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Just purchased Forbidden Lands. In the GM’s guide it mentions the players’ starting location, but how do you determine that? Just assume a random hex they start in contains a small village or something? I may be misunderstanding, but isn’t the intention that they haven’t seen much of the world yet and have been keeping close to home?

Just like that. The map shows some sites of potential interest, but it is assumed that it pre-dates the Blood Mist so that the sites can be anything (from abandoned ruins to populated settlements). You are free to make of them what you want, and where a PC home base might be. Some locations on the suggest a certain distributions of sites and population, though, also indicated by the GM's map where the homegrounds of various Kin is described.
When you decide to run Raven's Purge, you might want to spend some more thoughts about the campaign's locations in the Ravenlands. However, you can place anything anywhere - a PC base could be placed in any hex, not only in one that indicates a village or ruin. It might, however, make sense to place it close to an indicated ruin, to have a first exploration target, though.