All this is broad strokes stuff. for individual characters, things are more flexible.
Spoiler: Species
Show
-orcs are not evil, just a race of beings that evolved in the most harshest possible environments in the world, being incredibly resistant to disease and poison, possessing regeneration, super strength and being 8 ft tall. They actually have two ways to reproduce: either the normal reproductive methods or by implanting the corpses of their fallen foes with parasites that feed upon the corpse to grow into a new orc, and thus reproduce through both love and war. They constantly fight monsters for survival. However it is rare to see an orc wield anything more complex than a club or their own fists, this doesn't mean they're stupid but given their strength and greater physique its harder to design armor and weapons for them, but orcs don't really need such most of the time given their power.
-go real old school with elves and dwarves, cold iron weakness, salt and needing to tell the truth when asked three times, the whole works to make them Fae/Fair Folk with mystical Fae powers and such rather than just another kind of human. the normal kinds of these you might be used to are the half-elves and half-dwarves, and even then have Fae themes to them due to their half heritage, that and Changelings of course.
-shadowfolk who dwell in a world of shadow, not evil, and burn to death when exposed to sunlight, look like silhouettes with eyes and can reshape themselves to whatever form they want as long are not within sunlight. they can shield themselves from the sun by wearing covering up clothes or armor or hiding inside a building, or within the shadow of something else.
-Gorgons are cursed by the spirit of beauty out of jealousy of their appearances so that all who look into their eyes get turned to stone. They live on an island isolated from the rest of the continent to protect everyone else and many use stone magic, often using it to animate statues both of petrified intruders and carved to defend themselves, and use blindfolds when they go on the main land and their eyes of their snakes to see around when traveling.
-Some Harpies rule kingdoms in the mountains and use song magic to lure people into traps. They let the winds carry their songs far and wide and they live in houses built far from the ground, their kingdom is isolated and they think little of ground-bound races, being more concerned about Sylphs and Stormling Nomads, but Duergar give them trouble more than they like to admit.
-Merfolk dwell in the sea, having lower fish halves but also scales all over their body. Given the nature of water, they cannot read or write and store information in other ways using magic rituals to make Memory Pearls that store vast amounts of information and use spears as their primary weapon. They think of the surface dwellers as exotic and are curious about it to a degree, but find themselves stifled by their lack of legs and find going on land dangerous as a result of moving too slow, and thus those venture out are the creative, but methods to gain legs still give away their merfolk nature, often give in them scaled legs with webbed feet.
-hybrids in general should have some measure of significance beyond appearance, offering weaknesses and strengths they don't normally have and the results should be more mystical and supernatural than genetic.
-demons are still inherently evil but there are no succubi among them, with a focus on them being incredibly varied as non-guilty enemies to fight.
Spoiler: Religion and the Spiritual Realms
Show
-I'm thinking Heaven should be a single city in the Spiritual Realms, this city has incredibly high standards and you need to be at minimum a saint to get in, no not just Good, a SAINT AT MINIMUM. to the point where a vast majority of people have been turned away by angels to go live their afterlives in other places of the Spiritual Realms with their own problems and spirits and strange rules, with the afterlife being a strange adventure all of its own
-religions like a goddess of love who smiles on couples of all types and pairings no matter their orientation and her servants are good versions of succubi who are kind and caring to all. another is a god of shadows who preaches freedom and independence and thus their followers are constantly persecuted by other religions and kings for being a threat to the status quo, only one religion of light aiming to get into Heaven, animist and polytheist religions that are NOT henotheist and so on....
The religions I'm personally thinking of putting in:
The Worshipers Of Heaven:
Your usual popular religion worshiping light and virtue, it is said that it was was made when a mortal created the first city long ago and invented civilization while decrying all beasts and nature, becoming king and ascending to become the King of Heaven when he built the Heavenly City as well in his death, shunning the spirits of the natural Spiritual Realms as ones of nature who allows bestial savagery. Since Heaven has incredibly high standards to get in with only saints or above being allowed, this religion is forced by the beings they worship to hold everyone to those standards and try to correct their every mistake in some manner whether through forgiveness or justice, as well as constantly worrying about themselves not living up to those standards. Thus their High Priest is forced to have a sterling, sparkling clean reputation in order to get their position. The King of Heaven just as he disliked not having a single drop of barbarism or savagery in his city in life, does not tolerate a single drop of sin in his Heavenly City as a god.
