I had the same trouble when coming up with homebrew worlds. It is easier to see things in a low fantasy POV in the beginning before tacking on the flashier stuff like magic and monsters later.
In my own Low Fantasy homebrewed world of Novus for example, there are no traditional fantasy elements like elves or orcs only humans. The monsters were dinosaurs ( although they weren't called that. They were called dragons, Razormouths ( velociraptors), wyverns ( pterosaurs) etc...).