Okie doki
So I’m trying to make a new species for my story and I’m a little stuck. I want the species to not be humanoid at all since that is all is have. So….what are some cool mythological or even conspiracy theory monsters that you find interesting? I’m trying to stay anyway from famous Greek,Roman, Norse or Egyptian related things since I find them overused in fantasy. I doesn’t really matter what works for my story I just want to see some of your opinions
Some lesser known but very cool Mythical creatures can be found in Asian and Australian culture, so I recommend looking at some of those. My personal favorite is the Jiuweihu, a golden or white coated fox with nine tails. It is said to bring good luck, and it's flesh the cure for poison.
I don't typically draw on mythology for inspiration, but if that's your style then yes definitely non-European cultures are a good place to start, as Jay said! If mythology isn't working, though, you can also draw on real life; I'm a particular fan of taking some aquatic traits, combining them with a land animal, and figuring out a reason it would work with the environment it lives in. Like taking, say, a hermit crab's need for a shell, and then sticking that with a ferret, and then saying the ferret needs it for camouflage purposes in its environment (rather than shelter as a crab does.) It's not as handy for making magical species, but if you just need a good old-fashioned monster or in-universe animal, it works pretty well! Hope that helped some.