Voodoo doll

Voodoo doll is the term used when more than one "Player 1 start" Thing exists on a level in vanilla Doom. When the level is loaded, each extra Player 1 start will have a dormant green player at its coordinates. If these dormant players are damaged in any way, the actual player will suffer identical damage (hence the name "voodoo doll"). The PWAD selfdead.wad is possibly the earliest published map that contains a voodoo doll.

Voodoo dolls can be used for tricks in maps, such as "instant-death teleporters". The PWAD nopanic2.wad, from Maximum Doom, contains a voodoo doll. If you shoot at the dormant player, you may push him into the nearby teleporter, causing him to teleport. If you then follow him into the teleporter, you will self-telefrag. The PWAD mkfrgtme.wad, also from Maximum Doom, has a voodoo doll already positioned at a teleport landing on the western side of the map. If you use the corresponding teleporter, you will die instantly. The most common use of instant-death teleporters is to simulate "bottomless pits of death" similar to the bottomless pits that appear in most platform games.

If the actual player has less than 100% health when a voodoo doll is encountered, and the voodoo doll is then attacked until the actual player's health is reduced to zero, then the actual player enters a strange "undead" state. The undead player can move around, but cannot select any weapons, and will die if damaged further.

In Doom Legacy, voodoo dolls do not appear, and any tricks involving them will not work. However, most source ports do not alter voodoo doll behaviour.

=Example= The map [[Media:Civilian.WAD|Civilian.WAD]] (file info) features two voodoo dolls to help the player achieve the undead state, and also has an "antidote" for it: taking the berserk pack, then exiting the level, will restore all normal abilities.