBeeGun: A new addition within the 1.2 update, the Bee Gun, obtained by killing the [[InsectQueen Queen Bee]], [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin shoots homing bees at your enemies.]] The Queen Bee can also shoot smaller bees out of her bottom. A more powerful variant exists that shoots hornets instead. There are also Beenades and accessories that summon bees to attack your enemies when you get injured. There's also the Bee's Knees, a bow that turns arrows into bees when fired.
* BeefGate:
** You can enter the Dungeon at the edge of the map anytime you like. You can only ''safely'' enter the dungeon after you've taken out Skeletron. If you enter before killing Skeletron, you will have a Dungeon Guardian that that attacks you for ''[[ChunkySalsaRule 1000 hit points]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill of damage]]''. Players have learned how to kill the Dungeon Guardian regardless of the changes, though (barring glitches) most of those tactics require endgame gear. Even then, it takes around five minutes minimum and it'll just respawn if you go back to the dungeon.
** The Wall of Flesh is the gatekeeper to Hardmode, as such you are either completely over prepared for the battle with it or you are going to die. This ensures you will at least be able to survive the vastly more deadly creatures in a Hardmode world.
* BerserkBoardBarricade: You might find yourself doing this when the Blood Moon rises and zombies gain the ability to open doors. In Hardmode you also have to worry about a number of new hostile enemies including werewolves trying to batter down your doors.
* {{BFS}}: Most swords above the regular ore tiers are at least as big as your character. The largest sword in the game, the Breaker Blade, is more than twice your own height.
* BigBoosHaunt: The dungeon. All but one of the enemies there are undead in origin or hinted to be undead.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: Many examples, from [[AntlionMonster antlions]] (including the less common flying form) to [[SandWorm underground worms]] to [[BeeAfraid giant bees and hornets]], and of course [[GiantSpider terrifyingly large spiders]]. [[RandomDrops If you're lucky]], you can even get the Honeyed Goggles from the Queen Bee boss, allowing the player to summon and ride a slightly smaller giant bee.
* BiggerIsBetter: The best melee weapon modifier, Legendary, comes with a size bonus. Another weapon modifier, Massive, is slightly bigger than Legendary, but without the speed and damage boost. The larger blades give an advantage in area they cover with each attack which is useful for certain enemies.
* BioluminescenceIsCool:
** In mushroom biomes, the grass and various mushrooms glow almost as brightly as torches. Surface-level mushroom biomes are [[AlwaysNight dark even during the day]] so they too glow.
** Additionally, every kind of herb will glow when blooming, though some more so than others.
** The 1.4 update introduces certain kinds of underground moss that glow in the dark.
* BizarreAndImprobableGolfGame: The 1.4 update adds golfing, allowing players to create their very own improbable golf courses using whatever items and building blocks at their disposal.
* BladeOnAStick: There are several polearm-like weapons like spears, tridents, and glaives that all work the same. They tend to have lower damage than other melee weapons in the same tier, but possess a long reach, letting you easily stab through multiple enemies at a time. The main exception is the Daybreaker, which is a thrown weapon.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: The game has multiple languages as of version 1.2. However, at least in the German language, the word "close" as in "close a window" has been translated as "close by". Furthermore, the word "save" as in "save the game" has been translated to mean "save" as in "save money".
* BlingBlingBang: You can buy the components for Golden bullets, which are fairly powerful and apply the Midas debuff, making enemies drop more money upon death. They pay for themselves, more so the less bullets you use in a kill such as with the SniperRifle, which is generally a OneHitKill on most common enemies.
* BlobMonster: The first type of enemy you are likely to see is a slime. They show up everywhere with [[UndergroundMonkey unique variations depending on the environment]].
* BloodlessCarnage: A new option introduced in 1.3 allows you to turn off blood and gibs, instead making enemies and characters disappear into clouds of smoke upon death similar to ''{{VideoGame/Minecraft}}'', which can make it easier to spot enemy drops without [[LudicrousGibs mountains of body parts in the way]]. It does cause a few oddities with enemies that constantly bleed (or if you're bleeding) causes those same puffs to appear such as Demon Eyes or the shoulder points of Skeletron.
* BloodyBowelsOfHell: The Crimson. You can also make your own hellish bowels by converting crimson blocks into flesh blocks and furniture using a Meat Grinder dropped from Hardmode Crimson enemies. You also need the Flesh Cloning Vat from the Steampunker in Crimson worlds.
* BloodyMurder: Despite the name suggesting UrineTrouble, the Golden Shower weapon actually fires a yellow stream of "ichor", which is basically highly corrosive demon blood.
* BlowGun: Multiple:
** You can find blowpipes in some chests near the surface. While getting ammunition for it is a cinch (it uses seeds that you collect by cutting grass), the weapon is far outclassed by most other ranged weapons, at least one of which you should have at that point.
** Later versions added stronger weapons like the blowgun, dart rifle, and dart pistol, as well as special darts that can be fired from all blowgun-type weapons. They're still pretty well outclassed by more traditional ranged weaponry.
* BlownAcrossTheRoom:
** Any weapon with extremely high knockback can send enemies flying.
** The Snow Flinx enemy has such low knockback resistance that a hit from any weapon will likely knock it a large distance.
* BonusBoss:
** The Dungeon Guardians were never intended to be killable, but [[LordBritishPostulate players have still found ways to do it]]. This has been acknowledged with a unique (though purely cosmetic) item that only they drop.
** Duke Fishron, a weird shark-pig boss added as something of an April Fool's joke. Fighting him (by fishing in the ocean with a rare mushroom worm) doesn't trigger any other events, and he doesn't drop any special crafting materials. Good thing, too, because he's a LightningBruiser to the extreme.
** 1.4 added the Queen Slime and Empress of Light. Neither of them need to be fought to progress, but their drops can give players an edge over upcoming challenges. Defeating the Empress in particular is a daunting task due to her incredible difficulty, but her drops are incredibly useful to compensate.
* BoozeBasedBuff: Sake and ale give a bonus to damage at a slight cost to defense.
* BoringButPractical:
** The Ranger class. While it has the lowest variety of weapon types (Guns and bows, with only a handful of unique weapons). However, they are arguably the most powerful class in the game. Their high range and usually high damage output will cause some heavy pain to your foes.
** The Mining Helmet, while not as bright as a torch and somewhat expensive in the first dozen hours of play, will make your life in Terraria ''so'' much easier when you get it. However the tradeoff is that you have to wear it in your head armor slot rather than social slot, which breaks armor set bonuses and can drastically lower your potential Defense score.
** Picks also qualify. Did you just find a new, awesome ore to craft with? You really ought to craft a pick with it so you can dig faster. It's also crucial in Hardmode, as you ''need'' new picks to get at the better ores.
** The Cross Necklace doubles your MercyInvincibility. That's all it does, but it's extremely useful against enemies that can hit you in very quick succession like the Destroyer, the Hardmode worm boss. This is especially important if it allows you to steal more health using certain equipment than lose it due to constant damage from enemies. It can be combined with the Star Cloak as mentioned above.
** Cursed Torches. They're plenty bright, don't go out in water, and one Cursed Flame makes thirty-three torches. On Crimson worlds, there's Ichor torches, which are made just like cursed torches, only slightly brighter.
** Campfires. They only cost wood and torches, take about as much space as a crafting table, and passively accelerate your regeneration. Their effect also stacks with the more powerful Heart Lamp. Handy for various situations.
** The Magic Dagger: Available early on in Hardmode as a common drop from Mimic monsters, you can whip out throwing daggers at a very rapid rate with average knockback. Plus, it only costs 6 mana per dagger before any bonuses, making it a decent backup ranged weapon for non-mage characters.
** Ropes. Introduced in 1.2, they aren't much to look at as tools, but are very helpful. You can combine 10 lengths of Rope into a Coil of Rope that can be thrown to tether it from a distant ledge, use them to help elevate your home base/town off the ground so monsters cannot invade easily, and even use it to "Indian Rope" upwards into the sky in search of Floating Islands. Chains, which function the same or as a crafting component, are the iron/lead-based counterpart to ropes, only you're also able to forge them from ingots. They're really cheap, and can allow you to climb up them and go down them without taking fall damage. Extremely useful until you get wings, which are in Hard mode.
** Unless you're deliberately sticking to a single damage type for a challenge, there's no reason ''not'' to have a Summon with you. Not only is it just a continuous damage output boost, it's great for dealing with mobs while you're trying to build. Having a set of Summoner armor to increase your minion count is practically required if you don't want to be constantly harassed while trying to build outside of the forest biome.
** Yoyos. Early yoyos are relatively cheap to make (the first wooden yoyo costs 10 wood and 20 cobweb) and deal decent damage since they are much more rapid than swords. Their main selling point, however, is that they can be guided around obstacles, letting fragile newbie characters take on hordes of zombies with some patience.
** Iron and Lead. The second tier of the basic metals (next strongest after Copper and Tin), they will actually remain relevant to engineers and mechanism builders well into the late game, despite being less powerful/exotic than, say, Cobalt or Mythril, as you will ''need'' these mundane metals to continue crafting things like Pumps (which you will want in order to make moving liquid around without resorting to a giant stack of buckets possible/less cumbersome), Chains (which are used to make Heart Lanterns and Watches, the latter of which is an important part of making Timers), and Buckets. They're even more indispensable if you plan to make and use minecart tracks, which require iron to forge.
** When there is a Blood Moon, zombies can open your house's doors. You can stop them in two ways: put something behind the door or dig in front of the door so that the zombies cannot reach it.
** Out of all the Expert Mode boss drops, there's the Worm Scarf. It reduces 17% of damage taken. Compared to most of the other pre-hardmode Expert Mode boss items, it sounds rather mundane but it isn't situational (Royal Gel, Hive Pack, Bone Glove, Brain of Confusion). Furthermore, this damage reduction is extremely useful for the increased damage that Expert Mode enemies do.
** The Bug Net. It is used to catch critters, all of which are useful: things like bunnies and birds get you cash (5 rabbits sell for the cost of the Net) and worms, butterflies and fireflies are bait, required to get fish and, indirectly, some very good objects. If you get a Gold critter, you can sell it for 10 gold coins or use it as bait, with the highest fishing value in game.
** Wooden platforms. A simple, semi-solid platform you can jump or fall through with ease. They only require wood to make and don't even need a crafting station. Pretty much every boss strategy begins with the phrase "Build an arena out of wood platforms." There's simply no more cheaper or effective way to put the terrain on your side than several long rows of wood platforms.
** The Crystal Serpent, a hardmode staff that can be obtained by fishing it from the Hallow biome. It's a direct upgrade to the pre-hardmode staffs, and definitely not the most flashy hardmode magic weapon, but its great damage output, ability to deal splash damage, and great mana efficiency makes it easily the most reliable, and can easily carry you all the way up until Duke Fishron.
** Early game, with how squishy your character is until near the end of pre-Hardmode, ranged and thrown weapons help immensely with picking off mobs from afar. Grenades in particular can one-shot most mobs, provided you aren't in the range to also take splash damage as well.
** It's not uncommon to see people go for warding on all their accessories when one gets the Goblin Tinkerer. While the accessories offer a wide variety of stat buffs, warding gives plus four defense for your character. When stacked together with other warding accessories, the extra defense that results can be a godsend for squishier classes like mage and summoner, and with melee armor the character effectively becomes such a StoneWall that even late game bosses have trouble dealing major damage.
** ''Fishing''. One of the most tedious tasks in the game given the fact that it also involves having to deal with the BrattyHalfPint Angler NPC if you want his unique accessory rewards, it is nonetheless not only a major source of ingredients for potions, flasks and food, but also rare tools and weapons that are strong enough to let a player [[SequenceBreaking skip several upgrades to their arsenal]] if diligently performed. However, the biggest advantage of fishing is the acquisition of crates, which contain random accessories, ores, metal bars, money and other items; opening said crates upon reaching Hardmode will randomly yield ''any of the six different Hardmode ores'', allowing a player to bypass having to break Demon Altars for the ores and risk spreading Corruption/Crimson and Hallow as long as they have enough crates in stock. Journey's End somewhat nerfs and buffs this. Crates fished in Pre-Hardmode have been seperated from Crates fished in Hardmode, and as such it's a bit tougher to bypass breaking Demon Altars- you actually have to fish the crates up in Hardmode. On the flipside, the Hardmode Crates will not contain Pre-Hardmode Ores/bars, so you're far more likely to get materials that are worth using from Hardmode crates.
** Out of all the tools at your disposal in the early game, one of the most crucial items to bring with you when spelunking - especially if you're playing as a mediumcore or [[FinalDeathMode hardcore character]] - is simply a piece of any underground trap, which includes active stone blocks, pressure plates, dart traps, etc. At first glance, they appear to be nigh-worthless VendorTrash when you first start out, since the tools for wiring and making contraptions are not available until you reach the dungeon and free a certain NPC, making them functionally useless for the majority of pre-Hardmode... until you realize that, while held as your active item, they possess an inherent property that allows you to ''see the wiring of underground traps,'' which are otherwise [[PixelHunt very difficult to spot.]] Considering [[ScrappyMechanic these traps]] are one of the most common causes of YetAnotherStupidDeath, this is a godsend, as it allows you to scout out danger simply by quick-switching to the trap piece in your hot bar, like a minesweeper of sorts. Furthermore, it negates the need to spend extra time collecting enough resources to make Dangersense potions, the only other reliable way to counter underground traps.
*** Later on in pre-hardmode, once you rescue the Mechanic, you can purchase the Mechanical Lens from her, which acts as an upgraded trap detector, brightly indicating trap wiring even in unlit areas (something most normal mechanical pieces cannot do) while negating the need to keep it highlighted in your hotbar or even equip it as an accessory - all you need to do is have it placed somewhere in your inventory and it activates. It can also be combined using other mechanical accessories into the Grand Design, which does everything the Mechanical Lens does while also allowing you to place and remove said wiring. Once you have either, you never have to worry about falling victim to traps of any sort as long as you're careful.
** Wood is hardly the most exotic or exciting building material in the game. However, it's also easily the most abundant and easily accessible one, as all you need to do to harvest wood is take an axe to one of the several hundred trees on the surface. It also has the benefit of being completely renewable, as felled trees will drop Acorns that can be planted to grow more trees. Wood can also be used to craft platforms without a crafting station, which is an absolute godsend in the early game, where you have no mobility tools, and remains relevant later on when building arenas for bosses or any other project that requires a lot of platforms. Finally, wood is used to make arrows, which you'll need plenty of if you're using bows, and torches, which you'll need plenty of no matter how you play.
* BossBattle: There are upwards of seventeen different bosses as of the 1.4 Update (that's without counting the mini-bosses from the special events).
* BossBonanza: Upon killing the group of cultists outside the dungeon, [[spoiler:the boss battle against the Lunatic Cultist is triggered. Killing him immediately triggers the Lunar Events, four fights against giant floating pillars that constantly summon enemies. After destroying all four of them, the FinalBoss of the game, the Moon Lord, appears after a minute.]]
* BossInMookClothing:
** ''Wyverns''. Thousands of HP, constantly home on you, high attack power, and won't stop pursuing you ''even if you teleport away''. The console version introduces the Arch Wyverns, which are even more powerful.
** 1.2 patch introduces various randomly spawning tough enemies in the Dungeon. Especially deadly is the Paladin, who has more HP than all pre-hardmode bosses bar the Wall of Flesh and the Eater of Worlds, sports a titanic 50 defense (more than 4x that of the Wall's 12), and deals triple digits of damage in melee and a ranged hammer attack that passes through walls.
** The Goblin Summoner of a Hardmode Goblin Invasion has 2000 HP (where all the other goblins have only around 100), moves around a lot, and can shoot powerful shadowflame projectiles. Despite all this, she's only considered a regular enemy, dropping banners instead of trophies.
** Pirate Captains. They look similar to other Pirates, and in the heat of battle, it's easy to not notice a Captain at first. They have 2000 HP and are armed with a machine gun and a cannon.
** The Rune Wizard, an ultra-rare Hardmode enemy found underground. It can not only teleport, but it's also powerful enough to kill most players in a few hits, and has absurdly high contact damage.
** The Ice Golem, a semi-rare monster that only shows up in Hardmode blizzards.
** Eyezor of the Solar Eclipse, a zombie with a single giant eye and loads of health, gets faster as it takes damage, and shoots lasers with increasing frequency as it takes damage, Retinazer style.
** Nailhead of the Solar Eclipse, a [[Franchise/{{Hellraiser}} Pinhead]] expy that sports 4000 HP and sprays nails in all directions when damaged.
** Mothron of the Solar Eclipse, a [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} Mothra]] expy that has 6000 health, flies around to charge into you, and lays eggs that spawn smaller copies of itself.
** The Headless Horseman during the Pumpkin Moon has the highest HP of any non-boss enemy in the game (10,000!).
** The Yeti of the Frost Moon has quite a bit of hit points (3500) but hits for 160 base damage, 30 more than the Headless Horseman.
** The Hallow, Corrupt, and Crimson Mimics are the bigger, stronger brothers of the regular Mimic: They have 3500 HP, are much more aggressive, and can even go through walls, but can drop unique weapons and accessories. You can also spawn them yourself by placing a special key in an empty chest, but you better be prepared before you do so.
* BossWarningSiren: Comes in one of two flavours. When bosses occur naturally they are accompanied by an onscreen message (such as "You feel an evil presence watching you" for the Eye of Cthulhu, or "You feel a quaking deep underground" for the Destroyer) each boss having a unique message so the player can tell which one is coming. When summoned a message saying "(Boss Name Here) Has Awoken!" accompanied by a common boss monster roar. [[spoiler:In addition to an onscreen message, the screen blurs and darkens and the music fades to silence when the Moon Lord is about to appear.]]
* BottomlessMagazines:
** The Endless Quiver and Endless Musket Pouch allow you to use infinite Wooden Arrows and Musket Balls for ammo respectively. Game Mods which add variants for the other arrow and bullet types exist as well.
** Armor crafted from Meteorite bars will give you unlimited use of the Space Gun.
** The Toxikarp, a fish/weapon fished up in Hardmode Corruption, is considered a ranged weapon but requires no ammo at all. Same with the Paintball Gun dropped by the Painter.
* BowAndSwordInAccord: This option is quite feasible, as is TheMusketeer. This tends to work best with the harpoon or other ammoless weapons that count as dealing [[DamageTyping ranged damage]]. Melee specialists can do the same by using boomerangs and similar weapons, as those are distance weapons that count as dealing melee damage.
* BraggingRightsReward:
** As of update 1.2, killing the Dungeon Guardian (you know, that thing that is almost unkillable and instakills you when you touch it) nets you a Baby Skeletron, which is a pet that follows you around and does nothing, but makes you look cool.
** To a lesser extent, a large portion of the available pets count, given how nearly all them require either immense amounts of grinding or seriously unintuitive actions. The Baby Dinosaur, for instance, has a 1 in 5,000 chance of being produced by an Extractinator for every Silt/Slush block you place in it, or a 1 in 1666 chance if using desert fossils.
** Update 1.2 introduces Boss Trophies, which don't do anything for you as equipment, but make great furniture for decorating. Spares can be sold for one gold coin, which is fairly decent.
** Players often display the various armors that can be created as bragging rights.
** The addition of both artwork and hanging banner collectible items can also earn bragging rights for players diligent enough to collect them all.
** Banners are dropped by enemies every 50 kills, and there are banners for almost every enemy, including obscenely rare ones such as the Nymph.
** The Axe, an electric guitar which serves as an axe/hammer with the highest Axe and Hammer power in the game. There is a 2% (0.5% in some versions) chance of Plantera (a boss who's hard to farm due to its random location nature) dropping it. It is only moderately faster than other tools of its type and has +1 to range, neither of which matters when hammers and axes simply don't see as much use as the pickaxe.
** As of 1.3, Achievements have been added. One of them, called "Mecha Mayhem" requires fighting The Destroyer, The Twins and Skeletron Prime simultaneously and emerging victorious.
** One of the two rewards for killing the last boss, [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]], in Expert Mode is an accessory that lets the wearer invert their own gravity at will. Because the player is likely wearing a pair of wings or is riding around in a flying saucer at this point in the game, and because there are craftable potions that grant the same effect as this accessory (and are actually better, since those potions allow inversion in mid air, while the accessory doesn't), this item has no practical purpose. Thankfully the other reward is the best light pet in the game.
** The ultimate armors and weapons dropped by the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] are extremely powerful, being [[InfinityPlusOneSword some of the best in the game.]] However, to get them, it means having to fight the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] and the [[spoiler:Lunar invasion]] several times in order get the materials necessary to make them and/or get the rare drops from the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] and by the time you do get them all, there's nothing else to really use them on and having gone through one of the hardest events in the game ''several times'' to get them all, you've definitely proven you don't ''need'' them, either.
** The Zenith is even moreso than [[spoiler:the Moon Lord's]] drops. It requires several of the most powerful or rare swords in the game ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and the Copper Shortsword]]), such as the Seedler, Terra Blade, Influx Waver, Horseman's Blade, Enchanted Sword, Starfury, and both swords dropped by [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]]. You're rewarded with the best melee weapon in the game that bypasses terrain and slices through anything like butter, but by then you've pretty much completed ''everything''.
** The Master mode, an even more challenging mode added with the Journey's End update, makes all bosses drop relics, which are golden statues of themselves, They will also have a chance to drop items that summon pet versions of themselves. Both the relics and the pet items serve no purpose other than to make your house/character look cool.
** [[https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Terraprisma The Terraprisma]] is the most powerful summoning weapon in the game, even beating out the Stardust Dragon in terms of power. However, it can only be aquired if a player manages to beat the Empress of Light during the daytime; ''when all her attacks would insta-kill the player'' like the Dungeon Guardian would. While it can be useful if you manage to beat her during the day, doing so without cheese tactics is nigh-impossible.
* BrutalBonusLevel:
** Once you kill off Plantera, a whole new set of enemies starts spawning in the Dungeon. If you enter, you can expect hordes of heavily armored skeletons, teleporting mages, giant cursed skulls, spirits that spawn out of dead bodies, and Paladins that have boss-level health and can out damage ''Skeletron Prime''.
** The Old One's army, a tie-in with ''VideoGame/DungeonDefenders 2'', features a seven-wave assault that puts even the Frost Moon to shame. In order to trigger it, you have to buy a platform and summoning crystal which must be placed in an arena that is almost totally flat. The crystal must be protected from enemies that can resist even an endgame character effectively. Triggering it gives the player a debuff that shuts off almost all ability to place blocks (there are a few limited exploits). Even if you do manage to place blocks, the enemies have the ability to go ethereal to pass through them, nor are they affected by conveyor belts. Finally, the ranged attackers have piercing attacks that will hit the crystal regardless of what's in the way.
* BubbleGun:
** Actually a magic weapon in this game. It's also extremely powerful and fires very rapidly, but has short range.
** The Xenopopper, found as a random drop from the Martian Madness event, it creates a bubble that (after a short delay) pops to reveal a shotgun spread of projectiles which will converge at your mouse cursor, making it one of the most accurate ([[DifficultButAwesome albeit mechanically unusual]]) weapons in the game, with or without the [[HomingProjectile homing Chlorophyte Bullets]].
** Duke Fishron uses homing bubbles as an attack.
** 1.3 adds the Toxikarp, a ranged weapon that fires poison bubbles that float upwards and [[BottomlessMagazines doesn't require any ammo]].
* BucketHelmet: You can craft a bucket out of iron or lead, which can be equipped as a helmet, and is worth a grand total of one defense point.
* BullfightBoss: Partially. The Eye bosses use this as a method of attacking frequently in addition to other abilities.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:C-E]]
* CallBack: There are plenty of gameplay elements and progression from Hardmode that mirror similar and equivalents from Pre-Hardmode.
** Mining hardmode ores is a simple and obvious one: Cobalt/Palladium corresponds to Copper/Tin, Mythril/Orichalcum to Iron/Lead, and Adamantite/Titanium to Silver/Tungsten or Gold/Platinum.
** Destroying altars is comparable to smashing Shadow Orbs and Crimson Hearts: both of them give loot and enable progression, at the cost of chipping apart at your world's health, as altars seed more corruption/crimson at random locations while orbs/hearts cause meteorites to fall in the surface, destroying whatever they find.
** Pirate Invasions mirror the Goblin Invasions. Aside from their similar premise, clearing either invasion rewards the player with a new NPC (Goblin Tinkerer for Goblin Invasions, Pirate Captain for Pirate invasions). The invasions also only occur once an altar or orb/heart is broken for the first time.
** Finding mimics is similar to finding a chest, as they both give valuable loot according to the stage (with the variants found in the ice biome giving different loot in both cases). Besides, the special mimics found in the Corruption/Crimson and the Hallow give loot that resembles the one available from Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts: a melee weapon, a ranged weapon (with the Dart Rifle and Dart Pistol being very similar to the Musket and the Undertaker, respectively), a magic weapon, an accessory and an utility item (a light pet and a hook, respectively).
** The three mechanical bosses, besides being obvious parallels to their pre-hardmode counterparts, drop Hallowed Bars, an ore that allows you to get stronger armor and weapons and can't be found in the world naturally. It parallels to how the Eye of Cthulhu and the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu drop Demonite/Crimtane ores - both of them are based on an infectious biome and although can be found naturally, are much faster to acquire by defeating the bosses.
*** The fact that Hallowed weapons require souls from all three mechanical bosses to prevent skipping their fights mirrors how you need Shadow Scales and Tissue Samples from the Eater of Worlds and Brain of Cthulhu to make Demonite/Crimtane weapons and armor, preventing you from farming the Eye of Cthulhu alone to get the tools needed to skip the two bosses.
** Gaining wings is the equivalent of gaining a Cloud in a Balloon and its derivatives or Rocket Boots - they can be both gained by going to sky islands or purchased for a hefty price, and give extra mobility.
** Hunting for Life Fruit is the equivalent of hunting for Life Crystals, although they are much rarer and less efficient.
** The Solar Eclipse is the equivalent of the Blood Moon, though the Solar Eclipse is much more difficult and includes more unique enemies. In fact, a red moon is actually an effect of a real-life ''lunar'' eclipse, making the similarities between the two events all that more obvious.
** Plantera's battle is pretty much the hardmode equivalent of Queen Bee's battle, except the fact that it's mandatory - both of them are summoned by the player destroying their offspring, are summoned in and fought within the Underground Jungle, have unique battle themes (though Queen Bee's is also used for [[FinalBoss Ocram]] in the console version), and give similar loot - such as how Queen Bee gives the Bee Gun, and Plantera gives the Wasp Gun, a direct upgrade. Plantera giving access to the Jungle Temple and unlocking the hardmode Dungeon is also a parallel to how defeating Skeletron gives access to the Dungeon.
** An alternate equivalent to Queen Bee can be found in Duke Fishron. Both bosses are unrelated to progression, found in specific biomes, have names that imply nobility, tend to attack by either charging or shooting smaller life as projectiles (bees for the Queen Bee and sharkrons for Duke Fishron), and drop items that directly relate to their attack methods. Both bosses also have the ability to drop mounts of themselves, though Cute Fishron is restricted to Expert Mode.
** [[spoiler:The Lunatic Cultist's battle is, in an odd way, similar to the Wall of Flesh's fight. Defeating either of them triggers an irreversible change in the world - Lunar Events for the former, Hardmode itself for the latter - which are both very difficult and easy to slaughter the unprepared. Both bosses also require a sacrifice to get them to appear - the Guide for the Wall of Flesh and the other cultists for the Lunatic Cultist.]]
** And lastly, [[spoiler:Destroying the Lunar Pillars is another equivalent to smashing Shadow Orbs and Crimson Hearts - both of them cause your character to go through pain, yield some loot, and spawn an EldritchAbomination when enough of them are destroyed.]]
* {{Cap}}: The game has caps for how many items and stats:
** For items, Blocks and Ammunition have the highest cap of 999.
** {{Mana}}'s maxiumum capacity is capped at 400, with boosts from items.
* CapeWings: Due to their sprites occupying the same slot, if a player equips a cape and wings at the same time, the cape will show on the ground, but be overridden with wings when the player goes into the air.
* CarFu: Ramming into an enemy with a minecart will inflict damage if the minecart is travelling fast enough. There's an achievement for killing an enemy this way.
* CarryingTheAntidote: A lot of monsters inflict various nasty status conditions. However, they have a small chance of dropping an item that gives you immunity to their respective debuffs. Even better, you can combine several of them into one item for maximum immunity.
* CastFromHitPoints: The Rod of Discord allows you to TeleportSpam at will, but using it too often causes it to take a significant chunk of health.
* CastFromMoney: The Coin Gun will shoot coins at enemies, dealing damage depending on the value of the coin.
* ChainsawGood: When you have access to Cobalt/Palladium, Mythril/Orichalcum, Adamantite/Titanium, or Chlorophyte, you can make chainsaws. Like most axes in the game, they make good impromptu weapons. As of the Fishing Update, you can also fish up a Chainsaw ''Shark'' and use it as such. The Butcher of the Solar Eclipse wields a chainsaw, and occasionally drops the Butcher's Chainsaw, which is not only the strongest chainsaw, but also releases damaging sparks when it hits an enemy.
* CharacterClassSystem: While not in the traditional sense, the game still has this in a sense. Weapons have different damage types ranging from melee, magic, summon, ranged, and even thrown damage. While it's possible for a character to use them all, most armor has a SetBonus that increases damage and other buffs that support each damage type. As such, it's often best to focus on each one specifically, with one or two odd weapons of other types to cover the sets weaknesses.
* ChargedAttack: Both the Charged Laser Blaster and Medusa Head can be charged up to perform much stronger attacks, at the cost of using more Mana.
* CherryTapping: The game introduced Snowballs as a 'throwing weapon', though they generally do piddly damage and even the Snowball Cannon is hardly any danger. The thing is, given the way the game calculates damage, any hit still does at least one point of damage to a target, and the most important hit point is [[CriticalExistenceFailure the last]]. It's possible to pelt a target with 'harmless' 1-damage snowballs until they [[LudicrousGibs explode in a gory spray]].
* ChestMonster: Mimics show up in Hardmode, dropping fairly useful accessories but being reasonably tough to somebody who just started Hardmode. The 1.3 Update adds Hallow/Corruption/Crimson Mimic minibosses which are stronger and have unique loot drops. Unlike normal Mimics, these can be summoned with craftable keys and an empty chest. Pre-Hardmode, it's possible to summon normal Mimics through the use of a chest statue, but these won't drop any loot.
* TheChewToy: The Guide. He must be killed each time you want to summon the Wall of Flesh, and since the Wall has roughly half a dozen possible drops, you're going to be doing it quite a bit. The developers even showed a pic using him as a guinea pig for testing the new conveyor belt in 1.3.1... [[http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?profile-posts/175781/ by using the conveyor belt to throw him to the lava]].
* ChristmasElves: The game has an army of elves in the Frost Moon event. Some know archery, others ride helicopters shooting a [[GatlingGood Gatling gun]] at you, and there's even [[NonHumanUndead a zombie variation]].
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: The only thing "intrinsic" to characters is how many hit points and mana points they have, so you can start a new character and immediately make him Death, Destroyer of Worlds by giving him your old character's gear.
* CobwebJungle: {{Giant Spider}}s lurk in mini biomes riddled with continuously regenerating cobwebs.
* CognizantLimbs:
** Skeletron and Skeletron Prime's limbs. They attack the player on their own when in range separate from the main head and can be destroyed by the player.
** The Golem's fists. They launch out at the player on their own while the rest of the boss shoots fire balls, lasers, and jumps at the player.
** [[spoiler:The Moon Lord's]] eyes and hands also have separate HP bars and will attack viciously if another part is destroyed.
* ColdFlames: The Frostburn effect, which the player can utilize with several icy items: the Flower of Frost, frostburn arrows, the Amarok (an icy [[KillerYoYo yoyo]]), and the set bonus of the Frost Armor.
* CollisionDamage: The bulk of enemies will run into the player to do damage to them.
* ColorCodedItemTiers: [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Rarity Rarity]], a statistic applying to all items, that loosely indicates their value and the difficulty with which they are obtained. An item's Rarity is indicated in-game by the color of its name text, as displayed, for example, when rolling the cursor over the item in an inventory slot. An item's Rarity can be raised or lowered by up to two tiers depending on its Modifier. There are 13 tiers of Rarity which go from gray (the lowest) to purple (the highest), plus two special tiers not normally available (rainbow, exclusive to expert-mode items, and amber, exclusive to quest items).
* ColorCodedMultiplayer: In multiplayer, the Dye Trader sells special team dye that changes the color your equipment to your team's color if you're on one. The Stylist sells team hair dye that makes your hair change color in much the same way.
* ColorCodedStones: The game includes purple amethysts, yellow topaz, blue sapphires, green emeralds, red rubies and white diamonds, which can be made into robes, staves and phaseblades of the same color; the value, rarity and the quality of items crafted with those gems are in that same order (as in a diamond magic staff or grappling hook is superior to a ruby one). Orange amber can also be found but only by putting silt, slush or desert fossils into an Extractinator.
* ConcealedCustomization: The game allows you to choose a hairstyle and hair color (sometimes with facial hair) for your character. It even lets you use the entire 24-bit color spectrum to do so. But once you get that first helmet, kiss that hair goodbye (including the facial hair), as there's only one sprite for each equipped helmet and that sprite has no hair. Fortunately averted once the Clothier arrives and sells you an item that conceals your helmet.
