Cacodemon

I’m sure you won’t mind me taking you back to the shores of Hell for another encounter with the loathsome Doom troupe; this time, the Cacodemon. With their crown of horns, piercing green eye and mouth a perma-sadistic grin, these were indeed quite the unwelcome beast on first encounter, and every other that followed. I gave him fur, though I’m not sure he’s supposed to be furry. Oh well.

As you can probably gauge by the drawing, this beast does not amble around but instead floats, making evasion all the more difficult while also posing particular irritation if fending off others on ground level. They do not need to get close to mount an attack, either; they can take a chunk out of you with those huge gnashers, but they more often stay at long distance and belch balls of lightning in your direction. I shouldn’t imagine that’ll do you much good.

They’re by no means a ‘boss’ and as such aren’t terribly hard to best with relatively decent weapons, but that certainly doesn’t mean they should go underestimated, especially if facing a pack of them as often happens later in the game.

You’re gonna need a bigger weapon.

In researching the development of the character, I found that the Cacodemon was basically lifted from the cover of the 1987 Dungeons & Dragons book, Manual of the Planes. Interesting to see…

…goodness, it is the Cacodemon! Every day’s a school day. You may also be questioning the etymology of the name (though I doubt you’re much bothered). To be Susie Dent momentarily: The English word ‘cacodemon’ derives from the Greek ‘kakodaimon’, meaning ‘malevolent spirit’, which indeed is very suitable of such a monster. I’d long thought it a play on the general exclamation of the player whenever they appeared – that being, “oh, cack!” – but evidently I was wrong.

No doubt we’ll be making another plunge to the depths and meeting more hideous hellspawn soon.

• 1993
• Art
• cacodemon
• Doom
• doom 2
• drawing
• final doom
• id software
• monster
• nostalgia
• video games