Unfortunately this religion cares more about abstract morality than peoples feelings, more about unity of civilization and law than the unity of families and lovers. Their efforts of the mortal world are focused on keeping civilization stable and following the King of Heaven's celestial designs. Unfortunately the honest believers can be both good and bad, while there are dishonest priests who use the religion as nothing more than to gain power for themselves. The Angels do nothing about this- all are judged by the Angels at the gates of Heaven when life has ended, so they no need to judge and punish anyone early.
The Temple of Nalania:
This religion was formed when a kind woman named Nalania walked throughout the land preaching kindness and compassion, so much so that when she died, the Angels automatically opened the gates for her, her compassion so great that they could do nothing else. In response, Nalania rejected them and Heaven, unable to accept their harsh judgement of all things. She turned away from Heaven with the Angels disbelieving and made her own realm, not perfect but as a goddess it was the best she could do, and made the Succubi to her own servants of love and compassion to all.
Her worshipers thus strive to show compassion, bringing in outcasts of all kinds to shelter them in their temples and try to solve their problems and teach them to be stronger. They accept all forms of consensual love. While they mean well, don't have the ridiculous standards of the Worshipers of Heaven, some can be naive at times and let down their guard for liars who are good at tricking the compassionate. Nevertheless, the Worshipers of Nalania hold no tolerance for those inflict suffering on others. Kind they may be, but try to harm any innocent or victim and they will hold nothing back against those who dare.
The Cult of Jamar
In life, Jamar was a scoundrel who sought to create a revolution, to overthrow kings and nobles and put in a new system of true justice decided by the people, believing that freedom is justice, that the two concepts are inherently linked. However he failed and was beheaded while he shouted "Seek Justice in Liberty, my followers! Seek a world where your not bound by birth or destiny in the shadows!" making him a martyr. Now cults worship him in the shadows, many of them assassins and thieves led by elected small councils who hand out their take of the money evenly, or barbarian tribes that most civilization looks down upon for their strange barbaric chaotic ways, or pirates on ships. The Cult seeks to bring a universal justice to all, one not bound by a lordship, a crown or a religion. Many of them use Soul Chain magic, spells formed by the chains that were broken from their bindings to fate when they undergo a ritual of Jamar and now re-purposed to allow them greater freedom.
It is notable that this Cult does not have a uniform appearance or method. Jamar is a paradoxical shadow being, wanting both freedom and justice but also a universal unity that nevertheless focuses on individuality and diversity. The only indication of people being a follower often is the symbol of Jamar: a crow taking flight, which some wear as tattoo or has a amulet on, or draws on a wall or any number of creative methods, with prayer being simple, silent and towards the nearest Crow of Jamar. Furthermore Jamar actually has many names such as Jannara, Dark Crow, Vakal, He-Who-Creeps, Hidden Sword, Teruki, and many others, and just as many forms, and while he was male in life his forms are many and his gender identity is just as a fluid.
Spoiler: Skills
Show
Mages:
-I'd say most mages learn one school of magic at maximum. pyromancers wield fire, illusionists use illusions, truth mages wield truth magic, alchemists use alchemy, enchanters make magic items, and so on so forth- one mage one magic. you have to pick one magical thing to do, stick with it and use it creatively, whatever it is specialize and make the best of it. that specialization can be whatever you want, as long as its an actual specialization and the possibilities are many and varied. also magic isn't inherently tied to scholarly pursuits, its more a thing of a thing of spirit than knowledge, through scholars do study magic to try and figure it out but they are far from the only people who use it, and a magic-using warrior is more likely to be better at fighting with magic than a person who just uses pure magic. and of course cast at will
The Academy of Candles
One of the very few secular learning centers in the entire world, this academy of pyromancers that teach discipline and control over flame. They believe in the light of knowledge and reason, but also restraint so that their flame doesn't burn everything around them. To them the flame embodies both the potential for something far greater and better but also the danger of it all going out of control. They wield power carefully, trying to find a balance between action and thought. Emotional pyromancers who get angry and allow their flame to go out of control are punished harshly. The academy was started by the First Pyromancer, Prometheus. They use fire as flexibly as possible, using hearths and flames as scrying windows, mastering flame to the point where they can cook anything with their magic, forging and reforging things as they like, using rituals to make their books immune to flame, and other feats of creative fire use to its full potential.
Fighters
-at the same time pure fighters can train them selves to great heights of strength and fighting skill beyond real life capabilities, wield massive weapons and weird weapons as well as heavy armor made of metals that most people can't even walk in. they are not inherently worse than a magic users, which are more limited than god-wizards.
