Death by falling.
“It's a good day to die!
Death is what happens when a player's health reaches zero. A Death Message is displayed dependent on how the player died. For example, "<PlayerName> tried to swim in lava" is one that is displayed if the player died from lava damage.
When a player dies, a Tombstone is dropped at the location of their death. When it finds a suitable space, it will become a 2x2 tile. It stores text, much in the way the sign functions, with the player's Death Message. Being affected by physics, a Tombstone will fall after the player's death if they were moving at the time. If there is no flat 2-block space for a Tombstone, it will get stuck before it despawns.
If the player holds more than 10 when they die, the spawned tombstone will be golden. 
If the 
Worm Pet is active at death, it will say "bye bye" and the 
Strange Looking Tombstone will be dropped.
There will be red text saying “You were slain...” upon death. The amount of coins dropped upon death will be shown underneath.
Causes of Death
Death may occur from:
- Damage inflicted by enemies and bosses
- Drowning
- Lava
- Traps
- Being trapped below Silt/Slush/Sand (Suffocation)
- Fall damage
- Damage inflicted by other players during PvP
- Contact with blocks that cause Burning
- Other damage-over-time debuffs, typically inflicted by enemies
- Escaping from the Wall of Flesh
- Failing to destroy an Altar
- Using the Rod of Discord too often
- Being "stabbed" by the Companion Cube
- The Paladin's Shield
Difficulty Differences
A Softcore character will drop half of the amount (three-quarters in expert mode, both rounded up) of each type of Coins a player is carrying at the moment of death. To avoid heavy losses upon death, be sure to often stash coins in a Piggy Bank (or in a Chest, or other storage containers).
A Mediumcore character will drop all carried items, including money and ammo. Any additional max health or mana is not lost.
Hardcore characters will drop all of their items upon death. The character is deleted upon death and the player turns into a ghost, unable to interact with the environment, but still able to observe, move about, and chat with other players.
Death Messages
Default Death Messages
PvP Death MessagesPvP death messages will use the 'default' death messages, but will additionally state the name of the player's killer along with the weapon or projectile with which the killing blow was landed. For example: "<PlayerName1>'s face was torn off by <PlayerName2>'s Ball O' Hurt." Monster Death MessagesMonster death messages work like PvP death messages. For example: "<PlayerName> was removed from <WorldName> by Hellbat." or "<PlayerName>'s entrails were ripped out by Phantasmal Deathray." Falling Death Messages
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Drowning Death Messages
Lava Death Messages
Debuff Death Messages
Other Death Messages
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Notes
- If a player is killed by a ranged attack, it won't say the name of the entity that launched the projectile, but instead say the name of the projectile. For example: "<PlayerName> was slain by death laser."
- There is a delay between death and respawn, which increases in duration in Expert mode boss fights (30 Seconds).
- PvP deaths will cause the player to respawn in full health. This also applies to self-inflicted deaths with items such as explosives.
Tips
- The tombstone mechanic can be very useful for locating items/coins dropped after death, since the tombstone will usually fall within the vicinity of where the player died.
- Using the tombstones as replacements for signs can be useful early in the game.
- During multiplayer boss fights, the last surviving player should play defensively until the other players can return to the fight after respawning. The boss may despawn if all players are too far away from the fight.
On the Map, a
will display where the player died most recently, allowing the player to quickly find the location again.
Trivia
When a player dies with a Worm Pet buff on, it will say, "Bye bye!", and will drop a different type of tombstone.- The text that appears after death saying "You were slain..." does not appear in the Old-gen console version, Windows Phone version, and Nintendo version of the game.
- On the Console version, the "You were slain..." message will have a faded & translucent version of itself behind the opaque text that flickers around in an eerie twitching motion.
- On the Console version, before an unspecified patch, any profanity/sexual wording on the tombstone will simply say "(Censored)".
- Several death messages from 1.3 entities don't explicitly mention the cause.
- The death message from dying from the Stoned debuff '<PlayerName> can't be put back together again' is a reference to the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty which has a verse: "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again".
- The death message displayed when the player is killed by a paladin's shield used to be displayed when the player attempted to destroy a demon or Crimson altar pre-Hardmode instead.
History
- Desktop 1.3.5: Fixed petrification death messages being broken for a long while now.
- Desktop 1.3.0.1: Now shows amount of money dropped under "You were slain".
- Desktop 1.2.4.1: The proper items will now drop on Mediumcore/Hardcore deaths.
- Desktop 1.2.4: Fixed a bug where you would die on entering the world from fall damage.
- Desktop 1.2.3.1: Fixed bug where Hardcore characters couldn't open the menu after death.
- Desktop 1.2.3: Players have a longer respawn delay after a non-PVP death with a boss alive in multiplayer. Fixed dying by demon altar having no message.
- Desktop 1.1.1: Coins held on the cursor will correctly be dropped on death.
- Desktop 1.0.5: More specific death message added.
- Desktop-Release: Introduced.
- Console-Release: Introduced.
- Mobile-Release: Introduced.
- 3DS-Release: Introduced.