Character

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.

Creation and customization
Characters are created in the game's main menu through the Single Player option. This provides you with the options of selecting an already made character for playing, creating new characters, favoriting them, integrating them with your Steam Cloud in order to easily access them on different computers, and deleting them.

Character creation presents the player with a multitude of customization options:

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 he/she desires. Characters are not locked to worlds, hence it is for example possible to start playing in a new world with a powerful character from another world.

Empowering the character
Much of Terrara's gameplay revolves around making the character stronger in order to defeat enemies and bosses. The character becomes stronger in the following ways:
 * Player skill improvement in mastering the game controls.
 * Increase of health and mana through Crystal Hearts, Life Fruits and Mana Crystals.
 * Equipping weapons, armor, accessories, and summoning minions.
 * Building secure houses, possibly utilizing traps and lava for defense.
 * Being under the effect of one or more buffs.
 * Items held in any part of the characters inventory (including slots for equipment, armor, ammo, and dyes), or any of the three personal storage items (Piggy Bank, Safe, ), are all stored with the character, who will bring them to whatever world they enter.