General world

You should read the synopsis in case you haven't, if this confuses you.

The world my stories are based in could be your own, any human would think there is no such thing as magic or magical beings. Long ago magical beings and humanoid races roamed the world freely, unafraid of any possible harm. With the years, the humans quickly multiplied and developed, so most humanoid species stay in deep forests, inside distant mountains, deep down in dark seas or in warm desserts. Few races however still roam among humans, primarily vampires, but it's not too uncommon to find a werewolf off pack grounds, and witches don't shy away from any places on the planet, though they are not too common.

This world has pretty much any mythological humanoid species you can think of, harpys, dwarves, nagas, sirens and many more, but most of these stay far away from any human.

I didn't include angels or demons however, as I didn't want to have a heaven or hell.

Hybrids are extremely uncommon, usually a child will take on the mothers race and only take small aspects from the fathers race; a child of a human mother and a vampire father may have slightly pointier corner teeth than normal humans, but they would still be human. However, if an example like I just took had a child with a male vampire, the child would be vampire, as over 50% of the DNA would be vampire. A human with a harpy father may grow a few feathers on their arms, or one with a mermaid father may grow a few scales on their legs, but the difference isn't too big, and if a half human breeds with a human their child will not have any non human traits.

Gods

The occults of this world have many gods that they pray to, though they usually believe in all of them. The gods are cheeky old beings who like stirring up trouble and general drama for their own enjoyment.

Mates

Creatures have mates, but different kinds blame this phenomenon on different gods and deities. Also, most species have different ways of marking their mates, and know someone is their mates in different ways, as different species have different abilities: an elf can't smell their mates like werewolves do, because their sense of smell isn't much different from a human.

Gifts

A gift is a power that can be given by the gods to any living thinking being(yes, even humans and animals- no, not plants.). About one child in a thousand gets a gift and their use varies widely. Gifts can be passed on for a maximum of five generations and are passed on to about 30% of the children. The gift grows weaker for every generation.

Example:

grandmother: has power to completely change the shape of anything around her.

Mother: can reshape anything around her but only a few things at a time.

Nymeria Ethenn: can change anything on herself and can change things outside her if she tries really hard.

Abel: Can change colors easily and change shapes with some effort

Grandchild: can change colors on hair, eyes, skin et cetera.