And while it's probably slated for much later, what kind of interaction is there between these physical demons and the gods civilizations come up with? Presumably, those gods will eventually stop being so imaginary all the time.
Some tidbits on the divine manifestation thing:
The elves aren't exactly monotheistic -- they believe in a force, not a deity, so it's a bit more like the animism you want, though not precisely (it's the spirit of the forest), or Star Wars before the bacteria worship. They don't try to talk to the force, anyway, unlike the deity-worshippers in adv mode, and they'd mock anybody that tried (not that it takes much to set them off), though "feeling it" would certainly be fair game. The force concept is specifically meant to allow supernatural activity without personification, although the random names are sometimes suggestive of a personification. If the force were to manifest itself in the forest as a giant stag or something, it would be more like a deity, though when I get there, there is bound to be some fuzziness.
Now, the reason gods are treated like historical figures is so that eventually they can manifest and run around in worlds where they actually exist, but that won't be done until it's done. There's nothing really preventing it from being the next thing to go in, but that's true of many, many things.
This game lacks clubs/truncheons and staves and other simple/peasant weapons. You wouldn't part an old man and his walking stick, would you?
We'll have them sooner or later:
# Req107, PRIMITIVE WEAPONS, (Future): Primitive item making in both dwarf mode and adventure mode. This includes use of primitive weapons by primitive entities.
And it does sound like the underground animal-peoples are getting primitive weapons, so primitive tribes of club-wielding giants and ogres might be practical. You could probably hack it in the current version, but I doubt the current entity code "expects" dumb creatures.
I wonder why they aren't getting into dwarves' and elves' civs. Dwarves seem like they'd be humanlike (pantheon, sneak, etc) but elves I'm not so sure of.
It's possible that the random creature generator doesn't make use of spheres that would inspire worship in dwarves. But then again... looking back at the
spoiler, the second creature has METALS, MINERALS, and MOUNTAINS, so that's not it. More probably, the dwarven entity structure isn't so inclined to allow rule by outsiders, not that you could tell by the current version, what with the Elf Queens etc. everywhere.