Cacodemon

"They float in the air, belch ball-lightning, and boast one Hell of a big mouth. You're toast if you get too close to these monstrosities."

- Doom & Doom II manual description

Cacodemons are common demons encountered in all classic Doom games up to date: Doom, Doom II, and Final Doom. They are also the mascot of the first classic Doom game.

Physical Appearance
Cacodemons are red monsters with large spherical bodies crowned with horns, that float slowly through the air. They have a single green eye over a large mouth which is persistently twisted into an evil grin showing a series of nasty teeth and a bluish interior.

Combat Characteristics
They attack by spitting a ball of plasma or by biting with their gaping maw. The Cacodemon often seems to distance itself from the player when under attack, though the cause of this is that it is being pushed back by successful hits from its enemies.

Cacodemons emit a loud hissing sound when they first see the player or otherwise become active, and use the pain sound shared by most of the demonic monsters from Doom. When killed, they let out a whimpering moan and fall to the ground, splitting open like a burst pustule and spewing copious amounts of blue blood and intestines that flow forth to reveal their bared brains, while their sole eye pops out of its socket. Also, some of its horns break.

Tactical Analysis
Cacodemon attacks are relatively easy to dodge, and with sufficient space large numbers of Cacodemons can be fought while sustaining little or no injury. Because they are slow, and because their pain chance is high, they are fairly easy targets. The Chainsaw can incapacitate them, and repeating weapons such as the Chaingun or the Plasma Gun are very effective against them, as they are pushed away and are nearly unable to fight back. However, their tough red alligator-like hides can absorb a large amount of damage, and more powerful weapons such as the Super Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, or BFG 9000 may be more appropriate when dealing with the monsters when they come in packs. They are relatively easy to goad into attacking other monsters, but can occasionally be tricky in this respect if they are floating in a high position allowing most of their shots to go over other monsters in the player's area. Their slow floating speed can, however, increase a player's chances of luring them into another monster's firing line. When possible, the best monsters to lure a Cacodemon or multiple Cacodemons into the path of would be a Spiderdemon (Doom or Doom II), a Heavy Weapon Dude or an Arachnotron (Doom II). Each of those 3 monsters all have repeating weapons which can come in even more handy when multiple Cacodemons are present in a given area. A skilled player could use a Shotgun, run in for close shots, and dodge any incoming attacks while reloading and retreating. Multiple Cacodemons can also be mowed down in fairly short order with the BFG 9000, in 1 to 4 shots depending upon how many a player is combating & how closely together they are bunched.

Because of their flight ability and versatility, it is not uncommon to see these flying out of unexpected angles once alerted.

Although the Cacodemon has a melee attack, it does not actively try to use this attack; it simply "happens" if the player is at point-blank range at the time the Cacodemon attempts to launch a projectile. (The Cacodemon's melee attack also does not have a sound effect associated with it.) This is presumably to prevent the enemy from abusing this attack while located at a greatly different elevation from the player (where the player would not be able to retaliate).

