You've been confined for at least most of your life to Stonybrook, a medium-sized town on the East Winding River. But you've outgrown it. You're feeling your oats. No, you don't want to marry the merchant's son your upper-class family selected for you. You don't want to follow in your father's footsteps and become a blacksmith. No, politics was a fine career for your father, but it's not for you. Whatever your family or your peers or whoever has in mind for you, is not for you.
Time to choose your own destiny. Time for you to test your mettle against the wilds outside, to pit yourself against the world and take whatever you can from it. You'll decide how high your station will be in life, not some noble or guildmaster. Yes, someday you'll return, but only to go to the tavern, buy rounds of drinks for everyone, and see the looks on peoples' faces when they see that you are now a successful adventurer with stories to tell and gold to spend!
It's not like you just decided this today. The wanderlust has been building for many months now...maybe even years. As time went on, you thought less of the town and the mundane life, and more of the forests and mountains beyond. Less of what was, and more of what could be. Until one day, you began your plans to leave...and then did it.
But on that dewy, misty morning that is the fabled first day of the rest of your life, you discover something. You're not the only one to decide this. Others have had the same thoughts, the same dillemmas, the same aspiration: to leave. And you all decided to do it on the same day...and to meet in the same place. Coincidence? The will of the gods? Or something else...