Altars

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File:Demonaltars.jpg

Four Demon Altars.

File:Crimson Altar in Snow Biome.png

A Crimson Altar in the Snow biome.

A world after smashing a large number of Crimson Altars leaving the Crimson and Hallow to spread.

This article is about Altars in the Corruption or Crimson. For the altar located in the Jungle Temple, see Lihzahrd Altar.

Demon Altars and Crimson Altars are naturally-occurring crafting stations found mainly in and around Chasms in The Corruption or The Crimson, and less frequently underground. They are used to craft boss-summoning items and the Night's Edge. Altars emit some light, making them easy to spot. They cannot be freed, picked up, placed, or crafted. After a world enters Hardmode, they can be destroyed with Hardmode-tier hammers, but attempting to hit them with a hammer before Hardmode or a hammer with less than 80% hammer power causes the player to lose half their health, and the Altar will not be affected.

Hardmode

After the Wall of Flesh has been defeated in a world, Altars can be destroyed with the Pwnhammer or any superior hammer. If a player attempts to destroy the Altar with a lesser hammer, or in a world in which the Wall of Flesh is not yet defeated, the Altar will be unaffected and the player will lose half their current health, as stated above. Each destroyed Altar causes one type of Hardmode ore to appear in the world, with the appropriate message displaying in the player's chat: "Your world has been blessed with (ore)!".

1. First Altar: Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore, chosen randomly.
2. Second Altar: Mythril Ore or Orichalcum Ore, chosen randomly.
3. Third Altar: Adamantite Ore or Titanium Ore, chosen randomly.

Players will be able to find these new ores scattered across the Underground layer to near-Underworld levels, with them replacing any blocks created during world generation. They will spawn at random locations in varying chunks, in places explored and not explored alike.

• Which ores are generated is not determined until an Altar is smashed. For example, it is not determined if the world has Cobalt or Palladium until the first Altar has been smashed. The same goes for Mythril/Orichalum with the second Altar, and Adamantite/Titanium for the third.
• Subsequent Altars destroyed will begin the cycle again, though the fourth to sixth Altars will drop half as much ore as the first ones, the seventh to ninth will drop only one third of the ore of the first ones, and so forth. This "multiplier" can be calculated with the formula 1/(ceiling(n/3)) where n is the number of Altars destroyed. So, destroying the 19th Altar would yield one-seventh of Cobalt/Palladium Ore compared to the first Altar. Destroying 12 altars will roughly double the ore provided by the first three; tripling that original allotment would require destroying 33 altars (if you can find that many).
• Altars are needed for crafting certain items; destroying every Altar in a world is not recommended.
• Destroying more Altars will never spawn Hardmode ore types beyond the three that were randomly assigned to your world during the initial round of destroyed Altars. A world with Palladium Ore deposits will never spawn Cobalt Ore deposits, or vice versa.
• No matter how many Altars are destroyed, ore rarity remains set with Cobalt/Palladium being the most common, followed by Mythril/Orichalcum, then Adamantite/Titanium as the rarest.
• Each time an Altar is destroyed, one or two Wraiths spawn, regardless of the time of day. When destroying multiple Altars in rapid succession, the resulting Wraith swarm may become difficult to deal with.
• Each time an Altar is destroyed, there is a 66% chance that a single random tile in the caverns layer will be converted to Ebonstone/Crimstone or Pearlstone, facilitating the spread of underground Hallow or Corruption/Crimson. Only stone blocks can be converted in this way.
• Additionally, smashing an Altar will start spawning mechanical bosses (until it's defeated, each has a 10% chance of spawning each night), and random Pirate Invasions (if all the criteria are met).

Crafting

Used to craft

Demon Altar or Crimson Altar

Result	Ingredients
only: Abeemination	Honey Block5 Stinger Hive5 Bottled Honey Crispy Honey Block3 Obsidian2
Ancient Hallowed Greaves	Hallowed Bar18
Ancient Hallowed Headgear	Hallowed Bar12
Ancient Hallowed Helmet	Hallowed Bar12
Ancient Hallowed Hood	Hallowed Bar12
Ancient Hallowed Mask	Hallowed Bar12
Ancient Hallowed Plate Mail	Hallowed Bar24
only: Bloody Spine	Vertebra15
only: Bloody Spine	Vicious Powder30 Vertebra15
Deer Thing	Flinx Fur3 Crimtane Ore5 Lens
	Flinx Fur3 Demonite Ore5 Lens
only: Night's Edge	Light's Bane Muramasa Blade of Grass Fiery Greatsword
	Blood Butcherer Muramasa Blade of Grass Fiery Greatsword
only: Night's Edge	Blood Butcherer Muramasa Blade of Grass Volcano
	Light's Bane Muramasa Blade of Grass Volcano
only: Slime Crown	Gel99 Gold Crown
	Gel99 Platinum Crown
only: Slime Crown	Gel20 Gold Crown
	Gel20 Platinum Crown
Suspicious Looking Eye	Lens6
Void Bag	Bone30 Jungle Spores15 Shadow Scale30
	Bone30 Jungle Spores15 Tissue Sample30
Void Vault	Bone15 Jungle Spores8 Tissue Sample15
	Bone15 Jungle Spores8 Shadow Scale15
Worm Food	Vile Powder30 Rotten Chunk15

