Best Campaign Settings to Lift From?

[Kyle Davis]

There's lots of old Dungeon magazines with plenty of towns and cities that virtually nobody in your group will ever have heard of.

 

[zztong]

I've mentioned before on here that I am running 4 campaigns. I'm trying to cut down my workload for obvious reasons. I have started creating a setting (being used across all 4 campaigns) and I have a good deal of the meta plot, nation, and factions. What I have trouble with is the population of adventure sites, towns, etc.

Are there any good resources for this, even if I split apart existing campaign settings?

I can't use the Forgotten Realms because some of my players have read them so extensively and can't separate player/character knowledge.

Could you tell us a little bit about your custom setting? For instance, I might recommend Greyhawk and Golarion for pop-fantasy schlock, or historical references for something more realistic. Parts of Forgotten Realms can be used for low-magic even though the fiction for the setting can waste a lot of time on high level character antics and the affairs of the gods.

For instance, I like to use the "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" work by S. John Ross. You can find that work translated into various websites like this...

https://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/