Demons become Barons

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Since discussing the imagined intricacies of Doom's universe is seemingly okay around these parts, I'll share a headcanon of mine; specifically, the one in the title.

Think about it: they're the only other pink, bipedal demons in the game, and their horns are near identical. It's possible they just naturally get taller and develop their fireball-throwing over time.

Hell Knights are genetically engineered to be weaker, possibly by the Barons themselves so they have almost-as-effective grunts to do their fighting for them.

Not sure where Spectres fit into this, though.


(If this sounds too much like spergy nonsense, feel free to ignore this. I'm in a bit of an overthinking mood today.)

[40oz]

you may have noticed that the Hell Baron's back is also the Demon's forehead

[DoomUK]

Where do the baron's hooves come from?

[qoncept]

DoomUK said:

Where do the baron's hooves come from?

I think it's obvious. They were cross-bred with cyberdemons.

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40oz said:

you may have noticed that the Hell Baron's back is also the Demon's forehead

..I hadn't, but that's odd.

DoomUK said:

Where do the baron's hooves come from?

Lava gradually melts the flesh off their feet, revealing black bones that happen to look like hooves. Their toes are already a dark grey color.

Alternatively, they get their feet cut off and have hooves transplanted on to get rid of the sensitivity.

qoncept said:

I think it's obvious. They were cross-bred with cyberdemons.

I was thinking of Cyberdemons as just heavily augmented Barons.

[Maes]

By that logic, then imps become chaingunners by getting fatter and shaving off their horns, after all their skin tone is near identical...or the reverse: chaingunners slim down and reveal the hords that were underneath their layers of fat.

Or..hmm...some chaingunners get SO fat by the hellish, hormone-laden, genetically modified food they eat, that they grown two pairs of extra aureolas and become mancubuses.

And of course arachnotrons become spiderdemons.

[TwinBeast]

I always thought Hell Knights become Barons when they get older, but their lives are so violent that not many become old. I think similar thing about Demons and Spectres. Spectres are older Demons.

[Pottus]

And Caco's and Pain Elementals have a vagina on the back side.

[Phobus]

This thread, like many before, just goes to show that Doom never had much thought put into it, as any attempt to rationalise it will always fall flat as aimless fanwank (fun though it can be to do so).

[printz]

The Baron of Hell eats Demons for breakfast.

[Avoozl]

I don't think the demons even age or eat really.

[DoomUK]

Phobus said:

This thread, like many before, just goes to show that Doom never had much thought put into it, as any attempt to rationalise it will always fall flat as aimless fanwank (fun though it can be to do so).

Whether it was due to technological constraints or a care-free attitude about the details, or both, the way Doom lets me fill in certain blanks with my imagination is half of it's appeal. I always enjoy threads that theorise and postulate over insignificant things in the game.

[BaronOfStuff]

I always used to wonder what Revenants were before being picked up, dusted off, wired with some combat gear and sent back into battle.

Too tall to be humans (not to mention they have freakishly long arms), and not similar enough in shape to have been created from the remains of any other Hellspawn in the game. What the fuck are they then?

[amputechture32]

I was always of the impression that that imps used to be human zombies, based on their pain noise and whatnot.

[Maes]

BaronOfStuff said:

Too tall to be humans (not to mention they have freakishly long arms), and not similar enough in shape to have been created from the remains of any other Hellspawn in the game. What the fuck are they then?

I think they were originally created to be human-sized (their in-game height is much lower than what they appear, they can creep whenever the player can), but they must have been realized that further downscaling of their sprites would've just been a mess of pixels with little discernible detail, so they were left as "giants". Also justifies their painful attacks.

[Quasar]

Maybe they are the cursed form of the Nephilim, giants said to have roamed the Earth before the biblical flood :P

[david_a]

Aren't revenants fairly close in size to those skeleton dudes in Heretic? Maybe they're dead (double-dead?) versions of those that have been rotting in a pan-dimensional hell for a while :)

[purist]

BaronOfStuff said:

I always used to wonder what Revenants were before being picked up, dusted off, wired with some combat gear and sent back into battle.?[/i]

Would make a good concept for a custom monster

[Tristan]

BaronOfStuff said:

I always used to wonder what Revenants were before being picked up, dusted off, wired with some combat gear and sent back into battle.

The Arch-Vile perhaps?

[Scypek2]

amputechture32 said:

I was always of the impression that that imps used to be human zombies, based on their pain noise and whatnot.

ehm... all monsters except for pain elemental, arch-vile, icon of sin and commander keen have the same pain noise...

[Clonehunter]

Avoozl said:

I don't think the demons even age or eat really.

Zombies eat. They eat meat. And the Demon too probably seeing it takes bites off of the Doomguy.

[Platinum Shell]

Eris Falling said:

The Arch-Vile perhaps?

Always thought this. Their kind of melty, fall-apart death sort of leads to their lanky and creepy gait of movement as a revenant; the demon surgeons can only perform so well.

[myk]

The DOOM Bible spoke of ranks of monsters as from an army. The demon and the baron of hell are among the first monsters drawn, so perhaps the similarities are intentional. Later, they may have felt more variety would ease their work, speeding up development, and the idea of infighting probably made them think more of tribes of different hellish creatures instead of types or variations of the same kind.