Pyramid

A Pyramid.

A Pyramid is a Desert structure composed of Sandstone Bricks. Pyramid is a relatively rare structure, and most generated worlds will not contain any.

The bulk of the Pyramid is buried underground, with its tip sometimes protruding slightly from the Desert surface. A Pyramid contains a single zigzagging tunnel leading to a treasure room, which can contain unique loot. In addition to unique treasures, they are furnished with unique decorative banners and a variety of Pots and Coin Stashes.

Notes

For Chest loot details, see Gold Chest § Pyramid.

Generation

Desktop-Only Content: This section's information applies only to the Desktop version of Terraria.

Information taken from the Desktop 1.4.4.9 source code, method GenerateWorld() in Terraria.WorldGen.cs. The related generation passes are Dunes and Pyramids. Related generation parameters are stored in the Terraria.GameContent.WorldBuilding.Configuration.json.

See detailed descriptionSee simplified description

Pyramids can only generate in Dunes. Since the maximum amount of Dunes in a world is limited, so the maximum amount of Pyramids for all world sizes:

World size	Amount of Dunes	Max. amount of Pyramids
Small	1–2	2
Medium	1–3	3
Large	2–4	4

There is a 80% chance for a Dunes biome to include a Pyramid.
- In drunk worlds, this chance is increased to 100%.
In Celebrationmk10 and Get fixed boi worlds, a Pyramid will always be generated at the main Desert, acting as the entrance to the Underground Desert. This Pyramid does not count into the maximum amount above.

Pyramids can only generate in Dunes, so the maximum amount of Pyramids in a world is limited by the maximum amount of Dunes. While a Dunes biome is being generated, there is a 80% chance (100% chance in drunk worlds) for it to include a potential Pyramid location. The horizontal coordinate of the location is randomly chosen within 200 tiles of the center of the Dunes biome, and the vertical coordinate is 20 tiles below the first solid block reached from the top true world border to bottom of the world.

The game will then check if these potential locations are valid for generating a Pyramid.

Before starting the check, if the world activated the Celebrationmk10 secret seed, a Pyramid is immediately generated at the center of the main Desert.
If a potential Pyramid location meets any of the restrictions below, the Pyramid will not be generated.
- The location is less than 300 tiles away from left or right true world border.
- The location is between the Dungeon and the Ocean on the side of the Dungeon, and is more than 630 / 960 / 1260 tiles away (small / medium / large world size) from the Dungeon.
- The world activated the Celebrationmk10 secret seed and the location intersects with the Underground Desert.

If the location is occupied by a solid block, use the location for following checks; otherwise, use the first solid block directly below the location as new location. A Pyramid cannot be generated if any of the restrictions below is met:

The location is lower than surface layer, or the tile at the location is not a regular Sand Block.
The horizontal coordinate of the location is less than 220 tiles away (110 tiles in drunk worlds) from any Pyramids that have already generated (i.e. this restriction does not apply to the first Pyramid being generated).

Finally, choose the tile directly above the location as the coordinates for generating a Pyramid.

Tips

Since Pyramids are made out of Sandstone Bricks which cannot be corrupted, they can be helpful in blocking the spread of evil biomes or the Hallow.
An experiment generating one hundred small worlds in 1.2.0.3.1 showed an 83% chance of having no pyramids, a 15% chance of having one pyramid, and a 2% chance of having two pyramids. However, Pyramids are slightly more common since 1.2.3 and were made even more common in 1.4.1.
- Another experiment generating one hundred small, medium and large worlds in 1.3.5 showed a 16% chance in small worlds, 42% chance in medium worlds and 39% chance in large worlds of having one or multiple pyramids.

Trivia

A second room in a pyramid found in the pre-1.3

Mobile version.

Prior to 1.3, Pyramids were quite common and contained two rooms – one along the standard path and the other completely enclosed. The one along the path always had a Gold Chest while the second one only sometimes had one. If the second one did contain a Gold Chest, it would contain standard Pyramid loot. The second room would also contain an Orange Torch and two Pyramid Banners.
While the Pyramids' real life counterparts are located in Egypt, the Cactus plants that grow in the nearby desert are based on the saguaro, a species native to the Sonoran Desert, a desert spanning large areas of Mexico and the United States of America.