Ask responses below the cut! Digging into Andrew/Alalia’s immortality, the doll, and the design of the town/region it’s in.
Yeah!! (To both questions!)
Although the blog header image is a screenshot from one of my playthroughs, it’s just a random one that I thought would fit nice enough – I haven’t actually built out any of the comic’s locations in-game. I can share a couple of rough thoughts I’ve had how it would look, though!
As far as Purity Town itself goes:
- Purity Town is located in the forest/purity biome and has the background of the lake and snowy mountains.
- The Tavernkeep, Merchant, Nurse, and Clothier have shops in the main part of town.
- This center area is paved in stone (think Pelican Town from Stardew Valley) and has a slightly raised area (think like a fountain design) for the forest pylon.
- Andrew lives out on the edge of town more in the woods, and a little ways past his home is a fenced overlook that looks down on everything.
- The Zoologist also lives slightly outside of town with the Golfer, but in the opposite direction.
- All of Purity Town is built in soft, rolling forested mountains/hills.
- Most of the buildings are constructed from wood and brick, but with the exception of the tavern are painted different colors.
Since I’m on the subject – as far as the general locations go, Purity Town itself is the largest settlement, but there are several other, smaller villages linked to it through the pylon network. NPCs generally live in their favored biome when applicable, with the exception of some of the hallow/cavern biome enjoyers living in Purity Town proper instead.
- The snow biome village is located up in the snowy mountains visible from Purity Town, and an unnamed village is located by the sea.
- The desert village is built around an oasis.
- The jungle village is built around platforms elevated just above shallow pools of water. The area is surrounded by dense foliage from mahogany trees.
- There’re currently no cavern or glowing mushroom villages/pylons.
Andrew is fully, 100% aware of the existence of the doll, and is roughly familiar with its limitations. He was present for its making, and though it’s since been lost to him, he has a general idea of what happened to it (being a powerful item that fell into the hands of a demon).
He’s not particularly happy about it, nor is he really in a position to try and get it back, but it’s been a number of years since the doll’s creation and he’s learned to live with it. At least the doll’s existence means Chris will be able to use it as a proxy, rather than Andrew having to be there in person; it provides a little mental separation for both of them.
For Alalia, she came into existence years before the Moon Lord first appeared, when the world was more wild and dangerous than the modern day. So I don’t think it’s out of the question that she died a couple times from assorted beasts and the likes, particularly while she was new and inexperienced. While a violent death is never fun, being a creation/aspect of Terraria likely made her resurrection experience itself less unpleasant than it otherwise would be, and upon being revived she was a bit shaken up but otherwise unharmed. She would have had other Dryads to comfort her, which helped – they’re functionally immortal beings, and through their long lives most would have died and been revived at least a few times.
And then the Moon Lord appeared, and suddenly when they died, they didn’t come back. The world is different now, and no new Dryads have manifested since, though Terraria has recovered to a point where she can revive Alalia when necessary.
Andrew’s first death was accidental – he didn’t know the ins and outs of how his whole “thing” worked, nor did he really understand how important he was that he’d be resurrected where few/no others were. I’m not totally sure when his first death would have been, but probably relatively early in his life – his mother/mentor still being alive at that point, and him still living in his home village. Him still either assuming he’s entirely mortal, or slowly beginning to suspect unnatural longevity.
Resurrection is unpleasant at minimum, a natural consequence of one’s entire self being pulled back into the living world – depending on the circ*mstances, the experience of being revived can be worse than dying proper. Though from an outside perspective, the affected simply appears and reawakens in their home some time after death.
I imagine Andrew didn’t even register what had happened at first; I don’t have any specific ideas for what killed him the first time, but upon waking up he very well could have dismissed everything as fever dreams associated with a near death experience. Assuming that someone had saved his life, only to learn he had truly, actually died. And then having to process all of the implications of that, and his own trauma, and deal with his family, etc…
Andrew has never been outright blasé towards his own deaths, and tries to avoid it where possible; outside of the obvious inconvenience/discomfort, he’s still a human (more or less) and isn’t above basic instinct. But he knows now that he’ll be resurrected, and in the case where it does come up, he brushes it off publicly as a consequence of him being a Guide. And when push comes to shove, he’d rather he be killed and resurrected if that can prevent someone who is mortal from dying in his place.
