I spent a bit of time converting all the Dusky Dragon Inn Hero & NPC Cards onto 6x4 inch Index Cards and putting them all in alphabetical order so I now have a large cast of Heroes & NPCs I can drop into my game sessions.
The intention is for these to act as a regular cast within my campaign (with the occasional new additions and deletions depending upon adventure outcomes).
Need a few potential hirelings or an NPC encounter then simply grab a random couple of cards from the deck. If it turns out to be someone the players have encountered before then it starts to build an emergent story or side-quest.