Here's an idea.
What if instead of inventing random pseudo-medieval fairy tale made-up nation you make an alternative version of America that has a king instead of a president and the diversity is explained as adventurers coming from far and wide to make epic riches? Y'know, what a child may gather from getting an abridged version of how the US of A came to be in the real world. You get to incorporate Indigenous folklore and maybe make the cultural Nations of America more literal for worldbuilding. Disney already got the Oz books, right? Mix knights with cowboys, maybe even astronauts. That's something they can twist just like the seven little people turning into the seven gendered teens. Dunno, since this stuff is clearly made by mutts for mutts and mutt-like thinking people like the G*rmans, maybe you should stop making up cultures so you don't get labelled a vulture.
Let's try this.
Protag McGee is a goal oriented girly girl with no imagination that dreams of making out of imaginary Great Plains town with an overly descriptive name. She dreams of making it to Crown City to meet with the King of America, a magic man that has the ability to grant any wish that can aid the kingdom at large and the world. She wants to share her father's own dream: for the stories of his peoples to not be forgotten and inspire the new generation. Her upbeat demeanour is tested as she her trip eastward exposes her to the many lives that never got their wish granted: a janitor that never became a rock star, a soldier that never made it home, a ghost town that only needed some water.
By the time she reaches Crown City she is emotionally beaten but moves onward since she has come this far. There she meets a sly beggar that tells her his own wish: to grant everyone's wishes, this moves Protag for how simple yet noble it is. Protag gets to meet with the King and to her surprise the man is exhausted, yet captivated by the monumental task of overseeing the wishes of every person in his ever expanding kingdom, from the simple to the ambitious.
Protag manages to tell him her father's wish and the King is deeply moved as he hails from another forgotten town. With a nod he gives her the opportunity to grant a wish, she has chosen to grant the beggar's wish. One problem, the beggar wasn't exactly upfront about his wish and how he planned to make it happen. Thus, the beggar usurps the King and with the right words and arrangements makes his move to control every wish for his own gain. The King has banished and all the magic that seemed so mundane has gone away.
Protag wanders Crown City to be met by some of the people she met along the way. To them wishes are a distraction, an empty promise that keeps you from acting out, but Protag a cynic herself will need the help of this troop of 'realists' to bring wonder (and the King) back to America. For the Beggar King won't be defeated by wishing him away, but by seizing today and the day after that. Only those that go against the odds have stories worth telling in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Twinkleville, USA (coming to you NEVER).
I demand the realms Protag crosses are based of the Gulf, the Rust Belt, Appalachia and the Ozarks, for the King to have a New England accent and tatanka herds or else I'm fucking suing when this idea gets stolen.
