Currently I'm in the process of rebooting my world, because I've gotten tired of it an want to shake things up a little bit (also the game had to be dropped due to scheduling conflicts, and I might as well do it before another game starts).

Right now I'm borrowing pretty heavily from fantasy tropes. Old dwarven kingdom migrated across the world, goliaths live in tribal communities in the mountains, elves and halflings have a pseudo-Oriental culture. Sure, I'm proud of how distinct I managed to make each culture in the game, but none of it really feels original. Just "defined" I guess.

What I'm looking for, and I'm hoping what the replies to this post will help other people with, is something totally original. The Elder Scrolls is in a universe where stars are just holes in the cosmos to a realm of pure magic and the moons are dead gods. Dark Souls is in a universe where an old fire determines how well humans are doing. Ring World was a book from the 70s that helped inspire the Halo series, and to me had a very distinct feeling that sets it apart from other universes.

But the vast majority of DnD I've been a part of has been "there's a kingdom, it's a medieval time period, you get to run around old cities or towns and explore the land." All of that is totally fine if you like games like that, but I'm looking to really come out of left field with this reboot. I'm also not necessarily looking for handouts. The tools to start thinking about things in a different way would be a great help to not just me, but anyone that happens about this post.