Thanks to such stories such as re:monster and Oblivion online and other reborn as a monster or such style stories monsters have come to light as a dynamic character besides something to kill or advance the plot or cause character development. And as such, I wanna bring to light other creatures that may be interesting as a concept character and their abilities.

Taking from machiavillain, you got your zombie. I can understand why you wouldn't want it, and why it may be bad for something like a vr game story, cause in theory you would have to transmit the feeling of having a rotting body. Yeah, that can be an issue. But what about skeletons? I mean that would be interesting? It kinda depends, we going for a wolverine style regenerating bone skeleton so they can throw their bones? I mean that would not work well in Oblivion online either I bet.

But another creature... The mummy, technically in real life a mummy has some organs missing, but otherwise is a full body. So in a story, what's to say that magic isn't involved? Suddenly it's a phylactery for these organs, magically ingested items are transferred to the organ, (dried as it may be) and it will still perform it's purpose. Likely through more magic. Obviously this sets it as a very magically induced creature. But what if you want a brute mummy? Simple, you give it a Mana imbuement/manipulation skill if it's a litrpg and suddenly it's whipping out it's bandages like crazy, toss in some tailoring and it can make all kinds of "bandages" and maybe you can start making nonfavric bandages. Make a metal ribbon mummy, why not? It could be quite amazing. And you could have any number of ways to change it into some badass bandage whipper.

"Bathed in a bath of molten mithril, the pain was second only to having his brains pulled out his nose and his mouth sewn shut, thankfully he had tightened his lipstrings before the bath or this may have gone poory, and loudly, searing his withered flesh, the mithril soaked into the bandages, imbuing it's mythical strength into the very fibers of Mum-breh's bandages and being. Hours after the pain turned to a dull ache, he surfaced once more, a chrome wrapping of ribbons with glowing yellow eyes speaking of ancient hatred rising from the molten mythril, a core pupil of silver shining forth from their wizened depths"

Imagine how badass that could be. I mean I'm partial to clockwork golemancy myself, but a mummy that shifts his bandages to make himself look like a big, bad, motherfucker made of silver and asskicking would be pretty cool. Not my style though. But it IS an idea.

Other creatures, I mean, like I said I enjoy clockwork creatures. Think of it like this, you see a single lizard man made of metal, but in reaaaality, he's a clockwork draconian, and he has shifted all his spikes into a nice scalemail motif to LOOK like a lesser creature. And inside, you look down it's gullet, and you see the depths of hell itself, glowing molten red light shines up the throat, shining the burnished enchanted brass of the throat just before magical fire boils out of the clockworks mouth, engulfing you in a blaze of Mana empowered flamethrower.

It's not just a clockwork creature, it's a fucking magical transformer. Forearms? What use is this when a mechanical golem has no muscles? THATS SPACE FOR WEAPONS. Pull out an auto crossbow, an actual bow, the thigh pulls out a quicker of metal arrows.

There is a lot you can do with "artificial" races.

Lich would be interesting. I do question why it has to have a nonliving phylactery. I mean, what happens if a dragon rider turns lich? Like, he had a deep and trusting relationship with his black dragon, dragon dies, he loses his mind, he uses necromancy and through real and error brings the twisted soul of his dragon back and imbues the corpse, then he turns it into his phylactery so you have to grind every last bone to powder to truly finish off the lichlord dragonrider! But maybe that's the very reason why. Alternatively, use some bone sculpting and hide the phylactery along the backside of the breastbone of the dead dragon. Or inside the skull if possible.

Other creatures of a typically nefarious nature...

Nobody seems to do dark elves, but when the entire race is said to be either dark mages, necromancers, or assassin's, I get it. Dealing with a backstabbing character and trying to attempt the level of scheming as a drow? Hell no. I resign. It's not worth it.

Can't really do a chimaera, that might be too difficult. Multiple minds? Ehhhhh that is a lot of effort.

Perhaps a mindflayer? I mean, if you master illusion magic who is to say you aren't a human? Or elf. You're still too tall to be a dwarf. But arguably with tentacle hands it might mean you have more limbs. Although it proooooobably has a predisposition for people assuming a lewd story.

You don't see much in stuff like lycans though. Or even hybrid races of monsters. There are no horned lycans, there are no driderlycan. You can come up with all sorts of weird ways this goes. It could be a werewolf with like... Doc Ock legs on the back, and they can just fold up and hide along the back. Or be deadly ass spikes. Or it could actually be spider under the waist and be terrifying.

You never hear a story about a harpy. "THE ONLY MALE HARPY" Turns out male harpies have actual arms or something and look kinda like a rito from breath of the wild, but with a human face. Mistaken as angels or something weird.

You never have a naga hero. Hell even a naga-kobold hybrid would be interesting. Big ass fangs and spits poison, has flaps like a cobra! Speaks a snake language. Can be mistaken as a lizard man. Not a lot on some sort of hydra hybrid.

You don't hear of headless horsemen types, possessed items often, or even ghosts. Could be possible to have some sort of half ethereal creature in some aspect. Ohhhh you don't hear about wraiths! I'm talking the tattered robe wearing ghost weilding a scythe and wearing a terrifying mask kinda wraith. Bony arms and taut skin, clammy, pale looking death waltzing through the air kinda motherfucker.

Part of me wants to talk about stuff from randidly ghosthound, or that other one with the harbinger and the system is called schema and whatnot, but the world's have no established predecessor, it's a forerunner type of world. Like the first ever videogame in a way. The world's are full of potential, but without having a parallel world and being able to see the various discrepancies it's difficult to say how you can abuse it and make it even more amazing. Not that they aren't pretty amazing already, but when you find something as cool as a fantasy world you wanna be the most badass thing possible.

I mean, if I had full range and such, I'd want a clockwork golem, but then you go and you cover it in enchantments, make it an enchanter, toss in Mana manipulation, mage, and that's just the profession tropes it falls under. Toss in a body that looks like a draconian, but to throw everything off the rails, add hunter, tailor, and then you cover it with treated furs and attach these furs to make it look like a completely new creature. And it has wings, granted covering those with a proper material would be hard, so I suppose you could just say a mad scientist created you, not entirely wrong, and put clockwork gear and fused it to your flesh, which is also a misnomer since you fused your metal to flesh.

It would be interesting but it's immediately op. Having activateable enchantments, the ability to fly, durability of metal, interchangeable parts, spell casting? Bah, you'd have to be stuck in a hallway to keep from having nigh invulnerable mobility and ranged attacking.

You don't hear about shapeshifters either. Those already sound op, but I'm sure it could be a buildup character. Or Medusa but that seems to have all sorts of issues.

Monsters have a lot of potential and not enough stories truly utilize them. You can take any of these and go ham, but to truly bring them out you need a complimentary fantasy world system.

But I hope you see monsters are more than just walking loot. Sometimes they are more interesting than your run of the mill hero with a "tragic" backstory.