fvtt-split-journal VS lessfog

you can just drop the journal with the room description on your map and directly click on it to read the note, a few modules can help (but not needed) :automatic journal icon numbers will automatically add an easy readable number to the journal note icon (the note name has to contain the room number) , Split Journal if you have all your room descriptions in a single journal this will help to split it in single rooms, Pin Cushion will show the note text on mouseover and help with icon placement on the map (this fork fixes some bug with v9.x)

Split Journal

Less Fog - Makes the fog of war easier to see through for a GM. Gives a button to toggle between a token's vision and the GM's vision when a token is selected.

Less Fog - lets you control the fog colour for the DM separately from the players. Useful for the DM so they can see what's going on while having tokens selected.

Less Fog

Sounds like you're talking to the right people; good luck getting things set up. For the default lighting changes I was referring to the less fog mod. Not sure it works in v9 (or really in v8 either) but it's something to look at.

Less Fog can make the Fog of War effects transparent for GMs. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. You can make it so that even though you only have the token's vision, the areas of that map that are black to the player are just dim or greyed out to you, so you can still see what you're doing.

You could use a mixture of using Less Fog and pre-exploring the area. Drag a token that all players have observer or better access to around the area to fully remove the fog of war, then use Less Fog to change the opacity of the Explored areas to taste.