As I finish my dragon series, I decided to try something new. I've got some ideas for a supernatural story. I've got your usual suspects, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, wizards, witches, and zombies. Does anyone have any suggestions for more possibilities? Some glaring omission or something you've always thought should be included.

Nothing obvious that I can see, quite intrigued to see what you lay out

Forget the trope characters. Idea: Earth, Water, Air, Fire - run with those.

Maybe someone who can control the elements. A possibility

I'd have to know more about the plot you're intending, but my first thought when you said vampires and werewolves was Twilight, and everyone is so done with vamps and wares. I was only throwing out elementals as a thought. I think something unique would be a breath of fresh air. There are tons of mythological creatures. I'm sure there's one that hasn't had center stage yet. Or, create something completely new. Neil Gaiman used the Sandman and made him unique. Tolkien made hobbits. David Eddings had gods and immortal humans. Raymond Feist had powerful magicians. Robin Hobb had humans that mind-linked with animals. Piers Anthony had humans that wore the mantles of gods. I had humans that carried the powers of creation in crayons they used to create everything from nature, war, fire, wind and water, to the very earth itself.

Just some thoughts.

I've never seen the the twilight series. But my vampires won't sparkle.

Vampires are doomed, the mRNA is going to do them in.

Why limit Were's to wolves 🐺? ... 🐻🦊🦓🐐🐆🦅🦈? ... 

Werepandas - cute, cuddly - don't go out after dark

I often forget about other weres. Given that the werewolves all got wiped out in mass genocide, it's possible that the other weres were too so they are the one group still in hiding. I'll have to think about it.

I also forgot to mention I have shapeshifters.

Oh, I love shapeshifters, its science meets science fiction. We have a double helix DNA, but if we had a quadruple helix, we could conceivably change our shape. There supposedly has been found the rare quadruple helix in some humans, giving rise for science fiction and fantasy writers to create a quasi-scientific basis for a rare group of shapeshifting humans.

I also want to mention my favorite group. Zombies!

I told you zombies are real!

Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost.

It's only a matter of time now before the zombie apocalypse.

I did include zombies. I almost forgot to add it, even though it was on the list. I knew you'd point them out.

we don't need any viruses. We have phone zombies already.

So, I liked the natural forces/domains of air, fire, water and earth. It resonates with things like electricity, ancient ruins with even more ancient ruins underneath, underground redoubts, the Bible being accurate about lost cities now being discovered - you know anthropological accuracy of descriptions as well as the talk of even more ancient ruins of civilizations that were older than 12,000 years but lost.

So there is a lot of underpinning to 'old' things with magic powers or use of harmonics, light, harnessing of natural forces and so on.

I've always liked spells. I used to use documents (like contracts, laws and precedents) to precisely word binding spells on other parties. Calling on wind or fire to focus or create a condition if cleverly used would be fascinating. Objects of power.

My WIRS tales claim seven (7)  parallel universes, of which four of the 'other earths' even have very similar day-lengths to ours.

One featured what we'd call 'Atlanteans', with 'Third Law' tech. Snag is they over-fracked their failing geo-thermal tap, covered equivalent of our Eifel region in flood-basalt, with volcanism still active. Local survivors fled via 'World Gates' with portable tech, cut a swathe through our 'High Bronze Age'. Seems Hancock {Spit !!} was half-right about his 'Clever Ancients'. But, when those 'magic' widgets ran short of 'manna', their owners managed to similarly 'Chernobyl' another geo-thermal tap. Blew Thera (Santorini) half-way across Eastern Med....

Most 'Atlanteans' who'd simply 'hunkered down' became increasingly isolated, in-bred, toxic, degenerate. Some used the few remaining 'World Gates' to access, even hunt other parallels. Those who came here likely spawned tales of devils, Weres, Vampires and 'Dark Fae'.

Atlantis' Westerly fringe, cleansed by Atlantic storms, may have kept a modicum of civilisation until our Middle Ages. Hence, 'Light Fae' and such...

The anaerobic 'Seventh World' is weird, possibly a mini-Neptune. Its bigger denizens may have spawned the Cthulhu Mythos. Fortunately, no Gates are big enough to pass the 'apex' beasties, they can only feel around with kraken-scale tentacles. Lesser types tend to be protean shape-shifters, collapsing to green Ectoplasm when stomped...

Between these, the post-post-industrial (??) Lizard People and a zoo of 'False Positives', my 'Walsingham Institute for the Regulation of Supernaturals' is kept busy... 

That is an interesting take. Never heard quite such a reason for the supernatural. Most stories don't look at the why so much as the what, and the what to do about it.

Trained as a Scientist, I find a lot of fantasy utterly hilarious as lacking in 'rigour'. Okay as 'light relief', but plausible as a 'Road Runner' Toon...

A surfeit of vampire tales of the 'transmogriflying' variety exasperated me enough to do a 'deconstruction' of the genre: Applying Clarke's 'Third Law', they're hyper-nimble, night-hunting, obligate carnivorous cryptid hominids, whose extreme porphyria got locked-in by genetic bottleneck when their now-mythical 'day-walker' cousins were exterminated by braw, Bronze-clad warriors...

;-)

I kind of lost any interest in vamps when they started going to high school and having boyfriend/girlfriend drama. Ban Twilight, not Catcher in the Rye. Oh, that would be an interesting discussion - the absolutely ridiculous list of books on the ban list.

I read Peter Watts' novel Blind Sight which had a reconstituted vampire on the crew of transhumanists  as they headed out to the reaches of the solar system to investigate radio signals.

Here's my take on plausible vampires...

https://www.renderosity.com/gallery/items/3105821/bete-noir

And here's the first of the WIRS tales...

https://www.renderosity.com/gallery/items/3105822/wirs