[vkou]

For some cliches:

The old sharecropping farmer may fear his landlord squeezing his finances in the fall.

The greedy merchant may fear that her husband is pissing away too much money on drink.

The cobbler's apprentice may fear his boss, because his boss is a huge, sometimes violent asshole.

These fears can add background flavour through worldbuilding, that make these characters memorable. Nobody cares about, or remembers generic merchant #2 in Bumtown, Nowhere, but they may remember if their first introduction to her is walking in to a family fight about liquor.

Even if the players never explicitly discover that fear, this grounds your design of the characters into something more interesting than "He's a farmer, she's a merchant, he's an apprentice."

[ourmandave]

Nobody cares about, or remembers generic merchant #2 in Bumtown, Nowhere

They would if Bumtown were in the first circle of hell, and she was the only one selling gate-back-to-the-prime tickets.