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[Abyzou]

Just a minor suggestion here for the upcoming myth/magic update: a token that allows a supernatural creature to become completely invisible to all but a certain subset of creatures. What this would mean is that the AI of normal creatures would not react at all to the presence of a creature that is invisible to them. They would not be able to speak to the creature or initiate combat with it. In other words, the supernatural creature is invoking the "Invisible to Normals" trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvisibleToNormals

The token could perhaps take arguments similar to the “SENSE_CREATURE_CLASS” token; except it would be: “CAN_BE_SENSED_BY:[type of creature]”. So if, for example, a creature has the token: CAN_BE_SENSED_BY:CREATURE:ELF:MALE (or something like that) then only male elves would be able to see/interact with it. It could also take other arguments like IT_REQUIRES or IT_FORBIDDEN as with interactions for greater specificity.

Examples of how such an ability might be utilised in-game include:

• a night creature that can only be seen by its chosen victim(s);
• ancestor spirits (only visible to their descendants), perhaps acting as an advisor to an adventurer;
• fairy creatures (only visible to wizards/elves/other fairy creatures/whatever) – think The Spiderwick Chronicles – which raises the possibility of normal creatures acquiring a secret/syndrome that allows them to see the invisibles.

etc.

Of course, creatures with this ability may still be detectable by their effects on their surroundings (e.g. leaving footprints in snow).

[dragdeler]

Yes very cool, especially if there's loads of emergent behaviour and interlocking game mechanisms (what an awfully long way to say DF) around it.

Should we consider an immaterial/ethereal tag?

[Abyzou]

Yes very cool, especially if there's loads of emergent behaviour and interlocking game mechanisms (what an awfully long way to say DF) around it.

Should we consider an immaterial/ethereal tag?

Like the way ghosts currently are? Able to pass through walls and stuff? Sounds good to me.

There'd need to be some way of dealing with them though (like how ghosts have to be memorialized) if they became a nuisance. Otherwise you'd have an invisible, intangible and possibly immortal creature on your hands. Obviously the magic update would offer plenty of possible solutions.

[Egan_BW]

I find the idea of a world where anyone can randomly be attacked by an invisible, unstoppable creature strangely enticing. Maybe only for high-hostility worlds, once that slider is in place. But there's merit to there being things in the world that you as a mortal are simply unequipped to deal with.

[FantasticDorf]

I find the idea of a world where anyone can randomly be attacked by an invisible, unstoppable creature strangely enticing. Maybe only for high-hostility worlds, once that slider is in place. But there's merit to there being things in the world that you as a mortal are simply unequipped to deal with.

A balancing act might be that the ethereal by some strange means as hostile as they may be, cannot interact or possibly see you either, unless a set number of conditions are reached set by world generation. This means we might have [EVIL] or magically charged type biomes where ghosts are manifest as per magical energies to pose a threat to the player. Haunted woods and all that.

There may yet be easy tropes, like wearing protective metal/gem trinkets, hitting it with a particular weapon to kill it & ensuring your dwarves remain drunk enough to not notice the frustrated spirits attempts to scare you.