Hardmode Ore locations

• Small maps:
  • Cobalt Ore and Palladium Ore spawn below a depth of 760 feet (380 tiles)
  • Mythril Ore and Orichalcum Ore spawn below a depth of 1,000 feet (500 tiles)
  • Adamantite Ore and Titanium Ore spawn below a depth of 1,400 feet (700 tiles), 100 feet (50 tiles) above the depth at which Lava begins appearing.
• Medium maps:
  • Cobalt Ore and Palladium Ore spawn below a depth of 1,100 feet (550 tiles)
  • Mythril Ore and Orichalcum Ore spawn below a depth of 1,400 feet (700 tiles)
  • Adamantite Ore and Titanium Ore spawn below a depth of 2,130 feet (1,065 tiles), 170 feet (85 tiles) above the depth at which Lava begins appearing.
• Large maps:
  • Cobalt Ore and Palladium Ore spawn below a depth of 1,270 feet (635 tiles)
  • Mythril Ore and Orichalcum Ore spawn below a depth of 2,000 feet (1,000 tiles)
  • Adamantite Ore and Titanium Ore spawn below a depth of 2,930 feet (1,465 tiles), 420 feet (210 tiles) above the depth at which Lava begins appearing.

Achievement

File:Achievement Begone Evil.png

Begone, Evil! • “Smash a demon or crimson altar with a powerful, holy hammer.”

Smash a demon or crimson altar, using the Pwnhammer. Template:Pc icon

Notes

• Altars cannot be collected as items.
• Cobalt/Palladium is roughly twice as common as Adamantite/Titanium, with Mythril/Orichalcum halfway between.
• Altars can be destroyed through other phenomena, such as being spawned on top of Sand or being struck by a meteorite landing. If the world is in Hardmode, an altar destroyed by natural causes will spawn ores normally; however, prior to hardmode, an altar being destroyed in this way will have no effect.
• Altars encountered outside of the Corruption/Crimson on a given map will always be found at a depth of around zero feet. This can be seen at the Ocean floor, where altars can sometimes be found.
• Altars emit a faint amount of light, making them somewhat easier to find in low-light environments.

Tips

• It is not uncommon to find an Altar relatively close to the world spawn point. Wherever the player has set up their base, it is recommended to begin searching near 0 depth, and upon finding an Altar, build a room around it so the player can craft in relative peace.
• Players about to enter Hardmode may benefit by mining paths to several known Altars beforehand, as navigating Hardmode Corruption/Crimson is dangerous at first.
• On the rare occasion that an altar spawns on top of a Heart Crystal, the bottom two portions of the crystal can be broken for two separate items, while the top two portions remain unbreakable.
• Stacked Altars will bless the world with 2 ores
• It is not strictly necessary to smash an altar; all ores obtained by doing so can also be obtained by fishing, giving you access to all ores on one world.

Trivia

• The difficulty that new players often face in identifying and determining the nature of Demon Altars, often resulting in forum posts asking about "purple spiky things", has become a notable social phenomenon in the Terraria community. A title message references this with the text Terraria: What's that purple spiked thing?
• In some rare cases an altar can spawn on another altar. Hammering it in Pre Hardmode will deal damage and cause both altars to break.
• An Altar can spawn on sand, breaking the sand beneath it will break it, ores will spawn only if it is Hardmode.
• In some rare cases an altar can spawn on top of a crystal heart, causing the bottom half of the heart to be destroyed during the collection process, while the top half remains underneath the altar while also retaining its animation
• A wraith is defined as a spirit seen shortly before or after one's death; their appearances when an altar is broken may imply that altars are indeed living creatures.
  • The wraiths may be the spirits of those who attempted to smash the Altar twice in pre-Hardmode.

History

• 1.3.1: Sprites updated.

• 1.2.3.1: Fixed the problem with altars/pots/chests spawning in bugged conditions.

• 1.2.3:
  • Fixed dying by demon altar having no message.
  • Crimson Altar now shows up when you hover over it on the map.

• 1.2: Worlds which have the Crimson instead of the Corruption will have Demon Altars replaced with Crimson Altars.

• 1.1:
  • When smashed with a Pwnhammer during Hardmode, either Cobalt, Mythril, or Adamantite will be spawned in the world.
  • Now has a chance to summon a few wraiths and create an additional Underground Corruption or Hallow spreading point somewhere in the world when smashed.

• Pre-Release: Introduced.

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