(Don't read too much into the title of this thing. I'm just calling it that in case I get more "specific" world building ideas that are very general. I might never revisit this idea, or I might add an entry once a week for three years.)
One obvious technique for quickly and easily building cast members who may or may not play major roles is creating parallels to characters from other sources. For instance, it's fairly common for superhero universes made by smaller groups parallel the Justice League in broad or even very specific strokes. (Their opposite number in the other big company, the Avengers, are slightly less iconic for the most part, although they've had their share of riffs.)
Another option, if one is writing fantasy or something like it, is to export parallel roles of mythological characters. Indeed, even the old mythologies exported and imported pretty freely with each other; Roman mythology as we know it is almost a straight ripoff of Greek mythology.
The real trick, of course, is doing this kind of thing in ways one doesn't expect. For instance, if one was building a Great Old One "pantheon," one can actually build it in parallel fashion to the old Greek, Norse, and whatever groups. And the keystone, of course, is Cthulhu as the mighty greybeard "king" (like these guys) of the group.
His tentacles even look a bit like a beard. Bonus!
-Signing off.
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