Your personal takes on already existing creatures

I'm a sucker for using commonly known creatures in my settings partially because I think they're super fun but also because they give me some building blocks to work on with to make something more personalized out of them to fit my settings better!

For example with vampires I have explained their sensitivity to garlic and sunlight with a chronic migraine, as funnily both are very common migraine triggers to people, including me! I also added that vampire children start out functioning like humans in order to ensure higher percentage of survival, and only as they start maturing they slowly grow a distaste to human food (many stop tasting things outside of blood) and start showing signs of slowly developing chronic migraine. They also can't fly on their own, but they know how to make cloaks that help you fly, to sort of acknowledge the myth of vampires flying or turning into bats (in which capes usually serve as a visual way to morph the shape from human to a bat).

As for dragons I have several takes on them depending on the worldsetting, but my favourite is probably Enhyria where dragons become mad if they taste enough human blood! Enhyria is very fairy tale based and while I love dragons and consider them usually as "the good guys" pretty much I wanted to somehow acknowledge the Evil Dragon Beast trope and thought becoming mad from human blood would serve as an interesting take in context of my own stories. They can also communicate through a more abstract sort of mind communication so even if you don't speak the same language the message will get across! It doesn't work as a normal dialogue would but instead through several mental images and feelings the dragons are experts at deciphering. 

Okay vampires are a thing that have been reinvented a lot, and my vampires Different (tm) as well

basically they don't drink blood (don't let Zara make you think that she's just a freak) or have fangs, they just have to get magic outta people by making them feel strong emotions (pain/fear is the best)-- they don't drain the emotions themselves, but emotions stir up people's magic which makes the magic easier to slurp. They still look sorta corpselike which is pretty standard for vampires probably. Zara is actually a very human-looking example, in that she can pass for human if she puts on enough makeup & perfume lmao-- older/ less-well-maintained vampires look more like traditional liches, as in, skeletons with glowing eyes. My vampires are physically and magically stronger than humans, but don't have any of the other traditional vampire powers or limitations. They're mainly just stinky old skeletons who go around beating people up so they can keep being alive.

Vampires can't be born, and can't be created by other vampires with anything as simple as a bite, but you can create one by taking someone who's died very recently & doing some nasty magic stuff. You don't have to be a vampire to create one, you just have to have enough magic and know-how.

edit: vampires also develop the Special Vampire Power of suppressing other people's magic-- like, Zara stands next to you and it's much harder for you to actively use your own magic than it is normally. Divines are especially susceptible to this-- a vampire's magic-blocking aura is what stops angels of death from being able to do their normal thing.

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thank u caine! 'v' I really enjoy your take on them as well-- it's cool how you have a more evolutionary kinda approach :0

Aarix Oohh I really like that take you have on vampires!! They're such flexible creatures lore wise it's always super fun to see what others do with them, and I'm really loving the magic stealing aspect of them! 

Edit: Thank you!! I'm honestly not Very Good with biology and evolution at all but I tend to think of survival of the species whenever I work on something because... it's fun... 

polkadot YO that's so cool!! Demons are also one of those species that you can do so much with, I personally use "demon" as a catch call for all non-human creatures that come from the demon realm, especially since in my setting religions that talk of "demons" really exist in the way they do in our world, so I just took the word and made it a broad term. Also, I adore your idea of dividing your demons to three very distinct categories! 

Currently working with the themes dragons and yokai now. Am more familiar with dragons from Chinese culture especially since I've been exposed to Chinese folklore since young. So for my characters I try to incorporate some of the mythology / folklore I'm familiar with. Some of the beasts have similarities with yokai from Japanese culture too. 

In Chinese mythology, there is a tale that fish (carp) that can swim upstream a river and leap up a waterfall can turn into dragons. Kichiro and the other dragon from his universe have designs based on fish (Kichiro's inspiration being koi, Kingyo's inspiration being a goldfish). I took the tale and expanded it to include all varieties of fish. Then adding a bit of yokai shape-shifting, I gave them the ability to turn into humans too. The criteria is that, a fish which has enough power will be granted dragon status, after that, the dragon can shapeshift into a human.

Also a bit of casual trivia, there is a saying "望子成龙" which roughly translates to: "hope one's son will become a dragon (be successful etc.)" which I translated literally to be, my sons (my characters) will turn into dragons. I also want them to be successful as characters! 

