Left: Eridani. Right: Asphodene.
The Stars Above is a Game Mod for Terraria. It serves as a supplement to other content mods, providing extra mechanically-unusual equipment, a new Limit Break mechanic called the Stellar Nova, and a new form of assistance in the form of the Starfarers and their skill trees. Tying it all together is a corresponding narrative that easily fits into other content mods, and several boss fights with their own gimmicks.
Sometime before the great calamities of aeons past, an enigmatic individual rose to claim the power of the cosmos for themselves, leaving behind a great trail of destruction that took both friend and foe alike before disappearing and fragmenting their strength across space and time. Now, in the present day, that same power reawakens within the Terrarian to help them depose the horrors wrought by the world and those who hold power over it.
Tropes:
- Abusive Precursors: The mod's antagonists are rulers and warriors from ages long past responsible for many a path of destruction.
- Background Music Override: While the Suistrume is active, the current music is set to the instrumental of "NEXT COLOR PLANET" regardless of any other conditions.
- Dance Battler: The Suistrume is a microphone that provides passive DPS buffs as long as the player keeps moving and dodging while it's active. Successfully keeping it up for long enough fully restores HP and mana.
- Death from Above: The Theofania Inanis slams large void blades into a target location, which additionally marks enemies hit by them with a Damage-Increasing Debuff.
- Developer's Foresight: Many post-Moon Lord weapons will scale to Terraria Calamity if installed, boosting their strength but also requiring that mod's endgame materials to craft. The Starfarers will also comment on a majority of Calamity and Thorium content as they appear.
- Dumb Muscle: While Asphodene is no slouch intellectually, she's a big fan of beauty in destruction, with her arsenal taking much more direct approaches to dealing damage than Eridani's. This results in a more consistent damage output, but can screw the player over if the chips are down due to their lack of strategic elegance.
- Expy: If their reaction to the Suistrume is any indication, Asphodene and Eridani appear to be based on Hoshimachi Suisei and Anemachi respectively; both pairs of siblings are (ambiguously) celestial beings with humanoid appearances and a blue/pink dichotomy who are exceptionally talented relative to the media they appear in.
- Flash Step: Continuously fighting with the Kroniic Principality lets the user snap back to a set location by rewinding time, giving the appearance of this.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Whichever Starfarer you pick will turn out to have lost a great deal of memory about their other allies, including the other Starfarer. They get it back after Hardmode begins and the Vagrant is defeated.
- Hero of Another Story: The Starfarer you don't choose at the start is presumably helping someone else in another land, given that their companionship is their job.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Eridani's weapons and Stellar Nova buffs are the more mechanically complicated of the bunch compared to Asphodene's and rely on precise timing and strategy to fully draw out their potential.
- Shout-Out: Bordering on Reference Overdosed, almost all of the mod's weapons and Stellar Novas are a reference:
- To Destiny 2:
- Stellar Novas charge up using the same mechanics and sound effects as supers from Destiny, charging faster when in combat and picking up little bundles of energy. The sound when a Stellar Nova is fully charged (which in turn is lifted from the corresponding sound effect in Destiny 2) also has the Kinetic Clicking of Izanagi's Burden overlaid with it.
- The Hawkmoon and Izanagi's Burden appear as weapons after defeating the Vagrant of Space and Time. As Terraria does not use a precision hit system or manual reloads, Paracausal Shot instead triggers on perfect automatic reloads, and Honed Edge automatically triggers upon landing a hit with every shot in the magazine.
- Ride the Bull is the Huckleberry, its Bottomless Magazines perk emulated by using mana to fire the gun and restoring it whenever the gun kills an enemy.
- The Crimson Outbreak is Outbreak Perfected, and replicates the gun's damage potential through its Damage-Increasing Debuff perfectly.
- The Voice of the Fallen is the Whisper of the Worm. Rather than use the ammo regeneration granted by White Nail, however, the gun instead ramps up crit chance on repeated hits and dissipates each time it successfully crits.
- To hololive:
- The Inugami Ripsaw is the chainsaw from Doom Eternal as Korone wielded it, and is attracted to fingers.
- The first Stellar Nova is a standard strike from the Power of the Void called Theofania Inanis.
- The Memento Muse is a pink scythe that is more effective when swung in rhythm. Its Flavor Text is "I'm not asking for much; do me a favor and die?"
- The Caesura of Despair is based on a nephilim, has a secondary mode named Irys, and its Flavor Text says "Hope has descended." Its name is also a reference to IRyS's first EP.
- Penthesilea's theme is the instrumental to "Mage of Violet," Murasaki Shion's first original song.
- The Kroniic Principality is the longer half of Kronii's dual swords, and suitably allows the user to warp time to increase their mobility.
- The Suistrume enables the use of a Dance Battler ability set to the instrumental of "NEXT COLOR PLANET." The Starfarers, who themselves are linked to cosmic power, will note that the player sounds cute using it in the weapon's Flavor Text.
