Hell's aristocracy

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

Doesn't the existence of Barons of hell and hell knights imply the existence of squires, earls, marquises, and dukes of hell as well? If hell is virtually infinite as well, archdukes, kings and even emperors could exist if you don't care about 2016 and eternal's lore. Has anybody made a mod or wad that's solely or mostly based off of this proposition? What's your take on this subject?

[Murdoch]

11 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

Has anybody made a mod or wad that's solely or mostly based off of this proposition?

 

Not to my knowledge. 

 

11 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

What's your take on this subject?

 

You are overthinking it.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Murdoch

[Tangra]

I want to fight the Court Jesters from Hell

[Jakub Majewski]

I think that Realm667 has some baron/hellknight inspired enemies, including the flaming Duke

[Shepardus]

Make a WAD where every hell knight, baron, etc. has a unique title and name, and the end cast lists them all one by one.

[Lucius Wooding]

According to Doom 64, all the demons are the spawn of the Mother Demon. So basically they're all related anyways. Every demon is a hell noble.

[LadyMistDragon]

41 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Not to my knowledge. 

 

 

You are overthinking it.

Hey that's mean! But I doubt there's all that many ranks. Honestly, no one cares very much for old-school Doom lore so maybe that's not surprising in any case.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

The Cyberdemon, with its girths and assets alone, certainly gives me kingly vibes.

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Hey that's mean! But I doubt there's all that many ranks. Honestly, no one cares very much for old-school Doom lore so maybe that's not surprising in any case.

 

Precisely. Not a lot of thought went into the original Doom's lore. Conversely and somewhat ironically, Doom Eternal's lore is arguably overthought.

 

Overthinking something is not an insult, merely an observation. I have overthought many, many things in my life and fully expect to do so again many times in the future. Better to overthink than underthink, after all.

 

26 minutes ago, TheNoob_Gamer said:

The Cyberdemon, with its girths and assets alone, certainly gives me kingly vibes.

 

Yes. Like many societies, demon hierarchy will be based on strength and/or intelligence. Obviously the Cyberdemon could annihilate the Hell Priests of Doom Eternal were they so inclined, but the priests are higher in the hierarchy due to their intelligence. But the Cyber is higher than the Baron cause they are both dummies and the Cyber is stronger.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Murdoch

[TheNoob_Gamer]

10 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Obviously the Cyberdemon could annihilate the Hell Priests of Doom Eternal were they so inclined,

If we were to take the enemy AI (both classic and modern games) into Doom canon, I think the Hell Priests could still outlive Cybs. They don't seem to know smart combat tactics, and their attacks can generally be used to our own advantage. In contrasts, the priests, from flashbacks showing them goading Doomguy to fight for their cause alone, could easily enslave Cybs if they so choose.

[Chezza]

Another perspective is that the naming conventions were man made, not Hell's representation of hierarchy.

 

We have King Crabs on earth but I haven't seen any evidence of it ruling over other crabs.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

 

Not to my knowledge. 

 

 

You are overthinking it.

I know I'm overthinking it, but I wanted to see other related takes or projects based on a similar premise. I thought it was one of the more fun logical extremes regarding doom.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

21 minutes ago, Chezza said:

Another perspective is that the naming conventions were man made, not Hell's representation of hierarchy.

 

We have King Crabs on earth but I haven't seen any evidence of it ruling over other crabs.

I have considered that, but I thought of it as a fun logical extreme that other people may have come across. In fact, 

That's more in line with what I was thinking about, not political power, but subspecies based on physical might.

Edited July 6, 2023 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[TheNoob_Gamer]

5 minutes ago, Chezza said:

Another perspective is that the naming conventions were man made, not Hell's representation of hierarchy.

 

We have King Crabs on earth but I haven't seen any evidence of it ruling over other crabs.

That's a valid assumption too. After all, the manual is unsure whether the Arachnotrons actually came from the Spiderdemon's womb.

 

Quote

You guess the Arachnotrons had to come from somewhere. Hi, mom. - Doom 2 manual, Spiderdemon entry

 

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

Make a WAD where every hell knight, baron, etc. has a unique title and name, and the end cast lists them all one by one.

While I'm guessing this was sarcastic, I feel like this could make for a decent joke wad with a few sprite edits. Like a more politically tame version of thatcher's Tech base.

Edited July 6, 2023 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[Murdoch]

4 minutes ago, Chezza said:

Another perspective is that the naming conventions were man made, not Hell's representation of hierarchy.

 

I thought about that too.

 

5 minutes ago, Chezza said:

We have King Crabs on earth but I haven't seen any evidence of it ruling over other crabs.