* ConjoinedTwins: There's a boss literally named "The Twins" that takes the form of two giant eyeballs. A band of flesh runs between them when they're close together, but this is purely cosmetic and they still have free movement.
* ContinuingIsPainful: The game is similar to ''Minecraft'', with differences between difficulty levels:
** Softcore mode: You only drop a percentage of the money you're currently carrying. [[note]]It's half of each type of coin, rounded down to a minimum of 1, so you can lose anywhere from just under half of your money to nearly all of it.[[/note]] It's quite easy to avoid this, by keeping all your money stored in a chest or a safe, as your money isn't needed when you're exploring.
** Medium-core mode: You drop everything you're carrying, including items. This can be problematic if you managed to die while deep underground, as the items might be very difficult to reacquire (or might be even lost forever if you happened to drop them in lava). Update 1.3 added a big red X on the minimap to show where you died last, to make it easier to find your dropped items.
** Hardcore mode: FinalDeath. Everything you were carrying or wearing, everything in your safe and piggy bank, and all your mana and health upgrades are lost forever. However, you can create a new character in the same world, and retrieve anything you had stored in a chest.
* ContractualBossImmunity: Mostly Averted. The majority of bosses are vulnerable to debuffs, proper use of which can make them much easier. The Destroyer is an exception, being immune to all debuffs. The [[TrueFinalBoss Moon Lord]] is another exception, having a tentacle that causes the moon bite debuff, which keeps LifeDrain attacks from working. If you can outrun the tentacle however, you can use them.
* ConvectionSchmonvection:
** The player can survive in a full suit of heavy armor near lava or exposure to fire just fine. Even the various fire weapons do not cause damage by exposure to heat but strictly on contact with the item in question.
** You can carry lava around in iron buckets. And lava doesn't damage wooden blocks or walls, just wooden platforms, and it only knocks them out of place, allowing you to pick them up and place them back afterwards. You can even craft glass blocks and walls ''with lava inside'' that won't melt and spill it all over the place (although, since these are crafted with a Crystal Ball, there's presumably [[AWizardDidIt magic]] involved).
* CoolGuns:
** The Minishark's tooltip describes it as "Half shark, half gun, completely awesome". There is also a hardmode variant called the Megashark and [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] has an 11.11% chance to drop the Space Dolphin Machine Gun. Finally, the Travelling Merchant has a chance to sell the Gatligator in Hardmode, which is basically a Megashark but [[InfinityMinusOneSword easier to obtain and with lower accuracy]].
** As for guns not based on aquatic life, there's the Onyx Blaster, which is a combination of shotgun and energy cannon. Later on in the game, you can get the Vortex Beater, an alien machine gun that also shoots homing missiles. Even some of the more mundane ones, like the Venus Magnum and Undertaker, at least look cool.
* CoolHelmet: Many of them look cool to wear, especially the hardmode helmets.
* CoolShades:
** Demon Eyes have a very low chance to drop a dark lens, which can be used to craft these. If you wear them, the sun gets a pair, too!
** A hardcore character opening a Treasure Bag dropped by the Eye of Cthulhu will find 0x33's Aviators, vanity headwear that the devs created to honor a Terraria streamer.
* CoOpMultiplayer: Built from the ground up to support it. It can make fighting some particularly tough bosses easier, though it should be noted that the game scales up difficulty based on how many players are in a world.
* CouchGag: When the game is in windowed mode one of a number of silly subtitles will be displayed next to the title, such as "Terraria: [[VideoGame/BarkleyShutUpAndJamGaiden Shut Up and Dig Gaiden]]!"; "Terraria: [[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} There Is No Cow Layer]]"; and "Terraria: [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Terraria: Terraria:]]"
* CounterAttack: With the Brand of the Inferno, if the player raises their shield a split-second before taking a hit, they'll nullify the attack and gain a buff that greatly increases the power of their next Melee attack for a couple seconds.
* CrapsaccharineWorld:
** Terraria ''looks'' friendly and cheery, but you will quickly learn otherwise. Undead roam the land at night and are constantly active underground, and a land disease called the Corruption is filled with many an EldritchAbomination as it slowly consumes all in its path. And this is to say nothing of the bosses, ''[[UpToEleven especially]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Wall of Flesh]].''
** The Corruption's SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute, the Crimson, is even worse. See BloodyBowelsOfHell above.
** Unless you install elaborate quarantine measures before defeating the Wall of Flesh, your entire world is doomed to become a mixture of two different Crapsack Worlds in hardmode: the Corruption[=/=]Crimson is still there and made harder, and then there's also "[[LightIsNotGood The Hallow]]" which plays CrapsaccharineWorld much more straight.
** To be more precise, The Hallow is a biome filled with pearly sands and stones, pretty cyan grass, trees in all colours of the rainbow, constant actual rainbow in the background, populated with pixies and unicorns who will ''murder you with extreme prejudice''.
* CrazyPrepared:
** Players can invoke this when they do a lot of prep work before boss fights, such as setting up an arena with wooden platforms you can jump around on. While it does take a long time to set up such things, it can often mean the difference between dying repeatedly, or the boss being a walk in the park, to the point that fighting a boss unprepared borders on SelfImposedChallenge.
** On a similar note, preparing one area with traps for the goblin/pirate invasions will make the otherwise long slugfest easier, such as setting a lava trap to force them to walk on it to get to you on both sides. If you build it correctly, virtually all of the invaders will die before even reaching you. If you're worried about the safety of your [=NPCs=], you can build your house/fortress high in the sky, or well away from the center of the map. You can also build said traps far away from where your house is, and the enemy will follow/spawn near wherever you're at.
** Players who are savvy to the way the Corruption and Crimson spreads can cordon off sections of their world in order to minimise the spread, and can also deliberately induce Hallow to the landscape to protect certain biomes, like the Jungle.
* CreepyCemetery: The Graveyard mini-biome is a player made one, in the sense that it's made when the tombstones of dead players are placed next to each other. In the Graveyard, the sky turns dark, a thick fog covers the ground, and mobs that otherwise only spawn at night can spawn at day, such as zombies. NPCs in the graveyard will sell unique items, and you can even craft special items in it.
* CreepyCentipedes: Crawltipedes fought at the Solar Pillar. They fly around, ignoring grounded players, but [[AntiAir as soon as a player goes airborne]] they rapidly home in like a missile on crack, dealing incredible CollisionDamage to them ''per hit''. And like [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Moldorm]], their only weak spot is [[AttackTheTail the tail]].
* CriticalHit: Each weapon has a chance of inflicting one for double damage.
* CriticalHitClass: With the right equipment and accessory modifiers, you can boost your critical hit chance to around 70%, making attacks that much more devastating.
* CriticalStatusBuff:
** The Frozen Turtle Shell provides a 25% damage reduction once a player drops below half health.
** The Cute Fishron, an Expert Mode mount, gains a huge speed boost (turning it into the fastest mount in the game) and provides the player with 15% more damage once the player is below half health.
* {{Crossover}}:
** The 1.2.4 update had a crossover with ''VideoGame/PixelPiracy'', introducing several pirate-themed items.
** The 1.3.4 update was one big crossover with ''[[VideoGame/DungeonDefenders Dungeon Defenders 2]]'', complete with a tower-defense-style invasion event featuring Etherian enemies and bosses, and piles of weapons and armor as rewards. ''Dungeon Defenders 2'', in turn, received its own ''Terraria''-themed crossover update.
* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption:
** You're gonna have to sacrifice your Guide by dunking a Voodoo Doll of him in the lava pools of the Netherworld if you want to summon the boss that allows you to progress into Hardmode.
** Likewise, repeat battles with Skeletron require using the Clothier's voodoo doll to kill him.
** Ditto if you want to "rename" [=NPC=]s.
%%** If you want the oh-so valuable PDA (and, by extension, the Cell Phone), you're going to need all of its components, which include the three items acquired from the Angler's quests. Doing those quests means you're giving the Angler fodder to pull mean-spirited pranks on the other resident [=NPCs=].
* {{Cumulonemesis}}: The Angry Nimbus, a Hardmode enemy that spawns only during rain, tries to harm players with a rain attack. They have a small chance of dropping a Nimbus Rod, which allows players to create raining clouds of their own.
* CursedWithAwesome: The Clothier, after you save him, still can use Shadowflame to defend himself.
* CuteMonsterGirl: The [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpies]]. Despite their appearances, though, they are otherwise the hateful creatures you would expect them to be. There are also "Lost Girls" who turn out to be vicious Nymphs.
* DamageIncreasingDebuff: Broken Armor, Withered Armor and Ichor reduce defense, causing attacks to deal more damage.
* DamageReduction: Defense essentially acts as this- for every 2 points in Defence (1.5 in expert), the player or enemy takes one less damage from attacks. Attacks will still inflict [[ScratchDamage at least one point of damage]], however.
* DamageSpongeBoss:
** The King Slime is essentially just a larger and much rarer blue slime. Its only attack is to slowly hop at you. In 1.3, the King Slime was given the ability to teleport to your position if it can't reach you, meaning you can't cheese the fight by sitting in a hole in the ground any more.
** The Destroyer has more health than anything in the game save the final boss, despite being one of the first three hardmode bosses. This is balanced out by all of its sections sharing a single health pool, so it loses health faster than a single, non-composite entity would.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory:
** Intentional steps seem to have been taken to avert this for immigrating ''Minecraft'' players; the WASD controls map intuitively, and even the discard button is in the same place.
** There is the fact that destroying items and placing them are the same button but it depends on the item/tool held.
** ESC brings up the inventory and the option to quit or change teams, while the E key brings up the inventory in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', although fortunately, there's a control config, so you can map map the inventory to F, E, or whatever you want.
** Unfortunately for seasoned ''Minecraft'' players, Shift-clicking an item will put it in the inventory's Trash slot, permanently deleting any item already there, where in ''Minecraft'' it quickly transfers items between hotbar and inventory, and to and from containers. It's easy to delete several important items before realizing the mistake.
*** This oversight has been fixed as of 1.3.0.3.
*** And as of 1.4, the default buttons for trashing items is Ctrl-click, which is also helpful for when you want to trash items but you're also opening a chest (previously, Shift-click is used for both trashing items and putting them in chests, if you're opening one, or to sell items to [=NPCs=]).
** Since 1.1, the control for throwing a held item (not in inventory) has been changed.
** The default keyboard "drop" key is T in ''Terraria'', while in ''Minecraft'' T is the chat key. Now, enter a multiplayer server...
** In 1.2 the Mana Regeneration key has been changed to J, with the map now being allocated to M, Unless you have a Mana Flower, You'll be accidentally pulling up the map every time you want to use a magical weapon for extended periods of time
* DarkReprise: The Underground Corruption theme is a trippy, sinister remix of the Corruption theme combined with elements from the regular Underground theme. The Underground Crimson theme is an even more creepy and sinister remix than the Underground Corruption, combining the Crimson theme with the Underground theme.
* {{Deadly Disc}}s: The boomerang-class weapons, the Thorn Chakram, Fruitcake Chakram, and Light Discs.
* DeadlyDustStorm: The 1.3.3 update adds sandstorms as an event that may randomly happen in a desert biome. While it lasts, a strong wind pushes the player, and special enemies appear (such as sand sharks and sand elementals).
* DeathFromAbove:
** The Starfury, Star Cloak (and all accessories crafted from it) and Holy Arrows are all gear that can summon falling stars to ravage the battlefield.
** Also, at night stars will randomly fall through the land, instantly killing any monster on the way and, with some luck, severely damaging bosses.
** When mining straight down, it's not uncommon for monsters to spawn out of sight above you and dive down the mineshaft.
** Players can trigger a trap that drops a boulder upon you and cannot be survived without decent gear, making it literal Death from Above.
** Various flying or jumping enemies utilize their mobility to deliver attacks from on high.
** The players can use cannons to rain fire on enemies.
** There are any number of situations where the players will find themselves at the mercy of an enemy attacking them from above.
** At least two traps found in the Lihzahrd Temple come from above. The Spiky Ball Trap which rains bounding spiked balls from above and the spear trap which shoots out spears that stab from above.
** The player can do this once they acquire the Blizzard Staff and/or the North Pole. Both can be manipulated to wipe the screen of enemies due to their endgame-tier damage.
** The Lunar Flare. Similar to the Blizzard Staff, except that it has even higher damage, block-penetrating ability, and can be manipulated to hit a specific or general area of the screen.
* DeathIsCheap:
** Subtly [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] with the [=NPCs=] as they respawn, but it's a different [=NPC=] with a different name [[InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals that just happens to look the same and do the same job]].
** The penalty for dying in softcore mode is loss of coins, though it may not seem cheap if a player loses a piece of platinum or two. The upside is that players can attempt to recover their lost coins, mitigating the loss. Unless the player's coins fall into lava and are destroyed.
** Medium core causes loss of inventory items and, much like the lost coins, can possibly be reclaimed unless they fall into lava. Fortunately, most of the rarer items [[AntiFrustrationFeatures can tolerate a dunk in lava no problem]].
** Averted for hardcore players. Should you die, you're KilledOffForReal, and while you can wander around the map as a ghost, upon exiting the world that character gets deleted. And since leaving a world destroys any items that are left lying around, you can't get your equipment back, either.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: The only way to bring down the Dungeon Guardian, as his defense reduces all damage to 1.
* DeathWorld: Don't let the colorful, 2D graphics deceive you—the randomly-created worlds are Death Worlds, one and all. Killer slime can be found in the safest environments. Vultures, sharks, hornets bigger than you are, killer bats, and even piranhas await you above ground. Razor-sharp feather-slinging harpies inhabit the upper atmosphere. The underground is filled with skeletons, killer roots, vampire bats, and far enough down, demons. The hills and caverns are steep enough that you can die from fall damage just by traversing the terrain, not to mention the risks of drowning or falling into pits of lava. Meteors and Hellstone will burn to the touch unless you've built a charm to ward them off. Legions of zombies and enormous, disembodied eyes will pound at your door all night, every night. Eventually, an army of goblins will descend upon you with little warning. And every night has a chance for the Blood Moon to rise, increasing the number and might of the zombies, and turning even the harmless bunnies of the wilderness into walking horrors. The first instructions you get upon starting the game are on "surviving your first night."
* DemBones: The list of skeletal enemies in the game goes as follows: the Skeleton, the much tougher Angry Bones, the Dark Caster, Tim, the Undead Miner, the flying Cursed Skull (and the Dragon Skull on the console version), the burrowing Bone Serpent, the Armored Skeleton, the tougher Heavy Skeleton, the Skeleton Archer, Skeletron, formerly the game's toughest boss, and his mecha-version, Skeletron Prime. You spend a ''lot'' of time battling skeletons in this game. Version 1.2 introduces skeletal Necromancers, Tactical Skeletons, Bone Lee, and Skeleton Commandos, as well as others.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment:
** Before a fix, there was a an [=NPC=] during Christmas called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Santa Claus the Santa Claus]].
** Due to the way item reforging works, you can end up with:
*** Demonic Demon Scythe
*** Demonic Demon Bow
*** Armored Armor Polish
*** Spiked Shoe Spikes
*** Lucky Lucky Horseshoe
*** Lucky Lucky Coin
*** Deadly Deadly Sphere Staff
*** Hurtful Ball O' Hurt
** One of the possible splash texts you can get at the top of the game window is "Terraria: Terraria: Terraria:"
* DepletedPhlebotinumShells: While better ranged weapons do more damage, so does better ammunition. As you fight increasingly stronger enemies, wooden arrows and plain musket balls won't be enough. Players will soon find themselves creating or looking for [[AbnormalAmmo Jester's Arrows]] and [[SilverBullet Silver Bullets]]. Once you hit Hardmode, players begin to look forward to [[KillItWithFire Cursed Flame Rounds]], or even crystal shards to make ''fragmentation rounds''. 1.2 ups the ante of unique rounds such as explosive bullets, [[HomingProjectile chlorophyte bullets]], high-velocity rounds, nano bullets (confusion), venom bullets, ichor bullets, [[BlingBlingBang golden bullets]] and confetti bullets just to name a few. Yes, it ''is'' as cool as it sounds.
* DepthPerplexion: Fire Imps and caster-type enemies can throw fireballs in front of blocks, but most of your projectiles get blocked by them.
* DestructibleProjectiles: The Dark Caster, Fire Imp, Goblin Sorcerer, and Tim create wall-penetrating projectiles that are coded as {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** Many of the bosses are bits of Cthulhu (such as the Brain or Eye) or have titles that convey some kind of eldritch power.
** Then there's the TrueFinalBoss as of 1.3, [[spoiler:where this can done quite literally with The Moon Lord, aka Cthulhu himself.]]
* DifficultButAwesome:
** In General:
*** Expert Mode, of course. All the enemies are insanely buffed (not to mention can steal your money) and the bosses are much harder to kill, but in exchange some of your equipment becomes more effective, everything drops more loot, and you can get expert-exclusive items from the bosses.
*** Crimson Worlds. While the Crimson's enemies are often considered harder than the Corruption's, and the boss is much more confusing and deadly, the weapons you can get from it are generally much more effective (read: Crimson Armor and Golden Shower).
** For Weapons:
*** Flails can be incredibly fiddly to use and awkward to aim, but once you master them, especially the Dao of Pow, you can become almost unstoppable. They pierce foes, rebound, and deal lingering damage around the ball head, making them incredibly deadly against larger and/or segmented foes. The second-best damaging flail, the Dao of Pow, also has a chance of confusing enemies. The Flower Pow does slightly more damage and its flower (which is the spiked ball) shoots petals at nearby mobs as long as it is out.
*** The Star Cannon in Pre-Hardmode. It deals absolutely ridiculous damage and pierces, but requires Fallen Stars as ammo, which are incredibly hard to get a large supply of. If you farm enough though, you will be able to easily demolish even the Wall of Flesh, and it can even be used effectively on Hardmode bosses.
*** The Coin Gun is normally an AwesomeButImpractical money waster. However, if you only shoot Silver Coins, it can become a completely self-sufficient weapon, easily making back the money it shoots. Shooting Silver Coins, however, is trickier than it sounds, and requires constant attention to your coin count.
*** Yoyo-class weapons introduced in 1.3 have some major drawbacks: limited spin time [[labelnote:Explanation]]except for endgame yoyos, which have unlimited spin time[[/labelnote]], lack of auto-swing to re-release them when they wind back, and relatively small hitboxes. This is balanced out by the fact that they deal continuous contact damage like flails but with much greater control, they follow your mouse cursor so you can easily track enemies until the yo-yo retracts, and their small hitbox combined with mouse control allows you to guide them around corners and even through 1-block wide holes, allowing you to attack from behind cover. They also have a number of accessories that improve their usability [[labelnote:Explanation]]like Counterweights that add more orbiting projectiles, the Yoyo Glove that can cause a second yoyo to be deployed when you attack a monster, and the Yoyo String that improves the reach of your yoyo[[/labelnote]], and all of them can be combined together into the Yoyo Bag to save equipment slots. Once you're kitted out and fully-familiarized with Yoyos, they can easily rival or even surpass Flails under certain conditions.
*** Pre-hardmode, grenades can deal out insane damage against enemies, but will only trigger if they make contact. It's easy to accidentally miss a lot (or even worse, blow yourself up), but if you have good aim, they can rack up damage against enemies and bosses at a very quick rate.
* DifficultySpike: The jump from regular to hardmode will generally kill all but the most prepared players, as even the best weapons from before barely scratch the new enemies found everywhere.
* DirectionallySolidPlatforms: Wooden platforms which can be crafted. Players can jump up through them like it's nothing, and walk across them fine, or choose to drop through by pressing down. Some monsters are also incapable of passing downwards through them.
* DiscountCard: Present as a rare drop during pirate invasions; equip it as an accessory to get 20% off on all purchases. Normally it wouldn't be anything too major, but it also applies to [[LuckBasedMission the Goblin Tinkerer's prices for reforging equipment]], and there are some items completely unique to [=NPC=] vendors such as purification powder, yellow pressure plates (a unique variant of pressure plate not found in a game world), and certain crafting stations. There are also items that are findable but rare, like bullets, making a Discount Card very handy for maintaining an inventory. The Discount Card can be combined with a Coin Ring (itself a combination of a Lucky Coin and Gold Ring) in order to create the Greedy Ring, which gives enemies a chance to drop extra money when hit and attracts dropped coins in a wider radius in addition to reducing shop prices.
* DiskOneFinalBoss: The Wall of Flesh is the strongest boss until you realize that killing it is going to turn the surface into a mixture of [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]] and CrapsaccharineWorld roamed by twisted, powerful creatures...
* DiskOneNuke:
** Shuriken can be bought very early in the game as soon as the Merchant shows up. The merchant is usually the second [=NPC=] to appear in the player's house. Shuriken are inexpensive, do decent damage, have high attack speed, high range, go through any enemy they hit, hitting large enemies twice or three times in the process, and have a chance to be able to be recovered and used again.
** {{Molotov Cocktail}}s. With a little Sand, Stone, Wood, Gel, Cobwebs, and Iron, you can make these fairly early. [[labelnote:Crafting information]]Use the Iron to make some Chains, which can be used to make a Sawbench, which gives you access to the Keg and Loom. Smelt the Sand into Glass, shape it into Mugs with a Stone Furnace, and then fill them at the Keg, spin the webs into Silk with the Loom, and craft some Torches with the wood and Gel by hand. Each piece of Silk and Torch for every ten mugs of Ale makes ten Molotovs.[[/labelnote]] They do a ''lot'' of damage for the early game, and the only consumable ingredients you need for the molotovs themselves are the wood, gel, sand, and cobwebs. [[labelnote:Material hints]]Woods can be farmed by planting trees, Sand can be generated by either using Antlions that spit Sand Blocks, or by using the Sandgun to fire Sand Blocks while using ammo-saving equipment and buffs, gel can be farmed from Slimes and Slime Statues, and Cobwebs spawn endlessly inside Spider's Lair Biomes underground.[[/labelnote]] These improvised firebombs make short work of pretty much every monster and even some bosses before you enter Hardmode. The 1.3 Big Update adds Pink Gel to the ingredient list and reduces the raw damage, but molotovs still remain a powerful tool in pre-hardmode Terraria.
** The floating islands early on. You could find the indispensable, fall-damage-removing Lucky Horseshoe, the [[DeathFromAbove powerful Starfury]], or the jump-improving Shiny Red Balloon, as well as large amounts of Gold/Silver ore, from which you could make better armour out of in the early game. This is partially balanced out now by the existence of the harpy enemies who spawn at that level and attack player as long as they are up that high. 1.2 makes it even more worthwhile to raid Floating Islands, as you can now harvest ''actual clouds'' and Skyware deco furniture and bricks in addition to the loot in the chests.
** The Extractinator makes amassing ore and gems pre-hardmode practically effortless, as the extremely common slush and silt blocks tend to spawn in massive veins that are easy to clear out. Not only does it make getting some of the best armor and weapons early game easy but it also drops coins, up to and including the ''extremely'' rare ''platinum coins'', essentially making money a non-issue until hardmode. This is balanced out by the fact that the Extractinator can only be found in underground desert shacks, which can be [[BeefGate hard to navigate early on]] but once you do find one, the early game becomes significantly easier.
** Christmas Presents and Halloween Goodie Bags can give a serious head start to any player's arsenal, in addition to seasonal random drops. Getting, say, the Red Ryder rifle from a present even ''before'' you go Underground for the first time is entirely possible, as is randomly getting the Machete from some mook at a similar time.
** Daring players can wade into the Ocean in hopes of finding a Water Chest with a Trident inside. That trident, with all the benefits of the Spear class of melee weapons, will have enough attack power to last you a good while in pre-hardmode Terraria. If you're even more prepared, you can even bring a Recall Potion (that is easily found in Surface wooden chests) and teleport straight out of the sea before you run out of breath and escape mostly unscathed with your loot.
** If you're canny enough to survive in the Marble Cave mini-biome, Hoplites drop Javelins, which are strong throwing weapons for the early game and are dropped in large stacks.
** If you're lucky enough to find an Enchanted Sword Shrine underground, it has a chance of dropping an Enchanted Sword, a powerful beam-shooting melee weapon that is capable of carrying you through to Hardmode. If you're even luckier, it can also drop the rapid-slashing Arkhalis.
** Fishing can net you several helpful items as soon as you can get some bait and a rod together. In addition to items you can fish up (such as potion ingredients, explosive Bomb Fish, and a jump-enhancing Balloon Pufferfish), you can also get crates, which can contain further items like the Tsunami in a Bottle, which grants a second jump, or the Falcon Blade, a fast and powerful (if somewhat short) sword you can get well before you can craft anything that surpasses it, and if you hold off on opening a few crates until hardmode, you can get a fair bit of hardmode ores before you even break any of the alters, possibly ending up with the best set of armor and weapons as soon as you start hardmode if you're lucky. Fishing in the Ocean biome may nab you a Reaver Shark, a very powerful (pre-Hardmode-wise) pickaxe that can mine the first set of Hardmode ores.
*** Adding on to this, finding the Flower Boots in the jungle further increases the power of fishing since it gives you access to a near unlimited supply of bait. Combined with a small patch of jungle grass blocks and something to constantly destroy the grass the Flower Boots grows on it such as flares from a flare gun, you can get a large amount of jungle variety bugs for bait. One of them, "buggy" deserves special mention since it has a base fishing power of ''40'', just ten points under some of the best fish baits in the game without being rare such as golden bugs or an Angler reward.
** Ice Golems can be fought as soon as you enter Hardmode and enter a blizzard. They drop the Frost Staff, a decent magic weapon, Ice Feather, which are used to craft high-tier Frozen Wings, and Frost Core, which, with Adamantite, Titanium or Hallowed Bars (depending on the world and game version), allows you to craft Frost Armor.
** If you're lucky enough with dungeon spawns, it's possible to get a Water Bolt fairly early on, above the danger line in the Dungeon where the Guardian would promptly spawn to kill you. The Water Bolt is a great magic weapon that bounces off of walls for a set number of bounces. With a proper arena to abuse this, it can absolutely ''shred'' through bosses and is great for crowd control early game.
** If you're good enough and dodging corruption/crimson mobs, you can sneak down into the respective biomes to smash one of the orbs, which in turn lets meteors start spawning. The meteor set is a great early game armor and its set bonus, the space gun costs no mana, is ''amazing'' early game, allowing you to tear through mobs and bosses rather handedly.
** Eaters of Souls in the Corruption have a small chance of dropping Ancient Shadow Armor, which is functionally identical to the Shadow Armor crafted with drops from the Eye of Cthulhu and Eater of Worlds and outclasses almost any armor you can craft early on. If you're good at dealing with the Eaters and get a bit lucky, you can basically get the entire Shadow Armor set without having to fight a single boss.
** The Slimy Saddle, a relatively common (25% in Normal mode, 50% chance in Expert) drop from [[WarmupBoss King Slime]]. It allows you to ride a friendly blue Slime; while riding the slime, the player is immune to fall damage, can GoombaStomp enemies, and is a fair bit faster than the usual un-augmented run speed. Furthermore, once you get a Double Jump, you can reach ridiculous heights by using it while riding the mount. Savvy players can use the Slime's bouncing goomba stomp ability to literally ride bosses and tough enemies. If you happen to have obtained a gun, bow or boomerang, you can freely continue to attack them as you do so, allowing you to rack up absurd damage numbers in a very short timespan, or even ride the Eye of Cthulhu into the stratosphere by repeatedly stomping off of it. It renders every pre-hardmode boss but the biome-restricted Queen Bee a joke, and it remains an incredibly helpful mount even into Hard Mode, as long as the player is smart about using it.
** The Worm Scarf, a guaranteed drop from the Eater Of Worlds' treasure bag in Expert mode. It gives you a flat ''17% damage reduction,'' no strings attached. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the Eater Of Worlds is definitely tougher than its' Crimson counterpart, and is second only to [[DiskOneFinalBoss Skeletron]] in terms of pre-Hardmode challenge. That being said, the Scarf remains invaluable throughout the entire game, and the Eater is still one of the easier bosses overall. Even players who are focusing on a Crimson world often take the time to make a Corruption world exclusively to get the Scarf.
** The Jester's Arrows and the Frostburn Arrows can be produced cheaply from the start of the game, and remain some of the better ranged options available until shortly into Hard Mode. The Jester's Arrow penetrates enemies, does solid damage, and lights up its' path of travel; it can even be used for locating caves and ore veins underground. The Frostburn Arrow is not as useful against basic enemies, but it is very strong against bosses, being able to inflict the Frostburn debuff - essentially a more potent version of the On Fire! debuff. The Jester's Arrow becomes even more invaluable in [[HarderThanHard Expert and Master modes]], where getting any weaponry that surpasses them is much easier said than done.
** The Boomstick can be obtained from the Underground Jungle as soon as the player is either skilled or strong enough to dig deep and find one. It is hands-down one of the best pre-hardmode weapons you'll be able to get your hands on, eviscerating anything that gets into close range in mere seconds. The challenge is surviving the brutal gauntlet of murder that is the Underground Jungle long enough to ''find'' one, as they're fairly rare.
* DoppelgangerSpin:
** The Lunatic Cultist will occasionally summon copies that, if struck, will cause an extra minion to be summoned. Certain visual cues allow you to pick out the real one.
** In Expert mode, Brain of Cthulhu will create three illusionary copies of itself in its second phase to confuse the player as it charges. They start out transparent to make them easy to tell apart, but as its health gets lower, the copies become solid and harder to distinguish from the real one.
* DoubleJump:
** A Cloud in a Bottle allows you to double jump. Doing so will also negate fall damage if done near the bottom of a long fall. Version 1.2 adds more Elements In A Bottle, a Blizzard and a Sandstorm, which are improved versions of the Cloud. You can combine these items with the Shiny Red Balloon to get even better jumps, and them fuse them all together into a Bunch of Balloons to get a ''quadruple'' jump, and combine ''that'' with the Fart in a Bottle/Balloon to get a ''quintuple'' jump. Version 1.3 adds the Tsunami in a Bottle, which can be combined with a Balloon Pufferfish to get the Sharkron Balloon, which will let you achieve ''six'' midair jumps. Watch out for fall damage though. Or, don't, if you have a Lucky Horseshoe equipped.
** There's also the unicorn mount, which has a double jump of its own, bringing the potential number of jumps up to a whopping ''seven''.
* DropTheHammer:
** Much like axes, hammers are not particularly strong as they are intended as tools, but can be used as weapons if necessary.
** Hamaxes, items that combine the functionality of hammers and axes, are more effective weapons and can be used to defend yourself while shaping terrain or chopping down trees.
** The Paladin's Hammer is a powerful thrown hammer weapon. The Paladin enemy who drops it throws said hammers at the player, albeit in a different nature.
* DualBoss: The Twins. One of them, Retinazer, shoots [[FrickinLaserBeams Frickin]] EyeBeams while the other, Spazmatism, pursues you and breathes hellfire at you.
* DugTooDeep: Players can dig right into the Underworld, a hellish biome composed of ashen landscapes dotted liberally with lava pools and chock full of demons, hellbats, imps, and lava slimes. It's also the area that the pre-hardmode boss is found and fought in.
* DummiedOut: Several items intended for use in testing various elements of the game. Mostly ludicrously overpowered weapons and armor so they didn't have to worry about enemies.
* DungeonCrawling:
** The Dungeon is located on the far left or right side of the map, and you must defeat a boss to enter it with out being {{One Hit KO}}ed by a flying skull. The Dungeon holds many rare items that can't be found in other places, and is filled with traps and dangerous enemies.
** The Lihzahrd temple in the depths of the jungle. Although much smaller and more linear, the enemies are even stronger and the traps are easily capable of killing players not watching where they step.
* DungeonShop: The Skeleton Merchant [=NPC=] randomly spawns underground, selling basic supplies and a few unique items, and allowing a player to sell items without returning home. However, he never appears if the player is actually in the Dungeon.
* EarlyBirdBoss: Several bosses can summon themselves after fulfilling some requirements. This means they can appear before you're ready to fight them.
* EarlyGameHell:
** Gathering resources in the early game, especially expert, can be increasingly difficult. The underground is plagued with traps that'll easily kill you, mobs that can quickly overwhelm you, and most of the basic armor defense is paper thin and only offers the slightest bit of protection. May the great Terraria Gods above help you if you spawn with a Corruption/Crimson biome on either side of your base at that. It isn't until you finally get the Corrupt/Crimson armor sets does the difficulty let up and, ironically, many feel that hardmode is when the game truly starts to balance out in terms of difficulty and armor progression.
** This trope is ''especially'' true for summoner playthroughs. Their three pre-hard mode staffs are either an extremely rare drop that you pretty much need a mob statue to grind the mobs to get (slime staff), guarded by a boss (the Queen Bee, which ''also'' guards the only pre-hardmode summoner set), or is made from hell stone, which either requires the second best pickaxe (corruption/crimson, which requires beating their respected bosses to craft) ''or'' needs to be fished up for (the Reaver Shark which, while easier to obtain than the pickaxe, is still a rare fishing item caught at the ocean biome). Ironically, many find going down to the underworld and mining hellstone the ''easiest'' of the three to accomplish first.
* EasterEgg:
** The 3DS version contains a neat one in the Underworld. All the way at the bottom right of the world, the camera typically stops panning as your character reaches it but using the precision placement mode on the bottom screen lets you see past the boundaries and, with it, you can see a Fire Flower straight out of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld''.
