Pumpkin Moon

The  is an event added in the 1.2.1 Halloween update and summoned with the Pumpkin Moon Medallion at night. The Pumpkin Moon is an invasion-like event that replaces a normal night's Moon Phase. The visual indicator is the moon turning orange (as seen to the right) with a spooky jack-o-lantern face on it. The moon stays in the same phase (waning, waxing, full, and everything in between) as the normal moon would be, but uses the new texture. The music that plays in this event is also used by the Solar Eclipse event.

The Pumpkin Moon Medallion requires Ectoplasm and Hallowed Bars to create, meaning it is intended to only be accessible to players who have already completed virtually all of the end-game content in Hardmode, and as such, is meant to be a challenge even to players with the best possible equipment. In the final waves, the player(s) will be faced with multiple boss-level enemies at once. It is currently the most difficult event in the game.

The rewards for the Pumpkin Moon are the weapons and accessories dropped by the enemies spawned in the event, which are essentially an entire new tier of equipment, providing new, more powerful versions of existing weapons and accessories. As well, there are pet items and vanity items.

The Event
There are up to 15 waves in the Pumpkin Moon, and waves progress as you kill Pumpkin Moon Enemies. The bosses will drop items more frequently if they are killed during later waves. On wave 15, the Mourning Wood and the Pumpking are both guaranteed to drop their respective Trophies. Each Pumpkin Moon enemy increases the wave's score by a differing amount when killed. After a wave's score is met the next wave begins, and the wave score is reset to 0.

If the event is not completed by sunrise (4:30AM) the event will simply end.

Scores required for each wave:
 * Wave 2: 25
 * Wave 3: 40
 * Wave 4: 50
 * Wave 5: 80
 * Wave 6: 100
 * Wave 7: 160
 * Wave 8: 180
 * Wave 9: 200
 * Wave 10: 250
 * Wave 11: 300
 * Wave 12: 375
 * Wave 13: 450
 * Wave 14: 525
 * Wave 15: 675

Scores for Defeating Enemies

 * Scarecrow: 1
 * Splinterling: 2
 * Hellhound: 4
 * Poltergeist: 8
 * Headless Horseman: 25
 * Mourning Wood: 75
 * Pumpking: 150

Creating an Arena
One of the best ways to get to wave 15 is to create an arena with several traps to deal with the smaller enemies while you focus on the Pumpking, such as the one detailed in the video below.

Strategies

 * Building a good arena with lots of traps will help out by dealing with the small enemies so you can focus on the Pumpkings and Mourning Woods. See "Creating an Arena" above.
 * Since the wave number increases based on the number of enemies killed, taking a Battle Potion to increase the spawn rate is highly advised. If this is done, the player should bring two potions into battle, since one of them taken at the beginning of the night will wear off about halfway in.
 * Most Pumpkin Moon enemies are susceptible to the Ichor Debuff, making an Flask of Ichor or the Golden Shower spell very valuable for this event.