Another layer of mythology I incorporated is the Maneki Neko. For Kichiro, he is meant to be a lucky dragon. In Chinese language, the word “鱼” which means fish, sounds similar to some words that mean abundance / surplus, and they are seen as good luck symbols. Maneki Neko is another symbol of good luck / good fortune. Some sources I researched also say Maneki Neko is considered a yokai. Koi and Maneki Neko have similar markings so I made that overlap for Kichiro's dragon form.

Still have quite a bit of research to do though but here's what I've developed and tweaked for my own characters so far. I have another set of yokai characters from a different universe I might come back to share again in the future ❤️

Parfait God I honestly LOVE what you're doing with your dragons! Ever since I initially learned about the koi thing I thought it was really amazing and the way you also use the saying is very endearing ;_; < 3 I have browsed through some of your characters and your attentional to details is really admirable when it comes to the way you use known lore and shape it to your personal setting!

I don't usually go for "normal" Hollywood werewolves, but ones heavily inspired by estonian folklore. A person can be either cursed into a werewolf or turn willingly. The willing ones have a wolfskin, which they've gotten from a witch or enchanted themselves, and once they don the skin with the right words they'll look like a normal, non-anthropomorphic wolf. You can tell a werewolf from a normal wolf by their eyes, which look like those of a human (either because eyes are the windows to the soul or to reflect the fact that the wolfskin has eyeholes). Additionally a werewolf might have a white spot on their chest, where the human-form had worn its brooch. It also means that a werewolf doesn't usually have to undress because the skin can be worn on top of other clothes. If a wolf has been cursed into their form or forgets how to turn back into a human then the spell can be broken by feeding it bread. Bread is an inherently "human" food that would cause the animal to shift or the skin to fall off.

My sirens, whom I've been itching to try out as NPCs in a roleplay, are a type of aquatic fae. They come with all the usual fae weaknesses, such as fear of iron. The males rarely come to the surface and are subservient to the females. They look like pretty, long-haired women, but their teeth are shark-like and sharp. The sirens really like the taste of human flesh, which is the reason they follow ships and sing to seduce seamen into jumping overboard. However, their enchanting song only works on men, which has caused the cultural shift where ships traveling between the celtic-inspired Kingdom of Abergwaun and the greek-inspired Oversealands employ female-only crews. The sirens, being a type of fae, have not changed their modus operandi for their grasp on the passage of time is wonky and furthermore their modus operandi is sort of...built into who they are.

Cliodna We have very similar werewolf lore too here in Finland!! I love it when people use their own country's/culture's lore to spice up their creations! Also mmmm that ship route part with the sirens is such good worldbuilding I love it!!!! 

Haha, thanks. :D I think the bit about them having human eyes is the only thing I've come up with myself in the above werewolf-paragraph. It's just always...made so much sense to me, you know. The skin has holes in place of the eyes so OBVIOUSLY the humans eyes should be showing through the holes. That's such Grade A folklore-logic that I don't know why my ancestors never thought of it. :D

Not sure how "unique" that is but I've found that these guys tend to clash with quite a lot of peoples idea of what angels are so...

I suppose I've got "my" angels as well. Hehlel and Dardariel. Though the angel-lore was created with the aid of my then-gamemaster kleric, (who's privated all their characters which is a shame because their demons are awesomely unique) so although I got to call most of the shots regarding how angels work in that setting I don't know much about what "actually" went on in the higher ranks or who they really fought for.

Like, in a way angels in that setting are a lot more "fantasy race" than something celestial, just a fantasy race with really messed up sense of age-keeping due to them not having a body most of the time.

The default state of an angel is...being a part of this massive, non-physical hivemind called Home, like a single drop dissolved in a barrel of water. Furthermore there are a number of smaller realms that angels inhabit - dreamlike places which allow for a sense of self without being as uncomfortable as physical realms. To go to Earth or other more physical realms an angel has to have a body, which most angels find a very disturbing thing to possess. A common angel takes on the form of a beautiful human with white wings. They are incapable of lying. Angels start out as little more than blank slates, with a desire to be "good" and "righteous", with the meaning of these words not stemming from some inherent sense of morality but from whatever they believe God would want. Some develop an interest in human culture, because they think that they can find out more of their own lore and purpose from The Bible or angelological literature. It takes time for any preferences or personality beyond "I am this because I'm told this is a good and righteous thing to be" emerges. No common angel has seen God - the higher-ranking ones run the show and assure everyone that God thinks they're all doing a very good job.