 

This conjured an image in my head of a King Crab standing on a rock above other crabs, waving his claws around trying to get them to do stuff for him.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

1 hour ago, Lucius Wooding said:

According to Doom 64, all the demons are the spawn of the Mother Demon. So basically they're all related anyways. Every demon is a hell noble.

I wasn't necessarily talking about how hell's leadership functions, but a fun little extension on the baron/ hell knight subspecies.

Edited July 6, 2023 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[Nate42]

I think the idea of a wad where you fight various named hell aristocrats as boss enemies, where they have unique attributes to distinguish from run of the mill barons, would be pretty cool actually. Sounds like a lot of work though. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Nate42

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

16 minutes ago, Nate42 said:

I think the idea of a wad where you fight various named hell aristocrats as boss enemies, where they have unique attributes to distinguish from run of the mill barons, would be pretty cool actually. Sounds like a lot of work though. 

Thanks bro, I was originally imagining a mid 2000s style mega wad where the deeper the player progressed through hell, stronger baron subspecies would appear alongside normal monsters, with each having a more powerful attack that the last up to a normal baron. More powerful subspecies would have an additional unique attack based on their ranking.

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[Nate42]

3 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

Thanks bro, I was originally imagining a mid 2000s style mega wad where the deeper the player progressed through hell, stronger baron subspecies would appear alongside normal monsters, with each having a more powerful attack that the last up to a normal baron. More powerful subspecies would have an additional unique attack based on their ranking.

 

That's what I thought you were thinking. Sounds pretty rad to me. I am too lame to make it but I'd for sure play it.

[Chezza]

I recall a long time ago in Doom World someone posted a mock up scientific journal of all the Demons, observing their behaviour and hypothesising on the natural habitats. There may be mentions of hierarchy there, but sadly that's somewhere hidden in the many posts of the forum.

 

Youtuber Renoke Gaming did play with the idea with some Doom 2016 and Eternal demons, but moreso how they've evolved.

 

I personally would find Hellish demons hierarchy intriguing, albeit prefer some mystery and room to theorise otherwise it gets boring and overthought, especially if it's in a direction I don't like.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Chezza

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

22 minutes ago, Chezza said:

I recall a long time ago in Doom World someone posted a mock up scientific journal of all the Demons, observing their behaviour and hypothesising on the natural habitats. There may be mentions of hierarchy there, but sadly that's somewhere hidden in the many posts of the forum.

 

Youtuber Renoke Gaming did play with the idea with some Doom 2016 and Eternal demons, but moreso how they've evolved.

 

I personally would find Hellish demons hierarchy intriguing, albeit prefer some mystery and room to theorise otherwise it gets boring and overthought, especially if it's in a direction I don't like.

Do you have any link related to that original mock up journal.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

30 minutes ago, Nate42 said:

That's what I thought you were thinking. Sounds pretty rad to me. I am too lame to make it but I'd for sure play it.

I'm still new to mapping though, but once I'm able to make a good episode I'll try to enact this Idea.  :)

[houston]

You probably know a bit about it, but I'm sure there's no shortage at all of fan knight/baron asset flips which try to fill in the gaps a little bit.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

I do, and I was just on realm667 an hour ago and found several, best one I've found so far is the profane one.

[BeachThunder]

5 hours ago, Shepardus said:

Make a WAD where every hell knight, baron, etc. has a unique title and name, and the end cast lists them all one by one.

Extending on this idea - there should be a mod that just gives every enemy a unique name that's displayed above their head. Like, here's Greg the Cacodemon.

[Gez]

6 hours ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

if you don't care about 2016 and eternal's lore

Nobody should, id certainly didn't, judging by the pile of self-retconning nonsense that they produced.

[Gibbitudinous]

I've seen at least one instance of a mod introducing a marquis of hell, I think also a cyberduke as well?

[Mr Masker]

I like to imagine Hell had a really civilized and intelligent societal system for centuries, with philosophers and great scholars of their time.

 

But then the portals to Mars and Earth open and mass hysteria immediately just destroys everything.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Mr Masker

[Martin Howe]

29 minutes ago, Gibbitudinous said:

I've seen at least one instance of a mod introducing a marquis of hell, I think also a cyberduke as well?

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/combos/badguys

 

The Duke of Hell is Mark Klem's (CRINGE!.WAD) "Baron in Shades and torn Jeans"  who has studied Sorcery and fires rockets from his paws; I thought that Baron was too cool not to use :) Of course The Bad Guys is nearly 19 years old and very old Skool DeHackEd, but it should still work. TBF, the Hell Nobles are just different strengths and recolours; only the Duke behaves differently.