#textwall replies

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.

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.

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.

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!:

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.

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.

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.

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.