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[Xonara]

I was thinking of a flying "chaos spirit" creature, which completely scrambles any tiles it occupies. Whether or not there's wall/floor, what the wall/floor is made from, how much water/magma there is in the tile, whether or not there's miasma/steam/mist/smoke/dust in the tile, what objects are in the tile, and what creatures are in the tile (dwarves will disappear completely sometimes, other times their inventory will be scrambled), maybe even temporary biome type changes! As you can see this creature could be pretty destructive, since it could essentially destroy your entire fortress just by walking around. HFS shouldn't be spawned. Or should it? Anyways, the creature could either be a megabeast or it could move slowly so it doesn't raise too much hell. The spirit can only be effectively banished with relatively dense weapons as they disintegrate somewhat slower. Sending your military after it with warhammers would be suicide, the best option is to have some good traps set up, use arrows with dense heads like steel, or use siege engines.

Just a weird little thing I though of >.>

[Rakeela]

I think that would be rather overpowered.  At the very least, make it incapable of affecting organic items and creatures.  That gives it a significant vulnerability while preventing the spectacle of it walking in and vanishing all your military.  It meanwhile leaves the possibility of your hammerdwarves running out, only to discover that upon striking the creature, their hammer became chalk or turned into a mug.

Of course, elves would be basically immune to such creatures, opening up the prospect (if they're not megabeasts) of elven sieges bringing along a chaos beast or two. 

Dwarves with good trade relations with elves who bought wooden weapons would finally have a combat use for them.

[Aqizzar]

I would say screw weaknesses and just let the void-monster be the world-wrecking horror it sounds like, but I can't think of a good way to deal with it.  You could unload walls of good metal arrows to destroy it.  Sending in soldiers could work, but they'd have to shatter it before the void can change them too much or else they wind up too mutated.  Or displaced.

Urist McSquaddie, Sargent cancels: fight void creature: should have sent a poet.
Urist McSquaddie, Sargent has been disassociated.

[Sabin Stargem]

Maybe it could attempt to retreat from the Fortress after spending some time there, because of the way it absorbs things:  It can only absorb so much material at any given time, and the altering of objects is it's way of 'digesting' mass.  If this creature were to be filled up with too much mass, it would kick the bucket, and basically reality would return to normal.  Objects that it has collected over the years and possibly transmuted would be dropped, basically giving the creature value.  Things like elfs, plump helmets, mugs, admantanium, and so on would instantly appear.  Basically, the creature is a moving Bag of Holding with an digestive tract.

So overfeeding it is the way to take it down.

[(name here)]

I KNEW those peasants would be good for something one day!


....What? I'm not the only one who's thinking of it.

[Duke 2.0]

I KNEW those peasants would be good for something one day!


....What? I'm not the only one who's thinking of it.

 "Quick! Peasants! Haul over those bins of cloth left by the Elves! This random patch of land in the middle of nowhere needs it!"

 Although if it sucked up a good deal of goblins/megabeasts/cave creatures, it could be worse to kill the thing.

 "Oh god! The long lost race of dragons were released from that chaos spirit! Waugh!"

 I approve.

[Warlord255]

An interesting turn on this: A forest elemental that grows herbs/grass in an area around it as it walks, occasionally entangling passersby. Killing it causes an explosive outbreak of forest that spreads in a fashion similar to a very fast forest fire, with a sparkling shades-of-green aura at its edges as it expands, and leaves some kind of artifact wooden statue.

I still want to see the dead climb out of their coffins on Sinister biomes.

[Xonara]

Just a note, don't take this too seriously or anything. I like the idea for the idea

Maybe it could attempt to retreat from the Fortress after spending some time there, because of the way it absorbs things:  It can only absorb so much material at any given time, and the altering of objects is it's way of 'digesting' mass.  If this creature were to be filled up with too much mass, it would kick the bucket, and basically reality would return to normal.  Objects that it has collected over the years and possibly transmuted would be dropped, basically giving the creature value.  Things like elfs, plump helmets, mugs, admantanium, and so on would instantly appear.  Basically, the creature is a moving Bag of Holding with an digestive tract.

So overfeeding it is the way to take it down.

That's similar enough to the "backstory" for it that I had in mind. Here's the pseudoscience/fanfic crap behind it:

The spirit isn't quite a spirit but it's a decent way to think of it. It's a moving manifestation of the chaos plane protruding into the DF plane, an undefined "part" of it's essence. The chaos plane transcends concepts like space, time, and any sort of physical law. It doesn't quite even exist in a way we could understand.  I say "chunk" of the chaos plane because there's simply nothing meaningful on the chaos plane, since nothing has any real meaning you can't really define anything about it other than that it is chaos. The protrusion isn't a physical thing and isn't really quite "there" but the chaos that escapes is. Since the pure chaos can't exist on the DF plane the universe attempts to accommodate by putting the chaos in a context that allows it to exist on the DF plane, ie, the chaos takes on a form with meaningful things like time, location, and matter/the absence of matter.

EDIT: Umm, wait, it's nothing like it. >.> I also didn't explain how the heck it disappears. I propose that it shifts in space and time until it reaches a time/location where it can't affect your dwarves any more. Or it could just disappear, seeing as it's kinda chaotic

[Sabin Stargem]

We can mix the two concepts together, I would think.  Dwarves from the year 140 AC to the present, Goblin Overlords from the future or just from the neighboring tribe on our doorstep, along with lost artifacts and pig-leather loincloths!  Whatever works, to make this monster random, strangely rewarding, and yet deadly to the extreme, while keeping it possible to shut down.

[Neonivek]

No matter what anyone thinks of the monster I would LOVE some mutation in the game

[Idiom]

While this sounds awesome, I recall many people complaining that the game shouldn't be significantly easy to nearly lose based on random chance alone.
Magma just appearing in your meeting hall?
Your piles of gold into lead?

[(name here)]

That's what peasants are for!
feed the monster enough and it will leave you great gifts.

[penguinofhonor]

This chaos spirit and the nature spirit sound like some great unique monsters. I like unique monsters.

[Xonara]

No matter what anyone thinks of the monster I would LOVE some mutation in the game

I would have to agree. As an alternative to the chaos spirit, a chaos demon which projects bolts of chaos. Yeah, I know "chaos demon" sounds a bit redundant. And if the demon were destroyed, it could make an awesome, instantaneous explosion of chaos

[MagicJuggler]

It sounds like a limited-lifespan Katamari. I approve!