** The world seed 05162020, which is the date that Journey's End, the final update, was released. [[spoiler:Its world generation prompts all turn into random numbers, and once the world is created, you'll start out with Party Girl, you can find Moon Lord Legs and the Red Potion in chests, both Corruption and Crimson are generated naturally, its Dungeon is located below a dried up Living Tree, and much more.]]
** Another custom world gen seed that gives a unique result is [[spoiler:"[[Film/TheWickerMan2006 not the bees]]". The results are [[https://i.imgur.com/M4jUbYP.png rather self explanatory]].]]
** A third secret world seed "for the worthy", [[spoiler:makes the map much harder on top of the base difficulty setting. Some of the water is lava, enemies and bosses have way more health and damage, among other things that make the experience more unfriendly.]]
* EasyLevelsHardBosses: The bosses are orders of magnitude harder to beat than anything a player will have seen up to that point. Some bosses are so difficult that an accepted strategy is to set up an entire arena (usually out of wood planks) solely for the purpose of neutralizing some of their advantages. Fortunately for the player, most of them have a specific trigger event and won't show up unless you deliberately summon them, or at least until you do something you shouldn't be able to do until you're reasonably well-equipped, though you can easily break that if you choose to prioritize making better tools over making better armor and weapons. A good example is the Eye of Cthulhu, the first boss in the game. It is summoned automatically at night once your character has certain values of health, defense, and three [=NPCs=], which is very easy for a player to do without having the weapons necessary to fight it off. It can fly and travel through solid objects, so early game characters are likely to have a hard time even hitting it, let alone killing it.
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou You can, of course, build one]]. The Dungeon itself also qualifies since it goes from the surface to near-Underworld level.
* EldritchAbomination: The Eye of Cthulhu, the Brain of Cthulhu, the Wall of Flesh, and [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] are the most extreme, but most of the bosses qualify.
* ElectricJellyfish: 1.3 gives the Jellyfish enemies an electrical shock attack. On Expert, they can also [[InvulnerableAttack electrify themselves for temporary invincibility]].
* ElementalCrafting: You start out with Wood, then move up through Copper/Tin, Iron/Lead, Silver/Tungsten, Gold/Platinum, Demonite/Crimtane, MeteoricIron, Hellstone, Cobalt/Palladium, [[{{Mithril}} Mythril]]/{{Orichalcum}}, Adamantite/Titanium, Hallowed metal, Chlorophyte, Shroomite, Spectre metal and finally Luminite.
* EmergentGameplay:
** A number of player-created innovations, including the Hellevator and the Skybridge/skyway.
** Monster/invasion proof housing which may include teleporters for both the players and [=NPCs=].
** Various housing defenses and monster grinders.
** Lava, water, and honey generators which make infinite amounts of each liquid as well as the results of mixing the liquids together.
* EncounterBait: The Battle Potion, which increases the spawn rate by 50% and doubles the maximum spawn limit (the amount of enemies on screen). Holding a water candle (in 1.2, also just being near a placed one) out also does a similar effect. There's also the Calming Potion and Peace Candle, which does [[EncounterRepellant the opposite]].
* EnergyBow: The Pulse Bow changes any arrows it uses into energy bolts that can ricochet and pierce through enemies.
* EpicFlail:
** There are several large morningstar-style weapons in the game, the best of which can set enemies on fire or confuse them. The player can craft some of them, like the Meatball and the Dao of Pow.
** While different mechanically from other flails in the game, the Solar Eruption is a giant flaming spear head on a chain. It does extremely high damage, goes through solid blocks, and can hit a target multiple times. It also causes explosions centered on any enemy it hits and inflicts Daybroken, which is a more powerful version of On Fire debuff that can't be put out by water and even spreads to other enemies.
* EquipmentBasedProgression: Most of your character upgrades will come from armor, accessories, tools, and weapons. The only improvements that don't stem from items are Health and Mana upgrades, as well as the extra accessory slot offered by Expert mode Wall of Flesh.
* EscapeRope:
** The Magic Mirror, which sends you back to your spawn instantly.
** The King and Queen statues can be used to rescue stuck/endangered [=NPCs=].
** Version 1.2.4 adds the Recall Potions, which work like the Magic Mirror only they activate slightly faster and work as an alternative until you find the Magic Mirror.
* EventFlag:
** Simply getting 120 health, which means using your first life crystal, makes blood moons possible. Getting 140 health allows slime rains to happen.
** Getting 200 health without fighting The Eye of Cthulhu (along with other conditions) can trigger an event where the Eye can spawn by itself. If you force summon him after you get the event flag but before he shows up, two Eyes can show up.
** Destroying a Shadow Orb in the Corruption with a hammer enables the chance of a meteor falling in your world and is one of the necessary conditions for Goblin Armies to begin appearing. Shattering three of them summons a boss monster called The Eater of Worlds. After it is defeated or you die you have to smash another three to do this, or just use an easily crafted item to summon him at will. In a world with the Crimson, smashing the beating Demon Hearts will do a the same thing, although they will summon the Brain of Cthulhu instead.
** Defeating the Wall of Flesh activates Hardmode, where more powerful enemies spawn, and old bosses return with a vengeance, as well as making new ores available by destroying demon/crimson altars with the Pwnhammer dropped from the Wall. Destroying said altars allows random appearances of the mechanical bosses and pirate invasions.
** Defeating one of the mechanical bosses allows solar eclipses to happen and life fruits to grow in the jungle, and causes hardmode level enemies to spawn in the world's Underworld.
** Defeating all three mechanical bosses at least once each causes Plantera bulbs to spawn in the Underground jungle.
** Defeating Plantera causes hardmode level enemies to spawn in the world's Dungeon, and the spread of Corruption/Crimson and Hallow is slowed.
** Defeating Golem causes the Cultists to spawn at the entrance of the world's Dungeon, martian probes can be encountered, and the Old One's Army reaches its final tier of difficulty.
** Defeating the Lunatic Cultist causes the four Celestial Towers and their minions to spawn.
** Defeating all four Celestial Towers, in any order, causes the [[FinalBoss Moon Lord]] to spawn.
* EverythingFades: The gibs from dead creatures disappear after a few seconds.
* EverythingsBetterWithRainbows: Lots of rainbows are in ''Terraria''. One is in the background of the Hallow. Rainbow Slimes (which constantly cycle through the different colors) appear around the Hallow when it rains, and drop Rainbow Bricks to build with. The Merchant sells Disco Balls that give off rainbow-colored light. The Rainbow Rod, Rainbow Gun, Last Prism, and Rainbow Crystal Staff are all magic weapons that let you kill enemies with rainbows. You can also dye your hair and clothes with rainbow dye.
** The Journey's End update adds the Empress of Light boss, which can kill you using colorful rainbows of prismatic light. Defeating her allows you to have several rainbow themed weapons of your own, such as the Nightglow which summons rainbow colored magic projectiles. The Celebration [=MK2=]'s rocket projectiles, introduced in the same update, also cycles through the colors of the rainbow.
* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: Most types of magic sparkle, some weapons sparkle when swung (others leave fire trails), and the Mythril armor (and the Hallowed armor it is crafted into) is special in that it generates sparkles in response to light. Ores, gems, coins, golden/shadow chests also sparkle up when a light source is cast on them. Hunter potions cause enemies and [=NPCs=] to glow and sparkle while spelunker potions cause any sort of treasure to glow and sparkle even without a light source.
* EvilIsNotWellLit:
** When going into the Corruption or Crimson, the sun will become dim.
** There's also solar eclipses in hardmode, which are about as dark as night and spawn hordes of old movie monsters that want to tear your face off.
* EvilIsVisceral:
** The Wall of Flesh.
** The Crimson Biome too, which is a fleshy, MeatMoss alternative to the Corruption that also ''spreads into its surroundings''. Inhabitants include flesh-based monsters like the [[GiantSpider Blood Crawler]], [[NightmareFace Face Monster]], Crimera, Herpling, Ichor Sticker and the Brain of Cthulhu.
* EvilTaintedPlace: There are three biomes that behave in this fashion. One bears the exact same name as a similar trope, ''the Corruption''. The second is ''[[MeatMoss the Crimson]]'' which, while [[BloodyBowelsOfHell differently-themed]] and with different enemies, also spreads. The third is ''Hallow''; a spreading "[[LightIsNotGood light biome]]."
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:
** Many of the herbs:
*** Daybloom blooms into a small flower during the day.
*** Moonglow glows with a blue aura during the night.
*** Blinkroot flashes rapidly when ready to be harvested.
*** In the non-PC versions, Fireblossom blooms while partially submerged in lava.
** Several bosses get this as well.
*** King Slime is a slime with a crown.
*** The Eye and Brain of Cthulhu are, well, the eye and brain of [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]].
*** The Wall of Flesh is a giant wall constructed entirely out of flesh.
*** Golem is a {{Golem}}.
*** The Lunatic Cultist is this in both senses. He worships the moon, and he’s [[AxCrazy completely insane]].
* ExclusiveEnemyEquipment: Several sets of equipment that only drop from rare enemies who wear them, like the zombie bride's wedding set or Tim's wizard hat. Most are [[AndYourRewardIsClothes vanity items]] which only change the look of your character.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Lampshaded by the Goblin Tinkerer:
--> '''Tinkerer:''' I thought you'd be taller.
* {{Expy}}:
** The character sprites in alpha were rather blatantly based off of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' combat sprites, but they were thankfully changed for its release on Steam to avoid a lawsuit from Creator/SquareEnix.
** [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] is obviously [[spoiler:Cthulhu]].[[labelnote:note]]According to WordOfGod, he is Cthulhu's brother.[[/labelnote]]
* EyeBeams:
** Retinazer shoots lasers and in the second stage form turns into a giant laser gun.
** The eyes of the Wall of Flesh.
** The Solar Eclipse enemy Eyezor fires lasers from its giant eye.
** Ice Golems encountered during a blizzard in the ice biome fire lasers from their eyes.
** The Lihzahrd Temple boss The Golem fires lasers from its eyes.
** [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] fires one from its middle eye. When the eyes get detached, they each can fire a smaller one too.
* EyeScream:
** A common enemy at night is the Demon Eye and its variations, which splatter into chunks when killed. Hardmode introduces Wandering Eyes, which, when injured enough, sprout a mouth in the center.
** The Eye of Cthulhu, one of the earliest bosses, especially considering its second stage replaces its pupil with a large mouth.
** The hardmode boss The Twins, a pair of giant evil eyes connected by what looks a nerve cord. When each eye reaches their second stage, they pop in a spray of gore. One sprays fire from its gaping maw and the other turns into a giant flying laser gun.
** Some plant life in the Crimson biome are eyes in piles of flesh that pop when hit with a player's weapon or projectile.
** The final boss of the console and mobile versions, Ocram, loses his main eyes and grows a third once he TurnsRed.
** [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]], whose first stage consists of attacking the eyes in his hands and forehead until they come loose, leaving fleshy sockets behind.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:F-H]]
* FacelessEye: The Demon Eye enemy that torments players who venture outside at night, and its KingMook the Eye of Cthulhu, which starts of as just a giant Demon Eye. [[EyeScream It then grows a mouth.]] In hardmode, we have Wandering Eyes, which are somewhere between Demon Eyes and the Eye of Cthulhu, and The Twins, twin bionic upgrades of the Eye of Cthulhu.
* FakeDifficulty: It's not as bad as some games, but there's quite a few cheap shots out there.
** Underground traps are absurdly punishing, especially in the early game. The only way you can notice a trap reliably is by spotting the pressure plate, a small rectangle the size of a few pixels and is very hard to notice. The two main offenders are Boulder traps and Explosive traps. Boulder traps drop a giant boulder on players, immediately lethal to anyone without any health upgrades and can roll to finish anyone off. Explosive traps create a powerful explosion, leveling a wide area around the trap and creating a blast that's unsurvivable without the maximum health limit. Yes, you cannot survive that trap until Hardmode.
** [[TakenForGranite Medusas]] frequently spawn in Hardmode marble caverns. They can turn you to stone without warning from a great distance away. In and of itself, this won't kill you, and it only lasts a few seconds; but until it wears off you can't do anything at all, and you're more vulnerable to the already-unforgiving fall damage. If you're not standing on solid ground (jumping, grappling, or riding a minecart) when Medusa sets her sights on you, you're likely to become a pulverized pile of gravel without getting a chance to defend yourself.
** The spawn rates in Expert mode can get rather insane at times. It's not uncommon to see upwards to 8-10 enemies on the screen at once, with more flooding in off screen the second you kill one on-screen. This, coupled with enemies doing truckloads more damage on Expert, makes getting trapped in a CycleOfHurting frustratingly common.
* FakeLongevity:
** Getting sufficient gear from mining ore in the early game is ''painful'', especially if playing with friends who also need their own armor and weapons.
** Some items are only sold by the Skeleton Merchant and the Travelling Merchant, who don't make consistent appearances; the latter is worse about this, as his selection of wares is randomly chosen from a large pool of items, and unlike the former, his inventory can't be manipulated by the phases of the moon.
** Too many examples of [[RandomlyDrops equipment with 1% or worse drop rates]] that can make getting a perfect character far more frustrating than it should be. What might be the most prominent example of this is the Cell Phone; its base components include the Compass and Depth Meter (1-2% drop rates), the Metal Detector (drops from the [[MetalSlime Nymph]] only 50% of the time in regular mode), and all the ingredients of the Fish Finder (three of them, each one has 2.5% drop rate, and you can do only one of the Angler's quests roughly every 24 real-life minutes).
** To get an enemy's Bestiary entry, it needs to be killed once. To get the complete version, it needs to be killed 50 times. This does not include bosses (which only need to be killed once), but it does include minibosses such as the Dreadnautalus and rare enemies like Nymphs and Clowns. Only getting the barebones entry is required in terms of "completing" the Bestiary overall and getting the unique items sold by the Zoologist, but if the player wants to unlock the text descriptions of every monster, it will take a lot of farming.
* FakeUltimateMook: Cursed Hammers and Enchanted Swords are rare, startling, and look dangerous, but they can easily be stunlocked by smacking them with whatever weapon you have on hand. Rainbow Slimes are almost as big as King Slime and flash random colors; they do a lot of damage, but they have no special abilities and relatively low health, so they're not very difficult to kill.
* FallingDamage: Present; the damage you take increases depending on how far you've fallen. There's even a few death messages for when you die due to falling damage.
--> <Player name> didn't bounce.
** Fortunately, there's several ways to negate fall damage. Landing in [[SoftWater 2-block deep pools of water]] or cobwebs does not incur damage (neither does falling in lava, but that has its own problems). This can be exploited by placing a block of liquid or a cobweb underneath you while falling.
** Using an item like a [[DoubleJump Cloud in a Bottle]], Rocket Boots, or a grappling hook resets your fall distance. Amusingly, grappling hooks still prevent fall damage even if you [[HitTheGroundHarder grapple onto the ground]].
** Featherfall potions and the Umbrella item slow your fall to speeds that don't incur fall damage. The Frog Leg increases the distance you can fall before taking damage and decreases the damage you take from falling.
** Finally, some items completely negate fall damage when equipped: the Lucky Horseshoe (and its variant, the Obsidian Horseshoe), the Djinn's Curse, and all types of Wings.
* FantasyGunControl: You have enchanted swords, water staffs, and Mario's fire flower, along with a shotgun, the laser rifle from ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', fully automatic crossbows, magic star cannons, and [[GatlingGood a minigun]] [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot that looks like]] [[ThreateningShark a shark]].
* FantasyMetals:
** The game has several made-up metals, such as "[[ThunderboltIron Meteorite]]," "Demonite," and "Hellstone," all of which can be melted into strong armor and weapons.
** In 1.1, Cobalt, {{Mithril}} and Adamantite were introduced, as well as a boss-dropped metal, Hallowed. In 1.2, we were gifted with slightly stronger alternatives to each: Palladium, {{Orichalcum}}, and, strangely, Titanium. Also added was Chlorophyte, a new jungle-based ore stronger than even Hallowed, and Crimtane, an alternative ore to Demonite, found in worlds with the [[WombLevel Crimson]] instead of the Corruption.
** Later, the Chlorophyte can be refined into Shroomite using Glowing Mushrooms or Spectre bars using Ectoplasm, but that would be the last you'd see of this trope from that point up until the TrueFinalBoss, which drops Luminite ore to be crafted into bars for getting the best-of-the-best armor.
* FeatherFlechettes: The Harpies attack this way, and can be difficult to deal with without a ranged form of attack back at them.
* FeaturelessProtagonist: The game sports a numerous amount of customizations for your character, meaning that you can add your own personal touch to the character so it looks the way you want it to. It's played straight in all of the [=NPC=] dialogue; the only aspect of your character which [=NPCs=] will comment on is gender, and even then not always.
* FertileFeet: 1.3 added the Flower Boots item, when worn it causes flowers to grow on grass that the player walks on.
* FetchQuest: Want to have that supremely convenient Cell Phone? Better set some time aside from your busy schedule and do lots and lots of fishing! Oh, and the rewards are random. Hope you don't mind getting another Sonar Potion instead of something you actually need!
* FighterMageThief: [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And Summoner.]]
** Although there are no real classes, armor bonuses tend to benefit one weapon type with bonuses to damage and extra effects suited to that playstyle.
** The many varieties of Melee, ranged, magical and summon weapons cater to varying play-styles especially when matched with accessories and certain complete armor sets.
** Melee tends to be more focused on close-combat and tanking hits, ranged is more focused on long-range single-target attacks, magic has the most variety with attack patterns, but suffers from having low-defense armors and having to manage your mana supply, while summon focuses on being TheMinionMaster but also has low-defense armors.
** 1.3 introduced a ''fifth'' damage type, Throwing weapons (which were formerly Ranged). However, it doesn't have any armors and weapons to support it beyond the early parts of the game.
* FinalBoss: [[spoiler:The Moon Lord on the desktop version, Ocram in Console/Mobile versions]].
* FinalDeath: In Hardcore mode, you will not be able to continue after your character dies. Unlike the ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' example, dying doesn't force you to delete the world, only the character; this means you can start another character to attempt to continue the game.
* FinalDeathMode: There's a difficulty system that increases the penalty for death the higher up you go. In softcore, you drop half your money. In mediumcore, you drop items. In hardcore, you die permanently, meaning if you had any items on you at the time, they're gone for good unless you're playing multiplayer or you had some stuff stashed in a chest.
* FireAndBrimstoneHell: The Underworld, which contains flame-shooting fire imps, burrowing bone serpents, slimes made of lava and literally bats out of hell, and flying demons that relentlessly try to make you dead.
* FishingForSole: As of version 1.2.4, one of the "failure" items that can be fished up is an old shoe.
* FishingMinigame: Once you acquire a fishing pole and some bait, you can fish in any pool of liquid (even lava, although you'll need the Hotline Fishing Hook to fish there). You can fish a lot of different fishes: some of them are used for potions; others can be used as tools, weapons or food; and the Angler will give you special rewards if you give him a specific fish he's asking for. You can even get some crates, which may contain money, metal ores and bars, and potions, as well as a few special items.
* FishPeople:
** The player turns into one if you equip the Neptune's Shell and enter water, allowing you to move through it as if it were air.
** Creatures from the Deep, which spawn during Solar Eclipses. They can move around fine on land, but they're faster in water.
** Icy Mermen are found in the ice biome underground in hardmode.
* FlamingSkulls: One of the numerous varieties of GoddamnedBats is one of these, and can usually be found in dungeon areas. Skeletron may drop a Tome that lets you cast these.
* FlamingSword:
** The Fiery Greatsword. Sunfury is a flail version.
** Having a Magma Stone equipped and swinging any melee weapon will add a fiery particle effect to the weapon (and its projectiles) and set targets on fire.
** Equipping the Flame Gauntlet, [[SetBonus wearing the full set of Frost Armor]], or downing a Flask of Cursed Flames will add regular, frostburn, and cursed fire, respectively to your melee weapons. And yes, all three can be applied at the same time.
* FlechetteStorm:
** A group of harpies can easily inflict this on you if you're not careful. Some holiday-themed bosses also attack this way.
** Spiked slimes gain this as a special attack in Expert Mode by scattering spines all around them when a player gets up close. Said spines can also inflict status effects depending on the type of spiked slime that uses the attack.
** [[BossInMooksClothing Nailhead]] uses a spreading needle projectile move whenever he is struck, making it dangerous to engage him head on.
** There are also weapons that can allow you to do it as well, one prominent example being [[LifeDrain Vampire Knives]].
* FloatingContinent: The game has floating islands, which contain a building with some rare items inside.
** As with ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it is not hard to make your own: build a small wall, mine out all but the top, and the top will just float there. This can be important in Hardmode, when the Corruption and the Hallow begin to spread, since they will not spread through a thick enough air gap—so if they become or are completely surrounded by these, they are contained. Or just mine out below the spawn point, so that anyone joining the world or respawning starts off somewhere safe.
* FloatingIsland: A type of biome consisting of small islands floating a few hundred feet above the ground, resting on beds of clouds. These islands are rich with ore, but each also features a small house built of exotic materials, decorated with banners and Skyware furniture, and containing a rare item in the chest inside.
* FloatingPlatforms:
** Played straight as well as justified in turns. Justified that underground you can place platforms attached to the (destructible) background wall. Played straight when the background wall is ''the sky''.
** With the Ice Rod weapon, you can make ''very'' temporary ones. However, you can use them as a wall to attach your not-so-temporary platforms to.
* FloatingWater: Can be accomplished with bubble blocks, which are impenetrable by liquids but otherwise intangible, allowing water (or honey, or lava) to be effectively suspended in mid-air and dived into from the sides or bottom.
* FlyingDutchman: The mini-boss for the Pirate Invasion event, a flying ship that shoots with four cannons and can throw more pirates into battle. All four cannons must be destroyed to defeat it.
* FlyingSaucer: The Martian Saucer in the Martian Madness event. It can drop a Cosmic Car Key which allows you to ride your ''own'' FlyingSaucer- a very useful mount with infinite flight time.
* FlyingSeafoodSpecial: Flying Fish and Duke Fishron. Ichor Stickers and Gastropods may count if you consider them squid and jellyfish respectively.
** There is a very rare chance of obtaining the Zephyr Fish pet item from fishing. As the name implies, it's a pet fish that flies and follows you around. Additionally, fishing during Blood Moon in the Ocean can spawn the Wandering Eye Fish and the mini-boss Dreadnautilus.
* FlyingWeapon: There are three enemies that fit this: the [[DropTheHammer Cursed Hammer]] from the Corruption, the [[LightIsNotGood Enchanted Sword]] from the Hallow, and the [[AnAxToGrind Crimson Axe]] from....[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin guess.]] There’s also one, the Flying Knife, which the player can use which follows the cursor, can be deployed indefinitely, moves erratically and slashes at the target as it waves back and forth.
** The 1.4 update adds two new summoner weapons: the Blade Staff, which summons flying blades not unlike the Flying Knife that homes in on enemies, and the Terraprisma, which summons a fast flying sword made of light.
* FreeRangeChildren: The Angler. Could explain why he's such a brat.
-->'''Angler:''' I don't have a mommy or a daddy, but I have a lot of fish! It's close enough!
* FriendlyFireproof: Notably also applies to explosives that can hurt the user, but not their teammates.
* FromASingleCell: Once Hardmode hits, the Corruption and the Hallow spread constantly. As long as one block of Ebonstone or Pearlstone exists within 3 blocks of a block of grass or stone, they will continue to spread. Additionally, destroying a Demon/Crimson Altar to spawn the rare ores will create a block of Corruption/Crimson somewhere in the world, meaning that it can literally grow from a single cell.
* FullFrontalAssault: The aggressive Nymphs aren't actually wearing anything at all. No anatomical 'details' are visible since this is a relatively low-res sprite-based game.
* FungusHumongous:
** There are mushroom forests underground. You can even chop down the mushrooms and use them in a HealingPotion.
** 1.2 allows you to make mushroom houses, and the Glowing Mushrooms can now be grown on the Surface, producing a Mushroom Biome when you do so.
** The glowing mushrooms are treated as blocks and when placed next to each other as building materials can make giant mushrooms.
* GameBreakingBug:
** The Vita version, as of the 10/22/15, has a bug on saving that causes a crash to the Vita's main menu.
** After the 1.3 update, ordinary walking (defined as the character's walking animation being used) can cause a significant frame rate drop for some users.
* GameMod: [[http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?forums/client-server-mods-tools.116/ There's an active modding community.]] Notably, despite lack of official mod support, modding Terraria is surprisingly easy when compared to other games thanks to the use of [[http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/1-3-tmodloader-a-modding-api.23726/ tModloader]], which not only allows people to create their own mods through it, but can actively download mods from the game window itself. Also notable, unlike say ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', official updates do not break mods, allowing people to play with mods while ''also'' still playing the latest version of the game.
* GardenGarment:
** The Dryad [=NPC=] has leafy clothing. She also can sell replicas of her clothing as vanity items as of the 1.2 Halloween Update.
** The Jungle Rose vanity item is a flower found in the jungle biome.
* GardenOfEvil:
** The Corruption blights the landscape, turning the sky a sickly purple, causing plant life to become twisted and thorny, spawning nasty monsters called Eaters of Souls, and turning the nearly harmless Giant Worms into the deadly Devourer (and a much deadlier KingMook called the Eater of Worlds). Ditto for [[BloodyBowelsOfHell the Crimson]], which features [[MeatMoss fleshy vegetation]], spiderlike Blood Crawlers, Face Monsters, and the floating Crimeras.
** And for a version that [[LightIsNotGood disguises its true nature]], we have its equal and opposite number, the Hallow. Pretty, calm, has a giant rainbow in the background... and spawns warring Pixies that shred your hearts like a hot knife through butter, Unicorns that are eager to impale you, and, at night, Gastropods that riddle you with laser beams.
* GatlingGood: The Minishark, which can be bought at the Arms Dealer. Although thanks to a nerf, it's not quite the best weapon in pre-hardmode, it can be upgraded into the impressively deadly Megashark. The Travelling Merchant sells the Gatligator and [=Santa-NK1=] drops the Chain Gun, which have an impressive fire rate but are rather inaccurate. Finally, the Moon Lord drops the Space Dolphin Machine Gun: it came from the Edge of Space (which itself might be a reference to that game).
* GelatinousTrampoline: Downplayed with Pink Gel Blocks, which cause you to bounce when you land on them. They can't be used to gain height, but they do negate fall damage.
* GenderBender: 1.3 introduces Gender Change Potions crafted from all 7 herbs and a bottle of water.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** One of the possible responses if you're at full HitPoints and ask the Nurse for healing is "I don't give happy endings."
** The moon cycles through phases and on Blood Moons three of the female [=NPCs=], the Nurse, Stylist, and the Mechanic, become aggressive and irritable. The Dryad doesn't get as hostile, but does get snippy and sarcastic. The Steampunker just gets peevish. Oddly enough, the Party Girl is completely unaffected.
--->'''Nurse:''' Why are you even here? If you aren't bleeding, you don't need to be here. Get out.
** The Arms Dealer in particular seems to be the embodiment of the trope.
--->"Keep your hands off my gun, buddy!"\\
--->'''Mechanic:''' "[Arms dealer's name] keeps talking about pressing my pressure plate. [[ObliviousToLove I told him it was for stepping on.]]"
** A 1.2 mob, the Nymph, is a ''nude'' female humanoid. Of course, no anatomical detail can be seen in the pixel art.
** There's a weapon called the Golden Shower. There is nothing more to be said.
** During the Pumpkin Moon event, there's a tough, fire-spitting tree called the Mourning Wood. ...Yeah.
** As of version 1.2.4, the Angler [=NPC=] will eventually give you fishing bait called the ''Master Bait''.
* GiantEyeOfDoom: The Eye of Cthulhu, and The Twins in hardmode.
* GiantHandsOfDoom: Skeletron is composed entirely of a head and two hands that collectively try to murder you.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Pretty much every boss, though you do have to summon most of them intentionally.
* GiantSpider: Wall Creepers, Jungle Creepers, Black Recluses, and Blood Crawlers, enemies that are about as long as the player is tall and can walk on background walls. The immobile spider summoned from the Queen Spider Staff is about as large but fights for the player.
* GirlsWithMoustaches: The pool of possible hairstyles to choose for a character isn't limited by gender, so it's possible to have a female character with a beard.
* GlassCannon:
** Some enemies, such as the Meteor Head, deal unusually large amounts of damage for when they're encountered, but are otherwise fairly easy to kill.
** The Crawltipede, an airborne worm summoned by the Solar Pillar, does an absurd amount of damage relative to most hardmode enemies and has very high mobility, but its tail takes ten times normal damage, making it extremely easy to kill if you can get a bead on it. However, [[AttackItsWeakPoint it can only be damaged by hitting its tail]].
** On the player side, dedicated Magic users shape up as this as the game progresses, as Magic-oriented armor sets tend to have the lower defense than Ranged and Melee armors, while Magic weapons are capable of dealing large amounts of damage.
%% Do not put GoddamnedBats here. Please click on the YMMV and add it to the existing entry on that page.
* GodivaHair: The Nymph.
* GoForTheEye: The Wall of Flesh can be attacked in the eyes or the mouth, but the eyes have no DamageReduction and hence take much more damage from attacks.
* GogglesDoNothing: You can craft goggles out of two lenses (as in the [[OrganDrops organ itself]]), they do nothing more than give one measly point of defense so they're more for decoration than anything for your character. During [[HolidayMode Halloween]], the [[SteamPunk Steampunker]] sells steampunker goggles that are completely vanity only, and they're not even worn over the character's eyes compared to the former example.
* GoldMakesEverythingShiny: Gold chests have a special sparkly effect.
* GoldSilverCopperStandard: The game uses copper, silver, gold, and platinum coins. 100 coins of a lower denomination are equal to one higher-denomination coin. In fact, for ease of storage, 100 coins of a lower denomination can be ''crafted into'' a higher-denomination coin and when collecting coins, they automatically turn into the higher-denomination and the opposite occurs when buying from an [=NPC=]. How you craft a lot of copper into a little silver (or silver into gold, etc) is [[MST3KMantra best not thought about too much]].
* GoodLuckCharm:
** The Lucky Horseshoe looks like a traditional good luck charm. However, instead of affecting any luck-based aspect of the game, it negates fall damage. It can also be fused with certain DoubleJump balloons to prevent fall damage from the bigger jumps or the Obsidian Skull to block contact damage from hot blocks like Meteorite and Hellstone.
** The Lucky Coin is a rare drop from the Pirate Invasion. It grants a chance for any enemy to drop money (anywhere from a single copper to several gold coins) on a hit. Note that because it activates on a hit rather than a kill, it can be used to farm vast amounts of money from enemies by doing minimal damage, so it takes as many hits as possible to kill them.
** Any accessory can be reforged to have the "Lucky" modifier, which increases your overall critical hit rate by 4%.
* GoodWingsEvilWings: You can craft a pair of each. But besides material and appearance, they do exactly the same.
* GoombaStomp: The Slime mount makes it possible to jump on top of enemies, damaging them and bouncing back up for another stomp.
** The Derpling and Herpling enemies use this as their main method of attack against you.
* GottaCatchThemAll: Although not directly inferred, players can make an optional objective of collecting every armor/vanity set or weapon and putting them on display, collecting all of the statues, or recording all of the music tracks in the game. 1.4's Zoologist expands her shop inventory as you unlock more entries in the bestiary.
* GrapplingHookPistol: From the lowly grappling hook all the way up to the anti-gravity hook. Once you get one, it becomes an essential part of your arsenal.
* GravityIsAHarshMistress: It is extremely easy to fall to your death if you're not careful. Enemies are immune, of course.
* GreenHillZone: The normal overworld style until the Corruption/Crimson starts taking over.
* GridInventory: Similar to the one in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. However, it also has 4 slots that you can use to store money, and 4 to store ammunition.
* GuideDangIt: The game does its best to avert this for early game players. If you show your Guide an item, he will tell you what can be crafted from it. But to spawn more [=NPCs=], you need to build suitable houses for them. Each house needs a table, chair/bed, light source, and back wall, and must be within a certain range of dimensions; and there are some arbitrary restrictions on building materials (which may be a bug). Beyond the table, chair, door, and light requirement, the game will only tell you whether a house is suitable or not; figuring out ''why'' it isn't suitable requires lots of trial-and-error.
** Finding the [[FloatingContinent Floating Islands]] is often so ridiculously time-consuming that many players simply cheat by downloading a map viewer. For those who view this as against the spirit of ''Terraria'', good luck. Floating Islands can spawn anywhere above a certain altitude, and it's incredibly difficult to tell where they can be found without building a skybridge (which takes a ton of resources), using up a lot of rope, or flying around in the sky with a [[GravityMaster Gravitation Potion]].
** Water Bolt, a spellbook hidden in the dungeon. It's hidden on the bookshelves in the dungeon, of which there are dozens, with nothing to draw attention to it other than its specific blue color. The only hint you get to its existence is that, if you're right on top of the shelf containing it, your mouse cursor will change when you mouse over it.
** The 1.4 update added a hidden [[LuckManipulationMechanic luck]] stat, which affects many parts of the game such as drop rates, damage rolls, and creature spawns. Among other things, bad luck could be caused by ''using the wrong torches for the biome'', and there is absolutely nothing suggesting torches do anything other than provide light. [[ScrappyMechanic Widespread negative player reaction]][[invoked]] lead to torches no longer having any negative effect on luck, however, using the "right" torch in its associated biome will still grant a positive luck bonus.
