Doom Eternal: Cacodemon addendum

In 1977's Dragon Magazine #8, Gary Gygax published a one-page article informing players that there were alternate planes in the D&D setting, and giving a little bare-bones info about them. There were several supplements that expanded on that, and surely dozens if not hundreds of homebrew versions inspired by the idea, but it wasn't until 1987 that TSR published a comprehensive guide to the concept, the Manual of the Planes. The cover of the book featured a being called the Ethereal Dreadnought (today known as the Astral Dreadnought):

Manual of the Planes cover, showing a small human fleeing from a many-times-his-size tan monster with two-clawed hands and a single eye in the center of its head

But wait. Computer, enhance!

a close-up on the monster's head and arms

Enhance and isolate!

now just its head

Compress by 20% and hue shift down 20 degrees!

the head is less tall now, and red instead of tan

Mirror top right and bottom left of image!

now more symmetrical, with the same size fans on both the left and right sides of its mouth, and an even number of horns on its head

In case you've forgotten, here's the original Doom Cacodemon sprite, at five times its original size:

the Cacodemon, slightly rounder than the above piece of art because it lacks the bony cheeks, but with its horns and fangs matching up perfectly

And for one more fun experiment, what happens when you take the image we made before, turn up the saturation on the body, and desaturate the teeth and horns:

now the colors of the photoshopped DnD art perfectly match the Cacodemon sprite

It even has the same heart shape on its forehead! But hey, if you've ever wondered what a "realistic" Cacodemon would look like, now you know.

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One Response to Doom Eternal: Cacodemon addendum

  1. ridureyu says:

    There are TWO figures of the Astral Dreadnought now - both "minis." One really big one (I dunno, taller than a Marvel Legends, but taking up a ton of horizontal space with the tail) for like... $200. But also a smaller figure from a boxed set (like 3" tall, 5" long) that can be found at $35 or so.

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