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Have you thought of the Corruption chasms as nests, dug by the eater of worlds to harbor the shadow orbs which are its/her eggs? That would explain its anger after breaking three. I hope I did not miss anything from your worldbuilding.

I never really did cover the Corruption in-depth, so you didn't miss much of anything.And before I get started, remember, this isn't a theory as to what the devs may have intended, and this shouldn't have any bearing on how other people may decided to worldbuild the Corruption. This is only how I've decided to characterize it for my own stuff.The crux of my interpretation is that I don't consider the Corruption creatures to be biological entities, seeing as they're made of rotten flesh. They seem more like animated conglomerates pulled from a set of very similar templates, with a singular goal of spreading, killing, absorbing dead biomass, and spreading more.

That said, the chasms ARE dug by the Eater of Worlds, but also all the other burrowing Corruption creatures, of which there are many. They're just not a nest; they don't need to breed since they're not actually living things. It's more for living space and surface area for spreading the corruption, especially in its weakened state.

The Shadow Orbs themselves aren't eggs, they're actually more like pearls, where random objects that have fallen into the chasms get coated in layers of demonite or a demonite-like material. This mainly explains why you can find some fairly mundane items inside of them, some older ones being sufficiently suffused with Corruption energy to have changed their nature (whilst more 'modern' objects, like the Musket, remain unchanged, simply from not having been there very long). Smaller and heftier 'pearls' from minute particles are much denser can simply be taken, hence the light item.

They still act as acute focuses, drawing in the soul energy upon which the Corruption denizens feed. It explains why you hear screams when you break them, and why destroying or stealing them enrages the Eater of Worlds, which tends them and carefully shapes them into the familiar orbs. Who really knows why. Probably something to do with optimizing distribution or the material matrix for keeping the energy stored until needed.

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Do you have a theory for why the Dryad has an apparent sympathy for the hallow (congratulates you if the hallow takes over instead of corruption) in terms of your headcannon? Also, do you think the spread of the Crimson work in the same way as the Corruption (reconstituted dead biomass)? Thanks.

It’s mostly a holdover from olden times. The “Hallow” represented a largely positive ideal for ages, which unfortunately succumbed to the trappings of zealotry and elitism. That doesn’t mean that its core, underlying meaning and goals are inherently bad, just that it tends to do nearly as much harm as good in its current state.

I say nearly because incidentally, of the three ‘spreading’ biomes, it is the only one that won’t destroy the Jungle. Since the dryads have some territorial claim there, there is more peace of mind to let the Hallow take over everything just to ‘protect’ things until either the Hallow is reverted to its original ‘good’ state, or it can be cleanly purged back to Purity. If the other two are allowed to go rampant, kiss the Jungle goodbye even in the event Purity can be reestablished later.

The Crimson is a weird situation in that the majority of its motile biomass is definitely alive (a core proto-organism template grows from the transformed grass and rock and changes based on DNA leeched from living and dead biomass by the biome as a whole and shared between the brains over vast distances), but the actual ‘stone’ of the biome is both alive and growing and dead and rotting at the same time. Because eldritch things don’t make sense and things that don’t make sense are scarier.

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Seeing the post with the angler and the aberrant, that got me wondering if the angler was keen on pranks, I was already suspicious of that when he planned to put the fish of Cthulhu on someone's bathtub and the things he plans to do with the cursed fish and he sometimes wants a suicide bombing fish, he wants to stick an ichorfish on someone's toilet and a zombie fish on someone's dresser.

That’s pretty much been the assumption I’ve gone off all this time. I’ve mentioned before that I liken his shenanigans to something from Calvin and Hobbes, which I grew up with and is probably still my favorite comic series (though I haven’t read it through in years, I picked up one of the smaller compilations from a thrift shop for $1 recently while waiting for my parents to send my collection from storage and remembered why I love it so much).

The adults let him get away with it because, well, he’s just a kid who might also be a peculiarly solid ghost but i don’t have enough built on that to really hold a discussion, and also while he talks up a big story about many of them, most fish are generally harmless. Most. It’s a kid thing. When I was young I thought some things were a lot scarier than they actually are (like the old family dog...). Couple that with the fisherman stereotype of exaggerating their catches, and you’ve got a fishing kid with one heck of a hyperbolic streak.

I still don’t quite know what he plans on doing with that dynamite fish... it might not even explode and he just assumes it would because kid.

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Salutations. I just wanted to day that I love your work and that you're one of the people who inspired me to start drawing Terraria fanart.

Hey, cool, thanks a lot! I’m always glad to hear I’m inspiring people!

I haven’t been too active on the answering questions front because of stuff, and art in general is kind of on hold for a tiny bit while I unwind from PAX and do all the necessary entropy damage control that comes with leaving things alone for four days.

There are also some other Asks in my box (some of which aren’t Anon) that I may just not answer because I really don’t know how to answer them. If you have a question or random comment that goes unanswered, I’m sorry! I’m not mad or trying to be rude or anything, sometimes I just can’t think of a response!

In the meantime, some additional answers to a bunch of Anon messages!:

Thanks a bunch! These always make my day, even if I don’t necessarily respond to them all, but they make me very happy!

The playmat is currently on hold because fully-realized backgrounds make me feel like I’m gonna have an aneurysm, but I still would really like to do something along those lines. I’m still not entirely sure if the direction I’d started is the direction I necessarily want to go...

Pretty much the entire point! 83c Thanks!

Thank you!

