The Story (as I heard it)
A stranger beckons...
Friends, strangers, family - let present troubles fade for an evening. Put aside sword and ladle, hang up your hat and cloak. Dab your sweat, doff your boots and their dust, and reminisce with me while the hard day's sun is still setting.
Remember an age of peace; imagine yourself there with me when the realm was unblemished by war. Picture the crescent sweep of a western bay, limestone and chalk cliffs gently sloping toward a landing, a little cove in the crags of that coast. From aboard a ship on the blue-green waves of the bay, you'd have to be nearly upon the town before you saw it nestled between the neighboring cliffs.
A peaceful place, its many charms to be described in due time. First, however, you must know why I've drawn your mind's eye to this tranquil port, whose denizens then considered themselves insignificant on the world's stage. They possessed little knowledge, let alone understanding, of what danger loomed on the inland horizon.
Not that there weren't signs, many omens they'd ignored.
Trouble brewing...
Raven corpses in the rice fields. Blackened grass and sickly deer loping in sluggish herds. Dessicated trees in the hills, their roots bursting from the ground as if in desperation, tragically fixed in place despite the evil they sensed under their very trunks.
The leaders of the town closed their eyes and ears, urging their citizens to look instead to the pristine sea and simply pray the blight would pass. Most did so, likely to their doom, if not for the few with conscience and nerve.
A young paladin who refused to turn a blind eye, who called upon the outcasts and foreigners to save his home when his neighbors wouldn't. He set his sights to the east, to the source of the rot, taking with him a strange assortment of allies: a reclusive elf rumored to be a wizard, a draconic warrior from across the wide sea, and a stout tiefling ranger and elven druid, both well-acquainted with the wilderness.
These few, our heroes. Their story touches every member of my audience, whether they acknowledge it or not.
So lean in, acquaint yourself with your seats. Fix this tale in your heart, forget nothing.