Rumblings in the North

For the last few years, the Northmen of the Unbound Lands have grown increasingly wary and distrusting of the brokers and travellers from Dol Gadmen
Merchants seeking shelter at homesteads along the road north have been turned away, the people of Aegis Meer have been outwardly hostile to strangers, and there are recent murmurings of disappearances - in particular, a whole village going missing.
Usually the Northmen are left to their own business, but an adventuring party has returned to Dol Gadmen raving about a darkness over the land and that the Empire must march north to dispel this great evil.
Surely this is all hysteria, misinformation and a strange streak of coincidence. Surely, right?