Are monsters inherently malicious to humans? Are they “unnatural” in some way (undead, extradimensional etc)? Or are monsters just more dangerous and powerful animals?
Are monsters inherently malicious to humans? Are they “unnatural” in some way (undead, extradimensional etc)? Or are monsters just more dangerous and powerful animals?
I think it depends a lot on the nature of your world. In most of our myths, monsters are a product of some breach of the ‘natural order’ for instance, I don’t believe a centaur is ever described as a monster, though they are often depicted as a menace. The Minotaur on the other hand was a punishment devised by the gods, and I think could be considered a monster.
If you don’t want this system you could simply state the monsters are an especially dangerous type of animal, and could include, say, a specific dangerous wolf as a warg while generally excluding wolves that keep to themselves.
What is and what isn’t a monster can be (probably should be) culturally defined unless you really need something to only interact with monsters, like Pokémon, or D&D’s distinction between charm person and charm monster.