What was the main thing you liked about Xanathar's Guide to Everything, by the way?So yea, great suggestions. I've added both monster books, and Arcanis to my list. Those look like great resources.
Are there good resources around POIs? I've been wanting a good book that has generic places of interest that I can use to populate a city with. Like what Bluffside had (and I use a lot of those, honestly), but something a bit more generic. Like, here's a blacksmith, what he can make, his personality, and plot hooks around the blacksmith, etc. Something like that would be gold - otherwise, I'll go write the dang thing myself.
Do you mean something like this? (It's for Pathfinder, but the fluff would still work for 5E.) https://www.dmsguild.com/product/18834/Magic-Merchants-1-House-of-the-Transformed-Toad
Here are a bunch of shopkeeper NPCs with quests, although it doesn't include descriptions of places: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/270469/Shopkeeper-NPCs
There's a free series of encounters with NPC stats--not so much location-based, but they're free, so you might as well check them out to see if there's anything you can use:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/266699/So-a-Wizards-Apprentice-and-a-Demon-Walk-Into-a-Magic-Shop
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/231101/So-a-Cleric-and-a-Vampire-Walk-into-a-Tavern
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/267575/So-a-Blind-Woman-and-a-Medusa-Walk-Along-the-Road
And here are a couple of free inns/taverns (no stats needed):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/142388/The-Broken-Coin-Inn?cPath=338_10504
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/118775/The-Cozy-Hearth-Inn?cPath=338_10504
I'm sure there's plenty more like this if you poke around a little on Drivethrurpg and the DMs' Guild.