Angels consider their purpose to serve God (and to serve the higher-ranking angels who claim to have seen God and speak on His behalf). Most view themselves as Gods servants, whilst humans are Gods masterpieces to be nurtured and protected. Most don't think too hard about what they're doing when they slaughter demons or take over other realms or as they get inspired from human literature to develop an unquenchable fire and set Hell ablaze or as they de-wing those who start thinking too hard.

Actually, I've got a thingie that I drew back in the days for the angels of that 'verse. It's old but the art has held on quite well. If you do want to read it then I'd have to apologize in advance for the god-awful font though, I have no idea what younger-me thought at the time. There's five more pages but they mostly deal with bodylanguage, which is also quite interesting though I can see some glaring anatomy mistakes nowadays.

callilux This is SUCH a cool take the whole thing about severing a apart of one's soul is so creative and memorable and the way you have tied to your witches to their worldsetting and communities shows you have it really well thought out! ;__; 

[And it's totally ok I think I should have probably used a better word myself in the OP post!!]

callilux Hey I wanted to say that I also REALLY like the witching and magic system you've made from what you told in your post. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before, it's great!

Cliodna 100% coming clean here and admitting I have a huge angel bias and I love love feather winged humanoids even if they aren't necessarily called or considered "angels" in the sense most people understand them. I took a look at your visual guide too and it's honestly super fascinating?? Especially the way you kind of explain pieces of the most commonly known lore of angels as pretty humans and the way you do it feels so natural I super admire the thought process that has gone into them!!

I also have angels but they're divided to angels of the demon realm (so not holy in any way, just winged humanoids) and true angels (actually holy, created to serve gods in their own place). Demon realm angels are divided to Powers and Cherubs where powers are the taller warrior subspecies with usually only one pair of wings and cherubs are the smaller subspecies with two sets of wings, usually very calm in temper compared to powers. 

True angels are celestial beings who have a fixed number of them created, so new angels are born very rarely, and if you see a child looking true angel they're usually looking that way due to a punishment! Basically they have this strange system where successful errand running for the gods etc can give a true angel a new pair of wings they can put absolutely anywhere (and I mean it; some of them look absolutely horrendous with wings growing out of mouth or something), but the more wings you have the easier it is also to lose them, so it's just this neverending quest to achieve more wings but by the time you have a huge amount of them even the smallest mistake can take them away. If a true angel has only one pair of wings and they mess up big time they're forced into a child form as a humiliating punishment. They're created to serve the gods and usually don't involve themselves much with mortals and instead just entertain divine beings, but they can be sent to the mortal real on a mission too, and some true angels escape or are kicked out sometimes as well. 

Typing this up I realized I Really need to write down the whole lore since I have a ridiculous amount of it haha 

I use a ton of different fantasy creatures in my worlds (werewolves, vampires, dragons, demons, etc.) so I kinda have my own takes on all of them, though I try not to make them too different from how they are traditionally because I know that bothers some people including myself.

For dragons, I have so many different subspecies of them that I can't really go into detail here, plus I think dragons are pretty versatile anyway so there's no specific way you're 'supposed' to make them.

For werewolves... My werewolves aren't forced to shift at the full moon; instead they have the ability to freely shift into their beast forms at will. They also typically lose some of their human intelligence and self-awareness when they shift, though are still able to recognise their friends and allies so they don't hurt anyone accidentally. There are two types of werewolves in my worlds, Pure werewolves and Turned werewolves. The Pure ones are the offspring of werewolves and so are born that way, and they're usually a lot more powerful (as well as more comfortable with being werewolves). The Turned ones are originally humans who were bitten and infected by werewolves. They're much weaker and have less control over their ability to shift. Also, Turned wolves have a regular human lifespan while Pures live about twice as long.

For vampires, I tried to keep them traditional but ended up changing a lot of things anyway... They don't have an aversion to garlic and they can't be killed by sunlight. However, they do have very light-sensitive eyes that makes going out in bright sunlight uncomfortable for them (nothing that can't be solved by wearing dark sunglasses). There are several methods to killing them, including the traditional stake-through-the-heart as well as decapitation, starvation, and certain dark magic. I also didn't give my vampires that kind of... uncontrollable thirst for blood that most vampires in stories seem to have. They're capable of going at least a week without drinking blood (longer than that, and they start to weaken severely before eventually falling into a coma and dying). Also, both human and animal blood is fine to them. (Though some do prefer human blood.)

For demons, I won't go into detail since I'm still figuring things out for myself and I'm not sure exactly how I want to use them in my worlds.

This post was way too long