These are the fundamentals, the broadest strokes. Every character should have answers to these five, including NPCs. It’s the quickest way to give the sense of a full individual instead of a cardboard stereotype.
For any campaign, a character should have come from somewhere. Spend any length of time with someone and their history is bound to come up. These questions give your character history, and therefore dramatic and emotional weight.
Now we’re picking nits. These five are all about texture and color. These answers take your character beyond an adventure serial persona and into reality. Answers to these make your characters memorable for years.
These five questions direct your play experience itself rather than your character. What do you want out of your game? If a group answers these together, they can expect dramatically rewarding game sessions, and the GM will know clearly what’s expected to give everyone a good time.
What emotion best describes your character? - Devoted
What emotion does your character evoke in others? - Reassurance
What does your character need most? - She feels she needs to make a difference, to make the "world" a better place, individually and at the community level. At the moment she feels a bit lost as to how to do that in any scale
What is your character’s goal in life? - (see above), life is precious. Eirrún strives to preserve it when possible, but has enough humanity to realize that sometimes she must let go, even if it is hard to do so at times. She believes that there is always hope, always a chance, and things will get better with work and effort.
How does your character believe this goal can be accomplished? - Realistically, there are limits to what is possible, but that never means you should stop trying, fighting, and working to make all the worlds safer for everyone.