In the Sands of Al-Kalim rulebook it says that a specific are is defined as all the hexes which are touched by the text that forms the name as well as all contiguous hexes of the same type of terrain that connect to those hexes. Seems fairly simple. I'm curious about a couple of things though.

Firstly, the rules make no distinction between large text and small text. For example, the rules use the Desert of Eternity as an example and mention that it constitutes all 9 dune hexes in that area. Fine. It also says that the Bleeding Sands is contained within DoE. Now, my gut tells me that the Bleeding Sands is only supposed to be the one hex that contains its name, but the rules would seem to suggest that the Bleeding Sands are the same 9 hexes as Desert of Eternity (making them functionally the same thing) because the rules do not say that smaller text titles are treated any differently than the big text titles. Has there been any discussion of this or clarification from the designers?

Secondly, there are a couple of places where the majority of the big text in a title covers one type of terrain, but a tiny fraction of one letter protrudes onto a completely different type of terrain. I'm going out on a limb and assuming I should ignore that, because otherwise a huge sweeping section of a second terrain type would be added to an area whose name does not seem to include that terrain at all.

This is just my humble opinion, but I would say you are right that the small text does not encompass the same way large text does, I don't have SOAK yet but I'm assuming this has an impact on the quests.

For your second issue, again, I think you got it right. Common sense seems to apply well for both of these questions. Other answers just wouldn't make sense to me.

I think the best way to consider it is that the large text indicates "areas" while the small text would be a specific location, not an entire area.

bigmac said:

Yes, there are some quests that require the hero to do something specific in a specific place. I haven't gone through all the quests (I prefer to keep some things a surprise for when we're playing), so maybe the quests only ever ask you to go to places with big text. I don't know for sure, but this struck me as I was reading the rules as something that could come up in the future so I figured I'd preempt the question so that I'd hopefully have an answer for my friends when we're at the table.

The area names with big text are all generalized, the kind of names you would expect to cover vast tracts of land. The small text is more varied. Some of it (like the Bleeding Sands) could be a big area too, others sound like a very specific place (like the Gates of the Watcher, which actually covers two bluffs and a road hex.)

I'm pretty sure I'm right that the small text names are only meant to cover the hexes the name touches, and I'm glad to see at least one other person agrees with me on that. I guess from the lack of activity on this thread that there hasn't been a community wide discussion on the subject yet?