"When asked what separates a creature from an object, the leading scholar on the matter replied 'We're pretty sure it's got something to do with the thing's complexity'."
A compendium of creature types and their races.
Naming Conventions
Many entries refer to where a creature originated from. For these purposes, "originated" refers to where the line of ancestry began. Thus, the children of a Fey from The Feywild who are born on The Material Plane are still considered Fey. They inherit the energies and nature of that plane.
It is possible for a creature to have multiple primary creature types, such as the Celestial-Constructs of Mechanus, or the Fey-Humanoid offspring of a fey and a human. When this occurs, the primary creature types are hyphenated together.
It is also possible for creatures to have a secondary creature type, denoting planar influence involved in their existence, such a Humanoid-[Elemental] (Genasi) who bears enough Elemental energy to occasionally be read as a false-positive Elemental by detection magics, but is otherwise treated as the primary creature type. When this happens, the primary creature type is hyphenated with the secondary creature type, with the secondary creature type in [brackets].
Within creature types, there are families of races, such as a Celestial (Devil), a Humanoid-[Elemental] (Genasi), or a Dragon (Red Dragon), where the family follows the creature type, listed in (parenthesis). A race might also be listed, such as a Celestial (Devil, Chain Devil), or a Humanoid (Goblinoid, Hobgoblin), in which case the race is listed within the parenthesis following the family, separated by a comma. Further specification follows this pattern, such as when a subrace is listed, such as Humanoid-[Fey] (Elf, Drow).
Colloquial Terms
Colloquial creature types, such as Fiends, are not treated as actual, mechanical creature types. Instead, they follow the mechanics of their parent, with mechanics specific to the colloquial creature type potentially being applicable to the parent creature type or to a separate creature type, determined on a case-by-case basis.
Playable races (most of which fall under Fey and Humanoid, should match the most up to date errata of the officially published races, excluding the DnD 2024 content. The only exception is what something has been marked a Homebrew Addition or Homebrew Alteration. I make no promises that every entry is correct. Please verify its content.
Souls
All creatures are considered to have souls, defined simply as a creature's life energies, although these vary wildly in both complexity and permanence. The souls of animated objects, for instance, are temporary creations born out of magic.
Having a soul does not necessarily mean one has free will. Souls are significant for what happens to them after "death". Spell-made souls return to The Weave, turning back into mana. A celestial's soul returns to its home plane, where the celestial is reborn into a new, fully formed form, changed yet retaining much of its past self. Humanoid souls, overseen by No'vel and Reaper, are reborn into children, the soul typically breaking into pieces which combine with other soul shards to create something new. Souls of creatures of the in-between planes fall in between the two extremes of this process.