(i’m not at all familiar with books so i’m gonna use games which you’ve probably never heard of for reference)
by “ungeneric,” i mean shying away from direct real-world parallels (not just european fantasy, but chinese as well. god knows i’ve had enough wuxia for several lifetimes over), being more nebulous in terms of influence (vaguely eastern **Book of Travels**) or just picking and choosing from all over the place (**The Pale Beyond**’s “what if the HMS Erebus was also a Norse longship?”). an “unconventional” source of inspiration like the bronze age for Proto-Indo-European-esque Six Ages is also really fun.
and as for worldbuilding, i mean more how the world works and how mundane life is like for normal folk (**Roadwarden**, for example). Like, i would like to get lost in endless wikipedia pages about the world, not as in the thousand-year histories of its kings, queens, wars, or big philosophical stuff, but more just being a guest in a different culture. with inane details like how folks clean themselves, at what time do they have their meals, what’s the weirdly racist hitch to this otherwise really nice and well-meaning person, etc.
by Maid-in-a-Mirror