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I'm working on a ruined city that used to be the capital of an empire of mages that ruled the world, before hard-crashing a few hundred years before the game starts.
The idea is that the buildings are largely sustained by magic, but nature (it's in a giant swamp/jungle) has largely reclaimed it, despite the towers still standing. Flooded streets, vines wrapped around walls, and beasts living throughout.
Its filled with monsters and creatures that were either created by the ancient mages, mutated by centuries of magical toxic waste, or adapted after the fall.
Among other ideas, I thought certain parts of the city would be more strongly affected by certain schools of magic (similar to the runeforge in Rise of the Runelords, only less intentional in-universe). This would mostly be seen in the flora and fauna. I haven't decided to what extent these will be templates added to existing animals and magical beasts, and how many completely new monsters I'll add.
Here are ideas I have so far:
Abjuration: Higher defenses would be the obvious thing, but it's a bit boring. Possibly adaptive defenses, where they gain energy resistance to whatever type of energy they've last taken damage from? I thought about some sort of ablative armor, but that seems like it would be annoying to keep track of on multiple enemies in a fight.
Conjuration: Teleportation could be a fun effect. Possibly done as a move action, allowing them to avoid attacks of opportunity and difficult terrain.
Divination: I've got some ideas, but I'm not sure how "fun" they are. Enhanced senses are the most obvious, but those are largely static, boring abilities. I thought of maybe a creature that can see the future a bit and automatically avoid one attack per round, or possibly let a creature take 10 on attacks. However, I'm not sure how much fun those will be in play.
Enchantment: This has a lot of potential for fun hypnosis/charm effects. A giant spider that convinces you to lay down on its web, or a harmless little squirrel that charms you into becoming its bodyguard.
Evocation: The obvious choice here would be elemental attacks or qualities. However, I'm struggling to think of anything that really pops. Elemental creatures are already very common in Pathfinder.
Illusion: I'm thinking things like illusionary terrain and traps that force the party to take it slow as they explore. Maybe even lots of harmless creatures that are permanently invisible. The wizard casts See Invisibility and finds hundreds of tiny creatures casually walking along, completely unafraid. I like things that aren't necessarily threats, but are cool bits of setting.
Necromancy: Living undead. That is, living creatures that have many of the qualities of the undead. They're affected by negative and positive energy in whichever way is most advantageous to them. That's only really going to matter if someone tries to channel, though, so some other features: Negative energy attacks. Ability to create skeletons from their prey (after they've stripped the bones). Ignored by mindless undead.
Transmutation: I was thinking some sort of shifting of stats. Maybe something that can grow a big heavy shell for greater AC, or lose it to gain improved mobility and a bonus to attacks. Maybe something that can change its movement types. Something that can inflict transformations like that could be fun as well.
Other monsters I have in mind: dwarf versions of existing monsters, like sewer-running purple worms. Hybrid creatures like owlbears, experiments that have bred true. A creature with an extradimensional stomach that can use swallow whole on creatures bigger than it.
Those are the ideas I have so far. It's all still very loose, so I'm very open to ideas.
Good ideas. You could also look at templates that give +0 to +1 CR adjustments (Celectial, Fiendish, Advanced, etc.) and build many parts of your templates from the pre-existing ones, or at least use them as guides lines. If you really want to dig into this, you could have creatures with your templates fight creatures with officially accepted templates in simulations to see if they are balanced.
A few suggestions.
Abjuration: Steal beneficial magical effects/disrupt magic.
Evocation: Instead of elemental you could have force based attacks/defences.
Divination: A difficult one as it's benefits would be internal to the mechanics of the creature e.g. initiative bonus and invisible to the players which is a waste of the concept. Hallucinogenic fungus with spores that cause visions/a sense of the future? Other creatures seek out the spores to help with finding prey, a mate, avoiding predators and other dangers which then spread the fungus.
Ooh, I like that. Prophet sickness.
Dodge bonus could also work for Divination.
For another divination idea, I'm thinking a monster that can pick one creature against which they get a dodge and attack bonus. Move action to switch so that the creature has to give up its full attack in order to change from one enemy to another.