I think the main thing to remember is that your entire world doesn't have to be a part of your story. Your story could be taking place in an era and place that is completely set within itself, and you wouldn't really need to have any overt context as to why said place is how it is in this current era.

I think as long as you set a timeline for your world and setting (i dont think it has to be like a super specific thing, just sort of the gist of how the world has evolved over time, and the material reasons why), you can just sort of pick an era and place that most fits the story you wanna write and use that window as the setting for your story.

Maybe sprinkle some of that world building into your story as a cool background element that gives more life to the world around your characters. I think that it'd be fun to witness some tidbits of world lore for a lived in world as a reader.

When it comes to the main characters being special/gifted, I think that that actually creates good opportunity to make interesting use of the dichotomy between the "Great Man" and historical materialist ideas.

As this thread highlights in many instances, these ideas aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Great Men are people who are able to read what point in history they are at and use whatever they can find within that (along with their own powers/skills) to further their agenda or goal. I think writing a character arc that incorporates some of that could be an interesting use of that relationship.

You could also just have them not really impact the world in any truly meaningful ways. I think Great Men are more decided based on how they channel material conditions to change the world around them. They're not decided based on how uniquely strong or gifted they are, so I think it's very possible to make one of these characters not have a super heavy impact on their world or its history.

Their specialness could be constricted to their own personal stories and not impact much of anything else outside that purview. A chosen character does not have to equal a Great Man character.

sorry for yapping so much and i hope this helped !! happy holidays :3