The 1972 Interactive Fiction game Hunt The Wumpus included a colony of Super Bats that couldn't be killed and didn't harm the player, just moved you to a different part of the cave... making your all-important map useless. This was before save points.
They also had a tendency to drop you into a pit, or better yet, in the cave where the Wumpus was, ending the game right there.
Zork included a bat with a similar mechanic as an homage, but it was significantly less annoying because the geography was more varied, thus making it far easier to reorient yourself.
Of course one of the locations it loved to drop you off in was the Gas Room, which was death while carrying the torch. Odds of being dropped off there when you didn't have the torch? About 30% Those odds shot up to at least 90% if you were carrying the torch.