** Also from the 1.4 update, fairy spawns. These helpful spirits will guide you toward treasure while you're exploring... unless you've destroyed all of the fallen logs in your surface forests, in which case [[LostForever you will never see another fairy in that world again]]. Fallen logs are impossible to craft and only appear during worldgen.
* GustyGlade: Oddly ''averted''. There is a wind mechanic in the game and viewing the weather using the weather radio or cell phone items can list it as getting pretty high, with speeds up to 70 mph being fairly common during storms, but the wind itself is purely cosmetic. It affects the movement of clouds in the background, the way that snow, rain, and bubbles move, and the direction of the North Pole's snowflake trail, but nothing else. It has no effect on player movement or even ranged weapon effectiveness. Played straight in the 1.3.3 update: sandstorms now may happen in the desert, blowing in one direction and making it harder to move against it.
* HairRaisingHare:
** The game has cute little bunnies that wander around the landscape and frequently get killed by enemy slimes or inadvertent player actions. However, during the Blood Moon, they transform into vicious purple [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Corrupt_Bunny Corrupt Bunnies]] (or [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Crimson_Bunny Crimtane Bunnies]] in Crimson worlds) with glowing red eyes. Only the Corrupt version drops a wearable bunny hood as loot.
** In the mobile version, you fight Diseaster Bunnies on Easter. They're just as dangerous as Corrupt Bunnies, and they may drop a Suspicious Looking Egg. If that is used, it summons [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Lepus Lepus]], a huge rabbit boss that lays eggs that spawn more Diseaster Bunnies or a weaker version of itself.
* HandCannon:
** The Phoenix Blaster, the most powerful gun pre-hardmode. It can even out damage the minishark with a fast trigger finger.
** 1.2 introduces the Venus Magnum, which is even more of a HandCannon and fires every bullet with a higher velocity than normal. It also has a faster fire rate than the ''Uzi'', but because it lacks autofire, you'll have to spam-click to make use of it.
* HarderThanHard:
** Expert Mode, a world setting which makes the game significantly more difficult. Enemy and boss AI is improved. Enemies have twice as much health (150% for bosses) and do twice as much damage, which scales with the number of players in multiplayer. Certain enemies may inflict status effects (which will also last twice as long), some have new abilities (zombies may carry a weapon, for example), and bosses have new abilities and their existing ones improve as they lose health. Enemies can pick up dropped coins, and you have to kill them if you want them back. If you lost them at death, you likely aren't getting them back. Player life regeneration is cut in half, and you lose 75% of coins on death instead of 50%. On the plus side, there are several perks. Defense now provides 75% instead of 50% DamageReduction for its value (functionally, you're still taking more damage because the enemy boost is higher than yours), rare loot is more common, and bosses drop exclusive items and possibly even the normally-unattainable developer items.
** Master Mode takes Expert Mode and cranks it UpToEleven. Enemies have 1.5x the HP compared to Expert Mode (and 3x compared to Normal), Bosses have ''even more'' health than in Expert Mode, players drop ''all'' their coins on death, [=NPCs=] have far less health making them easily killed, and their prices are also 50% higher. On the plus side, bosses drop Master Mode exclusive items along with their Expert Mode bags, you get an extra accessory slot which stacks with the Demon Heart, and defense now provides 100% DamageReduction to its value.
** The seed "for the worthy" generates an extra-difficulty world (which you can then play in Expert or Master mode for even more pain). All enemies have boosted health and damage (which stacks with Expert/Master), bosses have doubled health and are either larger or smaller than normal, whichever makes them tougher to fight. Live bombs can drop from pots, Explosive Bunnies spawn instead of regular bunnies, lava pools generate as high up as the Underground layer, and every single demon in the Underworld is replaced by a Voodoo Demon, making it extremely easy to accidentally summon the Wall of Flesh. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also the Dungeon faces the wrong way.]]
* HardModePerks:
** The best materials won't spawn until the Wall of Flesh is killed, turning on Hardmode for the entire world.
** Expert Mode rewards players by adding Expert Mode exclusive boss drops, which have a unique rarity tier of their own and have some amazingly powerful effects; [[WarmupBoss King Slime]] drops Royal Slime, rendering all slimes everywhere neutral towards you, Eater of Worlds drops a scarf that reduces all incoming damage by 17%, Wall of Flesh gives you an extra accessory slot, and that's just pre-Hardmode. It also makes certain drops more likely than they would be on a normal world.
* HarpingOnAboutHarpies: The game has harpies as a relatively common enemy on the heights where sky islands usually form. Their feathers are used for Gravitation potions.
* HaveANiceDeath: The game mocks you this way but also does this to avoid confusion. Deaths leave tombstones that players can read, and even re-edit for the sake of comedy. Some of them are humorous; a lot are horrific.
-->Redigit was turned into a pile of flesh by Blue's Dynamite.\\
[Player] tried to swim in lava.\\
[Player]'s face was torn off by [[LightIsNotGood Unicorn.]]\\
[[=PlayerX=]] was brutally dissected by [[=PlayerY's=]] Excalibur.\\
[Player] [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou didn't bounce.]]
* HealingFactor: Don't get hit for a while, and your health regenerates faster and faster. There are many ways to improve the rate, such as campfires and bands of regeneration.
* HealingPotion:
** There are varieties of Health and Mana potions the player can brew at an Alchemy Station, The lower-end potions can be bought, taken from pots and chests, or found in the dungeon. Higher-end potions must be crafted or looted from Hardmode bosses in large quantities.
** Players can combine the lesser or standard kinds to make a restoration potion, which restore both life and mana at once.
** Jars of honey now grant healing.
** Honeyfins grant a straight 120 health per use. They're a decent alternative to normal Healing Potions until you start collecting the Greater version.
** Turkor the Ungrateful in the Mobile and 3DS versions can drop the Horn 'o' Plenty which is a single, infinite use item that heals 120 health like the Honeyfin. A ''very'' helpful item all throughout Hardmode to save the Greater potions for boss fights.
* HealThyself:
** The game has standard healing potions in varying strengths. HyperactiveMetabolism is also at play in the forms of mushrooms and goldfish. However, all healing items come with a 60 second "Potion Sickness" debuff that prevents you from using another in that time.
** The Moon Lord can spawn enemies called Moon Leech Clots when the player is held by his tongue. They do no damage, but if one reaches the Moon Lord, it'll heal one of his damaged parts by 1000 hp.
* HeartContainer:
** The heart crystals, which when broken by a pick-class tool, give you a gem that increases your life by one heart (20 points) up to a maximum of 20 (400 points).
** 1.2 now has Life Fruit, which are found in the underground jungle during hardmode and can be eaten to increase maximum life by 5 (1/4th of a normal heart). Unlike Life Crystals, the fruit can only be used at 400 life or above, but they also extend your maximum life to 500.
** The same system is used for mana with mana crystals you can craft out of 3 fallen stars.
* HeartsAreHealth: Played straight. Enemies, pots, and certain powered statues generate a small red heart, that when picked up heals a portion of the player's health (unless it's during Halloween, in which the hearts turn into Candy Apples, or Christmas, where they turn into candy canes).
* HeartSymbol: Used to represent health in most cases. Crimson Hearts, found deep in the Crimson, are more anatomically correct in comparison, while the light pet they can drop are somewhere in between.
* {{Hellevator}}: The term is used to describe any pit, shaft, or tunnel of any kind that leads ''directly'' from the surface (or very close to the surface) straight down to the very lowest level of the game world, Hell itself. No map is really complete without one. Digging several of them is also the easiest way to stop the spread of Hallow/Corruption after hardmode is activated.
* {{Hellfire}}: Cursed flames from the Corruption, apart from the name, fit this trope quite well: water won't put them out, and they hurt a lot more than regular fire. Ichor, the Crimson counterpart, causes a defense debuff instead.
* HellIsThatNoise:
** The noise that the giant worms make when approaching you while you're alone mining can be particularly creepy, especially if you're using headphones.
** And the mummies, which have a much deeper, more ominous groan than almost any enemy in the game, despite being very easy to kill. Even the light mummies with the ^^ expression on their face.
** The growls that Pigrons make before attacking are half of the reason why they're surprisingly scary (the other half being their ability to turn invisible).
* HelloInsertNameHere: The game features such in the character creation, and [=NPCs=] refer to the player by their name when talked to.
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: With the addition of the familiar clothing items. Players themselves can invoke this by wearing their armor like normal but hiding their helmets via the familiar wig item or [[GogglesDoNothing goggles]] in the social slot. Often used by players who chose a hairstyle with a beard, as wearing a helmet disables your beard.
* HitTheGroundHarder: Falls are annoyingly lethal without items that mitigate fall damage, but you can use a grappling hook to avoid damage by [[ArtisticLicensePhysics speeding into it quicker.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** The various traps in the Lihzahrd temple can be used against the Golem, provided you harvest and rewire them to your benefit. It helps to set up a wall to protect yourself from the traps.
** The Turtle armor, when equipped with its set, returns received damage.
* HolidayMode:
** In pre-1.2 versions on the PC, generating a new world during the Christmas season will have a chance to spawn you inside/near a Snow Biome. After the 1.2 Big Update, Snow Biomes spawn naturally in any new Worldgen. In addition, there is a special event during the season, the Frost Legion, that spawns a mob of killer Snowmen monsters, as well as the chance to invite a SantaClaus [=NPC=] to stay in your village. The 1.2.2 update added a special Christmas-themed event, the Frost Moon, triggered with a special item that can be crafted any time of year.
** After the Big 1.2 Update, there was a supplementary Halloween Update that added Pumpkins, in-season Goodie Bags, and a graphical change during the holiday that causes Zombies, Slimes, Demon Eyes, and Rabbits in costume to spawn. A special Event, the Pumpkin Moon, was also added to the mix, as well as a whole parade of holiday costumes. Like the Frost Moon, the Pumpkin Moon can be triggered any time of year, not just around Halloween.
** The Mobile edition gains several minor holidays with their own special items and, in the case of Easter and Thanksgiving, special bosses. These include: The Chinese New Year in January, Valentine's Day in February, St. Patrick's Day from March 5th to 31st, Easter throughout April, Oktoberfest from September 27th to October 31st and Thanksgiving throughout November. Valentine's Day, Easter and Thanksgiving is also shared with the 3DS version. (The Wiesnbräu of Oktoberfest is present but not the rest of the items in the 3DS version and while the Guide mentions St. Patrick's Day, it also doesn't occur in the 3DS version).
* HollywoodDarkness: The game attends carefully to lighting effects. Dim illumination persists during the night, emitted from the open sky background. Underground or in enclosed buildings, however, it can actually become pitch-black in the absence of immediate illumination. This makes bringing lighting on expeditions not only helpful, but necessary.
* AHomeownerIsYou: It may be 2D, but it's pretty similar to ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You have '''so many items''' to pick from when [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou customizing your home]], and, like ''Minecraft'', you build it from scratch, so it truly is ''your'' home.
* HomingProjectile:
** Chlorophyte bullets seek out enemies if they're close enough, and have a very good turning radius. This makes them really effective for aiming off screen (even with a Sniper Rifle) or for making every pellet of a Tactical Shotgun hit. If you do it right, they can even turn right around a corner.
** The Spectre Staff also shoots these.
** The Scourge of the Corruptor, despite being a Spear-class weapon, ''shoots'' tiny little corruptors that split into more of themselves that start to seek nearby enemies.
** The Christmas update adds the Snowman Cannon, a ranged weapon which shoots rockets as homing snowmen. The rockets are capable of making 180-degree turns to chase enemies, and will even seek out a new target in range if the first one is destroyed!
** The Possessed Hatchet that drops from the Golem is capable of this. If you throw it and an enemy is within line of sight, it will attempt to home in on it, provided there's nothing blocking its path. Thus it's capable of indirect fire, as you can hurl it over a wall, and have it hit enemies on the other side of it. The range is pretty impressive too, and it can even hit targets just slightly offscreen.
* HornetHole: Bee hives are randomly generated within the underground jungle, containing honey and a larva that summons the Queen Bee boss.
* HotBar: The game allows you to lock it to prevent items from being selected by an accidental click.
* HotWings:
** The Flame Wings, crafted with Souls of Flight and a Fire Feather, are available as soon as you defeat one mechanical boss, and they're better than most wings available at that point.
** The Solar Wings, one of the four end-game wings craftable after beating the final boss. As far as wings go, they have the absolute best stats, their only downside being they cannot hover.
* HospitalHottie: The Nurse NPC is very attractive.
* HumanSacrifice: This, of all things, is present in the game. Quote from The Guide: "In order to summon the keeper of the Underworld, you have to perform a live sacrifice. Everything you need to do so can be found in the Underworld." Little does he realise that what drops down there are Guide Voodoo Dolls...
* HumongousMecha: The Destroyer, a giant mechanical worm that stretches extremely long, fires lasers everywhere, and will release probes when damaged.
* HungryJungle: The Jungle biome, especially in Hardmode, is one of the most dangerous places you can go aside from the Underworld and the unlocked Hardmode Dungeon. However, certain goodies are only found there, including the ultra-material known as Chlorophyte. It is also home to the special bee hive and Lihzahrd biomes that hides powerful loot behind a boss.
* HyperspaceArsenal: The player can pack in a shocking number of weapons, ammo, explosives, and munitions into their personal inventory space.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:I-L]]
* IconicLogo: The green tree, which has several variants for specific biomes as shown in some trailers.
* IFellForHours: The fastest way to get to the Underworld is to dig a two-block wide tunnel from the surface straight down. The result is a fall that takes nearly a minute to complete on the largest maps. Just make sure you have something to prevent fall damage or break your fall (water, liquid honey, Pink Slime Blocks) when you hit the bottom.
* ImmuneToFlinching: Knockback can be bothersome in battle as well as exploring (such as being hit into a tall chasm, taking fall damage). The player can equip the Cobalt Shield or its upgrade, the Obsidian Shield, which both completely prevent knockback. You can also use a grappling hook to latch yourself to any surface, though obviously moving is out of the question unless you let go.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: There are a number of enemies that have very accurate ranged attacks. As just a pre-hardmode example, Spiked Jungle Slimes and Hornets fire spikes and stingers with incredible accuracy, making a player's journey through the jungle difficult. Gastropods from the Hallow are also infamous for being able to shoot laser beams from outside the visible screen with perfect accuracy.
* ImprovisedArmor:
** You can wear an empty bucket as a helmet.
** You can also use a Fishbowl as a helmet, though [[TooDumbToLive you'll eventually drown if you don't take it off.]]
* ImprovisedWeapon:
** Hammers and axes are not intended as weapons for the most part, but higher end ones can still be effective. In previous versions, The Staff of Regrowth, usually meant to be a tool for making grass grow quicker, was one, as it used to do more damage than the [[InfinityMinusOneSword Muramasa]], making it a very viable weapon to bash things to death with, and far easier to get if luck is on your side.
** Buckets of lava can be used in this manner by dumping them on enemies below you, as can columns of sand held up by a destructible block, or blocks of sand dropped from above. Sand in the Alpha did even more damage to things hit by it. There's a reason one of Terraria's title bars says "Sand is overpowered."
* InconvenientlyPlacedConveyorBelt: (Some assembly required.)
* IncreasinglyLethalEnemy: Alien Hornets around the Vortex Pillar will grow into powerful Alien Queens if they survive long enough. Said Alien Queens drop nearly harmless Alien Larvae when killed, which can grow into hornets and then queens if left alone.
* InfantImmortality: The Angler is the only child in the game. He can be hurt by monsters or traps like the other townsfolk, but instead of dying bloodily like the others, he vanishes in a puff of smoke with the message [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere "[name] has left"]] when his health runs out. [[spoiler:Since this is how some phantasmal enemies like the Wraith "die," the most popular explanation is that [[DeadAllAlong he's a ghost]], so whether this is an aversion or not is unclear.]]
* InfinityMinusOneSword:
** The Blade of Grass is a fantastic replacement for just about any sword made from the common ores. It only takes a trip to the jungle (albeit a dangerous one for underequipped, new characters) and killing enough hornets for their stingers, as well as the naturally spawning jungle spores. [[hottip:*:[--Compared to the Light's Bane/Blood Butcherer which requires killing a boss to reliably acquire materials for construction, the Muramasa, which requires killing a boss AND looting a key to open a chest which contains one (while surviving the much more dangerous environment), and the Fiery Greatsword, which requires a Hellstone-capable pick and the ability to survive the inherent risks of a lava environment--].]]
** Pre-hardmode, the Starfury sword, which can be found randomly in the floating island chests. They hit hard for a low level sword and you can take out early bosses with relative ease thanks to its secondary attack, a falling star which drops approximately where your mouse cursor is. Used underground, it can also be used as an emergency light source, and the falling star can help reveal hidden passageways.
** In hardmode, the Mushroom Spear. You can buy it very early after defeating a mechanical boss, provided you make an suitable home for the Truffle [=NPC=]. It does decent damage, has good reach and knockback, and the mushrooms it makes can hurt monsters, even through walls. Aiming it can be tricky, but once you master how to use it, it'll last you for a very long time during the rest of the game.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: Everything the [[FinalBoss Moon Lord]] drops is going to be the strongest of that class. The magic, melee, and ranged weapons it drops are, bar none, the best of their type. Of course, since they're only obtainable after the final boss, they're pretty much {{Bragging Rights Reward}}s
** Star Wrath: Essentially a Starfury on steroids, each swing of this weapon rains down three highly damaging stars that pierce enemies.
** Meowmere: The melee weapon with ''the'' highest melee base damage in the game, it fires out bouncy rainbow-trailing cats with each swing, dealing incredible damage in closed spaces. Or at least, it USED to have the highest melee base damage until Journey's End, where it got powercrept by another weapon (which it actually upgrades into).
** Terrarian: The strongest yoyo in the game with the second-highest base melee damage, it has an infinite flight time, and like the Flairon, it spews out powerful homing shots rapidly from the yoyo.
** SDMG: Basically the Megashark/Chain Gun on crack, this weapon has an extremely high rate of fire, 50% chance to not consume ammo, a much higher crit rate, and hurts even more than the other machine gun-type weapons.
** Celebration [=MK2=]: A rapid-fire rocket launcher that replaced the Celebration in the Moon Lord's drop pool in Journey's End (With the Celebration being moved to the Party Girl's shop after defeating the Golem). The most powerful rocket launcher in the game, and a massively upgraded version of the original Celebration.
** Lunar Flare: An upgraded Blizzard Staff, this magic weapon deals heavy damage with splash and can be aimed at any point the user wants it to hit for powerful precision damage. Not even walls are a problem with this weapon.
** Last Prism: The highest-DPS weapon in the game, it fires six streams that converge together to form a single beam that deals 6x the damage. It absolutely ''shreds'' almost anything that's not behind a wall. Its only drawback is the insane amount of mana it guzzles. Or, at least, it ''was'' the uncontested highest-DPS weapon, until...
** Journey's End added a new, beyond-all doubt Infinity Plus One. A new melee weapon called the Zenith. It requires both the aforementioned Star Wrath and Meowmere, plus a Terra Blade, (A sword with a very long crafting recipe, starting with four Pre-Hardmode Swords), a Horseman's Blade (Drops from Pumpkings in the difficult Pumpkin Moon event), an Influx Waver (drops from the Martian Saucer during the Martian Invasion), A Seedler (Dropped from Plantera), An Enchanted Sword (Drops from Enchanted Sword Shrines), A Starfury (Found in Sky Chests) and a Copper Shortsword (The weapon you start the game with, and can be crafted from copper bars). The crafting recipe is insane (and because it requires two drops from the Moon Lord, it's basically a BraggingRightsReward), but with the right modifiers and bonuses only the Last Prism can claim to rival it in power -- and bear in mind, the Last Prism guzzles insane amounts of mana whereas the Zenith doesn't require any ammo or mana to use. In terms of power and utility, the Zenith can hit any enemy and light up any point on the screen while passing through blocks, dealing rapid and incredible damage per "swing". It truly is a weapon that commemorates your entire journey, beginning to end.
** For summon weapons, the Terraprisma is this, having so much damage it even beats out the Stardust Dragon. The catch is that you have to beat the Empress of Light during the day ''when all of its attacks cause [[OneHitKill instant death]]'', in order to acquire this. So while you can obtain the Terraprisma before even the Golem, anybody who successfully does so is already likely skilled enough to make it through the rest of the game without it.
* InformedEquipment: The game shows your character with whatever armor they have on, and there are also social slots now. If armor is put in these slots, that's what you see your character in, but gameplay-wise you are still wearing the non-social armour.
* InsectQueen:
** The Queen Bee. A giant bee boss that shoots out smaller bees which attack you until you kill them.
** An early-Hardmode weapon also lets you summon a Spider Queen, which in turn summons tiny spiders who wander about attacking any hostiles in range.
* InstantGravestone: Dying will spawn a tombstone stating your cause of death. You can then dig it up and change its message if you like.
* InstrumentOfMurder:
** The Magical Harp, a magic weapon which fires infinitely piercing notes that last for four seconds and move at a speed determined by the distance between the cursor and the player.
** The Axe, a guitar that serves as a hammer/axe combo and is the fastest hammer in the game (for axes, the Picksaw and Shroomite Digging Claw are faster).
* InterchangeableAntimatterKeys:
** Present and accounted for in the Dungeon. Dungeon Slimes and pots have a chance of dropping golden keys when killed/broken and keys may occasionally spawn in dungeon chests. The Golden keys can unlock Locked Golden Chests in the dungeon once expending the key.
** The rare dungeon chests use unique keys dropped by enemies in their respective biomes. The Frost Key for the Frost Chest found in the snow biome, for example. The keys open unique locked chests in the dungeon, and the keys are used up when the chest is opened.
* InterfaceScrew: The Blind and Blackout debuffs darken the screen. Getting a Brain Suckler latched onto your head reduces your vision to an absolute minimum around the character. The Confused debuff reverses controls.
* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou:
** A lot of furniture in the game is both functional as well as decorative. The large amount of furniture can either be made or found by the player and used to decorate their home. The made and found furniture have unique looks that lend to greater customization and decoration of your home.
** Housing using a wide variety of background and foreground materials can yield a variety of looks for the buildings.
** Various decorative banners can be found throughout the game or dropped by enemies.
** Bosses have a chance to drop a trophy that can be displayed as both bragging right and decoration.
** Players have the option to paint their house and furniture in a variety of colours.
** As of the 1.2.4 update, you can craft and find furniture in the world made out of wood, Ebonwood (Corruption), Shadewood (Crimson), Pearlwood (Hallowed), Rich Mahogany Wood (Jungle), Boreal Wood (snow), Palm Wood (sand), Spooky Wood (Pumpkin Moon), Dynasty Wood (Traveling Merchant), slime blocks, flesh blocks, cogs (Steampunk), ice, sunplate blocks (Skyware), glass, lihzahrd bricks, honey blocks, living wood (made using normal wood), bone, mushrooms, obsidian, the respective dungeon colors, and golden furniture (dropped by pirates), not counting some misc things for decor like mannequins to display armor and outfits or lighting objects, or the more obscure things like living fire blocks, lavafall and waterfall blocks, and arcane rune walls. Certain areas, the Sky Islands, pyramids, dungeons, and Hell, all have uniquely themed banners to collect, and enemies rarely drop banners themed after themselves. Bosses drop wall mounted trophies to collect. Paintings and statues are scattered underground and in hell and the dungeon. You can capture wild critters and bugs and show them off in glass containers. The paint system contains a rather decent amount of variety. And 1.2.4 added weapon mount racks that you can place any weapon or tool on to show off. Phew. And who says building and decorating isn't fun?
** If that wasn't enough customization for you, almost every ore in the game can be made into bricks, and most of those can be used for walls, including various [[{{Unobtainium}} ridiculously hard-to-get ones generally reserved for high-end armor]]. On one hand, it's probably not the most efficient use of materials that you went through hell (both literally and metaphorically) to get. [[RuleOfCool On the other hand, you get to build houses from things like Orichalcum and Mythril.]] Just don't try it with [[KillItWithFire Hellstone]].
* InUniverseGameClock: The game counts one second as one minute, and the day/night cycle is generally 24 minutes. You can keep track of time with various accessories or placeable clock furniture.
** There are also moon phases which are visible in the night sky.
** The day/night cycle is important for certain enemies, bosses, and in-game events.
* InventoryManagementPuzzle: You can only carry 41 items (51 for 1.2 PC) at a time (by using the trash as a slot), and those items are divided into stacks of varying size (250 for blocks [999 for certain items in 1.2 PC] and 99 for torches, just to name a couple). This means you have to manage your inventory carefully if you plan to go digging for treasure, and you'll have to backtrack often to unload items once you invariably run out of room. On the plus side, there are a great many chests scattered around the world, enough that you won't have to throw anything worthwhile away (and in the unlikely event you don't have enough, you can always craft more with some wood and iron). The vendors can also be used to offload some of the loot, while many players carry a piggy bank around with them to use as storage, bag of holding style. The much more expensive safe and the end-game Defender's Forge can add even more space.
* InvincibilityPowerUp: The mobile-exclusive Wiesnbräu, beer served in a glass boot, grants the Immune buff for 30 seconds and is the only item in the game that grants any degree of invincibility that lasts for more than a split second. However, it reduces the damage you can inflict and also gives you what is essentially a 90 second-long session of Potion Sickness.
* InvulnerableCivilians:
** Averted. At one point, there was a near-invincible civilian in the form of the Guide (who could still be killed by lava, but would quickly respawn), but an update changed this to allow him to die like the other {{Non Player Character}}s. [=NPCs=] still can't be killed by the player under normal circumstances, although it is possible to with magma, and goodie bags dropped by enemies around Halloween commonly have Rotten Eggs, which can be used to damage and kill [=NPCs=].
** Killing the Guide by throwing his voodoo doll into a lava pit summons the Wall of Flesh.
** 1.2 adds the same potential fate for the Clothier, which lets you summon Skeletron again.
* ItemCrafting: The player can craft many different items from the various functional furniture pieces and personal workshops. Players can craft their own armor, weapons, ammo, special boss summoning items, furniture, and much more.
* ItsAWonderfulFailure: If a hardcore character dies, you return to the world where you died as a ghost. You then get to look around the world your character is leaving behind before you exit, at which point the character gets deleted and all the stuff dropped despawns when the world unloads.
* JetPack: For beginning players, the Rocket Boots can be purchased from the Goblin Tinkerer, and they can be combined with boots that let you run faster. Once a player is in hardmode and defeats a Mechanical Boss, the Steampunker moves in, allowing them to buy an actual Jetpack, which lets you ascend faster than most other wing variants. Once you defeat the FinalBoss, you can craft the Vortex Booster, an alien AppliedPhlebotinum jetpack that allows you to hover.
* JokeItem:
** The angel statues. The tooltip even says "''It doesn't do anything.''" Except for [[spoiler:taking up inventory space. They ''really'' don't do anything.]]
** The Whoopie Cushion, which is very rare and produces a farting noise when used. The 1.2.0.3 update added an interesting use for this item as a crafting component.
** The confetti gun in 1.2, meant to celebrate being the 1000th item added to the game.
** There's a squirt-gun drop in 1.2.3 that does nothing but fire a harmless stream of water, as well as a beach ball that you can only push around to demonstrate some basic physics. 1.2.4 adds the junk items you can fish up, like lumps of seaweed, old shoes, and empty tins. As of 1.3, the Squirt Gun does have a small purpose--[[DevelopersForesight it can trigger the "wet" buff for the Fishron Mount]].
** The Celebration, bought from the Party Girl after defeating the Golem, is usually seen as only a novelty weapon. It deals good damage and has large splash, but the 2 projectiles it fires travel a short distance before exploding like fireworks, and its fire rate is so-so. The Snowman Cannon is a ''much'' better rocket launcher weapon.
** The 1.4 update adds a large amount of toilets for all the furniture sets, as well as two other ones: the Diamond Toilet and the Terra Toilet, the latter of which requires the same Broken Hero Swords used to craft the components for the Terra Blade to make. The game even chides you if you choose to create it.
-->''"Seriously? THIS is what you use the Broken Hero Sword for?"''
* TheJoyOfX: The Dao of Pow is the tao used as a flail.
* JumpScare:
** Explosive Blocks may cause this with their loud noise and the fact it's almost impossible to spot one. The worst part is that they are so infrequent you never actually expect them. 1.3, now spawns most of them connected to a ''very obvious'' PlungerDetonator, but there are still a few of the hard-to-see ones sitting around.
** The Dungeon Guardian does this to unsuspecting players: the door is unlocked, so the player can descend without defeating Skeletron. Go below 0 feet/meters and the Dungeon Guardian spawns and instakills anybody who isn't at max health and defense. The devious part is that the Dungeon Guardian may not decide to spawn immediately once you go underground, making it more likely to catch you off guard.
* JungleJapes: Available in both surface and subterranean variants.
* KilledOffForReal: If you die as a hardcore character, you don't respawn. Instead you can wander around as a ghost, and upon exiting the world, the character is deleted.
* KillEnemiesToOpen:
** During Slime Rain, killing 150 slimes summons King Slime. If you've done it once before, only 75 are needed.
** During the Lunar Events, in order to damage a Celestial Tower, one must first kill 100 enemies (150 in Expert Mode) from within its section, which removes the shield that protects the Tower and makes it vulnerable to attacks.
* KillerRabbit: Since they're entirely harmless, you might not even mind if bunnies hop right into your house. And then the Blood Moon rises, and they turn into terrifying Corrupt Bunnies, and ''they're already inside...''
* KillerYoYo: A new weapon type in 1.3, the yo-yo, is like a flail but you can control where it is with your mouse. They do less damage, but with mouse control you can string together hits for very high DPS. Their ease of control also allows you to swing them around corners and through gaps, attacking enemies with minimal risk to yourself. Yo-yos have several accessories that improve their tactical use, and there are plenty of upgraded versions like any other type of weapon.
* KillItWithFire:
** Pretty much everything you can craft out of Hellstone involves flames. The Molten Fury bow will cause wooden arrows to catch fire when you fire them.
** The Flamelash lets you cast fireballs.
** There are three separate magic items that allow the player launch bounding fire balls that have a chance to set enemies on fire. The Flower of Fire, the Flower of Frost "burns with cold fire," and a Cursed Flame item.
** The game also has two flamethrowers permitting players to spray fire against their enemies. Crispy fun for the whole family!
** Flamethrower traps which can be used or tripped by the players.
** Certain ammos set enemies on fire.
** A crafting station exists that allows you to make 'Flasks' that add passive effects to you. You can mix up Flasks that let you add Fire and Cursed Fire to your attacks.
** Essentially what equipping the fire gauntlet is supposed to do, though it is more useful as an illumination asset.
* KingMook: The Eye of Cthulhu is a giant Demon Eye. The Eater of Worlds is a giant Devourer worm that can break into smaller segments. The King Slime is... well, you get the idea.
* KleptomaniacHero: You. See that room underground guarding that pretty gold chest? Go ahead, take what's inside. Better yet, take the entire chest. Even better, ''take the entire room''. You can uproot nearly everything (with the notable exception of Demon Altars; you can destroy them, but not take them) with the right tools.
* KnifeNut: Throwing Knives are a pretty reliable weapon early in the game. Their more powerful magic counterpart has unlimited ammunition (but consumes mana). 1.2 has the even-more-powerful Vampire Knives which restores health points from dealing damage.
** 1.3 gave [=NPCs=] weapons to defend themselves against enemies. The Merchant uses Throwing Knives, and the Angler has Frost Daggerfish.
** There's also the Psycho mob from the Solar Eclipse event, confirmed by the devs to be a reference to ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}''. He uses a knife to attack and drops the [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Psycho_Knife Psycho Knife]], which stealths you when wielded and gives a massive damage boost in the process.
* KnockBack: Core mechanic. Preventable with a shield item, if you can find it. [[LedgeBats Problematic]] without it.
* TheKrampus: Krampus is an enemy during the Frost Moon event.
* LamarckWasRight: If you paint grass a different color, it will bring that color with it as it grows over bare dirt or mud blocks, and spread the color to any weeds or vines that grow out of it.
* LaserBlade:
** The Phaseblade is unabashedly a [[StarWars lightsaber]], complete with the classic "vwomm" sound effect. Happily, the gems you use in its construction affect the color of the blade, allowing for white, red, yellow, blue, green, and [[Creator/SamuelLJackson purple]] Phaseblades. Once you hit Hardmode, you can use Crystal Shards to upgrade you Phaseblade into the Phasesaber (41 base attack and Light Knockback).
* LavaAddsAwesome: Make obsidian! Mine hellstone! Slaughter your enemies! Suffer a messy, fiery death! A thousand and one uses!
* LavaIsBoilingKoolAid: This game somewhat mimics ''Minecraft'', in that the Lava's not instantly fatal and flows a bit slower than water. However, it only destroys loose blocks and common items...which leads to the FridgeLogic-inducing sight of a stone block beside a lava pool you just mined...one holding the lava in place, mind you...is destroyed by that very same lava.
* LavaPit: Found in deep depths. Also made by players in order to create a barrier or trap for enemies; shallow ones are just as effective and if shallow enough, the coins and items dropped by the enemies will not get burned up.
* LedgeBats: A reality due to knockback, unless you have a Shield-class accessory equipped.