Writing is something I actually do very frequently, I just don’t share it that much since a lot of it is original and I have qualms with sharing that for the time being.

I also RPed with other writers for yeeears (though I don’t do much of it now), so I got a lot of practice, haha.

Thanks! Haha, don’t worry, I don’t feel pressured to work on this, it’s actually really fun! I just write all out of order, so getting the next chapter is slow because I’ve been slowing filling ALL of them out as scenes from my outline spring to mind.  I actually have about 90% of the LAST chapter done already! It’s ridiculous! I REALLY WANT TO SHARE IT BUT I CAN’T IT’S AWFUL

Many, many pieces.

As for the guide... you’d be surprised how tolerant a guy with his level of influence and control could be...

Thank you for the kind words, coming up with practical descriptions for things in such an impractical and nonsensical game is one of my favorite things about Terraria!

Suspicions are good! I’m glad they’re suspicious! They’re actually telegraphed if you know where to look, especially compared to other characters that aren’t involved who may or may not have very similar conventions.

The only one I’ll shoot down is Aura is definitely not Auraion, who is sourced to a veeery different setting of mine and just happens to hang out in Terraria. Not that anyone has said anything about that (and I’ve seen some speculation in tags, which I won’t say whether or not they are right or not but it’s a good sign!), but it was something that bothered me a little the more I wrote; I chose Aura’s name for other reasons...

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I like to imagine that the only reason the tax collector even gives the player money is because that's his way of showing them that he's thankful that they saved him, even if he doesnt show it with his words, considering how rude he can be

A lot of the NPCs have their moments of rudeness, but I’m sure all of the ones who can settle are initially thankful for the player giving them a (mostly) safe haven where they can interact peacibly with other humans in a meaningful way. That thankfulness might turn to fearful respect, though, if the player’s a despot.

The only one who strikes me as not necessarily grateful is the Guide, since he’s there from the beginning to pull the strings of progress by nudging the player towards goals with his advice. On the other hand, he has no reason to fear the player, either, since he knows what’s going on. It’s hard to be afraid of someone when he knows that his (temporary) death by their hands is part of a master plan, whatever that may be, and actively steers the player towards it, only to come back with a smirk.

I mean, I can just see him coming back after being killed with the doll in person (rather than being sacrificed) and glibly going “Heh, well, that was unnecessary, but, hey, whatever makes you feel better about yourself, huh?”

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So how do Aberrant and Guide get along, generally? A monster with the soul of a man... and a man with the soul of a monster?

Not sure if you dropped by after it though I do think it’s relevant to say... they don’t really.

And technically, at least where my narratives goes, Aberrant still has every bit an eldritch soul inside of him, just... a slightly more benevolent one that sees civility as a decent means of self-preservation (and benevolent cosmic horror is ultimately still cosmic horror, so take that as you will), and the Guide still has a human soul, just one tainted by a sordid history and directly linked to some of the world’s deeper, darker secrets.

They’re fairly neutral towards one another in their own ways of being neutral. The Guide’s always been kind of a smug prick and this is not much different, and Aberrant will respect the guy so long as he’s not being directly rude. The Guide knows a lot more about Aberrant than the other way around, though, and is more than willing to steer anyone towards making sure there won’t be any problems in the future, and Aberrant is full-aware of that.

Aberrant is also fully aware that the Guide played some role in the Starfallen’s seals, but isn’t inclined to be bitter about it given his personality. If anything he has a faint respect for it.

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If you could create a biome (evil, good or neutral/spreads ,doesn't spread) in Terraria, how would it look like? (Your art is amazing btw.)

There really isn’t much that I’d want for in Terraria except for embellishments to what’s already there, since my favorite environmental archetypes are pretty much covered (snow/ice, crystal, body horror. It would be nice if there were an overworld crystal biome variant with actual crystal trees; maybe they’d be alternate tree sprites for the Hallow). Other things might be difficult to pull off at Terraria’s sprite resolution constraints, for instance, Giger-style sleek alien biotech. which might make a nice Underworld alternate.

Maybe a more alien or surreal-celestial inspired sky-island alternate would be neat, or underground magic-tech vaults (more of a mini-dungeon than a biome). Sort of like steampunk, but on the magic side. Think Engine of the Makers or Spark of Imagination in Ulduar from WoW.

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Can the Aberrant do tricks with his lamppost (a la Star Wars kid)?

Believe me, I actually spend a lot more idle time than is probably healthy imagining him and the others as beat-em-up or fighting game characters, with him getting the most attention. It’s largely because I have little ideas here and there, off and on, about a Splatterhouse-style spin-off involving the Starfallen lot, and while he wouldn’t be the only one with a role, he’d definitely be the first one to get a campaign*.

While canonically he’s not very flashy, I definitely see him being at least capable of it in my head. He just doesn’t really have any incentive to waste energy on flair versus simple efficiency.

Doesn’t stop my brain from going full-anime from time to time. I DO get a lot of visual inspiration from the Guilty Gear series, after all.

Unfortunately, as much as I would LOVE to share what I see in my head with people, I’m ultimately not much of an animator. Trying to animate even the simplest takes on what I see (very vividly) in my head for anything generally ends in miserable failure.

*Basically an AU where he couldn’t find a town started by an adventuring hero, so he has to start one himself, but since he’s not much of a builder, it mostly involves reclaiming an old, run-down mansion he finds from monsters, cleaning it up and making it habitable, and then defending it and anyone who moves in from further incursion. It’s a silly thing, occasionally it plays out in my head, usually when I’m zoning out at work.