NPCs & Enemies Trading with the Travelling Merchant

Enjl

Cultist
People often talk about getting "screwed over" by worldgen. "No magic cuffs for Mages!", "No Cursed Bullets for Rangers!", "No Flask of Ichor!"

This is a suggestion adressing this problem.

Similar how you can reforge items using the Tinkerer, check World Status by talking to the dryad, etc..., the Travelling Merchant will have a new option: Trade

The Travelling Merchant has been to many far-away countries, as suggested by the goods he sells. He's also been to other Terraria worlds, acquiring very special goods he will trade for goods of equal worth:

If you're in a Corruption-World, the Travelling Merchant can trade one of the following items at random when he visits your world:
Pre-Hardmode:
Crimtane Present
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(Sprite by @Qw2) (1-5), Crimtane Ore (10-99), Tissue Sample (10-30), Vertebrae (5-15), Shadewood (10-99)

Hardmode:
Any of the above, Ichor (5-15), Bloody Spine (1), Crimson Seeds (1-5)

The trade prices are as follows:

Crimtane Present for 1 Item dropped by the Shadow Orbs
X Crimtane Ore for the same amount of Demonite Ore (value chosen at random when the merchant arrives)
X Tissue Sample for X Shadow Scales
X Vertebrae for X Rotten Chunk or Worm Teeth
X Shadewood for X Ebonwood

Upon entering Hardmode:

X Ichor for X Cursed Flames
Bloody Spine for Worm Food
X Crimson Seeds for X Corrupt Seeds

I'm sure you may have one or more questions about this list. I'll come to them in a bit.

If you're in a Crimson-World, the Travelling Merchant can trade one of the following items at random when he visits your world:
Pre-Hardmode:
Demonite Present
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(Sprite by @Qw2) (1-5), Demonite Ore (10-99), Shadow Scales (10-30), Rotten Chunk (5-15), Worm Tooth (5-15), Ebonwood (10-99)

Hardmode:
Any of the above, Cursed Flames (5-15), Worm Food (1), Corrupt Seeds (1-5)

The trading details are practically what's written above, but the other way around.

Now, for the interesting part:

Crimtane and Demonite Presents are items which, when right-clicked, drop one of the items found inside Crimson Hearts/Shadow Orbs at random. They can be purchased one at a time by trading for an item dropped by these objects from the other evil, while the maximum amount of Presents which the Merchant has can vary.

The bosses "Eater of Worlds" and "Brain of Cthulu" aren't restricted to be fought in their home biome, but rather to any evil biome. You can summon the Eater of Worlds in your Crimson biome upon buying Worm Food from the Travelling Merchant.

The Merchant has a very small chance to sell seeds for the missing biome. As a person trying to eradicate the evil from your world, you shouldn't even get close to this deal... or should you? This gives players the chance to import the Corruption/Crimson to their world to not rely on RNG from the Travelling Merchant anymore for items. It will also open a path for the player to acquire items not sold by him, such as the Eater's Bone, Keymolds or Meat Grinder.

Since we have access to the Crimson Keymold in a corrupt world now, it'd just make sense to have the Dungeon spawn with all biome chests, rather than those for biomes present at world-gen.

So yeah. That's my two cents to the discussion about balancing out the biomes and making a broader variety of items accessible to a single character. What do you think?
 
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Support, this would allow for Vampire Knives in a corruption world!

11/10, must have in future update

EDIT - May I sprite the presents?
 
It certainly makes the travelling merchant a lot more useful and unique, and I always get annoyed as a Mage on a crimson world so support!
 
This would be awesome. I rarely buy much from the Travelling Merchant since a lot of the things he sells aren't too useful, but this would make him so much more useful for people who focus more on function rather than form, like me.
 
You should make it so that he only sells the present after you beat EoW/BoC because then you could get the armor without taking down a boss. Otherwise I like this idea a lot.
 
You should make it so that he only sells the present after you beat EoW/BoC because then you could get the armor without taking down a boss. Otherwise I like this idea a lot.
The present exchanges items like The Undertaker for items like the Band of Starpower. You can not obtain the Crimtane/Shadow Set by opening these presents.

You can get the Sets using Tissue Samples or Shadow Scales which the Travelling Merchant sells. This does, however, require you to have beaten the boss which drops one of these items in your world.

The trick with this mechanic is that it gives you no items stronger than what you can currently obtain with the evil you're doomed to face. Every item you can trade is a counterpart to an item on the same level as what he sells.
 
This is a really nice alternative method of balancing out Crimson and Corruption orb drops without adding a bunch of new items to the game. I like it!
It also makes the Travelling Merchant much more useful, and makes a lot of sense.
 
I like it, I'm sick of having to make multiple worlds just to get some crimson/corruption items every time I play through on a new character.

Just a suggestion, but I think the gift should sometimes contain clentaminator fuel for corruption or crimson (The opposite of what you have, of course), but only after beating a mechanical boss, to make it easier to spread it if needed.
 
I like it, I'm sick of having to make multiple worlds just to get some crimson/corruption items every time I play through on a new character.

Just a suggestion, but I think the gift should sometimes contain clentaminator fuel for corruption or crimson (The opposite of what you have, of course), but only after beating a mechanical boss, to make it easier to spread it if needed.
The idea is that you will have access to the missing biome upon entering hardmode, in theory. If RNG doesn't screw you over and gives you Crimtane/Corrupt Seeds as often as the Angler gives you Coralstone, you'll have a fully functional test biome after a few terrarian days. Then you can buy Red/Purple Solution from the Steampunker (I think they're selling it when the house is corrupt/crimtane) and destroy your world for real!

I'll think about implimenting your idea anyways, though I'd probably gate it post-plantera, as having access to the other biome is something completionist-ic (besides, you can't do much with a keymold and no temple key).
 
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Not much to say but i think this would be perfect it fits in nicely with the law of the travelling merchant aswell.
Thumbs up.
 
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