* LesserOfTwoEvils / NecessaryEvil: Spreading the Hallow, in most cases. The Hallow isn't exactly friendly, but [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]]s can live in the Hallow and it won't encroach upon the Jungle. In desperate situations, spreading it may be the best way to deal with a particularly bad Corruption/Crimson spread.
* LethalJokeItem: Quite a number of weapons manage to be very effective while being fun and silly:
** Of particular note are the Party Bullets, which are crafted by buying empty casings from the Arms Dealer and Confetti from the Party Girl and then combining them, and the Bananarangs, one of the strongest Boomerang-class weapons.
** There is also the KO Cannon, which is a cartoonish boxing-glove cannon that behaves like the Harpoon.
** The Party Girl's ''fireworks'' are mostly there to look pretty, but their explosions can wound and kill monsters. One player even managed to ''[[CurbStompBattle slaughter]]'' [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu the Moon Lord]] with an elaborate fireworks setup [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxntLDJl3U in under 4 seconds]].
** The best pickaxe pre-hardmode is the Reaver Shark. Yes, a shark with a pickaxe head. There's also the Chainsaw Shark, which is a shark with chainsaw teeth that functions as ''[[ChainsawGood an actual chainsaw]]''.
*** The Reaver Shark got nerfed in 1.4, though it is still as powerful as a Platinum Pickaxe.
** Apart from that, players can find and ''use'' a Swordfish (or Obsidian Swordfish) as a spearlike weapon! The Obsidian Swordfish is even the second-strongest Spear in the game in terms of raw attack power.
** The Meowmere is a sword that has a hilt depicting a cat's face, and fires rainbow-trailing cats when swung. It also has the highest base damage of any sword in the game except its own upgrade, the Zenith.
** The Candy Corn Rifle is, of course, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a gun that shoots]] [[EdibleAmmunition candy corn]]. Sounds silly, but it's basically a [[MoreDakka Megashark]] with bouncing, piercing bullets that can rip through groups of enemies like tissue paper.
** The Copper Shortsword, a long standing joke in the Terraria community, the first and weakest weapon that you start with, is used as a crafting material for the Zenith, the most powerful sword in the game.
* LethalLavaLand: The absolute bottom of the map is the Underworld, a hellscape with massive pits of lava, ash blocks as the only non-structure block, and Hellstone ore which produces more lava when mined and will damage you if touched without protection by obsidian equipment/potions. It's also filled with angry demons, flaming bats, fiery wizards, and skeletal serpents which will make your life hell. And that's before you summon the boss.
* LifeDrain:
** 1.3 introduces a magic weapon dropped by Crimson Mimics that's actually called this, it increases life regeneration rate as it damage enemies within its radius.
** The Vampire Knives have this effect when they hit enemies, while the Spectre Armor (Hood) SetBonus allows you to deal this to enemies hit with spells.
* LightIsNotGood: In fact, it is almost as nasty as the dark. God, those pixies hurt! On the other hand, it may still be preferable, because Hallow enemies are still slightly less annoying than Hardmode Corruption/Crimson. And unlike its darker counterparts, Hallowed areas are livable for your villagers. Additionally, the Hallow will not destroy the Jungle, as it cannot convert Jungle Grass to Hallowed Grass, while the Corruption/Crimson can and will destroy the Jungle if given the chance.
* LightingBug: Fireflies and lightning bugs caught with a net can be put in jars as a light source.
* LightningBruiser: While there are quite a number of bosses that fit this, Duke Fishron is the best example. He's extremely painful, fast and mobile (even more so when he TurnsRed), and he sports the second-highest health of all bosses while being a single target (Destroyer has more, but multiple segments can be hit at once to score multiplied damage).
* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Inverted.
** In the early game, Melee is the worst class to use (discounting Summoner, who has no easily obtainable summons in the early game). Using swords is risky, as a early game character does not have much in the way of defense, and projectiles for Melee characters are difficult to find due to having to rely on chest drops instead of being able to craft projectile weapons. Magic classes fare better than Melee in the early game, however, as a low-level staff is relatively easier to obtain than a boomerang, allows players to stay far from danger, and the Mana increasing items are far more easier to find than the Health increasing ones (Fallen Stars which drop every night frequently and always on the surface, opposed to Heart Crystals which are found at any underground layer and are somewhat of a pain to find).
** In the mid to late game, however, Melee is one of the best classes to use. Equipment specialized for Melee provides the most defense of any class-specific armor of the same tier, nearly every Hardmode melee weapon fires a projectile capable of doing good damage, and some of the best weapons at the time like the Terra Blade, Vampire Knives, and Solar Eruption are classified under Melee. While Magic is by no means bad at this point, most of the disadvantages of Melee have vanished, leaving only its shining strengths.
* LiterallyShatteredLives: The TakenForGranite debuff increases fall damage, making this a likely result if you get hit with it in midair.
* LivingStructureMonster: The Wall of Flesh is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - a massive, moving wall with eyes and a mouth.
* LoadingScreen: The game does this during world generation to include items to let you know which part of the generation process it's on like "Putting dirt in the rocks" which are dirt patches deep underground and "Putting rocks in the dirt" which are stone patches underground or on the surface. Notably, you can tell if the world will have Corruption with "Making the world evil" or Crimson with "Making the world bloody" (although the 1.3 update made even easier to tell it by making the progress bar either purple or red, respectively).
* LogicalWeakness: The Stake Launcher, which is already a powerful endgame ranged weapon in its own right, deals an absolutely ridiculous amount of bonus damage to Vampires. It can easily hit them for over 5,000 damage, when the maximum health for a Vampire is 500.
* LordBritishPostulate:
** This used to exist in full force with the Guide. A common hobby of people was bringing lava to him and trapping him in a pit with the stuff, watching him burn to death. Now, however, he's just as mortal as the other [=NPCs=], especially if you have a Guide Voodoo Doll, which lets you attack and kill him. It even [[DevelopersForesight kills him if destroyed by other means.]] And doing so summons a boss. As of the Big 1.2 Update and the subsequent supplemental patches, the Clothier has his own VoodooDoll now. Equipping it allows you to attack him directly; slaying him with it equipped will allow you to summon Skeletron. The Clothier even drops a special hat when killed, as if players weren't murdering [=NPCs=] enough already. The other [=NPCs=] can't be harmed by the player directly without the Rotten Eggs from Halloween, but they can be killed by monsters or lava.
** Also, the supposed-to-be-undefeatable Dungeon Guardian has been killed many, many times. It has enormous health, takes only one damage from any attack, and flies at you through any barrier at high speed, instantly killing you if it makes contact; this has been circumvented by, among other things, riding a minecart in a loop so it can never reach you (it has no ranged attacks) and spamming projectiles at it until it dies. In 1.2, he now drops the Bone Key, which summons the Baby Skeletron Head pet.
** Skeletron Prime has been killed after sunrise--where he gains the same excessive defenses and instant-kill capabilities of the Dungeon Guardian--using similar tactics. Unlike the Guardian, he doesn't drop anything special in the daytime, so this is purely a SelfImposedChallenge.
* LovecraftLite: The game is a nice, happy, 2d ''Minecraft''-like game. Also like ''Minecraft'', it has some pretty warped and grotesque enemies, especially the bosses. A lot of the enemies from The Corruption look like animated clumps of rotten flesh, and then you get to the Eater of Worlds. However, it gets ramped up further when you attempt to activate Hardmode. By making a HumanSacrifice [[YouMonster by throwing a Guide Voodoo Doll into lava]], you summon the Wall of Flesh, an enormous AdvancingWallOfBoss that is comprised of unidentifiable fleshy matter, with lots of miniature creatures attached to it that try to eat you. The sheer sight of this thing inflicts a [[GoMadFromTheRevelation temporary case of magically induced terror that literally reads "You have seen something nasty, there is no escape."]] But all of the above are killable, and they could be a lot more horrifying looking than they are. [[SugarBowl Not to mention the cutesy look of everything else.]]
* LuckBasedMission:
** Hardcore mode + virtually invisible one-shot-kill explosive traps = this. It's less an issue of ''if'' you'll step on one and die and more ''when''. Mercifully, an update made these traps much more rare, replacing most of them with significantly more visible detonators. However, careless players can still easily step on the detonators by accident, and the virtually invisible pressure plate activated explosive traps weren't actually removed from the game either, only made more rare.
** Reforging. You ''could'' theoretically get that Legendary Terra Blade on your first try (or even when you first craft it!), but it's much more likely you'll be turning your pockets out long before you have the best modifiers for all of your items. Settling for one that isn't completely negative is usually the way to go.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: There are various shield accessories that, among other things, increase the wearer's defense. The Brand of the Inferno allows a player to actually raise these shields, further increasing their defense.
* LudicrousGibs:
** Nearly every living thing explodes into pieces when it's killed, whether it was from something like a WaveMotionGun or something as benign as ''drowning''. Although, if the blood and gore setting is turned off, gibs are turned into puffs of smoke.
** Due to being MadeOfPlasticine (see below), blood moons and goblin invasions usually end with bloody chunks scattered all over the place.
** The Frost Moon and Pumpkin Moon events have unrelenting waves of mobs that come after the player. Those capable of reaching the last wave usually have weapons, buffs, and specially set up arenas designed to cause this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M-O]]
* MacrossMissileMassacre:
** Spamming the Scourge of the Corruptor all around you will result in a screen full of tiny homing corruptors homing in on any unfortunate enemy in the area.
** Spamming the Razorblade Typhoon tends to have a similar effect as the projectiles last for a good bit of time.
** The Snowman Cannon is for all purposes a full-auto, homing rocket launcher that sprays missiles like a machine gun.
** The Martian Saucer boss can do this, with actual missiles.
** In the same vein as the Snowman cannon is the Celebration [=MK2=].
* MadeOfPlasticine: Whenever any enemy, [=NPC=], or player dies, all will always explode into a pile of bloody chunks. Some creatures, like rabbits, tend to be strewn rather liberally across the landscape. Gibs go flying further when you're using weapons with immense knockback.
* MagicCarpet: Magic carpets can be found in pyramids. They allow you to fly a considerable distance horizontally, making them useful for mobility early on.
* MagikarpPower: Summoner builds. Most of their best items are gotten late hardmode, and their early game armor tends to have paper thin defense. Unless you feel like farming for the rarest item in the game, they don't even get their first summon until ''after'' beating the Queen Bee. Once they do get going though, they're quite a force to be reckoned with, with their summons being able to easily tear through most bosses and invasions with little effort.
* MagicMeteor:
** Every night Fallen Stars will crash down like meteors in random places. If you're lucky, they can hit enemies while falling and do 999 damage to anything, including bosses that you can fight outdoors. You can collect them for various uses. They can be crafted into an item that will permanently increase your maximum {{Mana}} pool up to a certain point (which is the only way to get a Mana pool in the first place). You can stuff one in a bottle to create a lantern that increases mana regeneration. You can craft them into furniture with a special crafting station. Finally, they can be used as ammunition for a special type of gun, and do the most damage of any type of ammunition in the game.
** Actual meteors have 50% chance of falling offscreen after the next midnight whenever you destroy a Shadow Orb/Crimson Heart and 2% chance of appearing every midnight afterwards, so long as the amount of unmined meteorite in the world is below a certain threshold. Any location that has at least 50 meteorite blocks in close proximity spawns Meteor Heads endlessly. The resulting meteor ore can be crafted into various items, including the aforementioned star-shooting gun and a rapidly-firing [[FrickinLaserBeams laser pistol]] which gains infinite ammo with a [[SetBonus full set of meteor armor]].
* MagicPoints: You start off with no mana and must collect falling stars in order to forge crystal stars which let you increase your mana meter. 1.2 for PC grants all new characters one star of mana straight away.
* {{Magitek}}: The Space Gun and Rocket Boots. Some other exotic weapons also consume mana when used.
* MamaBear:
** The Queen Bee is perfectly content to leave you alone as you wander through the Underground Jungle... so long as you don't smash a larva resting inside one of her hives (or pull out an Abeemination).
** Plantera may be another case, resembling a fully grown version of her bulbs and only appearing to fight you when you break one.
** The Journey's End update introduces the Empress of Light, which will only appear if you kill a rare type of butterfly known as the Prismatic Lacewing that spawns in Hallow at night.
* ManaMeter: The game requires you to gather 3 fallen stars to craft into a mana crystal which expands it by 20 points. A player can also expand it by equipping accessories and armor which can expand it until taken off, such as bands of star power, accessories with the "Arcane" prefix, jungle armor, or the helmets made from Hardmode ores.
* ManaPotion: Four different levels of Mana Potion, each restoring increasing amounts of Mana. While you can guzzle them all day (and automatically so with the Mana Flower), drinking one imposes the Mana Sickness debuff, temporarily reducing your magic damage output.
* MarathonBoss:
** The Goblin Army invasions can feel like this at higher levels. Spending an entire in-game day killing 150 (or more, depending on how many players are in your server; the maximum is potentially ''over 10,000'') Goblins of varying types comes off as more of a nuisance than an OhCrap moment when they barely do much damage, even more so if your house is rather large, which can end up confusing the goblins since they try to target you first.
** Before 1.2, The Twins and Skeletron Prime could feel like this for strict melee-oriented players. Due to those two bosses having high dodging tendencies, the best ranged melee weapons usually included a full stack of Light Discs. Even then, using then unpatched fire block immunity exploit only let players survive long enough to wear down the boss' health to zero, which could take all night from 7:30 PM onwards, faster with the appropriate buffs. Fast forward to 1.2.2, those two bosses have gotten a damage and hit point nerf, while melee characters can acquire the North Pole. The result is, if properly set up, the destruction of The Twins and Skeletron Prime within a minute in what must be some sort of hilarious comeuppance, putting them (or most bosses for that matter) in undeniable farm status.
** The Solar Eclipse, whether it triggers on its own or a player summons it as early into the day as possible. Save for the Enchanted Sundial or hiding far underground, there's no way to skip out on the event, and it lasts the entire day (which begins at 4:30 AM and ends at 7:30 PM on the in-game clock, mind you), totalling up to ''fifteen straight minutes'' of constant battle. For reference, nighttime (the only time when most bosses can be fought) lasts nine minutes, and most boss battles can be won in half that time depending on how well you prepare.
* MeaningfulName: Retinazer is an [[MagicalEye eye]] that shoots [[EyeBeams lazers]]. Skeletron Prime is a [[{{Transformers}} robot]] version of Skeletron. The Minishark is a shark-shaped minigun. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
* MeatMoss: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Wall of Flesh]], a powerful end-game boss. The 1.2 update introduced the Crimson, a variant on the Corruption that replaces the dark-themed monsters with flesh-and-blood themed ones such as the Blood Crawler and the Face Monster.
* MenuTimeLockout:
** Played straight and averted it depending on if autopause is turned on or off.
** Having it off can have its advantages as you can click an item and then place/use/swing it by clicking, making the {{An Interior Designer Is You}} part much easier.
** Having it turned on can also have the advantage of being able to pause in a dangerous spot/during a blood moon. It also leads to one of the most potent bugs in the game, ''allowing you to bypass potion cooldown''.
* MercyInvincibility:
** You get this for about half a second after being hit, which can be extended slightly by equipping the Cross Necklace, a drop from [[ChestMonster Mimics]] in hardmode. This particular game mechanic is frequently exploited to allow players to keep taking trivial damage from minor hazards as a means to completely avoid deadly boss attacks. Uniquely, attacks from [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] use their own invincibility timer separate from the regular timer for all other enemies' attacks, rendering most invincibility machines useless.
** This is played with for monsters -- due to how piercing weapons work, attacking an enemy with piercing projectiles will prevent them from taking any other piercing damage for a brief moment, meaning {{Multishot}} ranged weapons work better with single-impact ammunition. However, certain endgame weapons/ammunition such as the Lunar Flare or Luminite Bullets/Arrows, despite being capable of piercing or striking multiple enemies at once, do not trigger their invincibility frames.
* MetalSlime:
** The Truffle Worm is a critter that can only be found in the Underground Glowing Mushroom biome, and not only it is hard to spot and catch, but it will also run away and burrow offscreen if it spots you. Also, you have to catch it with a bug net, which has a paltry range, and if you accidentally attack it or it runs into a monster, it will die. It is required to fight one of the last end-game bosses. ''And you'll have to catch at least six (if you're '''really''' lucky) to get all the drops from said boss.''
** "Pinky" is a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin bright pink]] slime that randomly spawns during the day. It has ten times the HP of the basic Green Slime (150 vs. 14), is smaller, and suffers double from knockback (hit it with an axe and watch it fly), but is otherwise the same but drops gold coins when killed. (To put that in perspective: 100 copper coins make one silver coin; 100 silver coins make one gold. Green slimes drop about 20-50 copper coins. Pinky drops the equivalent of 10,000 copper coins.) It also drops the special pink gel, which is crafted bouncy items as well as {{Molotov Cocktail}}s and restoration potions.
** Rainbow Slimes have easily the most specific spawning conditions of all enemies: they can only spawn on non-Hallowed ground while the player is standing in the Hallow during rain, and are extremely rare even then. They drop Rainbow Bricks and are the only way to acquire those bricks, so if you're planning to build with Rainbow Bricks, have fun grinding.
** Nymphs spawn very rarely in the caverns. What's worse, they disguise themselves as peaceful {{Non Player Character}}s, waiting until you approach them to attack you, so that you're taken by surprise... which means, even if you have a Nymph nearby, you may miss her because it won't attack you until you get very close. Killing one gives an achievement and it's the only way to get the metal detector.
** Mimics are another example; they spawn randomly and fairly rarely in Hardmode, and drop up to ten gold coins and one of several items. Just like Nymphs, they disguise themselves as normal chests, which means again that you may miss it because it won't attack you until you get very close.
** In the same vein as the Truffle Worm is the Prismatic Lacewing. While it won't run away and burrow when it spots you, the Prismatic Lacewing is an incredibly rare spawn in the Hallow after Plantera is defeated, and will only spawn between 7:30 PM and 12:00 AM. If you can catch one, you can release it and then kill it to spawn the Empress of Light.
*** With that being said, the Lifeform Analyser, sold by the Travelling Merchant, will let you know if ANY of these creatures are nearby (and will tell you exactly which), mitigating this.
* {{Metroidvania}}: Exploration in the game is an important part of the game, you can find several valuable upgrades by spelunking underground as well as find rare ores and unique areas.
* MidAirBobbing: The Money Trough floats this way when summoned.
* MinecartMadness:
** Players can place minecart tracks to ride minecarts on. Tracks can also randomly generate underground; you can dig up these tracks and use them yourself if you don't want to hunt for more Iron or farm more Trees to build your own.
** [[https://youtu.be/uR-JyqmgcyY Here's a video]] showcasing ''true'' Minecart Madness. This world-tour round-trip rollercoaster took 100+ hours to build and spans the entire game world, including many Underground areas.
* TheMinionMaster: A possible equipment setup with the 1.2 update, which introduces two types of minions (spear-chucking Pygmies and Baby Slimes) and an armor set and accessory that let you summon up to 6 at once. The Big 1.2.4 Update adds Spider-themed and Bee-themed Summoner Armor sets, and adds more summon creatures. The 1.3 update has made Summoner into an actual fourth class, introducing new armors for summoners as well as a Summoner Emblem.
* MobileFishbowl: The Fish Bowl item will cause the player character to drown if it's worn outside of the vanity slot. If the player drinks a Gill Potion or uses a Breathing Reed while wearing the Fish Bowl item, though, he or she will be able to breathe normally.
* MolotovCocktail: With some Torches, Ale, Pink Gel, and Silk, you can make these in a pinch. Prior to a damage nerf and a change to the recipe (the old one only required regular gel, easily farmed from ordinary slimes), they were the WeaponOfChoice of many speedrunners looking to kill the Wall of Flesh before the first night ended.
* MoneyMauling: The Coin Gun, in its 1.2 update, fires coins from your inventory as ammunition and deals damage according to their value. Its damage can range from being moderately acceptable with the lowest valued coins, to being the hands-down strongest weapon in the game... for a few seconds.
* MoneySpider: Almost all enemies drop coins (among other things) when killed.
* MonsterClown: Unlocking Hardmode causes Clown monsters to appear during Blood Moons. Silly-looking as they are, they're also fairly tough, and they throw bombs that deal high damage. Fortunately, as of version 1.2, their bombs won't blow up your painstakingly crafted base/village/what have you. They still do quite a bit of damage, though.
* MonsterCompendium: The Bestiary, introduced in the Journey's End update. Killing an enemy (or talking to/unlocking an NPC) unlocks their bestiary entry, and subsequent details will be added with more amounts of said enemy that you kill. Progressing the bestiary to a certain threshold unlocks the Zoologist NPC.
* MonsterMash: During a Solar Eclipse, you face off against Reapers, Swamp Things, Frankenstein's Monsters, Vampires, and Cyclops Zombies on the surface (pity there are no werewolves or skeletons, as they can only appear at night or underground respectively). In the 1.3 update, various monsters based on horror monsters now appear, such as [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Psycho]], [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon Creature From the Deep]], [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre Butcher]], [[Film/TheFly1958 Dr. ManFly]], [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} Mothron]], [[Film/TheExorcist The Possessed]], [[Franchise/{{Hellraiser}} Nailhead]], [[Film/{{Phantasm}} Deadly Spheres]], and [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} Fritz]].
* MonstersEverywhere: The Goblin invasion formula to determine how many will attack? 100 + (50*number of players with more than 200 health). For a single player over 200 HP, that's 150 goblins ranging from merely annoying to tough, with the max of 255 players in a server, there can be 12,850 goblins in an army.
* MookMaker:
** Some statues when powered will spawn monsters though the monsters spawned from statues do not drop rare items or coins. For example, slimes still drop their regular gel but no money, and the Mimic will not drop its highly useful rare drops at all.
** Various bosses spawn smaller enemies to harass the player.
* MoreDakka:
** The Minishark, which upgrades into the equally rapid-firing [[PurposelyOverpowered Star Cannon or Megashark]].
** Pirate Captains have a machine gun that they turn on the player.
** Players have access to a few automatic or rapid fire guns including an Uzi, a Chain Gun, and a Gatligator.
* MultiMookMelee: Various events in the game like Blood Moons, Solar Eclipses, or any one of the invasions feature swarms of mooks of varying types attacking the player. However, the mooks do not steadily become more difficult - they simply keep attacking until a set in-game time or sufficient numbers of the enemy have been killed.
* {{Multishot}}: Some bows shoot multiple arrows for the cost of one: Tsunami fires 5, Phantasm and Daedalus Stormbow fire 4, and Chlorophyte Shotbow fires 3.
* MundaneUtility:
** Magic Missile is useful for many, ''many'' things. For starters, the missile tracks your cursor and lasts as long as you hold the mouse button down, making it easy to hit agile mooks. The missile is decently powerful, can slip through small spaces that you might not be able to attack through, generates quite a lot of light, and doesn't expire when cutting through plants. Jungle thorns blocking your way at an inconvenient angle? Trim them with a magic missile! Flamelash is the same but brighter and more powerful, and update 1.1 introduces the Rainbow Rod, which is even stronger and all rainbow-y.
** Any item that emits light particles will be used as a light source. Some people keep items like Gungnir not only as a fast, hard-hitting, long-reaching sacred spear but also as a means to see through walls. Starfury makes glowing stars drop from the sky towards wherever you click; if you're underground, it's a great way to detect nearby caverns. Even gunslingers can get in on the fun once they get an Endless Musket Pouch for infinite bullets, letting them illuminate caves by simply holding down the trigger on a Megashark.
** With the 1.2 update, the Death Sickle passes through blocks while emitting a faint glow. Equipping accessories that grant burning effects causes the spectral sickle to glow even brighter. Very useful when trying to spot holes and goodies or even when digging up ores.
** Phaseblades and Phasesabers as well as any weapon on fire such as the Fiery Greatsword or Molten Hamaxe can be used to light up dark caves while exploring. Combined with the Mithril armor which shines for several seconds AFTER a light source is cast on it lets you ditch the otherwise necessary illumination tools while mining.
** The sparks of light thrown from several weapons when swung or thrown, like the Magic Boomerang and the Hellstone weapons, are very useful for spotting things through cavern walls as you can throw them through the otherwise-solid blocks and see what's on the other side. Similarly, setting enemies on fire will cause sparks to drop from them, which illuminate further down than you can normally do. Light an enemy on fire and look under them as the sparks reveal the area.
** Flares are not only mundanely useful for lighting up distant areas, but they can light enemies on fire. Not only does this have the effects listed above, but you can see enemies that retreat into the dark. The damage caused by fire is pretty low so it doesn't really work as a damage source by the time you would end up finding it.
** The Solar Eruption. It's a flail with a good range, lights up a large area and passes through walls allowing it to light up a considerable area. As an added bonus, it's one of the most damaging melee weapons in the game, only falling shy of [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]]'s drops.
** Cursed Flames and Ichor are, respectively, [[{{Hellfire}} a demonic flame that cannot be doused by water]] and [[BloodyMurder volatile]] AlienBlood, and can be crafted into various nasty weaponry. They can also be used to create waterproof torches.
** The Sandgun is arguably less useful as a weapon than it is an infinite sand generator when used with armor that gives ammo cost reduction, letting you end up with more sand than you started with. This does serve a practical purpose since sand is what you use to make glass, which you use to make bottles, which you use to make potions.
* MushroomMan: If you create an above-ground "mushroom" biome, it will occasionally spawn mushroom zombies, and if you build a house in the biome, then activate hardmode, the house will eventually become occupied by the Truffle, a mushroom-man NPC.
* MusicIsEighthNotes: The Magical Harp, a weaponized harp that fires projectiles that graphically resemble eighth notes when playing it.
* MuzzleFlashlight: While trying it with guns would probably not be efficient, it's very possible to pull this off with certain magic spells or glowing weapons. See MundaneUtility.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The Wall of Flesh, the Eater of Worlds, the Destroyer... most of the bosses have this going for them really.
* NameTron: Skeletron, though it's not actually mechanical. Skeletron Prime, on the other hand, is a definite example.
* {{Nerf}}: Several pieces of equipment and bosses have been made less intense at points:
** The Rod of Discord's TeleportSpam was made less absurd by adding a Teleportation Sickness debuff that prevents you from spamming it constantly.
** The Spectre Armor's lifesteal set was made less powerful by giving it a damage penalty while you used that specific armor set bonus.
** The Molotov Cocktail now requires Pink Gel to make and its damage has been scaled back a little, making it less overpowering in the early game.
** Both of the vortex weapons have been nerfed with the Phantasm having its damage reduced from 70 to 50 and the Vortex Beater from 63 to 50 (1.3.4).
** Journey's End also introduces some new nerfs, if the changelog the Devs have given us is any indication. Notably, there are two related to Fishing. Firstly, Crates that are fished in Pre-Hardmode will no longer change to contain Hardmode materials upon beating the Wall of Flesh, preventing Crate Stockpiling (The act of Fishing up crates in Pre-Hardmode, then opening them in Hardmode) from allowing players to skip Early Hardmode entirely- they are instead split into Pre-Hardmode Crates and Hardmode Crates. The second fishing-related nerf is to the infamous Reaver Shark, whose Pickaxe Power was reduced from 100 to 59. This means that the Reaver Shark can no longer mine Hellstone (thus preventing players from attaining Hellstone before fighting any bosses)
* NewGamePlus: Not the traditional sense, as when you start a new world map you take along any items in your inventory if you choose to play with the same character. The piggy bank and safe items both create a storage space that is linked in all the worlds and tied specifically to your character, making it handy for transferring materials rapidly between worlds.
* NiceDayDeadlyNight: In ''Terraria'' it's actually dangerous during ''both'' day and night, but night, which has zombies and [[ItMakesSenseInContext flying eyeballs]], is significantly more dangerous than day, which feature slimes that tend to do just ScratchDamage. Also, the bosses that can randomly spawn on their own generally do so at night.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
** Congratulations on making it to the Underworld and slaying the abomination that dwells there! You're told that "The ancient spirits of light and dark have been released." What does that mean? A variety of much tougher enemies all over the world, and The Corruption spreads much more aggressively. On the plus side, there's now an anti-Corruption biome full of rainbows and unicorns. [[LightIsNotGood Which are trying to kill you]].
** After Golem, the boss of the Jungle Temple, is defeated, some cultists appear at the entrance of the regular dungeon with a mysterious tablet. This tablet looks like it was taken from the Jungle Temple after the player defeated the guardian. Killing the Ancient Cultist triggers the Lunar Events which culminate in the summoning of the Moon Lord, who was confirmed to be Cthulhu's brother by the devs (although more recent lore just calls him Cthulhu).
* NightmareFace: There's a reason why the [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Face_Monster Face Monster]] is named that way. Doesn't help that it's found in one of the creepiest biomes in the game.
* NintendoHard: Maybe not in general, but try playing the combination of an Expert Mode world and a Hardcore character. Good luck with the boss fights.
* NocturnalMooks:
** Several enemies only show up during the night. In addition, several bosses (the [[EyeScream Eye of Cthulhu]], [[DemBones Skeletron]], and the mechanical bosses) can only be summoned at night.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], however, with surface slimes, who will no longer spawn at dusk.
** Subverted with Solar Eclipse only enemies.
* NoFairCheating:
** In all versions before 1.3, anyone who tries to wear the unique Devteam equips will find themselves set upon by debuffs and eventually get killed by said debuffs. After 1.3, they can rarely be dropped by Hardmode bosses in Expert worlds only.
** Attempting to use an inventory editor to acquire DummiedOut items will yield either an Angel Statue or a Red Potion. Consuming the latter saddles you with almost every major debuff in the game at once for a solid hour.
* NoHeroDiscount: Averted if you have the Discount Card, a rare drop from the pirates. Otherwise played straight. Just saved your [=NPCs=] from a blood moon attack? Rescued them from the dungeon? Great, except they still charge you full price for their wares.
* NonCombatantImmunity: PVP mode. Both you and the other person need to be in PVP mode to kill each other.
* NoOntologicalInertia:
** Inverted. It's possible to remove biomes by digging up/destroying enough of them, causing the local monsters not to spawn.
** Another inversion: Santa Claus only lasts from mid-December to New Year's. Once the Christmas season is over, he is instantly and inexplicably slain.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted. Most female [=NPCs=] are more irritable during the Blood Moon event.
* NotCompletelyUseless: Once the player gets a Lucky Horseshoe, any kind of wings, or the Cosmic Car Key, all of which prevent falling damage, the Featherfall Potion would seem obsolete. However, the [[TakenForGranite Stoned]] debuff inflicted by Medusa turns off falling damage immunity -- except that granted by the Featherfall Potion.
* NotTheIntendedUse: [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/The_Grand_Design The Grand Design]] is the ultimate wiring tool. However, while it was intended for wiring first, one of its ingredients is the Mechanical Lens, and so simply having it in your inventory lets you spot already placed wires. As such, it's worth having this thing on you while spelunking underground since it allows you to easily trivialize traps, and is especially useful in the trap heavy Jungle Temple.
* NothingIsScarier: After defeating the second-to-last group of bosses in the game the message "Impending doom approaches" appears on screen, and everything starts going dark. All remaining monsters flee, and the music, which in Terraria never stops even in the creepiest of occasions, grinds to a halt, leaving you with a empty, silent screen periodically darkening and flickering. This goes on for about a minute until [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination the]] [[FinalBoss Moon]] [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lord]] appears]].
* NotTheFallThatKillsYou:
** You can stop fall damage with certain accessories (Lucky Horseshoe, Obsidian Horseshoe, and any Wings), using a grappling hook to hook onto a wall before you land, using the Rocket Boots to slow your fall, double-jumping before landing, or [[SoftWater landing in water]] or cobwebs. If you ''do'' take fall damage, it can be [[DisneyVillainDeath severe]].
** Oddly, if you time it right you can grapple onto the ground and [[ArtisticLicensePhysics pull yourself down faster to negate the lethal falling damage]].
* NumericalHard: One aspect of Expert Mode, where enemies will have 2x the health and deal 2x the damage.
* ObviousRulePatch:
** Like most other enemies, Mimics spawned from Chest Statues don't drop anything. Since Mimics drop up to ten gold coins and several useful late-game accessories and weapons whereas Chest Statues can be acquired pre-hardmode, being able to quickly and easily farm them would be a massive GameBreaker.
** Similarly, Corrupt Bunnies generated from Bunny Statues during Blood Moons no longer drop any money as of version 1.2.
** In a similar fashion, Meteor Heads stop dropping ''anything'' once you enter Hardmode, so as to prevent players from creating artificial meteor head Biome Farms to farm Souls and Biome Key Molds.
** The [[TeleportSpam Rod of Discord]] was such a massive GameBreaker (being able to teleport spam at no cost) that the 1.2.1.2 update changed it so that attempting to teleport spam made the user CastFromHitPoints. You can still use it to explore or in an emergency, but not at the same rate as before.
** The ability to stack positive damage affixes to large degrees made any life-steal setup almost devoid of risk to the player during confrontations where the player would easily out-heal hard-hitting attacks like chugging down Greater Healing Potions non-stop. The 1.2.2 update capped the rate of life-stealing to about 2 hearts per second, making less feasible a maximum damage setup Vampire Knives user from just sitting in the hitbox of a boss monster mincing its insides while maintaining a full health bar.
