What is your favorite fantasy creature?

[Megumi]

:3 I meant to ask so I could uh... apply the answers for writing or plotting.

As angels, elves, vampires and werewolf were overly overrated in my point of view, I want to see if any creature is underloved.

Do not fear though. I wouldn't annoy you because you gave me were one of these. I mean, they are fine. I just want to have a good idea of what you like and what you want to keep in them.

It's clear that if you tell me 'I like vampires because they sparkle under the sun', I'll just have to get a gun and shoot you (because Twilight is something I dislike). But there are a lot of features that are characteristics and I may not keep them all to make my world go round.

The point is of course to draw the creatures people like the most and what exactly make them so loved. I usually avoid the fantasy genre but they do leave much for well... imagination XD

[Deji]

Dragons and Elves for me <3

Both (tend to) live longer lives than humans and carry a sense of melancholy with them because of the 'detachment' they have with the rest of the mortal world and its cycles. They're usually wise (at least wider than your average human), have a strong bond with nature/earth and may have some kind of magical abilities.
I particularly like Dragons because... Well, they are big kick-ass flying dinosaurs that may or may not spit fire. If you befriend one, they may let you fly on their back!
Now, if on top of that they can shape-shift into a human, so they can interact better with humans, I'm sold. Actually I'm sold with most cool magical/supernatural creatures that do that >>;
Elves, I like how they're aesthetically pleasing; they're gracious in everything they do and make and they're artistically inclined. On top of that, they're usually pretty.

Now, the bad thing about both them is that may be so detached from the rest of the mortal world that they may not give a damn about whatever happens with 'lesser' creatures, to the point of becoming egotistic elitist jerks that look down on everything and everybody that are not as cool as them. When they become like that, they may end up screwing up the story for being self-centered and thinking they're so cool that nothing they do can be 'wrong' because they're so awesome, or let bad things happen for being concerned too much with their 'higher' occupations that they don't even realize what's going on around them.

Other than that, from the top of my head I like mer-people, river and forest spirits, centaurs and gryphons.


I'm cliché. I grew up reading Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and western mythology *shot*

[Miss-Mae]

Ooh, I love fantasy creatures! My favs are probably mermaids, faeries, nereids... Basically, pretty ones! Unless we're also talking things like ghosts, because I love creepy monsters, too. Banshees and succubi are really cool!

[MaiMai]

My favorite fantasy creature is faeries, no questions asked. They can either be cute and pretty or completely horrifying depending on how you want to portray them which I think makes them a pretty versatile subject when it comes to depicting them. I think the lore and superstitions behind them can be really neat too.

Another fantasy creature I like would probably be elves and dragons, they're a bit overdone, but can be awesome if you're creative enough with them. I think werewolves and vampires are cool if we're just talking classically here (no Twilight-ness I assure you). I also like Eastern dragons and phoenixes

[Pyonkotchi]

Dragons and Demons. They're overused, but I love 'em
Why I love them I can't explain. Demons can be Evil and terrifying. or they can just have dark powers. (Kinda like the dark type pokemon. They have evil powers but aren't nessesarily evil themselves)and Evil is sexy. Demons are just cool.
Dragons...They can have great elemental powers, maybe shapeshift. and can fly. and they have a mystical feel

----
I don't think it's a matter of "I won't use an elf because Elves are over used", but more how you play with the concept. For example instead of a magical smug elf who is better than everyone at everything Try something new. Maybe deconstruct some of their defining tropes.

of coarse. I'm not saying completely change everything. For example Twilight. Some of the defining traits of vampires are changed. (like weakness against sunlight)
so there are a number of people who don't like it.

Unless you are talking about a parody. then go nuts (But know your limits!)

[Megumi]

Well, I say overused because I think it's a little too much attention for vampires. Fantasy has thousands, millions of possibilities and the way fantasy becomes 'the presence of vampires' makes me sick.

No, vampire is not the must of fantasy.

The point of making this is actually: remember creatures I had personally forgotten (I had dared to forget ghosts, seriously, I'm an idiot. XD) and actually see what makes them what they are in people's minds.

