Full to bulging point

I had a pleasant surprise this evening I spent the first half of the  evening which should have been all the Alternate weeks Deus Vault game generation a replacement character for Larifus who as a rogue the player decided was too complicated to play until he got more familiarity with the game, he will become a protégé and  he will be replaced by a Brandobian Human fighter with an equestrian bent as well as two completely new characters for new players which turned out to be a Gnome Titan Fighter Thief  of minimal intellect and lower wisdom and a junior Priest of the Caregiver so the group is now eight Player characters. 

I am beginning to have to consider what to do with all the NPC protégé’s I created to fill out the roster when the where fewer players in the group and who by dint of being with the group so long have become important if secondary characters in their own right. However for now the major ones will I think remain even if they don’t play quite such a role in the story as they had to in the past.