** [[spoiler:The Moon Lord]] boss is very big and hits very hard, but is also one of the slower bosses, and it only disappears if all players are dead. When it was introduced, players fighting [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] alone could lure it far away and then teleport back home if they were in danger, where they were safe to heal up while the boss took its sweet time chasing the player. Come patch 1.3.0.4, [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] will teleport directly to the player if they are far away, possibly killing the player if they were already at low health.
** Furthermore, many players were abusing the MercyInvincibility from spikes to prevent themselves from taking damage from [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]]. Come 1.3.0.6, and [[spoiler:the Moon Lord's]] attacks use their own cooldown for immunity, meaning it's significantly harder to abuse MercyInvincibility against it.
** MercyInvincibility abuse utilizing Hellstone or Meteorite blocks was a major part of fighting the bosses in the early stages of Terraria's development. By the Big 1.2 Update and its subsequent balance patches, this was changed to prevent such abuse in boss fights by making these blocks inflict a Burning status effect that damages you instead of dealing normal damage that would trigger MercyInvincibility.
** 1.3.1 changes up the rules so players can no longer catch Critters created by the creature statues using the Net tools, as Gold Critters would fetch a pretty penny when sold to the NPC merchants.
** Biome key molds were introduced to push the biome chest weapons into the post-Plantera phase. This rule patch got ''even more obvious'' in 1.3, when key molds were retired and the biome keys again dropped directly from monsters... but they ''arbitrarily don't work until Plantera has been defeated''.
** The Reaver Shark and Crate Stockpiling allowed players to essentially skip a huge portion of the game, so they were nerfed in Journey's End to prevent this- Crate Stockpiling by splitting Crates into Pre-Hardmode and Hardmode variants, and the Reaver Shark by reducing its Pickaxe Power to 59, making it unable to mine Hellstone. To quote the changelog written by the devs on the two subjects...
-->(About the Reaver Shark) ''Ah, our old friend the Reaver Shark - favorite tool of many to essentially skip most of Pre-Hardmode with only minimal fishing effort. This one was so out of tune, it reached meme status - and so we have lowered the mining power of the Reaver Shark from 100 to 59. This will make the Reaver Shark capable of mining anything up to Demonite/Crimtane - so it is still valuable and useful, but no longer the "skip to the end" tool it once was.''\\
(About Crates) ''Fishing in Pre-Hardmode to skip early Hardmode was an example of a fun alternate path to progression, but taken too far. You can still fish up ores and alternate ores via Crates - but now, Pre-Hardmode Crates will only contain Pre-Hardmode ores and vice versa for Crates fished up in Hardmode. This allows you to fish instead of mine, but at least forces you to face the challenges of early Hardmode to do so.''
** Both the Moon Lord's Phantasman Deathray and the Martian Saucer's Deathray were very easily nullified by simply hiding under a ceiling. The Journey's End update made these attacks pass through terrain between the source and the player.
* {{Oculothorax}}: Small, medium, and large: Servants of Cthulhu, Demon/Wandering Eyes, and the Eye of Cthulhu. [[spoiler:The FinalBoss also spawns True Eyes of Cthulhu when its CognizantLimbs are destroyed]].
* OdangoHair: CharacterCustomization options involves two Odango hairstyles (one of them being [[Franchise/StarWars Princess Leia]]'s), as of the 1.3 update the Stylist can also give your character a hairstyle like [[Anime/SailorMoon Chibiusa's]] (thought interestingly not Usagi's hairstyle) for a total of 3.
* OffscreenTeleportation: If you assign a house to an NPC, it doesn't matter if their simplistic AI can't figure out how to get to it -- when you get back from your next spelunking trip, that NPC will be in their house.
* OneHitKill:
** Besides being crushed by the Wall of Flesh or running out of time against Skeletron, Explosive blocks are this. Explosive blocks deal 250 base damage, but all damage dealt from other players or to oneself (which includes explosions) is doubled, resulting in a whopping 500 damage. The maximum HP a player can have is 400, and the best protective gear and buffs can prevent at most 40-50 damage, meaning that a trip mine will instantly kill anyone within range. ''[[ParanoiaFuel Trip mines are randomly scattered underground]]''. In 1.2 for PC, this has been nerfed such that you take full damage without the previous [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] multiplier, and you can ensure your survival by boosting your life to 500 using life fruits. In 1.3, these are mostly triggered by an ''{{incredibly obvious|Bomb}}'' PlungerDetonator, making them much easier to avoid.
** Trying to enter the dungeon before killing Skeletron will cause the Dungeon Guardian to appear who does over 1000 damage.
** In Expert Mode in version 1.3, some Hardmode enemies/bosses can inflict more than 600 damage through armor. Don't get hit by them now.
** Fighting the Empress of Light during the day (which can only be done if you capture a nocturnal Prismatic Lacewing and release it at day) will cause ALL her attacks to deal over 10000 damage to you, which is more than overkill. ''You're actually required to fight her in this state to get the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Terraprisma, the strongest summon weapon in the game]].''
* OneHitPolykill: Most of the best weapons and ammo are capable of piercing through multiple targets. The earliest bullet, for example, is the Meteorite shot that pierces an enemy or [[PinballProjectile ricochets]] once while the best of this are Luminite bullets that pierce any number of enemies, it even ignores the split-second MercyInvincibility against enemies that other piercing weapons/ammo are susceptible to which allows you to fire these with, say, the S.D.M.G. and not have shots wastefully pass through enemies after the first hit.
* OpenEndedBossBattle: The Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, aside from being entirely skippable if you get a Reaver Shark, also don't actually need to be defeated in order to get their loot. You only have to defeat enough of their component parts to collect the items you need to forge a better pickaxe, at which point you can die (on anything other than Hardcore) without having to worry about finishing the job.
* OrdinaryDrowningSkills:
** Initially, your character sinks like a rock in water and will drown if you can't reach air. Special items like Flippers and the Breathing Reed turn you into a snorkel diver instead of a drowning rock, while the Diving Helmet significantly increases your air capacity. Neptune's Shell turns your character into an aquatic creature when equipped and in water, allowing you to remain underwater indefinitely, move underwater at the same speed as on land, and incorporating the effect of the flippers.
** In 1.2, your character suffocates when trapped in sand, silt or slush. There's a debuff instead of an OxygenMeter, and you lose health really, really quickly.
* OrganDrops: Slimes drop slime gel, Eaters of Souls drop rotten chunks of meat and Demon Eyes drop [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_(anatomy) lenses]]. Enemies in the Crimson drop Vertebrae. The Brain of Cthulhu (and its minions) drop Tissue Samples. Hornets drop their stingers, Angry Bones drop bone fragments, and the Man-Eater plants in the Underground Jungle drop vines. The Black Recluses in Hardmode drop their fangs. All bosses have a chance of dropping a decorative trophy upon death, a wooden shield-shape with the boss' body part.
* {{Orichalcum}}: The game features Orichalcum as an alternative to [[{{Mithril}} Mythril]]. Its appearance is pink and a full set of its armor with any of the helmets causes pink petals to strike an enemy you hit.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent:
** The Wyvern is a long, slender white dragon that roams the higher parts of the map in Hardmode.
** Betsy is an actual wyvern (a dragon-like creature with a pair of wings and no other front limbs) and appears at the end of the Old One's Army event.
** Whenever the player hits a Lunatic Cultist clone, a Phantasm Dragon will spawn and attack the player. It is a long and slender dragon like the Wyvern.
** The Stardust Dragon is a limbless, blue and gold minion that gets longer the more times the Stardust Dragon Staff is used, rather than spawning more dragons like other summon items.
* OurGeniesAreDifferent: The Desert Spirit seems inspired by the malicious examples of Djinn. Only appearing in Hardmode deserts which have fallen victim to the Corruption or the Crimson, they have the stereotypical shape as portrayed nowadays (a muscular, shirtless man, without legs, with a ponytail). As of the 1.3.3 update, they can drop [[GenieInABottle an oil lamp]] as well as a pants item that gives you the legless effect when equipped. If used as armor, it prevents falling damage.
* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: Ghouls exist in Hardmode deserts (a homage to their origins in Arabic myths), with variants for Corrupted, Crimson or Hallowed. They have a large mouth and long pointy ears, and they drop the Ancient Cloth when they're killed, which is used to craft the Ancient vanity set.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent:
** Every once in a while you'll be warned that a Goblin Army is approaching. You'd be forgiven for dismissing this message as a non-threat, but in fact Goblins can be a serious threat to your life, your [=NPC=] inhabitants, and your clicking finger. Unless, of course, you have advanced equipment and increased max life. Or if you've built your base a ways to the east or west, or high into the sky, since Goblin Armies only attack near a map's central spawn point.
** As said by the Goblin Tinkerer, they're quick to anger, and would even start a war over a simple goblin flag.
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent:
** During a full moon, countless werewolves appear out of nowhere, despite being on an island with few humans.
** The player can also wear Moon Charm, which turns him/her into a werewolf during night.
* OurWormholesAreDifferent: The [[EldritchAbomination Vortex Pillar]] is able to spawn wormholes near the player that produce Alien Hornets. One of the [[FlunkyBoss mooks that accompany it]] can create a wormhole that summons a lightning bolt.
* OurWyvernsAreDifferent:
** The Wyvern is a long, slender white dragon that roams the higher parts of the map in Hardmode.
** Betsy is an actual wyvern (a dragon-like creature with a pair of wings and no other front limbs) and appears at the end of the Old One's Army event. There are also Etherian Wyverns which are smaller variants of it.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: Rangers and summoners in the current late- to endgame. Rangers can dish out great DPS via the Megashark or Uzi, can tackle groups with the Stynger or Rocket Launcher, and can deal over 1000 damage in a single crit with the Sniper Rifle. Even with all that, they remain [[GlassCannon Glass Cannons]] while Vampire Knives and Spectre Armor turn Warriors and Sorcerers into effective [[PhysicalGod Physical Gods]]. No longer this in 1.3, as [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] absolutely ''wrecks'' any LifeDrain strategy by inflicting a debuff that prevents any life drain from occurring and reapplies it frequently.
** Currently, mages and to a lesser extent rangers seem to overshadow the rest after the new weapons were introduced. Mages can deal crazy amounts of damage via the Last Prism and Lunar Flare and their Nebula Armor gives damage, health and mana regen buffs to themselves and ''all nearby teammates'', Rangers have the SDMG and Phantasm to deal heavy DPS when stealthed while still being {{Glass Cannon}}s, while Melee and Summoners can't deal as much DPS as the two.
** 1.4 added the Zenith for melee classes and the Terraprisma for summoners, both being ludicrously powerful weapons (which, incidentally, can be equipped and used simultaneously to great effect by both melee and summoner characters). Both weapons are thematically [[BladeSpam blade-spam weapons]] that deal tremendous damage across large distances, and can strike through terrain. To offset two of the highest DPS weapons in the game, both weapons are also difficult to obtain. The Zenith continues the crafting line of the Terra Blade, involving basically every boss sword in the game, and the Terraprisma requires defeating a [[BulletHell bullet-hell]] boss without ever taking a single hit (the conditions in which you take the fight result in any landed attack being a one-hit KO).
* OxygenMeter:
** Clearly visible in the game and health begins to drain after you run out of air. It is possible to keep yourself alive with health items and having a large health meter for lengthy periods of time.
** Diving gear and breathing reeds greatly retards the rate of oxygen depletion, while the charms that grant you transformation into merfolk eliminate the bar entirely.
** The [[ArtificialGill Gills Potion]] allows you to breathe underwater. The Obsidian Skin potion also allows you to breath under''lava'' (along with its lava immunity effect) as of 1.2.
** Wearing the Lava Charm or the Lava Waders gives you a different type of "oxygen" that allows you to be submerged in lava for up to 7 seconds before you start to take damage from it. Both of those accessories can be worn together to extend that time to 14 seconds.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P-R]]
* PaletteSwap:
** There are seven different versions of the basic Slime monster.
** There's also two versions of the basic Skeleton monster, two of the Skeleton caster, two of the Bat, two of the Man eater (a jungle-based killer plant), and many of the Zombie.
** In 1.2, Lead, Tin, Tungsten, Platinum, Palladium, Orichalcum and Titanium are practically alternate (and slightly better) materials of Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, Cobalt, Mythril and Adamantite respectively, that can be generated in a world in the place of the latter materials. The weapons, bricks and furnishings made from them are appropriately different-colored as well, while the 'alternate' Hardmode Metal armor suits have unique properties that the Cobalt, Mythril, and Adamantite armor suits lack.
** Wood can be found in different forms depending on the biome, including Shadewood (Crimson), Ebonwood (Corruption), Pearlwood (Hallow), Boreal (Snow), Palm (Beach/Sand), and Rich Mahogany (Jungle).
** Most of the console-exclusive content, including enemies and equipment, were reskinned or recolored versions of existing content. The 1.2 patch to console Terraria changed this, giving the content in question actual unique graphics.
** Gemstones all originally had the same elliptical shape while changing only in color before 1.2 update gave them all different cuts.
** The character sprites in alpha were rather blatantly based off of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' combat sprites, but they were changed for the game's release on Steam.
* PatchworkMap: Played perfectly straight: the biomes are randomly generated and divided from one another by an invisible line.
* PermanentlyMissableContent:
** Many items used to be severely limited--notably, loot from floating island and dungeon chests. The 1.3 update added several varieties of loot crates, obtained by fishing in the associated biome, [[AvertedTrope specifically to avert this]]. Items exclusive to chests still apply, especially the rarer ones. Lava Charms in particular can be difficult to find.
** Worldgen might be cruel and leave you with a Jungle with only a single Beehive, or even make you a world without giant Living Trees. As for the Giant Pyramids, small worlds have a ''very'' high chance of generating without a single pyramid to raid. Even if one is generated, the single chest within will never contain the full range of loot. What's worse, pyramids don't have a fishable crate associated with it.
** The Spider Banner drops from Wall Creepers for every 50 kills. Once you enter hardmode, Wall Creepers are completely replaced by Black Recluses, who have their own banner, which means you can't get one if you didn't get it prior to hardmode. Somewhat fixed in 1.3.1, as Wall Creepers can be spawned using statue farms, although you must first find a Wall Creeper statue, and they're quite rare.
** The Bone Key cannot be acquired anymore once Skeletron is defeated, as the enemy that drops it (the Dungeon Guardian) won't spawn in that world anymore.
* PersonalSpaceInvader: Brain Sucklers at the Nebula Pillar will [[FaceHugger latch onto your character's head]], dealing damage as well as [[InterfaceScrew reducing vision to an absolute minimum]] until removed.
* PetalPower: Two items allow you to utilize this. The first one is the Orichalcum armor set; when worn, flower petals shoot towards enemies when you strike them. There's also the Flower Pow, a flail dropped from Plantera which shoots off petals in addition to its basic flail attacks.
* PhysicalHell: You can actually enter Hell (called the Underworld in-game) simply by digging down deep enough. In there you'll find demons, a Wall of Flesh, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking bats]]. There's [[FireAndBrimstoneHell lava, fire]], imps, lava slimes, hellbats, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment lava, fire, and lava.]] It's dangerous down there (yet ironically much safer than the overworld for a while once Hard Mode kicks in as [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unspeakable horrors once sealed in the form of the Wall of Flesh are released]]).
* PiggyBank: Piggy banks are a personal "container" item, allowing your character additional space for storing all sorts of items (not just coins). They also protect any coins stored from the coin loss penalty for death, while still allowing you to spend them. The Money Trough item allows you to summon a flying one that can be used anywhere.
* PiranhaProblem:
** Piranhas frequently show up in bodies of water.
** Subverted for the player with The Piranha Gun. It fires a mechanical Piranha that latches onto and chews enemies for continuous damage as long as the trigger is held. The initial shot is straight line of sight attack. However when the projectile Piranha kills an enemy it will immediately launch after the next nearest enemy. It will continue to do this for some time until it can't find any more enemies, the player lets off the trigger, or a certain amount of time passes.
* PirateParrot: One of the enemy types you face during a Pirate invasion, they're very weak but very fast and can hit surprisingly hard.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Very few of your [=NPCs=] actually do anything productive beyond providing you with certain services. The painter doesn't paint your house, the angler sends you to catch fish for him instead of doing it himself, and the pirate needs no further explanation.
* PlanetHeck: Dig too far down and you'll end up in the Underworld, filled with lava that will more than likely kill you instantly, powerful monsters, and ore you can't even touch without hurting yourself unless you have a special accessory.
* PlayerGuidedMissile: The Magic Missile and its upgrades can be controlled by the mouse/right analog stick, and can also be used as a portable light.
* PlayerVersusPlayer: A game type available in Multiplayer.
* PlungerDetonator: The world generation in 1.3 now spawns most explosive blocks connected to an ''{{incredibly obvious|Bomb}}'' one, to the relief of many players. You'd have to either [[SchmuckBait activate them yourself]] or land on top of them in order to blow yourself up.
* PostClimaxConfrontation: In a sense, ridding the world of all the Corruption/Crimson and Hallow after defeating the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]], being the last practical goal of the entire playthrough now that it really has nothing left for you or the current world to benefit from, and with endgame armor, none of the enemies will pose much of a threat as you cleanse the world of them for good.
* PotionBrewingMechanic: There are two types: potions are made at an alchemy station or placed bottle, and grant a temporary buff, while flasks are made in the imbuing station, and grant an additional effect when wielding melee weapons.
* PowerCreep: The game has gone through several infrequent but ''major'' content updates, expanding the number and variety of items available to the player at almost every stage of progression. Unfortunately, in many cases the newly-introduced items are invariably superior to their contemporaries, though the degree to which this happens varies.
** For instance, one update introduced Tin, Lead, Tungsten, and Platinum, ores which are functionally identical to the game's original Copper, Iron, Silver, and Gold ores - any recipe that calls for one will have an identical recipe that calls for the other, and produces the same result, such as a Gold Watch versus a Platinum Watch, which both do the same thing. In fact, a newly created world would randomly pick just one ore of each tier to generate with. Hardmode introduces another set of ores which have similar alternate mirrors that the game will randomly pick from. However, weapons and armor made of the alternate set of ores are strictly superior to the original ores.
** Besides that, there's also a number of items which behave quite different from their old, in-tier cousins, but are nonetheless vastly superior. For instance, among Melee weapons, ''good'' early game weapons included [[EpicFlail Flails]] which could hit lots of enemies but were difficult to use, and Spears which were great for playing keep-away but had much less range than Flails. The Ice Blade was introduced later, and can be found randomly in chests at the very beginning of the game if you're brave/skilled enough to explore. Between its [[SwordBeam projectiles fired on swing]], good DPS, autoswing, and ease of acquisition, the Ice Blade managed to completely blow ''every other pre-Hardmode melee'' weapon out of the water except, arguably, for the InfinityPlusOneSword that requires a complicated crafting process to obtain and another sword that has a low chance of appearing in one of a handful of shrines that generate in a world.
** And then Patch 1.3 came along and introduced ''[[LethalJokeWeapon Yoyos]]'', with a behavior set and damage output that rendered every other melee weapon in the game almost completely obsolete, starting with the fact that they can effectively stunlock foes without effort and attack enemies around corners and through one-block-wide gaps with impunity.
** The power creep in Terraria can be best exemplified through what was once the game's true InfinityPlusOneSword; the [[https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Terra_Blade Terra Blade]]. Creating through an [[ChainOfDeals extremely long crafting]] [[https://d1u5p3l4wpay3k.cloudfront.net/terraria_gamepedia/a/a0/Terra_Blade_Crafting_Chart.png?version=49566e767b25457100cafbd18a06b17f sequence spanning the entire game]], the Terra Blade had extremely high DPS, a projectile attack and didn't cost any mana for it. An extremely useful weapon and very powerful at the time it was introduced... Then [[https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Influx_Waver the Influx Waver]] was introduced. Higher base power, a projectile attack that hits enemies ''twice'' and it has around the same swing speed as the Terra Blade, ''without'' the need to go through the ChainOfDeals to get it. All it takes is farming a boss from the Martian Madness event, which opens up only a few steps after one would be able to craft the Terra Blade, making the Terra Blade useful for only about three more major events: Plantera, the Golem, and the Martian Madness event itself.
* PowerDyesYourHair: The Stylist sells you special dyes that take more vibrant colors if you're at full health, full magic, or have lots of coins. The Clothier sells clothing dyes that have the same effect on your outfit.
* PowerEqualsRarity: Played with. Every generated world has a handful of incredibly powerful weapons. The weapons themselves are guaranteed to be inside special chests which are always in a generated world. The ''keys'' for those chests are a different story and, while they can drop off any enemy in a given area, the drop rate is around 1 in 2,500.
* PowerfulPick: While pickaxes are always weaker then the same tier weapon, the autoswing is very useful in the early game, and they can help fend off monsters that decide to attack you while you're in the middle of digging up mineral deposits.
* ThePowerOfTheSun: The [[EldritchAbomination Solar Pillar]] is able to rain solar fireballs on the player. The [[FlunkyBoss mooks that accompany it]] are also fire- and sun-themed.
* PowerPincers: Skeletron Prime has the Prime Vice arm, a melee arm with a pincer that tries to make contact with the player and deals very heavy damage should it succeed.
* PowersDoTheFighting:
** Kind of the entire point of [[MinionMaster Summoning weapons]].
** The Star Cloak causes stars to fall out of the sky and injure anything that harms you. If used against weak enough enemies, the Cloak can easily take them out with no involvement from the player.
** The Turtle Armor will reflect any melee damage done to the player back to the source using the target's defense instead of the player's (which is usually much higher). Relying on this to kill things can take a while, though, and if you're getting hit by anything strong enough, you'll still take hefty damage in the process.
* PowerUpLetdown: The Mechanical Cart obtained by defeating The Twins, The Destroyer, and Skeletron Prime in Expert Mode. While it is the fastest cart in the game by far and also the only one to fire at enemies, It's A) still just a mine cart at a point where you've likely built a world-spanning teleport system and B) the ''only'' Expert exclusive reward for beating the three Mechanical Bosses, all of which can mess you up even on Normal mode.
* PowerUpMount: The player can use mounts for transportation or dealing damage. When a mount-summoning item is used, it applies an unlimited buff to the player, spawns the mount, and places the player on or in it. Like Pets and Minions, mounts can be used limitlessly, and their summoning items are not consumed.
* PrecisionGuidedBoomerang: Represented in the game by the Enchanted Boomerang, Flamarang, and Thorn Chakram which supposedly have limited seeking ability for enemies. They are also capable of returning to the player through solid walls. The Possessed Hatchet outright seeks out your foes.
* PressurePlate: The game has these, either purchased from the mechanic for 20 silver a pop or found naturally in caves hooked up to a BoobyTrap. Also ColorCodedForYourConvenience, to indicate what sets them off.
* ProductPlacement: Due to [[AuthorAppeal Redigit's fondness for them]], the 1.3 update introduces Yoyos as a new type of weapon in a collboration with [=OneDrop YoYos=]. Certain [=YoYo=]s like the Format:C and Chik have the [=OneDrop=] logo on their inventory images, which indicates that their in-game appearance is based on existing [=OneDrop=] branded [=YoYos=].
* PsychoStrings: The surface Corruption's theme uses these towards the end of the track, while the underground Corruption music has them at the beginning. The latter also has string sounds halfway through, but the tune is more melodic than psycho.
* PublicDomainArtifact:
** The game has a UsefulNotes/{{Muramasa}} that is extremely fast, swings constantly when you hold down the attack button and can only be found in a dungeon. It is also used the craft the strongest Pre-Endgame sword.
** The game has {{Excalibur}} as the Hallowed-tier sword. Auto-swing makes this a very good blade, but it can be further upgraded into the True Excalibur (which features {{Sword Beam}}s) and then into the Terra Blade by combining that with the True Night's Edge.
** The PhilosophersStone appears as an accessory that reduces the amount of time the player has to wait for another chance to use a healing potion.
** The Gungnir is a giant golden spear with a red gem in the spear head.
* PumpkinPerson:
** The [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Headless_Horseman Headless Horseman]], an enemy in the Pumpkin Moon event who appears riding a black horse and wearing a pumpkin as a head. It has a chance to drop a Jack-O-Lantern mask, so that you can wear a pumpkin in your head too.
** There's also [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Pumpking Pumpking]], one of the two mini-bosses during the Pumpkin Moon event. He appears as a giant, floating wraith wearing only a cloak and a pumpkin as his head, that rotates alternating among three different faces.
* PurelyAestheticGender: Initially, the game had no gender option, simply allowing a player to choose default features that made the character look male or female. A later patch introduced the option to be male or female, with existing characters flattening out into male. So there are a lot of crossdressers in ''Terraria'' now. Characters of either gender can wear any equipment. With Gender Change Potions, players can GenderFlip characters at will. NPC comments on the player character's gender exist with the Party Girl making a male character specific comment and the Pirate making a female character specific comment and the Wizard can call the player character a "young man/lady" and refer to them by a name of another NPC of the same gender.
* PurpleIsTheNewBlack: The game uses purple to denote the shadow-like theme of the Corruption, even the craftable Shadow Armor is purple (of course, armor dye can make it black if you wish).
* PurposelyOverpowered: The Zenith is the game's InfinityPlusOneSword that can attack and light up anywhere on the screen with flying, boomeranging swords, passes through ground, and homes in on to pierce enemies at a very rapid rate for an insane amount of damage per strike. It's also only obtainable after getting several Hardmode swords including two Moon Lord drops and some rare pre-hardmode ones.
* RagnarokProofing: The abandoned, ruined houses in [[{{Hell}} The Underworld]] occasionally contain obsidian grandfather clocks which still tell perfect time.
* RaincoatOfHorror: There is a cosmetic raincoat-outfit available in the game, but the only way to obtain it is by killing zombies (classic horror monsters) who are wearing raincoats.
* RainOfArrows: The Daedalus Stormbow, instead of firing normally, will spawn 4 arrows to rain down on the target for the price of one. With most other bows, the player can invoke this by simply firing upward and letting gravity do the rest.
* RainOfSomethingUnusual: One of the game's various random events is for [[BlobMonster slimes]] to fall from the sky.
* RandomEvent: Meteors can fall without breaking a Shadow Orb/Crimson Heart, The Eye of Cthulhu can show up anytime you have +10 hearts and haven't fought him once yet, Blood Moons cause a mass of zombies and Demon Eyes to spawn and seek you out while allowing zombies to open doors, and the Goblin invasion. Hardmode random events include the Solar Eclipse and one of the Hardmode boss encounters at night. Rainfall can cause Slimes holding umbrellas and flying fish to fill the air, as well as compel zombies to wear raincoats. Slime Rain makes hordes of slimes rain from the sky, eventually culminating in the King Slime itself turning up to challenge you.
* RandomlyDrops: Some items can only be found as rare drops. Taken UpToEleven with the 1.2 update. Now nearly EVERY enemy has a rare drop! Happy hunting!
* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: In the modern pseudo-{{Roguelike}} vein of having an entire world randomly generated.
* RapidFireFisticuffs:
** The Fetid Baghnakhs are one of the two glove-type weapons in the game. They also happen to have the highest attack speed of any weapon in the entire game: with the right modifiers and equipment they can rip through bosses in seconds, provided you manage to get in range.
** The Stardust Guardian in 1.4 is given a new rapid-fire punching style of attack. To quote the changelog...
-->''Stardust Guardian now has a more much vigorous and aggressive attack, and he will attack automatically without prompting. All resemblance to a [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders certain anime]] [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial is purely coincidental.]]''
* RareRandomDrop:
** ''Way'' too many to list, but the crowners go to the five Dungeon Keys (Corrupt, Hallowed, Crimson, Jungle, and Ice). During 1.2.0.3.1, a mould of them dropped in the corresponding biome with a 1 in 2,500 (0.04%) drop rate (previously 1 in 4,000 or 0.025%), which then needs to be used with souls from Hardmode bosses and the key from the jungle's Hardmode boss to craft. In later versions, the key is dropped directly, instead of the mould. Without setting up a serious enemy farm, chances are you'll never see one of the moulds/keys. What the keys unlock though is ''well'' worth it.
** The Coin Gun, that uses your money as ammo with damage varying on the value of the coin. It has a 0.0125% chance of being dropped by Pirates (except the Parrot, which doesn't drop it, the Captain, who gets a 0.05% chance, and the Flying Dutchman, who gets a 0.25% chance). Other rare drops from pirates include the Lucky Coin, the Discount Card and the Gold Ring, although not to the extreme of the Coin Gun.
** The Slime Staff has a 0.01% chance of being dropped by almost all types of Slimes, or 1% from the very rare Pinky slime. Fortunately you can build a slime farm for this one.
** The Bananarang has 3.33% chance of being dropped by Clowns. This doesn't seem too bad, but it's an enemy that only spawns rarely on the randomly occurring hardmode Blood Moon. Chances are you'll only see a couple of them at most during a Blood Moon, you'll need one of them to drop the Bananarang, and then you need 10 of them to have a full stack, which will require several drops...
** The Amber Mosquito is rarely obtained from Extractinators: 0.02% when using silt or slush or 0.06% when using desert fossils.
** If you're a completionist, there's the banners for the Nymph, Tim and the Rune Wizard. They're obtained after killing 50 of three rarely spawning enemies.
** As of 1.3, Expert Mode partially mitigates the rare random drops by somewhat improving the odds of a number of them. Still, not all of those items have their drop improved, and even then, it's usually only doubled (1% to 2% is not much of an improvement).
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Dryad. She hints at this during a random conversation. ''"I wish that [Name of Arms Dealer] would stop trying to hit on me, doesn't he realize I'm 500 years old?"''
* ReducedManaCost:
** This is common with most sets of mage armor, which helps make up for their [[SquishyWizard lack of defense]]. For example, wearing the entire set of Jungle Armor will reduce the mana cost of all magic items by 16%. This stacks with the Nature's Gift accessory, which reduces mana costs by 6%.
** In addition, the Space Gun uses mana instead of ammo, unless you're wearing the full set of Meteor Armor, in which case the gun uses neither ammo nor mana. The gun makes for quite an efficient long-range weapon, so even though there are higher-tier armors than the Meteor Armor, you might find it worthwhile to stick with it.
** The Crystal Ball furniture item can grant you a buff that overall boosts your magic ability, including a discount to mana costs.
* ReedSnorkel: A breathing reed is one of the various items, though its use is limited due to the shallowness it requires. You can breathe perfectly for up to three blocks underwater, and double your breath for any further depths. You also can't use any other item while using it, and due to the simplistic way the game handles water physics, you can easily dig air pockets above you even if you're in progress of draining an entire ocean.
* RegeneratingHealth: Health slowly regenerates, with the rate slowly increasing over time but resetting when taking damage. The Band of Regeneration, Celestial Charm, Shiny Stone, campfires, Heart Lanterns, and touching honey (the boost sticks around after you leave the honey for a short period) provide a significant increase in the rate. A couple of types of armor, Crimson and Palladium, also increase your regeneration rate. Curiously, harmless critters also regenerate health, assuming they're not killed in a single hit.
* RegeneratingMana: The game has regenerating mana that varies in rate according to how much mana you currently have. The more you have available still, the faster it'll recover. One side effect of this is that it'll take forever to regain enough to cast certain spells when your maximum mana is low, but after getting enough upgrades you can use spells pretty much indefinitely just by pacing yourself. Placing a Star in a Bottle nearby will give you a boost to your mana regeneration, and drinking a Mana Regeneration Potion will cause your mana to constantly regenerate at its maximum rate, allowing you to spam spells in combat much more easily.
* RegionalBonus: The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 port of ''Terraria'' is being published in Japan by Chunsoft, and if you watch closely during [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz5M_xKFs_E this trailer]] you can spot the player wearing [[Franchise/{{Danganronpa}} Monobear]] and VideoGame/ShirenTheWanderer costumes.
* {{Roboteching}}: Several weapons can do this naturally, like the ''Razorblade Typhoon'', and some others can do this using special ammo.
* RocketPunch: The Golem boss launches its fists at you; it can sometimes drop its arms, which you can then wield as a Flail-like weapon that behaves like a Rocket Punch.
* RocketTagGameplay: How summoners work, as well as mages. Both of them can dish out some serious damage to bosses and take them down rather quickly, but you will be lucky to take 2-3 hits without dying. Even with Warding on all their accessories, a greater part of their gameplay will focus more on dodging attacks and retaliating than charging in guns blazing.
* RockPaperScissors: As [=NPCs=] can now converse with each other in 1.3, they sometimes engage in this game with each other, you can even see who uses what gesture and who wins in their speech bubbles.
* RollercoasterMine: With the Minecart Track elements introduced in version 1.2.4, you can make your own tracks.
* RuleOfCool: [[MoreDakka The]] [[ThreateningShark Minishark and Megashark]]. ''Half shark, half gun, all awesome.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S]]
* SandIsWater: Hardmode deserts have Sand Sharks, which will only appear during sandstorms. They are powerful foes that can swim through sand blocks and lunge at players. They also have Corruption, Crimson and Hallowed variants.
* SandWorm:
** The worms you find underground are no less than twice as long as you are tall.
** Their corrupted brethren, the Devourers, are fatter, larger and meaner. Their [[KingMook boss version, the Eater of Worlds]] is ''even bigger'', and will split into ''more worms'' if cut in half. These smaller worms get faster, but deal just as much damage if they hit you. Do it wrong and you'll have half a dozen crazy worms trying to eat you all at once[[note]]With good armour, this becomes a viable strategy to kill it more quickly[[/note]].
