Oh man, i know the feeling you must be having.
Alright, to find some harmless animals to brutally dismember and torture for the purpose of training skills, i recommend you travel a little bit from a town, go into sneaking mode(Shift + S) And just walk around until you find a bird or something. You can find a bunch of crabs if you can find a beach.
And shops, the way this works is, there are hamlets, and there are towns/cities. hamlets never have shops. Towns/Cities almost always have temples, shops, and a keep you can rob for free with no bad side effects.
Sadly, there are no staves in the game, but im sure there is/will be eventually be a mod that includes them.
But yeah, to find creatures, go into sneak mode, and just wander around.
And a quick word of advice, whenever you aren't fast traveling, you should be sneaking, you ALWAYS want to be the first one to see the other person, and this will stop you from randomly taking a bolt in the knee out of no where unless you bump right into a bowman.
Whatever you do, DO NOT ATTACK A STRAY CAT OR DOG. Just don't, you know how on Legend of Zelda games if you hit a chicken too many times a few hundred chickens come out of nowhere and rape your face? Well, that will happen in this game, just, there will be dogs, turkeys, peacocks, people, and etc. chasing you looking for your head on a pike.
But yeah, thats all the tips i really have for you, good luck in your adventures.