In the year 2019, the San Francisco Police Department's Paranormal division has hired five people with special abilities to investigate crimes of a superhuman or paranormal nature. It is their job to handle diverse beings such as ghosts, werewolves, and vampires. Although normal society may see them as freaks, it is their duty to handle cases that are too bizarre or extraordinary for most people to handle.
The main characters are Ethan Rothstein, a Super-Soldier; Jenny Menard, a psychologist with mind-reading abilities; Sophie Valquez, a by-the-book wizard; Riku Kwang, a nerdy android; and Amber Peterson, a part-Fae Genki Girl.
Tropes featured in The Paranormals include:
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Illuminati, the Order of Sion, and the Knights of America. They all can't stand each other.
- Ancient Tradition: The American High Wizard Council is devoted to monitoring all uses of magic in the United States.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Many scientists and inventors were known members of the Illuminati. It is said that the Rockefellers and the Kennedys were bred by the Order of Sion.
- City of Adventure
- Cloudcuckoolander: Amber, who takes the Power of Friendship very seriously.
- Church of Happyology: The Reformed Luciferian Church.
- Crossover Cosmology: Occasionally the characters run into depowered beings from different religions.
- Da Chief: Lieutenant Henry Dumont, who's in charge of the Paranormal division.
- Deadpan Snarker: Everyone has a chance at this.
- Demonic Possession: Used frequently, subverted when the main characters encounter a case of angelic possession.
- Fantastic Racism: The baseline humans of San Francisco are mostly prejudiced against paranormal beings in different ways.
- The Fair Folk: Most fairies don't care for humans and see them as ugly and dull.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Super-powered humans, fairies, werewolves, vampires, robots, ghosts, demons, sapient animals, and former gods all co-exist in San Francisco. Both the local and federal government keep a very close eye on all of them for security purposes.
- Fun with Acronyms: ALICE stands for Artificial Living Intelligence Caretaking Entity.
- Fur Against Fang
- Gambit Pileup: The entire history of the world is like this according to Sophie.
- Genius Loci: Riku's surrogate mother is a house controlled by a computer named ALICE.
- The Grim Reaper: Reapers look like normal human beings wearing black cloaks.
- The Greys: The Trow resemble the grey aliens of UFO folklore, although they are said to be related to fairies. Ethan is a veteran of a war against them in 2012.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Ethan's dad was partly created using Grey alien DNA obtained from the Roswell crash.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Many non-humans and most werewolves hold this view.
- Inhumanable Alien Rights: Until a few years ago, non-human sapient rights was considered to be a recent concept.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The detectives see Dumont as a good example of one.
- Ki Manipulation: Ethan was trained in these during his early childhood.
- Lampshade Hanging: Done frequently by the main characters.
- Le Film Artistique: Sophie loves watching bizarre independent films.
- Little Known Facts: Much of what Amber says involve these.
- Lovecraft Lite: There are occasionally attempts by cultists to revive the First Ones, the original inhabitants of Earth. One avatar of these beings attempts to take over San Francisco, but is defeated by a Combined Energy Attack.
- Mad Scientist: Just about everyone in the Illuminati, including Riku Kwang's creator, Dr. Lee-Sam Kwang.
- Magitek: Sophie's laptop can be used to cast spells, but only if a wizard is using it. She also has a gun that can kill demons.
- Medium Blending: Cyberspace is portrayed in CGI. The Dream World is done in traditional animation.
- Mundane Fantastic
- Mob War: Common with vampire and werewolf gangs.
- One-Gender Race: Nymphs usually reproduce through parthenogenesis, although they are compatible with other species.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Pretty much every single fictional type of vampires exists, even the sparkly kind.
- Precursors: The Prometheans are responsible for creating human civilization. Occasionally, their technology is found by modern humans.
- Pineal Weirdness: Wizards' pineal glands give them the ability to sense and use magic.
- The Profiler: This is essentially Jenny's job.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted.
- The Singularity: Pretty much the Illuminati's goal.
- Super Cop: Pretty much all of the main cast.
- Superpowerful Genetics: Magic is a trait usually inherited from the mother and is more common with women.
- Spock Speak: Sophie has a large tendency towards this.
- Start My Own: Most ancient traditions are said to start out that way.
- Team Mom: Jenny is basically the sanest member of the team.
- Techno Wizard: Riku has the ability to find and download into his brain anything on the Internet.
- Theory of Narrative Causality: The main characters are aware of this to some extant.
- Time Abyss: Chandra, a former angel who runs an Indian restaurant, says that he remembers the Troodon civilization of the late Cretaceous.
- Toon Physics: Amber Peterson gained this ability from "watching a lot of cartoon."
- True Companions: The five detectives fill this very well.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: People can connect themselves to the Internet, there is a military base on the Moon, A.I.s can manifest in the real world as holograms, and characters occasionally make reference to the Trow Invasion of 2012.
- Urban Fantasy
- Who You Gonna Call?
- World Half Empty
