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| The character's walking animation |
The term character or avatar refers to the figure controlled by the player through the game controls. All of Terraria's gameplay revolves around actions performed by the character, and the camera is nearly always locked to place the character in the middle of the screen.
The term player is often used as a synonym with character, but may also refer to the person accessing the game if the topic is unrelated to character mechanics.
Only one character can be played at a given time (in similar fashion to how the player may only access one world at a time), but the player is free to create as many characters as they desire. Characters are not locked to worlds, hence it is, for instance, possible to start playing in a new world with a powerful character from another world.
Items held in any part of the character's inventory (including slots for equipment, armor, ammo, and dyes), or any of the personal portable storage items, are all stored with the character, who will bring them to whatever world they enter.
Creation and customization[]
Dialogue for creating a new character on Desktop 
(v1.4)
Dialogue for selecting World options on Mobile 
(v1.3.0.7). The character is randomized by default (It still is in 1.4).
Characters are created in the game's main menu through the Single Player option. This provides the player with the options of selecting an already made character for playing, creating new characters, favoriting them, integrating them with the Steam Cloud in order to easily access them on different computers, and deleting them.
Character creation is accessed by clicking "New" and presents the player with a multitude of customization options:
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Empowering the character[]
A character using a Sandstorm in a Bottle.
Much of Terraria's gameplay revolves around making the character stronger in order to defeat enemies and bosses. The character becomes stronger in the following ways:
- Real-life player skill improvement in mastering the game controls.
- Increase of health and mana through Life Crystals, Life Fruits and Mana Crystals.
- Equipping weapons, armor, accessories, and summoning minions.
- Being under the effect of buffs.
Notes[]
- The inventory of a given character and sometimes other character properties can be edited by third-party programs known as inventory editors.
- Characters, like worlds, are stored as individual files. On the
PC version, a character has the file extension .plr. On the Microsoft Windows game platform, they can be found in theC:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Terraria\Playersdirectory within their own folders. - The only situations in which the camera is not locked onto the character is when the player shifts the view using the Binoculars, Rifle Scope, Sniper Rifle or Sniper Scope, when located at the edge of the world, or when moving along a horizontal Rope (however, this is caused by a glitch and is unintentional behaviour), and with 1.4, the camera also follows golf balls.
- Character difficulty level is the only feature of the character that cannot be changed in-game and affects gameplay (on Old-gen console, Windows Phone, Old Chinese, , and tModLoader Legacy, the name cannot be changed either, although that is cosmetic). Game editors notwithstanding, the only way to "change" these is to transplant in a newly generated character with the desired characteristics, boost their health and mana to match the old character, and transfer all possessions from the old character to the new one. Given the expense and effort of this process, the usual case for this is to effectively convert a Hardcore or Mediumcore character into a Softcore one.
- Transferring equipment can require up to 7 chests: 1 for main inventory, up to 2 for the hotbar and various equipment, vanity, and dye slots (see the Inventory page for details), and up to 4 for the contents of the old character's portable storage (Piggy Bank, Safe, Defender's Forge and Void Vault).
- Given that the new character will appear at the world spawn with no movement accessories, these chests should be placed within easy reach of the world spawn.
- Depending on the old character's advancement, this will also require them to set aside up to 15 Life Crystals, 9 Mana Crystals, and 20 Life Fruits. These can be placed in one of the "miscellaneous slots" chests.
- There are also certain other permanent consumables that may need to be transferred over to a new character, such as Torch God's Favor and permanent upgrade items obtained by transmuting items through Shimmer.
- The player may also wish to bring the new character to the Stylist to repeat any prior purchases from her, and/or to make use of a Dresser.
- This will also forfeit the old character's accumulated map.
- Transferring equipment can require up to 7 chests: 1 for main inventory, up to 2 for the hotbar and various equipment, vanity, and dye slots (see the Inventory page for details), and up to 4 for the contents of the old character's portable storage (Piggy Bank, Safe, Defender's Forge and Void Vault).