** In the Underworld/Hell scape there are bone serpents.
** Once Hardmode is unlocked, you now also have Diggers and World Feeders, essentially bigger and stronger versions of the Giant Worm and Devourer. And then you also have the Eater of World's bigger brother, The Destroyer.
** In the Underground Desert, you can find Tomb Crawlers and, in Hardmode, Dune Splicers, the latter of which is a direct ShoutOut to ''{{Literature/Dune}}''.
* SaveScumming: You can attempt this if you want to try for a good prefix when reforging by simply hitting Alt-F4 to avoid saving the game before quitting and losing all your money wasted on reforging. However, it can be time consuming.
* ScaryScorpions: Subverted by the normal scorpions, which are harmless critters that cannot attack you. In Hardmode, however, giant scorpions called Sand Poachers appear in the underground desert, and these can crawl on walls and inflict a venom status when they hit you.
* SceneryPorn: The overworld backgrounds added in 1.1, later made even better in 1.2, are rather nice-looking, and change depending on which biome you happen to be in.
* SchizoTech:
** In the same game that shows players running around in metal armor, swinging swords and fighting goblins, you also have firearms, [[{{Magitek}} mana-powered laser guns]], lightsabers and the jet pack-like Rocket Boots.
** Special mention goes to the Minishark and its upgrade the Megashark, which are fully automatic miniguns that shoot ''musket balls''.
** And also the wires and switches system, where it is possible to have a wall switch or timer that turns ''tiki torches'' on and off.
** 1.2 gives you a {{Cyborg}} [=NPC=] that sells appropriately high-tech items like Rocket Launchers; and a {{Steampunk}} representative [=NPC=] that sells a Jetpack and a teleporter.
** 1.3 introduces the Martian Madness event, filled with hi-tech aliens. You can get their alien technology from destroying their Martian Saucers.
* SchmuckBait:
** One of the possible title messages says: Press alt-f4. (Alt-f4 is used in Windows to close a window.)
** Occasionally while traveling underground, you can find a large ore vein with a PlungerDetonator which will set off Explosives that will mine all the surrounding ore...and also blow up anyone unknowing enough to have activated it.
** While going underground you may encounter a Lost Girl which looks and acts as the characters you can rescue to invite them to your town...until you approach her and she turns into a Nymph which can rip you to shreds.
* TheScourgeOfGod: The Wall Of Flesh only appears when you chuck a voodoo doll of someone you know into a pit of lava.
* ScratchDamage: Every attack will do at least 1 damage. An important factor in most Dungeon Guardian killing strategies.
* SdrawkcabName: The console/mobile boss Ocram's name is "Marco" spelt backwards, the first name of Ocram's programmer.
* SegmentedSerpent:
** The Eater of Worlds and the Destroyer are the most dramatic of these, but there are others. All of the other worm enemies have multiple segments of varying size and HP, and to kill them, you have to destroy any one. This can prove difficult with Bone Serpents.
** With the inclusion of debuffs, these enemies become very vulnerable to [[KillItWithFire flamethrowers]] and [[HellFire cursed flames]], as each segment burns individually, draining their HP very fast. Except Destroyer, who is ''completely immune'' to all debuffs.
* SeldomSeenSpecies: Arapaima fish in the Hardmode Jungle biomes.
* SelfImposedChallenge:
** "Class Playthroughs", playthroughs where the player is restricted to only using weapons of a certain damage type such as melee, magic, summon and range, is this.
** "Subclass" playthroughs are also pretty common, where the player can only use certain ''weapons'' of a damage type, such as Yoyos only for melee or 'pure mage', where the player doesn't use the [[MagicFromScience futuristic]] 'magic' weapons, with some only using the [[AwesomeButImpractical mage robes]] pre-hardmode.
** Beating pre-hardmode using only thrown weapons is a pretty popular challenge, as thrown weapons don't continue into hardmode.
** There's also the "Fishermens challenge", where the player can only use items and ores got from fishing and/or crates throughout the playthrough. This one tends to be more common for Normal Mode, as fishermen usually don't have the damage output/defense needed to beat [[HarderThanHard Expert Mode]].
* SequenceBreaking:
** There are and were numerous methods available to enter the Lihzahrd Temple before defeating Plantera. They're typically fixed in a future patch, but some remain, such as hammering three platforms upside-down in front of the door and pressing down while walking towards it. Entering the Lihzahrd Temple early can get you access to advanced traps and unique furniture items, but the Golem boss still can't be summoned unless you defeat Plantera first.
** Copper tools can mine gold ore, which will make equipment (especially the pick) that becomes the first real improvement to your starting gear, making the other ores in-between entirely skippable.
** With some skill, players can actually bypass the base mineral armor sets and simply kill the Eater of Worlds a couple of times to get the raw material to forge a set of Shadow Armor. It is also possible to do this with the Brain of Cthulhu and the Crimson Armor set.
** In a Corruption world, players can also bypass mineral armor sets by slaughtering Eaters of Souls (which spawn frequently in Corruption) for the Ancient Shadow Armor they drop. The pieces have the same stats and are interchangeable with Shadow Armor crafted from Eater of Worlds-dropped material.
** While Duke Fishron was intended to be an end game boss just before the Lunatic Cultist, it can still be summoned as soon as you get to hardmode. As such, you ''can'' make it the first hardmode boss you face, and while extremely difficult to fight at that point, if you ''do'' manage to beat him, you can get some really powerful end game equipment before even fighting any of the mechanical bosses, which in turn makes the rest of the game a breeze up until the point you'd normally fight Fishron.
** The Journey's End patch aimed to reduce some of the more egregious sequence breaks, and patched out three of the biggest. Meteors can no longer fall until the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu is dead[[labelnote:*]]previously, the played could bomb their way through to a single shadow orb/crimson heart and then get an infinite-ammo laser gun and midgame armor[[/labelnote]] and fishing has been nerfed by separating normal mode and hard mode crates[[labelnote:*]]crates used to be universal, so fishing up a bunch before defeating the Wall of Flesh, and they could be opened for ons of free hardmode ore[[/labelnote]] and reducing the Reaver Shark's pickaxe power[[labelnote:*]]prior to 1.4, it could mine the first hardmode ore, obviating tool progression for the entire first half of the game; now it's limited to mining Demonite/Crimtane.[[/labelnote]].
* SerialEscalation:
** At first it was a relatively simple sandbox game similar to ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' (except 2D, don't forget that), with rather tame boss fights, the hardest of them arguably being Skeletron. Then came the 1.1 update, which felt more like an expansion pack than an update, with an entire slew of new content, most notably four new bosses, all of them significantly tougher than the original three. The focus also shifted more towards combat and farming for new equipment with the introduction of Hardmode, which not only introduces new enemies that are as common as regular zombies and hit harder than Skeletron, but also new weapons and armor that are much stronger than the pre-hardmode ones. ''THEN'' there was the 1.2 update, which brought a whole new mess of content like the 1.1 update, and adds more monsters (some of them '''stronger''' than Skeletron Prime) and new equipment that completely outclass all of the equipment found in the original release.
** If the Pumpkin/Frost Moon events become a trend, it might end up this way. Pumpkin Moons caused players to rethink their boss fighting setups, especially after acquiring the new drops that exploit certain mechanics allowing them to easily cheese the last wave. Then came the Frost Moon where those same tactics became of limited effectiveness, compounded by harsher wave progression requirements and a higher number of waves. Then players started to reach the final wave solo, initially deemed nigh impossible without multiple players. Cue the previous Pumpkin Moon event becoming a joke to players possessing Frost Moon equipment.
** The 1.3 Big Update takes it to a new level with Cultists and Alien invasions, as well as a new boss that will spawn after a special Invasion event. There are also new enemies added to several pre-existing Invasion events to make them more interesting, and about 800 new items added, as well as a significant upgrade to the Inventory subscreen.
* SetBonus: Most sets of armor (generally those made out of the same material or gathered from a similar source) feature these. Some of them just boost your defense, but others speed up your attacks/movement, reduce mana usage, or emit light. End-game builds, however, do not always favor the very-much-unique set bonus, in favor of mixing and matching different parts from different tiers to stack certain mods, sometimes leading to a case of {{Crippling Overspecialization}}.
* ShamuFu: The 1.2.4 update added a number of fish weapons/tools with the introduction of the Fishing mechanic, including a Clubberfish to... club with, the obvious Swordfish and its Obsidian variant (which despite the name are used as spears), a Saw-tooth Shark that makes a perfect [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]] (it even makes motor sounds), a Reaver Shark that is used as a pickaxe, and a Rockfish you can use as a hammer. They're surprisingly effective, the reaver shark being the one of the best pickaxes available before hardmode and useful for SequenceBreaking.
* ShapedLikeItself: The Santa Claus [=NPC=] could -- before a fix -- spawn with the text 'Santa Claus the Santa Claus has arrived'.
* ShearMenace: If threatened, the Stylist [=NPC=] will defend herself with a pair of scissors.
* ShiftingSandLand: There are occasional deserts strewn throughout the map. The 1.3 update added an Underground Desert to the mix, and 1.3.3 made possible sandstorms.
* ShipTease: [[InterspeciesRomance The Goblin Tinkerer and the Mechanic]] are always asking about each other. The 1.2 Big Update adds paintings, one of which is titled "Terraria Gothic" and features these two 'lovebirds' posing together in the fashion of the ''American Gothic'' painting.
** In a similar vein, the Nurse and Arms Dealer, along with the Steampunker and Cyborg, are implied to like each other; they are the happiest when their houses are close to each other, and the Arms Dealer mentions dating the Nurse frequently.
* ShockwaveClap: Before the Journey's End update, the Stardust Guardian that comes as a set bonus from Stardust armor had the ability to cause explosions that cause minor damage, and he would draw enemies towards him and away from you by clapping his hands.
* ShockwaveStomp: The Ogre boss in the Old One's Army can damage ground-bound players by hitting the ground with its club.
* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon:
** Mostly averted, but the Jester arrows tend to explode into a harmless cloud of flashing lights a few feet after they are shot.
** The Celebration, bought from the Party Girl after defeating the Golem, fires two fireworks that explode after a short distance, placing it squarely in AwesomeButImpractical territory.
* ShortRangeShotgun: Played straight with the hardmode firearm, the Shotgun. You won't hit stuff much farther than a few inches from your character, but since it uses 1 round to make 4 damaging pellets (much more so with Crystal or Cursed bullets), it's a beast at (close to) point blank range. The Tactical Shotgun is not immune either, but when they're loaded with [[HomingProjectile chlorophyte bullets]], their range drastically improves.
* ShoutOut: They have their own section [[ShoutOut/{{Terraria}} here]].
* SignatureRoar: Most bosses use the same roar sound effect when transforming into their second form. Whenever you hear this, you know something bad is about to happen.
* SiliconBasedLife:
** The Meteor Heads. They are flying Mooks that spawn at meteorites and [[GoddamnBats attack en masse]].
** Version 1.3 introduced Granite Cave sub-biomes, which feature Granite Elementals and Granite Golems.
** The Journey's End update adds crystal bunnies that correspond to one of the seven in-game gem types, as well as gem trees which can be grown from gemcorns (gem acorns).
* SillyReasonForWar: You may frequently find yourself stuck in the middle of a goblin invasion, which only ends after the player has killed dozens of goblins (hundreds or even thousands in multiplayer). According to the pacifist Goblin Tinkerer, the goblins are waging war over cloth (which is also a reference to the fact that you can summon an invasion with the Goblin Battle Standard).
* SillinessSwitch: Hardmode can be this for the most part, as it introduces far more fantastical and goofy enemies into the world than it does visibly threatening ones (even if they're no less dangerous). Special mention goes to the Solar Eclipse, which is not unlike a blood moon, but instead of blood-covered zombies and floating eyeballs, you fight classic horror movie monsters.
* SilverBullet: Surprisingly subverted; you can buy or craft Silver Bullets, which ''is'' a more powerful upgrade to Musket Balls, but unlike Stakes which deal a whopping 1000% damage bonus against Vampires, Silver Bullets don't do any extra damage against Werewolves.
* SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset: The Necro Armor is made of bones and cobwebs. The Fossil Armor, which appears to be a dinosaur skeleton, is made from Sturdy Fossils.
* SkeletonKey: The rare "Shadow Key" found in the Dungeon's locked chests. Once you have just one, it'll be all you need to unlock every Shadow Chest in the game.
* SkippableBoss:
** King Slime, Queen Bee, Queen Slime, the Empress of Light, and Duke Fishron do not need to be fought for any reason related to the main plot. They hold no items that you require to progress, and summoning them has no effect on the world.
** Eye of Cthulhu can be skipped if it refuses to spawn naturally, as its drops can just as easily be obtained from the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu. However, once conditions are met, the Eye spawns reliably enough that this is easier said than done.
** Skeletron, guardian of the Dungeon, used to be this. Though the Dungeon has some nice equipment and you do have to beat Skeletron to get to it, it doesn't relate to game progression in any way. The 1.2 update added several pieces of endgame content to the Dungeon and its mobs, and currently Skeletron ''must'' be defeated if you want to reach the TrueFinalBoss.
** In an example of SequenceBreaking, you can avoid fighting the Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu entirely -- both uniquely hold items required to make pickaxes that can mine stronger ores than gold/platinum -- if you manage to fish up the Reaver Shark, a pickaxe which can mine any pre-Hardmode ore. You just need to survive the Underworld long enough to dig up enough Hellstone for some Molten armor with at-best Platinum gear.
*** Though as of Journey's end, this patched out as the Reaver Shark is now only on par with a Platinum Pickaxe, meaning it can mine Demonite and Crimtane, but not Hellstone.
* SkyPirate: The Pirates might be this, as their flagship is a flying pirate ship called the Flying Dutchman.
* SlidingScaleOfLinearityVsOpenness: You spawn with some basic tools and a Guide who tells you what you can build with any materials you have on hand and gives you tips on how to survive in the long term. Otherwise, it's up to you.
** The game's a borderline 5 or 6. While you are free to explore (mostly) wherever you want, the game has clear-cut boundaries on where you can, and how far you can go. A lot of the game's focus tends to be on Boss-Hunting, especially after the addition of stronger versions of previous bosses in the 1.1 update. Many people got bored of the game after defeating all the bosses, simply because the game was set up as a sandbox game; so there was no plot or {{Sidequest}}s to follow afterwards.
*** The 1.2 update adds new biomes (area types) and bosses to go with them. Oddly enough, this actually makes it a little ''more'' rather than ''less'' structured, since you can only reach certain bosses after defeating others (you can't get to Golem until you've defeated Plantera at least once, because you need the Temple Key Plantera drops to enter the area where Golem spawns).
* SlippySlideyIceWorld: The Snow biome. The 'slippy' part was expanded on in 1.2 with the addition of ice caverns and ice blocks.
* {{Snowlems}}: Using the Snow Globe you get from Presents will summon the Frost Legion, which is an entire army of these. They're a lot harder than the Goblin Army.
* SoftWater:
** You can fall for a whole minute and survive if you land in water one and half a blocks deep. Yes, falling from the surface to the Underworld (about 1 mile all told) into a puddle ''half as deep as your character is tall'' lets him/her survive completely unscathed.
** This also works with lava, but if the person doesn't catch on quick enough they can easily burn to death instead.
** Honey works fine for this as well, with the added bonus that you'll get a regeneration buff once you dip in the honey landing pool.
* SolarAndLunar: The sun and the moon play an important role in the game's background, especially the latter. During the game you'll experience eclipses as random events, both lunar (also known as blood moons) and solar. The end game has you fighting against two groups of enemies, each worshipping a cosmic object: the Lihzards worship the sun (their temple is filled with tablets able to summon solar eclipses, and the boss there is able to drop the Sun Stone) while the Cultist worship the moon (their leader is called the Lunatic Cultist, and killing him triggers a series of events that ends up summoning the Moon Lord). The moon has more effects on the game, such as moon phases affecting what [=NPC=]s sell and the spawning of some enemies, and two special events involving a particular moon.
* SoLastSeason: Before the 1.3 update, one could get through the majority of Hardmode with the [[GameBreaker Vampire Knives or Spectre Armor]], thanks to their LifeDrain abilities. Then the 1.3 update came, and these weapons/equipment hit a brick wall against [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]], who gives the player a debuff that makes all LifeDrain effects useless against it. Although there are a few ways to avoid its tentacle which blocks your LifeDrain abilities if it touches you, [[DownplayedTrope so it isn't completely useless.]]
* SolidClouds: Floating Islands are made out of Cloud Blocks, which you can walk on and even mine to make a castle out of clouds.
* SoundtrackDissonance:
** The Hallow's music can sound fitting at first, while you're delighted by the shiny colors, but soon you'll be fighting deadly unicorns with that music on...
** The Frost Moon plays a happy, Christmas-like melody while it's active. Therefore, you'll have to fight haunted Christmas trees, giant Santa robots, flying ice demons and many other abominations in what's currently the hardest event in the game while you're hearing that song.
* SpaceZone: If you go high enough up in the sky you will eventually reach space where gravity is a much weaker.
* SpamAttack:
** Some magic weapons can be used this way, if you have enough mana.
** 1.2 and its subsequent updates introduced many melee weapons that have ranged and/or area-of-effect capabilities. Needless to say, spamming those attacks are a given since melee weapons cost ZERO mana. Taken even further if said melee weapon has auto-swing capabilities.
* SpikeBallsOfDoom: The game has these as a throwable weapon, as well as perpetually rotating ball-n-chain's spawning in the Dungeon.
* SpinToDeflectStuff:
** Averted with [[DemBones Skeletron]], whose defense drops to zero while spinning. Played straight with Skeletron Prime, whose defense doubles while spinning.
** The Selenians accompanying the Solar Pillar can reflect projectiles when doing their spin-jump attack.
* SpreadShot: Quite a few spells are of the Spray Burst variety. Some other weapons, including the Shotgun, Venom Staff, and Vampire Knives are the Initial Burst type.
* SprintShoes: Several accessories allow you to run faster. Also, wearing a full set of Shadow Armor gives a speed boost. Most {{Set Bonus}}es from higher-end armors include a movement speed buff. It's especially prevalent in melee-oriented armor, but plenty of ranged or magical armor will grant small speed increases.
* SquishyWizard:
** The Goblin Sorcerers have the least hit points and defense in the Goblin Army, but they shoot projectiles that can travel through walls, making them the most dangerous enemies during a [[ZergRush Goblin invasion]]. At least until you get to the [[BossInMookClothing goblin summoners]] in hardmode.
** Also applies to the player -- magic-oriented {{Set Bonus}}es tend to have good boosts to magic, like extra mana or mana cost reduction, but are generally rather flimsy for defense.
** Inverted with the highest tier armours in 1.3. The magic-oriented Nebula armour grants a stackable buff to health regeneration, among other things, that puts it in a close second for most durable armour in the game.
* StalkedByTheBell: Taking too long to kill most bosses either causes them to leave or, in the case of Skeletron and Skeletron Prime, become practically invincible and able to kill you in one hit.
* StandardStatusEffects:
** Poison: Poisoned and Venom, the difference being that Venom takes more life per second and can't be prevented by wearing a bezoar (as Poisoned can). Since 1.3, there's also Electrified, which takes much more life while moving than standing still.
** Burn: Burning (caused by coming in contact with hot blocks, it's the only one that can be prevented, by using an obsidian skull), On Fire, Cursed Inferno, Shadowflame, Frostburn, and Daybroken (the latter three can only be inflicted ''by'' players, though). All of them do damage over time, the main differences among them being the source, how much life they take (with Daybreak being the most painful at 25 damage a tick), and whether they can be extinguished by entering water. Daybroken also has the added bonus of spreading to other enemies if the affected enemy dies.
** Paralyzed: Webbed, which prevents the player from moving (but not from using items).
** Silenced: Silenced, which prevents the player from using items that require mana.
** Blindness: Three variants which reduce the field of vision, Blindness, Blackout and Obstructed, the difference being that the two latter are more intense and can't be prevented by wearing a blindfold (as Blindness can).
** Berserk: Tipsy, caused by [[BoozeBasedBuff drinking ale]], which reduces defense but enhances physical stats. Despite being considered a negative status, the defense drop is barely noticeable in later stages of the game, while the physical buffs are quite important.
** Frozen: Frozen, which prevent the player from moving or using items.
** Petrified: Stoned, which not only prevents the player from moving and using items, but increases fall damage, which means a fall while affected by this debuff will likely be lethal. It also negates fall damage protection, like the Lucky Horseshoe.
** Slow: Chilled, Slow and Oozed, which reduce movement speed, the latter being more intense than the first.
** Fear: Distorted, which causes the player to constantly rise and fall in midair. In addition, when applied to enemies, Confused makes the enemies to run away.
** Meta-Effect: Confusion, which actually works by reversing the player controls.
** Cursed:
*** Cursed, which prevents the player from using items.
*** Weak, which reduces all physical stats, and Withered Weapon, which halves all damage.
*** Ichor, Broken Armor and Withered Armor, which reduce defense by 20 (the first) and to half its value (the other two). There's a variant of Ichor called Betsy's Curse, more powerful (40 instead of 20) and available only to players.
** Decover: Bleeding and Moon Bite, which prevent the player from regenerating health (the former passively, the latter through life steal).
** Other: Feral Bite, which increases the player's offense but lowers regeneration... as well as periodically giving them ''other'' random StandardStatusEffects.
* StarPower: The [[EldritchAbomination Stardust Pillar]] is able to summon a constellation of "stars", which spawn alien mooks to attack the player. The [[FlunkyBoss mooks that accompany it]] are also star-themed.
* StatusBuff:
** Done via equipment that fits into slots and potions the player creates out of various ingredients.
** Equally, there are status debuffs, including potion-drinking cooldowns, being on fire, darkness (reduced light vision), and cursed (unable to use items).
* StealthPun:
** The RandomlyGeneratedLevels and [[RandomlyDrops random drops]] mean that seeking a particular item is often a LuckBasedMission. Appropriately, the game's items include a horseshoe, [[CatchAFallingStar fallen stars]], the [[EpicFlail Blue Moon]], a [[{{Balloonacy}} shiny red balloon]], [[HeartContainer hearts]], and some Rainbows (in the forms of a magical rod and a flamethrower-like gun). No [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Charms clovers]], though.
** There is a potion that allows you to conserve ammo, thus enabling MoreDakka. The ingredients for such potion include a [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty cod]].
** The Queen Bee trophy is a piece of her knee mounted on a rack. Yep.
* StickyBomb: Can be created by combining slime gel with bombs. The bombs, sadly, only stick to terrain and not monsters.
* StockBeehive: The game has giant hives deep underground in the jungle that resembles Wasp Nests, with honeycomb walls and honey, as well as a Queen Bee BonusBoss.
* {{Stripperiffic}}: The Dryad, as well as the Dryad-themed vanity/social costume.
* StuffBlowingUp:
** You get quite a lot of explosives from pots and chests, and the Demolitionist is mad about explosives. One of his quotes is "Why purify the world when you can just blow it up?" Funnily enough, using explosives is a perfectly valid method of removing the corruption.
** Rocket Launchers, Grenade Launchers, and Proximity Mine Launchers all share four types of rocket ammo, two of which can destroy terrain.
* StunLock: Possible with many weapons, ''especially'' the Vilethorn and Nettle Burst. If it can be stunlocked, the Vilethorn/Nettle Burst will stop it. Newer weapons like the Razorpine attack so fast that catching certain bullet-sponge enemies in your hail of projectiles is almost always safe enough to just stand in front of it while you wait for it to die. Melee specialists can eventually find/craft an accessory that improves their weapon attack speed and knockback, allowing them this as well.
* SunnySunflowerDisposition: Being near a sunflower makes PlayerCharacters happy enough to increase their movement speed. They are also apparently so much of an icon of happiness that they stop the Corruption from advancing further while lowering enemy spawn rates.
* SuperSpeed: The [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hermes Boots]], which let you run super-fast, but interestingly ''don't'' give you super-acceleration; you'll need a long run-up to get up to speed, though you can get around this by [[GrapplingHookPistol grappling]] towards the ground while in midair and releasing the hook before it attaches you to the ground.
* SurpriseCreepy: The player's first night, most likely. Sure, it's a cheerful sandbox game that takes place in a cutesy SugarBowl world, but then night falls and the zombies and flying disembodied eyeballs show up...
* SurvivalSandbox: Permadeath mode turns it into one.
* SwissArmyWeapon: The Drax is some kind of strange artifact that can be used as a drill and chainsaw, and also works reasonably well as a weapon (in earlier versions, it was called the Hamdrax and could act as a hammer, too). Ditto for Picksaws and The Axe.
* SwordBeam: Several new swords introduced in 1.2 are given these capabilities. The lowest of which is the Ice Sword that can only fire an ice shard every few seconds to the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Terra Blade]] that can fire beams that penetrate multiple enemies until dissipating. Being a sword, each benefits from melee bonuses, giving melee players a ranged attack of sorts.
* SwordfishSabre: One can catch swordfishes and Sawtooth sharks that can be used as spears and chainsaws respectively.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:T-V]]
* TakenForGranite: The Medusa mobs in the Marble mini-biome can petrify you with their unique attack.
* TakeYourTime: Invasion events (Goblin, Frost Legion, Pirate, Martian) can be triggered or occur regardless of your location on the map. However, the event won't actually start until you've reached your spawn point, so you're under no pressure to abandon your current task and deal with the problem.
* TechnicolorFire:
** [[{{Hellfire}} Cursed Flames]] and related items/[[StandardStatusEffects debuffs]] are an insidious green, and cannot be extinguished by diving into water.
** Wearing the Frost armor will add a Frostburn effect to your melee and ranged weapons, making them covered with blue ColdFlames.
** The Goblin Summoner drops Shadowflame weapons, which have purple fire.
** Peace Candles have pink flames, and Water Candles have blue flames.
** You can also craft torches of many different colors using gems or one of a handful of other ingredients, and Demon Torches can be found in the Underworld.
* {{Teleportation}}:
** The Magic Mirror, Ice Mirror, and Cell Phone (which has one of the previous two as a component) teleports the player to their spawn point.
** The Steampunker sells teleportation pads which can be wired together to teleport the player between the two. Using wiring tricks, it's possible to wire up multiple destination pads depending on which circuit is active.
** The "Rod of Discord" item, which allows the player to blink to wherever the mouse cursor is. Just don't use it in rapid succession, or it will kill you.
* TeleportationMisfire: The Teleportation Potion teleports you to a random location. It is advised to prepare oneself before using a Teleportation Potion, as it may teleport you into a hazard, on top of a trap trigger, or something else dangerous.
* TeleportationSickness: The Rod of Discord allows the players to teleport anywhere on the screen but also give you a Chaos State debuff that lasts for ten seconds and teleporting before it wears off results in massive, unblockable damage.
* TeleporterAccident: The game plays this straight with the Rod of Discord, which is used to teleport over distances. If the item is re-used during its cooldown period, it will cause heavy damage to the user. The game lampshades this if the teleport damage is fatal, mentioning that the player failed to rematerialize or now has feet where their head used to be.
* TeleportSpam:
** Wizard-style enemies teleport to a random spot and pitch magic attacks at the player before teleporting again to repeat the cycle. Pre-hardmode, this includes the Fire Imp, Dark Caster, and Goblin Sorcerer. Hardmode adds the Rune Wizard, Desert Spirit and Ragged Caster. Their magic bolts pass through walls, but can be destroyed instantly by a hit from any weapon.
** Chaos Elementals teleport constantly and charge the player to cause CollisionDamage.
** Two hardmode dungeon enemies, the Necromancer and the Diabolist, teleport every time they are injured. Not only are their spells annoying, but they teleport away after getting hit or after having been in one spot long enough.
** Similar to Necromancer and Diabolist, the Nebula Floaters fought near the Nebula Pillar teleport every time they are injured. To make things worse, they can also fly and phase through solid blocks.
** There is a rare drop from the Chaos Elemental, the Rod of Discord, that lets you teleport as they do. A patch nerfed it so the player has to CastFromHitPoints if they want to spam, as the player's potentially absurd power combined with the Chaos Elemental's rapid teleportation, without so much as a mana cost, was not exactly well balanced. Later patches refined the Teleportation debuff of the staff, tuning it to be more or less powerful.
** An elaborate system of teleporters can become this with clever manipulation of wires, switches, and timers.
** The Brain of Cthulhu frequently teleports, forcing you to fend off attacks from different angles. It teleports even more frequently after it TurnsRed.
** In Expert mode only, when Duke Fishron is very low on health, he enters a third attack phase where he starts teleporting and charging at you from different angles, much like the Brain of Cthulhu's second phase.
* {{Terraform}}:
** The player can engage in this by spreading biome seeds or moving large numbers of blocks wholesale. Doing so with a mushroom biome on the surface is necessary to get the Truffle NPC.
** The Clentaminator can create or destroy most types of biomes with the right Solution used as ammo.
* TerrainSculpting: In addition to allowing free modification of terrain, the game lets you dig up ''entire biomes'' and place them somewhere else for easier farming of crafting materials.
* ThemeNaming: In Hardmode, some monsters and bosses drop Souls of [[RhymesOnADime Flight, Light, Night, Might, Sight, or Fright]]. The console versions add Souls of Blight that are dropped by Ocram.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Some players try to slaughter bosses or armies of event monsters in as little time as possible, leading to such ridiculousness as [[https://youtu.be/Ppy-d8wQAOE?t=28s killing Duke Fishron in a fraction of a second]] with a [[MacrossMissileMassacre giant wall of firework launchers]].
** Bringing Hardmode gear, especially late-game weapons, into a pre-Hardmode world generally qualifies. There's nothing quite like using the Nebula Blaze to vaporize slimes or reducing the Eye of Cthulhu to Swiss cheese nigh-instantly with the Vortex Beater.
* ThisIsADrill: When you get access to Cobalt/Palladium, Mythril/Orichalcum and Adamantite/Titanium, you can make drills. They smash through stone like pickaxes, and they do so very, very fast. You can also use them as a weapon, of course, and they don't do too badly against small foes. Chlorophyte also has a drill, although working range bonus aside, it is redundant as it is no more powerful than the tools required to mine chlorophyte, one of which is Drax, a pickaxe-axe combination.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: The message displayed when The Twins are about to spawn is "This is going to be a terrible night..."
* ThreateningShark:
** Sharks only show up in the edge-of-the-map oceans unlike the smaller aquatic enemies. They are powerful enough to be a serious problem for a character with midgame equipment.
** The 1.3.3 update adds sand sharks and their corrupted, crimson or hallowed variants, which only appear in hardmode deserts during a sandstorm. These are a huge threat as they are hard to hit when they swim through the sand, [[LightningBruiser move extremely fast, hit hard, and sport lots of health]].
* ThrivingGhostTown: A world can have a maximum of twenty-two friendly {{NPC}}s (twenty-three during the Christmas season). Although Terraria requires each of these [=NPC=]s to have a home to live in (and thus would constitute a small Thriving Ghost Town if a player built an actual ''house'' for each [=NPC=]), a "home" can be as simple as a room in a much larger structure, so it's more commonplace for players to construct a base or fortress instead of a town. Which makes it either mystifying or ''disturbing'' when you wonder where all these zombies are coming from...
* ThunderboltIron: Meteorite Ore, which can be mined from meteors that fall after breaking a Shadow Orb/Crimson Heart. It can be forged into bars and used in the construction of various space-themed items. Notable examples include [[LaserBlade Phase]][[StarWars blades]], the [[FrickinLaserBeams Space Gun]], and a set of armor that reduces the mana cost of the Space Gun to zero.
* {{Timber}}: The name of one of the achievements, which you get upon cutting down a tree for the first time.
* TimeLimitBoss:
** Many bosses have to be defeated before sunrise, or they will run away. Skeletron and Skeletron Prime will [[StalkedByTheBell try to instantly kill you]] instead. The Wall of Flesh will travel from one end of the map to the other as you fight it, and will instantly kill you if it reaches the other side, which has the side effect of the "time limit" being different depending on the size of your world.
** While not exactly a time limit, do be careful to not lure Plantera to the surface or outside of the Underground Jungle. If you do, it won't take kindly to it and rip you to shreds. As of 1.3, the same goes for Duke Fishron if you lure him outside the Ocean.
** The Pumpkin and Frost Moon events have the major boss-level enemies fleeing extremely quickly at 4:30AM, while it is possible to catch lesser mobs remaining as they do not flee as quickly.
* ToiletHumor: There are several items that exhibit this.
** Amongst the furniture in the game, you can craft and place iron/lead bathtubs and ''water-closets''. As of the Big 1.2 Update and the introduction of the Pirate Invasion event, you can also get a ''golden'' toilet as a rare drop from pirates. For the purposes of [=NPC=] housing, toilets count as chairlike surfaces. It is possible to create a village with all the [=NPCs=] having 'thrones' instead of normal chairs to sit on.
** The ''Golden Shower'' Hardmode weapon.
** You can get a Whoopee Cushion, which can be combined with a Cloud in a Bottle to get a Fart in a Bottle, and then combine THAT with the Shiny Red Balloon to get a Fart in a Balloon as of version 1.2.1.1.
** Players can build oversized pixel art of toilet humor-related things if they want to.
* TooAwesomeToUse: The Star Cannon. Shot for shot, it's the most powerful pre-hardmode weapon in the game, and it can be crafted fairly early. The catch is that it uses Fallen Stars as ammo. Fallen Stars are dropped at a very low rate at night (you'll get maybe 20 a night if you have a skybridge and scour the world), are used in many other crafting recipes (including the essential Mana Crystals), and can't be reused once fired. Furthermore, the Star Cannon has a ludicrously high rate of fire, so even with armor that reduces your ammo consumption, you'll end up burning through your star stockpile at a fairly quick speed.