Trivia

 * The name Cacodemon, which comes from the Greek κακοδαίμων (kakodaimon) usually meaning "evil spirit", a more precise name for what is generally known as demon (which ultimately comes from "god" or "spirit"), is in English a word that may be found in most comprehensive dictionaries.
 * The monster's general visual design is similar to that of the Beholder, a similarly one-eyed classic Dungeons &amp; Dragons monster (with eye stalks instead of horns). In addition, the Cacodemon was created from a cropping of a creature that appears on the cover of Manual of the Planes, a Dungeons & Dragons expansion book. The creature itself is known as an Astral Dreadnought, and was created by Jeff Easley for that book.
 * The earliest known version of Doom to include Cacodemon graphics is the 0.5 alpha, released on May 22, 1993, and the earliest known appearance of the monster as an in-game adversary is in the press release version of Doom, released on October 4, 1993.
 * Cacodemons are called pumpkins in the Doom novels, and the marine in the Doom comic refers to them as "big-mouthed floating thingies."
 * Homestar Runner makes two references to Cacodemons. In Strong Bad E-Mail number 150, Strong Bad remarks that an interdimensional portal "looks like it could release some serious Cacodemons." In the Halloween 2007 cartoon, Pom Pom dresses as a Cacodemon.
 * The Cacodemon is used as the Icon for the Xbox 360 Arcade version of Doom, specifically in the game library and on the Achievement screen. The sequel, Doom II, simply uses the title rather than a monster to represent the icon.
 * Microsoft's Windows 95 port of Doom also uses a Cacodemon icon.
 * The Cacodemon is also used as the icon for The Ultimate Doom on Steam.
 * Hissy the Cacodemon (see below) serves as the Doom Wiki logo, along with a cartoonish version of the Doom logo.
 * In a ZDoom-based source port, if the player is killed by a Cacodemon, one of two obituary messages will be displayed at the top of the screen depending on which attack the Cacodemon used to kill the player: "[player name] was bitten by a Cacodemon" or "[player name] was smitten by a Cacodemon" for the bite and lightning-ball attacks respectively.
 * Strangely enough, Cacodemons bleed red when shot at, yet bleed blue when killed.

Data Statistics
Attributes = Melee Range Bite damage
 * -|Bits list =
 * -|Sprites & sounds =
 * -|Melee/Range attack =
 * -|Damage chart =

Shot damage The IWADs contain the following numbers of Cacodemons:
 * 1) These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, impact animations, and backfire checks are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
 * 2) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
 * 3) Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).
 * -|Total amount =

Doom 64

 * Main article: Cacodemon (Doom 64)

In Doom 64 the Cacodemon first appears in MAP03: Main Engineering. It underwent a major design change, becoming beige brown, with a single yellow-green eye, and gaining two arms with broken chains attached, and a rather terrifying face. Instead of a screech it lets out a loud, frightening hiss when spotting the player, and the body of the monster has animation frames (mostly in the way it swings its arms when in flight), whereas the original Cacodemon floated in a motionless manner. It resembles Doom II 's original Pain Elemental. The Nightmare Cacodemon variation, introduced in the Doom 64 TC, remained hot red.

Doom RPG / Doom II RPG

 * Main article: Cacodemon (Doom RPG)

The Cacodemon appears in both Doom RPG and Doom II RPG as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color:


 * Malwrath (gold body, red eye, red throat)
 * Cacodemon (normal colors)
 * Wretched (blue body, olive green eye, bright red throat)

Cacodemons attack three times consecutively and are most weak against axe attacks and plasma blasts.

Doom 3

 * Main article: Cacodemon (Doom 3)

In Doom 3, the Cacodemon has a completely different design; colored in taupe, has a wider mouth with small pointier teeth, multiple green eyes, lacking horns, and some longer, thin tentacles hanging from the bottom of its body. Its brain is clearly exposed from its forehead.

Doom (2016)

 * Main article: Cacodemon (Doom 2016)

The Cacodemons makes a comeback in the Doom reboot. Their appearances bear strong similarities to their classic Doom generations, featuring a single green eye and gaping maw filled with sharp, yellow teeth that takes up the majority of their bodies, and covered in red armor plates with spikes on the top area.

Doom Eternal

 * Main article: Cacodemon (Doom Eternal)

A slightly different version of the Cacodemon's 2016 generation will appear in the Doom reboot's sequel Doom Eternal.

Etymology
"Cacodemon" or "cacodæmon" comes from and means "evil spirit"; it had entered Old English by the 12th century. In ancient Greek, "demon" or "dæmon" simply meant "spirit" and was neutral; the latter spelling (usually with the ligature separated into "ae") still has neutral uses to this day.

Merchandise
On September 5th, 2013, Gaming Heads released both a Cacodemon and Pain Elemental for purchase on the Bethesda Store. In the final video of John Romero's playthrough of the first episode of Doom with JP LeBreton on "Devs Play," these plushies are visible on his mantle. Gaming Heads went on to release the Doomguy ("Doom Space Marine") as the third available plush.