I want to create my own little world with creatures :3 Participate XD

[Elenakiara]

A hippogryphe? xD (sorry for the spelling errors xD)

I liked the one in the third Harry Potter movie! :3 <3

[Julie]

It's Hippogriff! Buckbeak! xD

I also like dragons like what everybody said. ^^ But I am more interested on people creating their OWN fantasy creatures. ^^

[LVUER]

Dragons all the way! With scale harder than steel, hulking body, fly soaring the sky, and scorching breath that melts even iron and steel. Some legend said they are intelligent, some said they're just over-sized lizard that breaths fire. Either way, they are cool ^_^

In RPGs/video games, they start to throw things other than fire, like ice, wind, or even non-elemental attacks, neat huh?. In Monster Hunter series, dragon is considered as the most dangerous monster. In Breath of Fire, dragon is the main theme.

Anyway, I actually prefer eastern dragon. In eastern myth, dragon is not simply an animal... they are gods. In some myth, dragon is one of four important symbol/constellation (azure dragon, vermilion bird, white tiger, and black tortoise). So they are not just a random animals that wreck havoc and kill humans. Though in shape, I prefer western dragon (since eastern dragon somehow looks like a giant worm).

[IceD]

I love different kinds of classical fantastic creatures, though my favourite ones are propably griffons, dragons and giant spiders. Everything's been quite different for me as far as I've done my own world-building for my stories, made the realm of "Arathea" come true and inhabited it with my own creations, which means that overhelmingly large part of it's bestiary is purely original and only few of classic creatures exist on it's pages; even if they do exist, they're mostly a different retelling of what's well-known, because I've always had my own vision of those creatures.

For example, dragons in the realm of Arathea are a mythical race of elder creatures, not only beasts; They consist basically of two types - the lower and higher kind. The lower dragons are what people actually often mistake for the beings that should be called proper 'dragons'; Mostly large, hulking lizard-like creatures of many different kinds, living in many different enviroments. They are mostly intelligent but lack some of characteristics correspondent only to the 'intelligent' races. Despite this, they're still very powerful, only few would dare to face. For a change, higher dragons are one of the few 'elder' races, that lived for hundreds of centuries before humans firstly appeared and were stated to be the one of the gods 'children'. In fact, they're not that different from human beings at all (posessing very similiar bodies, except for some physical features they can't hide within normal means), and ironically live beetwen normal humans most of the time. They have their own culture, language and beliefs and are mostly known as powerful users of arcane energies and magic, not to mention they can live hundreds, thousands of years; they use their powers mostly to conceal themselves amongst human society; they are still able to morph into an avatar that looks exactly like lower dragon to gain even more strength and power, but avoid that as much as they can because of some of side-effects this has (most of the dragon kind in my realm have been cursed after the great war in the beggining of the world, known as genesis, for betraying the gods; don't be fooled though, it does not mean they're evil creatures ). But because of that, and the fact the 'humans' are the rightful children of gods, there was always a conflict beetwen those two races. Another ironic fact is that while those two races were always conflicted (hence the holy dragon slayers, that kill the evil dragon spawn), high dragons love the human race in their own way and need them, because they can couple only with them. It's the only way to prevent their race from downfall to the half-sentient race of lower dragons.

It's only a small excerpt of writing from the few original fantastic creatures I've adopted for my own fantasy works.

I want to create my own little world with creatures :3 Participate XD

I'd say, although it requires a lot of personal work, it's the best way to go. Don't let your imagination rot, use it and create original things. It isn't bad to overuse some of the cliched fantastic motifs, as long as they'll have different, personal meaning than in other works, but there's nothing more enriching in fantasy than the possibility to interact and dream along with author's imagination - that's the true meaning of fantasy.

[Der Tor]

Phoenix, Centaur and Pegasus. But i still wanna believe that they AREN'T fantasy creatures

[Yukari]

Werewolves!
I loooove Wolves and Werewolves are so cool und mystical.
I also like vampires, but only the evil ones.

[Abeiramar]

I love everyone's answers, there are so many great fantasy creatures out there <3.

My top favorite ones (angels, demons, fairies and mermaids) are all overused though, but I don't care, I still love them . I adore creatures with wings and I always found the sea life fascinating.

I'm surprised vampires ended up to be very popular though, I don't mind them but I think sucking blood is yucky .

[James]

Humanoid creatures are my favorites.

Japan's yuki onna (snow women) or China's Huli jing (fox spirit). They're basically equivalent to mermaids, succubus, and siren. Where they use their charm on guys to bring them to their demise. Seems like there are always a fantasy creature like that in every culture.

[Elenakiara]

Ohoho, yes phoenixes are realllyyyy cool!!!