- To Arknights:
- The Karlan Truesilver is essentially a rendition of SilverAsh's infamous third skill complete with its powerful splash damage effect.
- The Kazimierz Seraphim references Blemishine, especially notable in the weapon's Flavor Text. The name of the weapon references the Kazimierz family name that Blemishine has.
- The Phantom in the Mirror is directly named after Phantom, due to the weapon's Flavor Text and effects.
- The Shadowless Cerulean, a post-Moon Lord weapon, is the blade used by Amiya in her Guard class variant. The Shadowless part of the weapon's name references her second skill.
- The Sparkblossom's Beacon is a post-Queen Slime staff that fires homing projectiles similar to that used by Goldenglow. The weapon's Flavor Text references one of the dialogue lines used by her when using her skills.
- The Burning Desire is the chainsaw wielded by Blazenote . Two of the weapons' unique buffs, Boiling Blood and Boiling Burst, are named after her Leitmotif and her S3 skill respectively, even replicating some of the effects of the latter. The weapon's Flavor Text references one of the dialogue lines used by her when using one of her three skills (not just her S3).
- An upcoming update will feature a vanity set, titled Ocean-Hued Hunter, that is designed after Skadi, which is especially noticeable with the helmet piece resembling her hat.
- The Ars Laevateinn, the second Stellar Nova, is based on the sword used by Surtr, although depicted with a different grip and pommel.
- To Genshin Impact:
- Rex Lapis is a replication of Zhongli's Vortex Vanquisher, complete with the ability to summon meteors to fall on the opponent that inflict the Petrification debuff akin to Zhongli's Elemental Burst.
- The Vision of Euthymia summons an electric eye that, while active, deals an extra attack when striking enemies with projectiles, a reference to the Raiden Shogun's Elemental Skill.
- Tartaglia, along with being directly named after Childe, also replicates both the charged shot's Riptide debuff, as well as having an alt-fire that swaps to melee strikes, much like Childe's Elemental Burst.
- The Umbral weapon Irminsul's Dream is a magic weapon shaped in likeness to a magic lamp, like the vanilla Spirit Flame, that damages targets in a picture-frame styled hitbox similar to Nahida's Elemental Skill. This makes it the third Archon-based weapon in the mod, as Venti is currently the only known Archon without a representative weapon in the mod. The word "Irminsul" refers to the legendary silver-white tree Nahida's consciousness connects to as the current Dendro Archon, and is said to house all the information and memories of Teyvat.
- The Soliloquy of Sovereign Seas is a summoning weapon that summons Furina's Skill familiars, the Stinger of Seas and the Salon Attendants. In addition, it also replicates Fontaine's Arkhe alignments by having the familiars be tied to the two Arkhe alignments Pneuma and Ousia, and gives Waterwalking to the user while the summon is out, recreating Furina's own water-walking abilities and her ability to use both Arkhe alignments at the same time.
- To Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina:
- Gloves of the Black Silence recreate Roland's unique deck from Library of Ruina, giving the player access to nine different weapons that can be cycled through. Once all nine have been used, a unique Combination Attack, Furiosa, is unlocked.
- Manifestation is a recreation of Mimicry, the EGO weapon of Nothing There that is also wielded by Gebura/the Red Mist. Its Emotional Turbulence and EGO Manifestation mechanics reference mechanics from Library of Ruina, as does its unique Great Split abilities.
- To Punishing: Gray Raven:
- Crimson Sakura Alpha is a sword-like weapon that lets the user collect Skill Orbs from killed enemies ala the Nebula Armor. This weapon is derived from the signature sword of Alpha, the lookalike to main captain of the Gray Ravens, Lucia.
- Ozma Ascendant is based on the frame Laurel, the former leader of the Ascendants, Luna uses as her main form of attack/main weapon.
- The third Stellar Nova is a counterattack named Kiwami Ryuken, meant to invoke the Heat Moves from Yakuza used to counter specific maneuvers.
- The fifth Stellar Nova grants a massive buff to all stats called the Astartes Driver.
- The final weapon of the mod is called "Bury the Light," with the Flavor Text "Now you're motivated."
- One of Eridani's weapons is the Rad Gun, which gets buffed on a successful reload cancel like the original.
- One of the Post-Mech Spatial weapons grants access to Raye's different Sky Striker armors, swappable between each other with the right-click and performing the different Sky Striker Maneuvers for their left-clicks.
- An upcoming weapon is called "Inherited Case, M4A1", which combined with its Auxiliary Armaments function, references all five members of the Anti-Rain squadnote . It even has M4A1's second skill, Seal of the Avenger, from her Neural Upgrade as an additional attack used via the weapon's charge feature.
- To Destiny 2:
- Super Mode: The Edin Genesis Quasor is a Stellar Nova that does not attack directly, but instead transfers its very high damage stats to all weapons while active. It does, however, have a more standard outburst that can be used up to three times while it's active.
