Thank you for your comments. I’d like to see your map when you’ve finished it, love a hex crawl.
My inspiration was “Reaper Man” by Terry Pratchett. Death is a very popular character in Terry’s Discworld series, in this book it works as a farm hand and other arrangements have to be made.
Viewing post in Death, Imprisoned! jam comments
Joy-in-the-woods is a village, so called because it is surrounded by glades filled with abundant beautiful and aromatic flowers- it benefits from an underground heated river. One day a hot spring will appear. Its sister village, Hope, is fairly mundane by comparison.
The sword is hidden in a cave- I thought a grotto, decorated with religious icons and pictures, sealed away after the saint’s death; I saw the sword as being instrumental in his death as well as in his life, so it was hidden by the clergy because it could be a powerful force for either good or bad.
The lighthouse is on a headland, high up on cliffs. Below, the rocks stretch along the coast just below the surface of the sea and are razor sharp, able to rip the belly of a ship out in a second. There are fortunes to be found on the sea bottom along with countless wrecks.
Hope my take on the locations are interesting, but please flavour them to work in your game. Thanks for asking!