How do you make a map based on the Eurasian steppes geographically interesting?

How do you make a map based on the Eurasian steppes geographically interesting?

What makes a map interesting isn't the places it depicts, it's the people that live in those places. Filling even a completely featureless plain with interesting and varied cultures that interact in interesting ways will make things interesting.

I don't think he asked for a demographic map.

Rivers.
Rivers are obstacles.
Rivers have riparian biomes, differing from the steppe. Trees, wetlands, reed beds.
Rivers serve as trade ways.
Rivers create gullies and ravines.
Use rivers, user.

Heavily incorporate the sky as a place to travel.

Inland seas, or salt desert where it used to be.
Immense meteor craters.
Almost lifeless clay desert with cave systems.
Consider climate change in past or present. Maybe there are some traces of moving glaciers or remains of long dead abyssal sea life thousand miles away from nearest coast.

>Add unique fauna, interesting plant life with perhaps legit properties if picked and used, inclement weather, large rocks or statues jutting here and there, thick fog, or make it into a long abandoned Polder for diverse and pretty flowers and other plants as well as some structures. You could also make it have menacing or otherwise prominent structures overhead blocking the sun, or in the distance (like towers, cities, mountains etc) to loom the heath

>Steppes
>Geographically interesting

The idea of steppe is LACK of anything - a masive grassy plain with NOTHING there.

You also forget to mention rivers in steppes are extra rare.

Just like you make deserts interesting.

You don't

Fill it with not!mongols.

add bullettes to them

Gophers.

Add in a spirit world that begins to bleed through when you get far enough into the grass lands. You could also make the grass of varying heights leading to something like an ocean with different depths.

Mysterious cairns

Tombs of long-dead nomad kings

Traders, raiders and herders crossing the steppe

Dragons, griffons, hippogriffs, etc are a problem because there's no cover if one comes flying at you

Huge fields of wildflowers

Geoglyphs that are only comprehensible from the sky

>Steppes
>Endless nothingness

The steppes aren't interesting in what you know is there, but what you don't know is there. Behind that hill or across that forest there's an endless, unknown and scary world. Also /ss/

Put a Monolith there.

don't know how a monolith can be interesting but it kinda fits

>Huge fields of wildflowers
Elaborate on this. What are we suppose to do with a bunch of flowers?

Not him, but if you forced me to come up with something...
>There are fields of beautiful and fragrant flowers sporadically spread throughout the steppes
>Despite their colorful radiance and sweet aroma, the locals warn you to not get close
>These flowers mark the habitat of local fey, who are strange creatures: they are like humans, but at the same time part of the plantlife
>If you get too close, the fragrance of the flowers will lull you into a deep sleep from which you do not wake up
>The Fey then consume you
>If you want to make this magical realm, the fragrance is actually pheromones and only men are affected by it. Also the fey have big boobies and literally suck you dry through your penis.

Read pic related.
My entire world is based around that, takes place mostly among extensive central-Asia-like steppes and lowland more Eurasian style ones.
I did a pretty extensive research on the subject, especially the high-altitude steppes of Mongolia and Western China and the last thing I worry about is them being geographically uninteresting.

They are fascinating. Beautiful. Do some research collect photos...
You can spice them up with ancient temples clinging to tall cliffs, out-of-place ruins of completely forgotten civilizations, giant whale-like bones sticking from the dull sandy ground, strange god-like creatures sometimes chasing each others over the skies, salt lakes and weird geotermal springs and wells, hidden oasas, the strange Central Asian cultures with their strange folklore, god-animals occasionally appearing at night, weird high-altitude swamps etc...

It's an absolutely amazing type of setting.
You could center your entire campaign around nomadic animal-hearding too.

They have unique medicinal properties.
They form strange patterns on the steppe.
Huge clouds of pollen inhibit breathing or cause more exotic effects on the body.
They are very valuable in foreign markets as a perfume ingredient.
Fairy maidens live among them.
Floral mimics live there.
They look cool and would make a memorable setting for a battle with horse nomads or ankhegs.