Thieves Guilds:
the problem with thieves is that they're low-powered and thus kind of rubbish against super-powerful warriors, magical wizards, dragons, angels, demons and everything else in the entire freaking universe. So how do we fix that? How does your cynical soundrel compete with all these supernatural stuff that would normally kill them six ways to sunday? well first they probably have to be smart, knives are for slitting throats of humans just as fragile you and good for hiding on your person, bows are for sniping magical and powerful things from afar, with special arrows designed to pierce their magical defenses, maces for shattering stuff swords and such can't, and a thieves guild is probably just as magically varied as anywhere else, its just that the methods of using magic are different: a thief with fire magic has probably learned a spell to to make fire leap out of a candle without anyone being able to tell the rogue did it for assassinations and distractions, they can probably turn to smoke to pass through cracks and bars.
that and there are probably multiple thieves guilds but not all with the same name and the same methods competing against each other, with the Thieves Guild itself being a general most mercantile thing accepting any advantage and method, a religious one that probably worships a god that allows them powers like turning invisible making objects they want to steal float over to them, night vision and so on, a third that might be more a mafia of werewolves or something, and no one just doesn't want to mess of a mafia of werewolves, and I can see vampires being a known thieves guild as well but I can also see them being the nobles of a particular kingdom who use their vampiric powers to defend against even greater monsters while sucking blood as a tax, perhaps the vampire thieves guild is connected to the kingdom? of course some vampires are just dirty bandits on the road with a few zombies in their control shaking people down for blood rather than money.
Magic Limitations:
basically the lowest possible bar for what I consider high-powered is "can destroy a city in a single ultimate attack" so my idea for that, is for this setting to make it so that any spell that can destroy a city or above requires a big ritual and lots of preparation, like just tons of it, hours at least. anything below city destruction is the PC power level. anything above city destruction is the power level of various complicated rituals that can be easily disrupted, powerful villains and the mysterious workings of gods. there is a lot of cool powers and cool fights that can happen below city destruction level.
Necromancy:
undead are like just corpse robots people use, some use them as convenient replacement for slave labor and some people send hordes of poorly designed zombies, some lord design high quality undead bodyguards or soldiers for their army, some take the corpse of a genius and make special rituals to create a super-genius spirit within that corpse to try and calculate big numbers or something and oh no why is this undead super spirit rebelling against you and how are they figuring out all this magic so quickly aaaaaaah this magic ritual went horribly wrooooong.
and some might just be frankensteins monster who some guy made with feelings and an actual sapient mind for some reason trying to figure out its existence straight of Promethean: the Created.
perhaps its all just down to how you design them. perhaps some necromancers do the limb replacement thing and your a necrorg if you lose an arm, instead of a cyborg. as for ghosts, they generally just stick around for probably the usual reasons and I don't see any reason fix what ain't broke about ghosts. their reasons for being ghosts and what they do seems pretty obvious.
but of course, people are superstitious and wary of the dangers of anyone wielding magic, so just because something is useful doesn't mean people accept necromancers giving them new arms. that and any magic is dangerous in the wrong hands. thats just the nature of power. too widespread and it becomes sci-fi y'know?
point is, I think necromancy even if its not inherently evil, should still be dangerous and potentially lead to someone using it in evil ways. like all magic. there have probably been wars around where undead troops were just unleashed on the battlefield and never really stopped marching around and attacking people. just like how there are probably pyromancers leading packs of bandits to get any loot they want, or former knights enhanced by enchantments now turned bandit because the war they were fighting is over and that is all they know. common people have good reason to hold onto their cold iron and silver weapons. fantasy is dangerous! medieval society is dangerous without needing outside threats, because medieval society is actually pretty fragile at best and pretty chaotic and unstable at all other times. and fantasy is giving medieval society magical stuff that screw up the balance of power something fierce. and so on and so forth
Beast Knights
beast knights have the ability to transform into a giant mythical beast partially or fully depending on the situation, drawing upon primal magic to do so, while powerful to fight off threats to civilization, civilization itself hates them for being beasts in humanoid skin. they can partially transform for situations like fighting indoors so that they don't destroy buildings.
there are however people that use the magic for other uses. While most people mistakenly refer to all people who can transform into a single form as a Beast Knight, Morph Assassins are different in that they often take the form of humanoid or smaller forms to sneak up on people and kill them, and is often used for killing someone in one identity, running away, transforming out of sight then slinking off with no one the wiser in their other identity. Beast Knights themselves dislike it when you confuse the two.
There is no alignment and no god-wizards/vancian casting.
