My Campaign: 5e Realms, but not?

[Lord Kristivas]

I'm planning a 5e campaign that's set in Forgotten Realms (because it's the easiest for me to use right now), but I want to get away from standard Faerun. The story goes that -insert King/faction/whatever- tasks a Lord with building a main road from a large, distant and exotic city through some dangerous lands, to the port they've built. This will open a new and profitable trade route.

The PCs will be working as the "Constables" (still not too sure about that title, but it'll do for now) for the Lord. Like his Special Forces Task Force. The campaign will be centered on this town. The PCs will help determine where city funds will go. For example: "Workers along the road are being attacked by Gnoll warbands determined to halt our progress. A well-placed Guard Tower could put reinforcements in that area, and they would be able to conduct regular patrols once the road is finished. However, a Mountain Dwarf clan has agreed to trade or sell us ore at a generous price, but only if we fund the construction of a much-needed Trading Post in one of their settlements. Obviously, we cannot afford both at this time."

Choices like that will determine a lot of things in the story. If those Gnolls are ignored for too long, the workers will suffer so many losses that they'll quit. If they don't make nice with the Dwarves, they could lose the opportunity for a powerful ally.

So, my questions are along the lines of...
1. Where's a good spot on Toril for something like this? Not a lot of lore already known, so I can just add my own thing.
2. Are there any maps for the lesser-known, lesser-used areas that I'm describing? I can come up with fantasy names and storylines all day long, but an artist I am not. :(

And finally, if this seems interesting to you and you have some ideas, toss them out there! I'm just getting started on fleshing out the locations and NPCs of the town, while writing the overall storyline of the area. Another guy in the group just finished HotDQ and we're going to do Rise of Tiamat before my game starts, so I have a little time.

[JAL_1138]

Probably the easiest thing to do is call it an alternate universe and do what you like. Steal maps from everywhere, even Pathfinder adventure paths or map packs, and plunk the relevant bits and pieces down wherever it's convenient for you. Old 2nd edition setting supplements (and there were a boatload for FR) abound on ebay and WotC has several available as pdfs, some of them have great maps. 4e had some ok map tile packs you can grab and stick together however you need for dungeons or other combat fields. Old BECMI stuff had some nifty maps, too. Keep in mind none of these are "full-size use them as-is for battlemats" size except the 4e tile packs. Don't worry about your art skills; it doesn't need to look like the fancy maps in the books. I can barely draw stick figures but I can still do a useable map with graph paper.

[Callin]

Use the trade road going from the Oriental area to Faerun (man I have a massive brainfart and cant remember the exact area name). Unnapprochable East thats it! Grab that book and see if it helps.

[Lord Kristivas]

Use the trade road going from the Oriental area to Faerun (man I have a massive brainfart and cant remember the exact area name). Unnapprochable East thats it! Grab that book and see if it helps.

I'd considered that, but it doesn't work for me because I want an ocean between the expedition and the "known world". If things go badly, I want there to be no escape (at least until they're high enough level for teleporting, etc). Few allies. No hope of FR's regular super characters popping in. I want this settlement to rise or fall based solely on the decisions and actions of the party.

I'm thinking of using the Osse continent, and imposing a little alternate reality on it, as JAL_1138 suggested. It was originally based on Aboriginal Australia (which isn't my thing, or what I'm going for here). Maps set after the spellplague for anything outside of Faerun are pretty hard to find, even with my Google-fu training, sadly.