The neverending story

Background Information

Supernatural is a (very) long-running TV series by the CW. While originally designed as a thriller/horror show, it has since evolved into an action-horror-comedy hybrid (it's essentially its own niche). The series follows the story of Sam and Dean Winchester, a pair of monster-hunting brothers originally on a quest to find their deadbeat father and avenge the death of their mother at the hands of the yellow-eyed demon. They later went on to fight increasingly more serious threats including the bloody apocalypse. In the last couple seasons, they've been pretty much just cleaning their own messes though.

The first 5 seasons of the show, plotted by Erik Kripke as a single unit are considered by plenty to be the "definitive" supernatural.

Naturally, the show kept going afterward due to popularity with some ups and downs (its also more character than story-driven at this point). Its generally still a good watch if you enjoy the characters.

Canonicity

The main canon is the TV show, of course, however, it is important to note that since the show has had three showrunners there are some contradictions and retcons even within the primary canon.

The animated show and the comics are considered secondary canon / alternative stories and do not supersede the original show.

Standing in the Battledome

For a live-action verse, Supernatural (SPN for short) is quite damn powerful. The show doesn't emphasize on raw power much but any mid-tier character and above worth their salt has a plethora of hax, ranging from possession to time manipulation and even reality warping. It also doesn't help that demons and angels are incorporeal in nature, merely using human meat suites as vessels which makes them a pain in the ass to put down.

Top tiers in SPN are legitimate planetary threats and the top dogs of the verse (God, Death and the Darkness) are universal threats.

Most monsters and human characters, however, are just street~wall level, unless you factor in that Sam and Dean have ridiculous jobber auras/plot shields of the kind you generally only see in comics.

Terminology

There are many kinds of supernatural beings in the show, be it ones based in mythology or pop culture.
We can, in general, categorize the most of them into 6 categories: Humans, Monsters, Undead, Celestials, Fey, and Gods.

Humans:
The pinnacle of God's design, humans in SPN are just like you and me, with the exception of a select few that possess supernatural abilities.
These people generally fall into one of two categories: Magic users and Psychics.
As explained by Rowena, magic users, often dubbed Witches (whether male or female) can gain supernatural powers in one of three ways, either being born with natural affinity to magic (like Rowena), studying magic for many years (like the Men of Letters) or making a deal with supernatural forces, mostly demons (like Ruby). Although essentially human, Witches can have access to many hax powers and even become immortal (in the ageless sense).
Psychics, on the other hand, do not use magic and are instead born with their abilities (it's not something you learn). They can be divided into Psychokinetics and Telepaths. Psychokinetic can affect the world with their minds, ranging from moving objects to outright warping reality in the case of, particularly strong ones. Telepaths are more ESP users and can employ scrying and contact the dead (usually dubbed Mediums).

*It's worth noting that some people have become telepaths due to beings infected with demon blood (Azazel's children)

Monsters:
All monsters are descendants of Eve, who is in turn related to the Leviathans, the first beasts. They are in essence mutated humans.
Monsters often feed on humans and, depending on the breed, can either reproduce by mating with each other or humans (like Shapeshifters) or infecting humans (like Vampires) some can do both (Werewolves). There is a multitude of different breeds of monsters, with each one being the offspring of an Alpha monster (who were directly made by Eve). Each breed has unique powers and weaknesses of their own, but a common theme is them being superhumanly strong and resistant to conventional means of injury with much possessing longevity.

When monsters are slain their souls are transported to Purgatory (unlike humans who go to either Heaven or Hell), where they experience an eternity of nonstop combat against their fellow monsters. fun times in the city.

Undead:
Like the name suggests these are humans who have either failed to move on to the afterlife or brought back incomplete.
Undead are either corporeal or incorporeal. The former is your typical animated corpse while the latter is a spirit.
Spirits are the typical form of undead encountered in the show, either as ghosts or demons.

Ghosts are spirits who failed to move on to afterlife for whatever personal reason and are instead stuck in the Veil (the limbo between life and death).
After spending some time there they can eventually become insane, turning into Vengeful spirits who can interact with the living.
Ghosts can have many powers, typically linked to their particular nature, but many have common powers like teleporting, invisibility and telekinesis (some can also possess people). Ghosts also typically haunt a specific place and generate EMP and temperature disturbances in their vicinity.
To get rid of a Ghost you could help her move on or, more commonly, destroy what anchors them to the world, which is typically (but not always) their remains. Salt and iron can be used to repel ghosts, but this is only a temporary fix.

Demons:
An important sub-type of Undead, Demons are, like bobby puts it, "Ghosts with ego".
These are human souls tortured and corrupted in hell for ages until they become malevolent spirits (the inventor of this process is none other than Lucifer himself). They share many characteristics with common ghosts, like the weakness to salt and iron as well as being destroyed with their remains (but good luck finding out a demons human identity...) but also have other unique traits (like a weakness to holy water and the stench of sulfur). 
Unlike ghosts, Demons cannot interact with humans in their true form (that of black smoke) and therefore possess people to do so (which is not a common ability for a ghost). A possessed person is typically superhumanly strong and can't be killed unless the demon possessing it is expelled or destroyed.