* TooDumbToLive:
** When night falls and monsters begin assaulting your home, [=NPCs=] stop wandering around and hide in their rooms. They don't, however, necessarily ''close the doors behind them.''
** During the [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Goblin Army]] event, in which hordes of goblin warriors and wizards attack your town, the [=NPCs=] continue to walk around outside. Because it's daytime. It's always safe in the daytime, right? Taken UpToEleven between the 1.2 and 1.2.2 updates: they would run around in a '''Solar Eclipse''' and easily get murdered by vampires and swamp monsters (thankfully, the 1.2.2 update fixed that).
** If you don't have a shelter that can support your guide (it requires a table, chair, and light source), he will constantly wander near you. This means ''constantly opening the doors to let zombies in''.
** In general, friendly [=NPC=] behavior is relatively simple. They can easily get themselves trapped out in the open and be unable to find their way back unless you literally wall their path every step of the way. They're honestly better off if you just wall them inside your house. Houses need at least one entrance to be considered suitable. There's no rule saying the [=NPC=] has to be able to ''reach'' it.
* TookALevelInBadass: The advent of the 1.3 update saw a total revamp of the [=NPCs=]. Now, among other things, they help defend houses against the monsters:
** The Guide shoots arrows.
** The Merchant throws knives.
** The Nurse throws poisoned syringes.
** The Demolitionist throws grenades.
** The Dye Trader wields a scimitar.
** The Dryad uses her nature magic to cast a defensive buff on players and [=NPC=]s close to her.
** The Arms Dealer uses a gun (a pistol first, the Minishark in hardmode).
** The Tavernkeep throws ale.
** The Clothier attacks with a spell similar to the Book of Skulls, using a unique Shadowflame variant in hardmode.
** The Angler throws Frost Daggerfish.
** The Goblin Tinkerer throws Spiky Balls.
** The Witch Doctor uses a blowgun.
** The Mechanic swings a huge wrench.
** The Painter shoots enemies with a paintball gun.
** The Party Girl uses confetti-filled Happy Grenades to keep monsters at bay.
** The Stylist uses her ''sharp'' scissors as an improvised weapon.
** The Wizard launches bouncing fireballs.
** The Truffle releases clouds of spores.
** The Pirate fires a chain gun/cannon combo.
** The Steampunker uses a Clockwork Assault Rifle.
** The Cyborg fires rockets.
** Santa Claus throws Christmas ornaments.
** The Tax Collector swings his cane.
** The Traveling Merchant fires a revolver first, and a Pulse Bow during hardmode.
** The Skeleton Merchant throws bones.
* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: Since the 1.2 update, things get ''really'' hectic in the world of Terraria during a solar eclipse. The easy-to-deal-with slimes are replaced with highly aggressive, durable and surprisingly speedy beasties out for the player's blood until the sun sets.
* TranslationTrainWreck: Prior to 1.3.5, the Spanish version had a bad translation regarding the [=NPC=] quotes, but it got particularly bad with the [=NPC=] arrival message. Apparently the translators just copypasted the Goblin Army warning, and completely failed at it (yes, they couldn't even copy and paste right), because the [=NPC=] arrival message read as "(name of [=NPC=]) de duendes," which literally means "(name of [=NPC=]) of goblins". Fortunately, with the overhaul of translations with the 1.3.5, nowadays it's much better, with only some examples of BlindIdiotTranslation here and there -- most complaints are currently from Latin American who see themselves SeparatedByACommonLanguage (as the translation uses European Spanish).
* TraumaInn: Averted. Beds are only good for setting your spawn point. You can't even sleep in them. However, that doesn't stop players from building these by putting a bed in the Nurse's house, letting them teleport over with a Recall Potion or Magic Mirror and instantly heal up.
* TrickArrow: The game allows you to be quite a good archer, providing you with automatic crossbows and arrows ranging from flaming to firework ones.
* TrickBullet: There are a wide variety of special bullets, from silver, homing, ricocheting, penetrating, and homing bullets to weirder ammunition such as cursed bullets, nano bullets, and party bullets
* TripodTerror: The Martians bring tough-as-nails tripod walkers during Martian Madness.
* TriumphantReprise: The Hallow theme is a nice remix of the normal Forest biome theme. The Underground Hallow theme is a remix of most of the biome themes in the game. [[SoundtrackDissonance But don't let it fool you]] -- Hallowed biomes are just as dangerous as their {{Evil Counterpart}}s.
* TropeOverdosed: ''Boy howdy'' this is a big page... because ''boy howdy'' this is a big game!
* {{Tsundere}}: The Nurse can come off as this: Some of her quotes suggest a TeamMom mentality, others that she only sticks around because you pay her.
* TunnelKing: You're required to become one if you want to get much accomplished.
* TurnsRed:
** Many of the game's bosses work this way:
*** At half health, the Eye of Cthulhu breaks open into a giant mouth. It stops spawning minions and begins charging the player much more aggressively.
*** At first the Brain of Cthulhu floats around semi-invisibly as its numerous floating eyes attack you. When the eyes are dead the Brain opens up to reveal a heart and begins attacking you directly.
*** In the console version, Ocram's body changes at half health. Its eyes fall out and a third eye opens on its forehead, it gains more damaging lasers and demon scythe projectiles, and charges constantly.
*** The Twins follow the example of their predecessor the Eye of Cthulhu by also changing at half health. Retinazer gains a large laser cannon and his occasional shots become BeamSpam. Spazmatism gains a mouth and loses his fireballs in favor of a near constant {{Hellfire}} Flamethrower.
*** Plantera's bud opens up halfway into the fight. It becomes faster and more aggressive with its attacks, as well as gaining numerous CombatTentacles and it begins launching damaging spores into the air as it attacks.
*** After the player reduces the health bar of the Golem's Head to zero the head lifts off into the air. It flies around the area and continues launching lasers and fireballs while you have to fight the body, which begins leaping toward you constantly.
*** Duke Fishron's eyes [[GlowingEyesOfDoom glow yellow]] at half health. He now charges the player less times but is much faster and painful, his bubble attack has him do a loop-the-loop resulting in a huge spray, and he now fires only one Typhoon that homes in and summons an ''even bigger Sharknado'' that hurts like crazy and summons even more sharks. In Expert mode, he gains a ''second'' rage mode when almost dead, in which he turns the screen a dark blue and starts [[TeleportSpam teleporting frequently]], making him hard to hit and even harder to dodge.
** Some enemies such as the Wandering Eye, Lihzahrds, and Eyezor behave this way as well. The Wandering Eye is like a mini Eye of Cthulhu, the Lihzahrd go down on all fours, become immune to knockback and charge the player quickly, the Eyezor goes from slow laser shots to shooting out BeamSpam.
** The Big 1.3 Update adds Expert Mode, which expands mob AI and gives a number of the bosses new Desperation Attacks when they are badly damaged.
* TurnYourHeadAndCough: One of the Nurse's lines upon talking to her.
* TurtlePower:
** Giant Tortoises in the Underground Jungle and Ice Tortoises in Underground Snow. They have lots of health and armor and are pretty slow, but they utilize a fast spinning attack to move around and deal heavy damage.
** You can collect Turtle Shells from the Giant Tortoises to craft the Turtle Armor, which boasts extremely high defense and a SetBonus of reflecting damage back to physical attackers.
** 1.2.4 adds the Turtle Mount, which improves your mobility underwater when in use.
* UndergroundLevel: Everything between the overworld, which is a GreenHillZone, and the bottom of the map, which is a LethalLavaLand, is this, except for the Underground Jungle and dungeon.
* UndergroundMonkey: Slimes. At first there are only PaletteSwaps green slimes, blue slimes, red slimes, etc. As you venture further out though a unique slime can be found for each environment, ice slimes, jungle slimes, desert slimes, etc.
* {{Unicorn}}:
** The Hallow biome spawns unicorns. They are your traditional horse-with-a-horn variety and are invariably hostile. Killing them for their horns is the only purpose they seem to have.
** Using the Blessed Apple (rarely dropped by Hallow enemies) will allow you to ride one as a Mount. It can double jump and accelerates if not obstructed, allowing you to move very fast.
* UniversalAmmunition: The game has a very small selection of ammunition types, but said ammunition feeds a rather diverse variety of guns. For instance, standard Musket Ball ammunition will fire from muskets just fine, but it will also feed BB guns, revolvers, Uzis, shotguns, sniper rifles, and a half-minigun half-shark monstrosity.
* UnlimitedWardrobe: The game added three "Vanity Items" slots just to facilitate this. The slots replace the sprite (but not effect) or headgear, armor, and pants, just to show off all the clothes you've bought and/or made yourself while still being a walking Magitek tank.
* {{Unobtainium}}:
** You have Demonite and Crimtane, which are dropped by boss monsters and found in extremely rare small clusters that are usually only enough for a single bar or so.
** Meteorite, which comes from meteors that only appear after you destroy a Shadow Orb/Demon Heart.
** Hellstone, which you can only find in the underworld.
** Cobalt/Palladium, Mythril/Orichalcum, and Adamantite/Titanium are only available after defeating the Wall of Flesh and are used for endgame equipment. You'll only be able to get one of each pair in a given world, however. Destroying Altars summons more ore, though it also causes bits of Hallow/Corruption/Crimson to spawn in random places in the world.
** Hallowed metal, which can only be found as a drop from the three robotic bosses; there's not even a hallowed ore!
** Chlorophyte, which begins growing in the Underground Jungle during hardmode. It can become somewhat common as it grows by replacing nearby mud and jungle grass, but gathering it can still be a bit tricky thanks to the dangerous hardmode jungle enemies like giant tortoises and moss hornets. Fortunately, Chlorophyte ore spreads regardless of the biome, so you can make a farm of it in a safer biome just by digging to the right depth and placing mud blocks with an ore seed to create more.
** Shroomite and Spectre bars, which can only be made by taking Chlorophyte bars (which are already fairly hard to acquire, as mentioned above) and combining them with large numbers of Glowing Mushrooms and Ectoplasm, respectively.
** Luminite, which literally ''cannot be found or made on the planet'' and is only dropped by [[spoiler:the Moon Lord, the game's final boss]] in the 1.3 Big Update.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Status effects are mostly not very effective. In the time it takes for the slow damage over time of the On Fire! or Poisoned debuffs to kill an enemy you could have already killed the enemy a hundred times over using regular weapon attacks. Averted in the case of the bosses though, as the extra damage status effects allow you to deal will definitely help.
* VariableTerminalVelocity: The Slime mount has the property of doubling your falling speed, which immediately returns to normal if you unsummon it. The Portal Gun, when equipped, gives a 3.5x multiplier to your fall speed. When using both at the same time, the Slime mount's fall speed cancels out the Portal Gun's.
* VendorTrash: Of all the items in the game, only two items (both of which are fish) exist solely for selling for money: The common Neon Tetra, which sells for a rather low 15 silver, and the rare Golden Carp, which sells for a huge 10 gold.
* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: As the game developed, these have popped up. First, it was the Underworld, then the ''entire world'' became this after the release of Hardmode. Later, it was the Lihzahrd Temple, which can only be unlocked by a key dropped by Plantera. So far, the hardest dungeon in the game is the post-Plantera Dungeon, which is chock-full of extremely dangerous [[DemBones skeletal enemies]].
* VictorGainsLosersPowers: Most of the equipment that Duke Fishron drops on defeat are based on his abilities.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** The Guide VoodooDoll will allow you to harm the guide. However, he respawns after you kill him.
** The only way to get one of the {{Nice Hat}}s is to kill off the Clothier. The Clothier Voodoo Doll (that can summon Skeletron for a rematch) is added in the 1.2 patch, as if that wasn't already enough encouragement.
** The Goodie Bags in the Halloween Update can yield ''Rotten Eggs'', a kind of consumable throwing weapon that can damage the [=NPCs=] if you aim at them (normally such friendly fire is impossible with regular weapons).
** Two words: Bunny Cannon. The tooltip even says "Killing bunnies is just plain cruel. Period." To elaborate, the Bunny Cannon specifically fires Explosive Bunnies, which have to be crafted by catching the cute little critters and then strapping ''dynamite'' to them.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: The game is usually very tolerant of your evil ways, allowing you to slice bunnies and birds in half left and right. There's even a voodoo doll that lets you kill one of the [=NPC=]s at your will! [[spoiler:Throw that voodoo doll into lava, however, and you get attacked by the massive Wall Of Flesh. It will rip newer players apart, and there is literally no escape -- you HAVE to kill it or die to escape.]]
* VideogameFlamethrowersSuck: Averted with the flamethrower here. Not only does it pack a punch and causes damage over time due to setting enemies on fire, its range is quite nice and its ammo is hilariously easy to get. Those slimes hopping around? All that gel that is cramming your pockets and your chests? Yeah, that's what you use to fuel it. Slime statues rigged to timers can fill your entire inventory with gel just by going [=AFK=] a while. And the Frost Moon event gives you the chance to get the Elf Melter, which is essentially an upgraded flamethrower.
* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: The first round of bosses are a real challenge, particularly the Wall of Flesh. Once you reach Hardmode and acquire its dramatically more powerful gear, they'll come off like pushovers. For comparison, the final normal boss has 8000 hit points. The most fragile Hardmode boss has 28000 as of 1.2.4.1[[note]]Unless you count [[DualBoss The Twins]] separately, as one has 23000 and the other one has 20000.[[/note]]
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: You can use certain accessories to turn into a werewolf during a full moon, or a merman to swim better.
* VoodooDoll:
** The Guide Voodoo Doll, which will allow you to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential harm the guide]]. However, he respawns after you kill him. If you throw it in lava while in the Underworld, it causes Wall Of Flesh to spawn in addition to killing the guide normally, which turns on hardmode for your world if defeated.
** There's also the Clothier Voodoo Doll, which lets you kill the Clothier, which summons Skeletron when done at night.
* VoodooShark:
** A Cloud in a Bottle allows you to DoubleJump. How? By creating a cloud as a platform to jump from. How that supports you is another question.
** The biome keys don't work until Plantera has been defeated - the explanation given is that Plantera cursed them. Neither what Plantera has to do with them, nor how Plantera accomplished this despite being a non-sentient plant that ''isn't even present in the world until after the mechanical trio has been defeated'', are elaborated upon.
** [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Terraria/comments/bbi4h5/redigit_shares_lore_about_moon_lordcthulhu_in/ Redigit opened up on Discord surrounding the lore around the Moon Lord and mechanical bosses]]. As most of the comments in the thread point out though, this just raises *further* question and confusion.[[note]]How the Moon Lord lacks an eye, brain, and spine despite still having them in his sprite, why the Mechanic doesn't make mechanical bots for the player to use if she was forced to make the mech bosses for the cultist, why Skeletron Prime exists when Skeletron still existed at the time the Mechanic would have the time to make it and so on.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:W-Z]]
* WakeUpCallBoss:
** Skeletron will teach you the meaning of pain if you've gotten cocky tearing through the Eater of Worlds and the Eye of Cthulhu. The Wall of Flesh is another big step up, and then you get another ''big'' wake up call the first time you attempt any of the hardmode bosses.
** 1.2 added another boss like this: Plantera. While Plantera's 30,000 HP isn't particularly terrifying, it packs a major punch with its attacks. Most importantly, Plantera cannot be summoned like other bosses. Plantera instead spawns whenever you break one of the purple bulbs in the Underground Jungle, which spawn randomly. And don't even think of trying to [[BerserkButton lure it to the surface.]] That said, there's no rule stating you can't build an arena around where the bulbs are, provided you have the patience to build one, and Plantera is slow enough that you can just run to the arena with little trouble.
** With the addition of 1.3's Expert Mode worlds, even the ''[[WarmupBoss Eye of Cthulhu]]'' itself becomes one, if only for being a taste of just how much more difficult the new AI is. That's not even getting into the aforementioned Hardmode bosses, a couple of whom can reliably OneHitKill you if you're still using your old non-Hardmode gear.
* WalkDontSwim:
** Without special accessories or equipment the character is limited to walking and jumping underwater.
** The [=NPCs=] are limited to this behaviour in water.
** Many of the monsters and other enemies who normally walk on land will behave this way in water.
** Subverted for the players with certain accessories or potions. You can walk on water with a Water Walking potion or with certain boots. Combine those boots with Obsidian and a Lava Charm and you can also walk on lava, in addition to being able to be immersed on lava without penalty for 7 seconds! A must for those tackling the Wall of Flesh.
* WalkOnWater: The Water Walking Potion temporarily grants this ability, and the Water Walking Boots grants it as long as they're equipped. The Lava Waders (crafted from the Water Walking Boots) will allow a player to safely walk on lava.
* WarmupBoss: The Eye of Cthulhu is usually the first boss the player will face (because it can spawn automatically when the player is strong enough) and fairly simple to beat with a good ranged weapon. Its attacks aren't all that strong, either, and dodging it is simple enough with a few levels of wood platforms. This is ''[[LetsGetDangerous thoroughly averted]]'' on [[HarderThanHard Expert Mode,]] where it becomes far faster, tougher, hits considerably harder, and will be using its' charging attack non-stop by the time you're close to killing it; it's no stretch to say that the Eater of Worlds and the Brain of Cthulhu are easier fights than it is.
** King Slime is even more of a pushover. He doesn't hit particularly hard, requires only moderate equipment to bring down, has a predictable and easily-exploited attack pattern, and can be juked into trapping himself in small spaces due to his teleportation ability. To top it all off, unlike nearly every other boss in the game, he doesn't get any new abilities or tactics on Expert Mode; he's simply accompanied by slightly-tougher mooks. Even the official Wiki notes that many consider him more of a mini-boss than anything else.
* TheWarSequence: The Goblin Army, a hundred-strong army of goblins with varying professions. The number increases for every person playing when one strikes. To solidify the point that this is going to take a while, they drop weapons that actually help you in taking them down easily.
* WaveMotionGun:
** The [[FlyingSaucer Martian Saucer]] boss of the Martian Madness event has a giant laser it can fire downward. This laser is capable of taking huge chunks of health out of even the tankiest characters. When its cannons are destroyed, [[TurnsRed it does nothing but spam this laser]] until it's destroyed.
** The Martian Saucer can drop the Charged Blaster Cannon. It fires smaller, [[Franchise/MegaMan Mega Buster-like]] shots with a short charge, but if charged continuously for about three seconds, the cannon will fire a highly-damaging, infinitely piercing energy ray.
** [[spoiler:The [[FinalBoss Moon Lord]]]] fires one from its middle eye that sweeps in an angular motion and is ''incredibly'' painful. When its eyes are detached, they all can randomly use a smaller and slightly less painful version.
** Players can get their own in the form of the Last Prism, which fires six wide-angled beams that eventually converge into a large [[EverythingsBetterWithRainbows rainbow death laser]]. Its high power and attack rate make it one of the strongest magic weapons in the game.
* WeaponizedOffspring:
** The Eye of Cthulhu shoots out mini-eyes to attack the player as a sort of ranged attack.
** The Brain of Cthulhu shoots out flying eyeballs that serve as its first life bar.
** The Wall of Flesh shoots out burrowing worms that attack the player as well as the feeders that extend on cords to attack the player.
** Plantera sprouts vine attached attack mouths like the Wall of Flesh has in its second stage.
* WeBuyAnything: Merchants will gladly take anything you give them. Keep in mind however, some items have no value, so wouldn't even be worth keeping as VendorTrash, such as excessive dirt blocks. While you can get rid of unwanted items this way, you can also simply dump the items if you come across something more valuable along your adventuring.
* WeCanRebuildHim: The Eye of Cthulhu, the Eater of Worlds and Skeletron are 'rebuilt' into deadlier, cybernetic versions of themselves (the Twins, the Destroyer, and Skeletron Prime respectively) so that they can get their vengeance on you when you reach Hardmode.
* WhatTheHeckIsAnAglet: An Aglet is one of the available equippable items, providing a small speed boost when equipped. It's also an essential component for the Frostspark Boots.
* WhatTheHellPlayer: The Voodoo Dolls of the Clothier and the Guide have the description "You are a terrible person."
* WhenTreesAttack: The Splinterling and Mourning Wood enemies during the Pumpkin Moon (the latter of which spits flaming branches at you) and the Everscream during the Frost Moon (who shoots spikes instead of flaming branches).
* WhipItGood: Journey's End introduced whips as a weapon for Summoners. Not only does it allow Summoners to directly attack with Summon damage, but enemies that are hit by the whip get focused on and take extra damage from summons.
* WhoopeeCushion: A whoopee cushion can be found as a joke item. It makes funny fart noises, and can be crafted into a Fart in a Jar, which in turn can be crafted into balloons and other items, similar to the Cloud in a Bottle and its variants.
* WideOpenSandbox: In a similar vein to ''Minecraft'', the game throws you in at the surface of a pristine wilderness and sends you off to do your thing.
* WightInAWeddingDress: Survive long enough through a Blood Moon and eventually, you might encounter the Bride and Groom, a pair of zombies in wedding attire. Defeating them allows you to take their attire for yourself.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: The Goblin Tinkerer and the Mechanic are constantly asking about each other, the Nurse is after the Arms Dealer, and the Arms Dealer is... [[ReallyGetsAround well]].... But nothing seems to come from any of it, except maybe the Nurse and the Arms Dealer who may or may not have gone out on a date.
* WingedHumanoid: Harpies. You can become one yourself by crafting and equipping wings.
* WithMyDyingBreathISummonYou: The Lunatic Cultist summons the four Celestial Towers when defeated.
* WombLevel: Implied by the art style and presence of flesh-themed items and enemies in the Crimson Biome. Can be taken further if you get your mitts on a rare drop in the Crimson and convert the Crimstone blocks into ''flesh'' blocks, which can be used to craft furniture made of flesh.
** The "pots" in the crimson look like strange growths and the various surface plants look like growths with eyeballs. The entire biome is very red themed in general.
** The boss of the Crimson is a giant brain EldritchAbomination summoned either by smashing three beating hearts or using a bloody spine item crafted at bloody altar using individual vertebrae dropped by enemies in the biome.
* WoodenStake: The stake launcher fires these. As one might expect, it has a huge damage bonus against vampires (1000%, to be exact).
* WordSaladTitle: If you can't decide on a name for your world, the game can give you a randomly generated one, which are often flavored like this.
* {{Wormsign}}: Giant worms and other burrowing enemies leave a trail of little bits of dirt flying around as they're digging. They also have a very characteristic sound which can be somewhat unnerving if you can't easily defeat them yet. It does give a good indication of what side they'll be coming from next, though.
* WorthlessYellowRocks: Zig-zagged; gold ore and bars are valuable, but their monetary and crafting value is quickly surpassed by other materials, most of which are fantastical things like "Demonite." Gold ''bricks'' are completely worthless (shopkeepers won't pay for any type of bricks). More generally, the lengthy tier system (and the game progression in general) regularly turns prizes and materials that the player first paid for in "blood, sweat, and tears", into obsolete junk that might be worth a few coins.
* WrenchWench: The Mechanic. A female character in a yellow mechanics jumpsuit with a large wrench on her back. She sells the player the various items used for using the wiring system in the game.
* {{Wutai}}: Furniture and buildings built out of the Dynasty Wood that the travelling merchant sells will have an Asian theme, allowing you to build your own Wutai base.
* TheXOfY: Enough to warrant [[TheXOfY/{{Terraria}} a page]].
* YinYangBomb:
** You can explore the blighted, dark lands of the Corruption (or the Eldritch-style flesh covered lands of [[EldritchAbomination the Crimson]]) and the joyful, light-aligned Hallow and find respectively Dark and Light Souls, which are used to make or upgrade dark or light-themed equipment. Fuse them with two particular (and rather rare) items and you obtain the Dao of Pow, an EpicFlail which is essentially a huge spiked Yin-Yang on a chain capable of massive damage and confusing any enemy it touches.
** As of Terraria 1.2, Combining the [[InfinityMinusOneSword True Night's Edge and the True Excalibur]] at a Demon Altar will cause the power of The Corruption and the [[LightIsNotGood The Hallow]] to cancel out and produce the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Terra Blade]].
* YouAndWhatArmy: One of the achievements in-game is titled this, which requires you to have nine minions at once.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: The game allows your character to have hair of almost any color (now including Flat Black, as of the 1.2 patch which changed the way coloring works). You also have the option to have [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation unusual skin colors]].
* YourSoulIsMine: In Hardmode, souls start dropping from enemies near hallow or corrupt areas, as do the hardmode bosses. You need souls to craft the best stuff.
* YouWillNotEvadeMe:
** Getting too far away from King Slime or leaving him in a small space will make him teleport to you.
** Attempt to run away from the Wall of Flesh, and it'll give you a debuff called "The Tongue," which basically means it reels you back in for heavy contact damage. If a player attempts to warp back to spawn, the Wall of Flesh instakills them instead, accompanied by a special [[HaveANiceDeath death message]].
** Attempting to warp away from [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] now makes him teleport right to your spot instead; though [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] can be outrun, if the player gets too far, [[spoiler:the Moon Lord]] will teleport to them.
* ZergRush:
** A player can (sort of) create one by using a Battle Potion and Water Candle together during a Blood Moon. All three increase spawn rate and raise the limit of on-screen enemies.
** The Goblin Army event causes more than 100 goblins to spawn on both sides of you and all come after you. Have fun killing warriors from right and left while pelted with arrows and magic from afar. The Pirate Invasion and Martian Madness events are similar, except with gun-toting pirates and ray gun-wielding aliens respectively.
** In the alpha, the slimes had a high spawn rate and would swarm players while they tried to work, making it difficult getting a shelter built. While the slime spawn rate has been toned down, this can still happen on blood moons with the zombies and demon eyes.
** In Hardmode, especially before you get decent equipment, a Blood Moon can become tougher than the normal mode bosses ever were, while the Solar Eclipse can feel like a horde of BossInMookClothing enemies.
** Snowmen too when you use the Snowglobe item.
** At the lower levels of the caves at the current version, it is nearly impossible to get a respite from the hordes of Skeletons, Giant Worms, and Mother Slimes.
** Then in the Underground Jungle you have Hornets which can spawn in swarms of up to 6. At one point the hornets had their health and attack damage balanced out but they remain dangerous en masse.
** Also have fun in the Underworld where Imps never stop spawning, throwing fireballs [[DepthPerplexion through walls]] at you while teleporting all over the place. Then come the [[DemonicSpider bone serpents]]. The spawn rate was mercifully toned down in a patch, but can still be tough at times, although you will no longer regularly have to deal with three simultaneous bone serpents.
** The Underworld includes flaming bats and demons, which will constantly swarm you if you're traveling the "safer" route by grappling along the ceiling.
** You can incite this by placing a water candle (held instead prior to 1.2.3) which can be found in great quantities in the dungeon. Though it only has a modest effect, it is still useful for attracting monsters to traps to farm their drops. A similar effect can be induced by consume a Battle Potion. For the record, both of these items' effects stack, so try to use both for maximum efficiency.
** Eaters of Souls and their variants in the Corruption spawn in massive numbers, sometimes up to a dozen at once, and charge the player relentlessly. Any low-level player wandering into that area is unlikely to get back out alive.
** The enemies in the dungeon never stop coming. Wizards attack you from random directions, skeleton warriors charge in more than six at a time, and flying skulls can shut off your ability to attack briefly. If that wasn't bad enough, their spawn rate increases as you reach lower and lower depths and if even THAT wasn't enough for you, they all have upgraded versions that appear after defeating Plantera along with OTHER new, unique hardmode dungeon enemies such as the VERY bulky Paladin and the extremely fast Bone Lee. You can tone this down a bit by stealing every water candle in sight, but the spawn rate is still higher than normal.
[[/folder]]

** The 1.4 update added a hidden [[LuckManipulationMechanic luck]] stat, which affects many parts of the game such as drop rates, damage rolls, and creature spawns. Among other things, bad luck could be caused by ''using the wrong torches for the biome'', and there is absolutely nothing suggesting torches do anything other than provide light. Widespread negative player reaction lead to torches no longer having any negative effect on luck, however, using the "right" torch in its associated biome will still grant a positive luck bonus.

** The 1.4 update added a hidden [[LuckManipulationMechanic luck]] stat, which affects many parts of the game such as drop rates, damage rolls, and creature spawns. Among other things, bad luck can be caused by ''using the wrong torches for the biome'', and there is absolutely nothing suggesting torches do anything other than provide light.

** Once you've unlocked the hardmode Dungeon, you have access to a wide variety of shiny, new toys... of which the Master Ninja Gear is not one of. Its a combination of the Tabi, Black Belt and Tiger Climbing Gear, allowing you access to wall-climbing, dashing and 10% chance of dodging any attack only taking up one accessory spot. Sounds fine and dandy except you're already about 85% through the main game at that point and more than likely have access to Wings or a mount that offers more mobility than the Master Ninja Gear would give you. About its only use is the 10% dodge chance but the percentage is hardly worth a spot in your incredibly limited accessory slots and isn't as immediately impactful as, say, a medallion suited to your class or the Celestial Shell.

** ''Fishing''. One of the most tedious tasks in the game given the fact that it also involves having to deal with the BrattyHalfPint Angler NPC if you want his unique accessory rewards, it is nonetheless not only a major source of ingredients for potions, flasks and food, but also rare tools and weapons that are strong enough to let a player [[SequenceBreaking skip several upgrades to their arsenal]] if diligently performed. However, the biggest advantage of fishing is the acquisition of crates, which contain random accessories, ores, metal bars, money and other items; opening said crates upon reaching Hardmode will randomly yield ''any of the six different Hardmode ores'', allowing a player to bypass having to break Demon Altars for the ores and risk spreading Corruption/Crimson and Hallow as long as they have enough crates in stock.
*** Journey's End somewhat nerfs and buffs this. Crates fished in Pre-Hardmode have been seperated from Crates fished in Hardmode, and as such it's a bit tougher to bypass breaking Demon Altars- you actually have to fish the crates up in Hardmode. On the flipside, the Hardmode Crates will not contain Pre-Hardmode Ores/bars, so you're far more likely to get materials that are worth using from Hardmode crates.

* DoubleJump: A Cloud in a Bottle allows you to double jump. Doing so will also negate fall damage if done near the bottom of a long fall. Version 1.2 adds more Elements In A Bottle, a Blizzard and a Sandstorm, which are improved versions of the Cloud. You can combine these items with the Shiny Red Balloon to get even better jumps, and them fuse them all together into a Bunch of Balloons to get a ''quadruple'' jump, and combine ''that'' with the Fart in a Bottle/Balloon to get a ''quintuple'' jump. Version 1.3 adds the Tsunami in a Bottle, which can be combined with a Balloon Pufferfish to get the Sharkron Balloon, which will let you achieve ''six'' midair jumps. Watch out for fall damage though. Or, don't, if you have a Lucky Horseshoe equipped.

** For summon weapons, the Terraprisma is this, having so much damage it even beats out the Stardust Dragon. The catch is that you have to beat the Empress of Light during the day ''when all of its attacks are {{OneHitKill}}s'', in order to acquire this. So while you can obtain the Terraprisma before even the Golem, anybody who successfully does so is already likely skilled enough to make it through the rest of the game without it.

** Fighting the Empress of Light during the day (which can only be done if you capture a nocturnal Prismatic Lacewing and release it at day) will cause ALL her attacks to deal over 10000 damage to you, which is more than overkill.

** For summon weapons, the Terraprisma is this, having so much damage it even beats out the Stardust Dragon. The catch is that you have to beat the [[ThatOneBoss Empress of Light]] during the day ''when all of its attacks are {{OneHitKill}}s'', in order to acquire this. So while you can obtain the Terraprisma before even the Golem, anybody who successfully does so is already likely skilled enough to make it through the rest of the game without it.

** The Reaver Shark got nerfed in 1.4, though it is still as powerful as a Platinum Pickaxe.

** The Journey's End patch aimed to reduce some of the more egregious sequence breaks, and patched out three of the biggest. Meteors can no longer fall until the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu is dead[[labelnote:*]]previously, the played could bomb their way through to a single shadow orb/crimson heart and then get an infinite-ammo laser gun and midgame armor[[/labelnote]] and fishing has been nerfed by separating normal mode and hard mode crates[[labelnote:*]]crates used to be universal, so fishing up a bunch before defeating the Wall of Flesh, and they could be opened for ons of free hardmode ore[[/labelnote]] and reducing the Reaver Shark's pickaxe power[[labelnote:*]]prior to 1.4, it could mine the first hardmode ore, obviating tool progression for the entire first half of the game; now it's limited to skipping up to Hellstone[[/labelnote]].

** The ultimate armors and weapons dropped by the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] are extremely powerful, being [[InfinityPlusOneSword some of the best in the game.]] However, to get them, it means having to fight the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] and the [[spoiler:Lunar invasion]] several times in order get the materials necessary to make them and/or get the rare drops from the [[spoiler:Moon Lord]] and by the time you do get them all, there's nothing else to really use them on and having gone through one of the hardest events in the game several times to get them all, you've pretty much proven you don't really ''need'' them to begin with, either.

** King Slime, Queen Bee, and Duke Fishron do not need to be fought for any reason related to the main plot. They hold no items that you require to progress, and summoning them has no effect on the world.