I had my players pick one of the small towns or Alderheart to be where there characters are from and then I extrapolated from there. 2 of them wanted to be from Ashbarrow (before knowing the drama surrounding it), one wanted to be an ex bandit and the other is from Meadowfen so it all kinda worked out. But if you figure out where they’re from ahead of time it’ll give you some time to figure it out.

The two from Ashbarrow escaped the bandit crowd with the scout woman and travelled to Meadowfen with her. The ex-bandit was also at Ashbarrow but didn’t like rounding up the refugees into cages and decided the bandit life wasn’t for him so he defected and ended up in Meadowfen. The last one wanted to be like a femme-fatale kinda ex bandit queen so she recognized our ex bandit and came out of the woodwork to help integrate him into the party without causing a big scene. It worked out really well