I used this lovely little hex map maker: https://noerskov.net/#/hexgen and changed the colours a bit then pulled three random magic cards using https://scryfall.com/ to get ideas to stock each "hex". Here are the results for half the map so far!
1. Efuge, A town of white marbled, onion domed temples, and
spindly look out towers. The drab robed humans here worship the gatherment of
secrets and information and burn documents as sacrifice to a ghostly queen who
haunts the lake to the East. The people here know much but are loath to share
it, they are also very skilled in climbing and spying.
2. Golden twinkling sand dunes, pierced by ancient ebony obelisks.
A forest of dead and dying brown shrubs is in the North West. Lurid, snake skinned
goblins wearing leering masks hunt travellers with daggers here. The goblins
hunt in pairs, are long of fang and are semi vampiric.
3. A salt encrusted, filthy and refuse filled lake. Spines
of some calcific white mineral spike up across the filthy shore and shallows. Many
ragged, roped offerings of coins and trinkets have been hung over the mineral
spines – attempts to keep the undead, horned giant with snaped and broken legs
who slowly pulls himself through the muckfilth
of the lake, at bay. The undying giant is dazzled and confused by the offerings,
its mind long gone – it will only maim and kill those it encounters.
4. A green lake, prone to infestment of heavy fog and
wafting spirits. These ghosts are fond of secrets and things not widely known
(and are able to give blessings for the providement of such). On the eastern
side of the lake are two towers, formed of giant, long dead, calcified worms sprouting
from the mud beneath the water. A wizard skilled in the warping and
manipulation of metal lives in each, Meg and Antic. The pair of wizards are
ever bickering, but both are working together to the fulfilment of some apocalyptic
destiny involving the ancient dead worms and all the forgotten minerals of the
earth. They are covetous of all metals.
5. Golden twinkling sand dunes, pierced by ancient ebony obelisks.
Packs of thin, green furred, wolves prowl the sands. Woods of dead trees coat
the dunes, haunted by nests of featherless, lizardlike birdmen – clawed and
skeletal. The birdmen pluck singular wolves from their packs and feast – the dead
woods littered with bones and dried ichor.
6. Golden twinkling sand dunes, dotted with hut sized, rusting
metallic insectoid hives – all wafting dark grey smoke. These are inhabited by
hordes of mineral carapace hornets, about the size of a hand. The hornets are
flesh eating and their venom causes meat and skin to slough free from the body.
7. Golden twinkling sand dunes, pierced by ancient, spider
web covered, ebony obelisks. The land is ever shaded by heavy storm clouds that
regularly release torrents of lightning that spark at the obelisks below. Giant,
grey green, horned spiders – thorax and abdomen the size of a man - live in sturdy
web carved caves and tunnels beneath the gloomy sands. The entrances to these
caves and tunnels are strong webknitted doors. The spiders do not appreciate
visitors to their lands or tunnels. Their tunnelling has revealed ancient
engines, powered by the sparking obelisks, which the spiders enjoy meditating
in the rumbling presence of - a state of religious bliss.
8. Golden twinkling sand dunes covered in woods of calcified
dead trees. Mineral pipes that have the appearance of mummified worms lace
through the sands. These, arm sized, pipes sporadically belch gassy flames from
beneath the earth.
9. Golden twinkling sand dunes. Lurid, snake skinned goblins
wearing leering masks hunt travellers with daggers here. The goblins hunt in
pairs, are long of fang and are semi vampiric. The goblins have a sprawling
village on the banks of two small lakes of liquid silver in the centre of the
dunes. The village glints from the distance – constructed of wood branches
dipped in, now dried, liquid silver. There are several liquid silver mummified goblin
corpses throughout the village – foci of veneration and worship. The goblins have
want for nothing save fresh blood and flesh. A small wood of dead and dying
brown shrubs is on a large dune to the East of the village.
10. A several storey high, purple gem monolith, surrounded by
bolden twinkling sand dunes. Hordes of
palm sized insectoid vermin carpet the sands around the monolith. A skeletal
and rotting undead worm, the length of several bus, tunnels through the sands
in the evenings – scooping mouthfuls of insects and anything else that dares
approach the monolith.
11. A forest of gnarled, dead, trees that have the aspect of
pained, screaming sufferers of pain. The trees are all twisted, bent over and
malformed in their agony. The forest is ever haunted by a thick, tendrilic fog.
A small of brood of featherless,
lizardlike birdmen – clawed and skeletal – hunt any interlopers to the forest.
12. A lake of thick, white, milky and iridescent liquid –
ringed by a shore writhing with person high, black bramble-like vegetation. The
vegetation is rope thick, vines, covered in near metal hard thorns. The
vinerope slithers around to block any thing approach the lake – gripping,
stabbing, choking and pulling apart interlopers.
13. A lake of clear, iridescent jelly – a slight tint of
green. The jelly is rigid enough to walk across, but can easily be scooped and
shaped. The jelly is ice cold and retains its freezing temperature when removed
from the lake. Beneath the clear jelly are hundreds of naked humans, frozen and
dead. Albino crocodiles roam the shore, ancient but rotting with some aspect of
undeath from overconsumption of the persevering jelly.
14. A green lake, prone to infestment of heavy fog. In the centre
of the lake are two towers, formed of giant, long dead, calcified worms sprouting
from the mud beneath the water. A winged, horned, basilisk demon lives in the
towers – the rooms of which are filled with petrified corpses that the demon
has been hacking apart with heavy but precise tools to explore human biology and anatomy.
15. Pale blue twinkling sand dunes, pierced sparsely with bleached
white coral structures from beneath the earth. The corals are jagged, sharp,
and tower several storeys into the air. In the evening the coral towers waft a luminescent,
glowing green gas. An ogre trudges through the sands, blubbery and bloodstained.
The ogre attempts to capture any living flesh that travels the dunes, chaining
it to its blood splattered coral cave so they can indulge in the consumption of
still living beings.