The world of Earthsea from Ursula K. LeGuin’s books. Why?

• the setting’s philosophy is nearly Daoist in its focus on balance over domination;
• although it started (deliberately) with a very patriarchal magic order, over time it was revealed that the “mere witches” the mages looked down upon held the roots of true magic and were instrumental in preserving the world;
• said magic was based on “true names” meaning to hold power over anything at all you had to deeply and profoundly understand it, resulting in a world of scholars and poets and deep observers – a world, in short, of knowledge instead of warriors;
• the world wasn’t white, with the default skin colour being a reddish-brown, if memory serves;
• being a world sort of on the cusp of iron and bronze age technology, but stable (c.f. further above on balance over domination), the world is mostly idyllically coded and the conflict comes mostly from within, instead of the usual fare of huge earth-shattering events that threaten all.