Jungle Shrine

Jungle Shrines are small structures placed at world creation across the Underground Jungle, each holding a single Ivy Chest and lit by one Green Torch. The torch is the easiest tell. Green light in a mud cave means a shrine, and it reads from a long way off before the walls resolve into anything.

Every shrine in a given world is built from the same material, drawn once at generation from iridescent brick, mudstone brick, rich mahogany, tin brick or gold brick. That single detail does more work than it looks like it should.

An Ivy Chest holds one rare item plus ordinary underground filler. The one to hope for is Feral Claws, which gives every melee weapon autoswing and raises attack speed, and which stays relevant all game because it upgrades into the accessories that carry melee builds through Hardmode.

The Staff of Regrowth comes next, less exciting in a fight but the tool that makes herb farming practical instead of tedious. Anklet of the Wind, Flower Boots and the Boomstick fill out the rest, and the Boomstick in particular is a real ranged weapon at a stage where you probably do not have one.

The material picked for the shrines comes from a random value the world reuses elsewhere, which means it leaks information. Iridescent brick points to the Floating Island holding the Shiny Red Balloon being far over on the left of the world, gold brick points to it being far over on the right, and the other three sit between those two extremes. The same value influences how deep the Shimmer pool and the Dungeon end up.

Look at what your shrines are made of before you start a sky search. It will save you crossing the world twice.

If combing the Underground Jungle does not appeal, Jungle Crates and Bramble Crates pulled from jungle water contain several of the same rare items. Fishing is slower per attempt but much safer, and it works from one pond you have already lit and cleared rather than from an unexplored biome full of hornets and man eaters.

Shrines land anywhere in the Underground Jungle, including places that make no sense. One can generate inside a Bee Hive, which turns a routine chest grab into a Queen Bee fight if you are careless with where you swing. One can also generate inside the Jungle Temple, and that is worth knowing, because a shrine breaching the temple wall lets you walk in without a Temple Key a long time before you are meant to.

A large enough shrine becomes a house once you add the missing furniture, and you do not have to strip the walls or replace the torch first. Otherwise take the whole thing apart and use the bricks somewhere better, which is what usually happens to the gold ones.