The Twinkling Dunes (half a hex crawl)

 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.