Demons are natives of Hell and can be divided into sub-sections based on their eye color (when in a host), which indicates their position and not necessarily strength. The most common type being black-eyed, then there are the red-eyed crossroad demons who are essentially salesmen for souls.
Uncommon types include yellow and white-eyed demons of which there are few and seem to be at the top of the demonic food chain.

Celestials:
Created by God, these are the Angels of Heaven (and their cousins, the Reapers). They are beings of light that transcend time and dimensions.
Their true forms are that of gigantic beings of light and they cannot be perceived by ordinary humans (a human gets its eyes burned out if they look at an Angel). For that reason they typically possess human vessels and act through them (but unlike demons, they require the consent of the host).
There is no known method of becoming an Angel (they were made before humans and unlike monsters and demons are not offshoots of humanity) and they don't seem to reproduce. They are however immortal and very hard to kill due to their nature. They also possess great power far outclassing most demons and monsters. They can all telepathically communicate with each other in what is dubbed "Angel radio".

Angels are native to Heaven and work to maintain it and keep its inhabitants in check. The host of Angels used to be organized in a militaristic fashion with a strict hierarchy, but they seem to have adapted some form of "democracy" as of late.

There are several ranks of Angels:

- Cherubs; also known as Cupids are considered third-class Angels. They have limited powers compared with their brothers and their primary task is matchmaking between humans according to Heaven's design.

- Angels; the bulk of the host. These are your typical Angels seen throughout the series with much more power and responsibility than Cherubs.
They fill various roles in Heaven with some being warriors and others being bureaucrats.

- Seraphim; high ranking Angels that used to run the various divisions of Heaven. not many of them are known with Zachariah being one and Castiel being elevated to this rank as well. They have more power than your regular Angel but not nearly as much as an Archangel. as it stands Castiel is possibly the only seraph remaining after the two angelic civil wars.

- Archangels; primordial being of light, there are only four of these made by God in the dawn of creation: Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, and Raphael.
As a matter of fact, the entire Angel race was modeled after them and they possess awesome power dwarfing that of their brothers (an archangel to an angel is what an angel is to a human basically). Currently, the only active one is Lucifer, with Michael being stuck in the cage and Gabriel and Raphael being dead.

- Reapers; these are sort of cousins of Angels, with many similar powers and weaknesses except that Reapers serve Death and not God.
They are also not native to any realm but rather travel between realms guiding souls to their afterlife.
Their skillset makes rouge Reapers excellent trackers and smugglers.

*Other special classes among Angels also exists such as the Rit-Zien (medic angels), and Grigori (elite warriors have gone rogue)

It is important to note that the host of heaven has been greatly diminished in later seasons both in numbers and might due to a number of events including an angelic civil war between Raphael and Castiel that saw many angels die.
More recently the Angel Metatron used a spell to expel all Angels from Heaven, causing them to lose their wings and with them their ability to teleport and time travel. The fall also resulted in a second civil war and while the Angels eventually returned to Heaven there are not many left and they have not recovered their wings.

Fey:
Not much is known about these creatures due to only appearing in a handful of episodes.
They hail from a dimension called Avalon which might be ruled by the legendary Oberon and Titania, monarchs of the faries.
It is known that they command magic and sometimes kidnap humans to serve them in Avalon (only someone who has been there can perceive their true form). Also, there is no such thing as Aliens, its Fairies.

Gods:
Often dubbed 'Pagan Gods' to distinguish them from the Judeo-Christian God these are supernatural creatures of unknown origin that are the basis for the various mythologies and religions of the ancient world. God draws power from human worship and sacrifices, so while in the old days they were the masters of the planet, nowadays with little to no worship they are nothing more than particularly tough monsters. 

Supporters of the Series

• Deer Lord
• Fang
• Tranquil Fury

OBD Profiles

Character Profiles

Team Winchesters

Bobby	Castiel	Charlie	Cole	Dean	Ellen
Garth	Jack	Jo	John	Kevin	Sam

Demons / Ghosts

Abaddon	Alastair	Asmodeus	Astaroth	Azazel	Cain
Crowley	Dagon	Jesse	Lilith	Meg	Ramiel
Ruby	Samhain	7 Deadly Sins	Van Ness

Angels / Reapers

Anna	Balthazar	Bartholomew	Billie	Ephraim	Gadreel
Hannah	Malachai	Metatron	Naomi	Samandriel	Tamiel
Tessa	Uriel	Zachariah

Archangels

Gabriel	Lucifer	Michael	Raphael

Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Death	Famine	Pestilence	War

Monsters

Alpha Shifter	Alpha Vampire	Benny	Dick Roman	Dragons	Edgar
Eve	Phoenix

Pagan Gods

Artemis	Atropos	Chronos	Kali	Mercury	Osiris
Prometheus	Veritas	Vesta	Yokoth/Glythur	Zeus

Primordial Entities

Amara	God

Miscellaneous

Don Stark	Fred Jones	Jake Tallly	Maggie Stark	Rowena	The Wicked Witch

Weapon Profiles

Angel Blade	Book of the D.	The Colt	Death's Scythe	The First Blade	Hands of God
Lot's Salt	Mjolnir	Rabbit's Foot	Ruby's Knife	Staff of Moses	Words of God

The Goddamn Impala

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