Sorry, it's probably a larger-scale project than you had in mind, but maybe it'll be worth thinking about at least.

One common theme you'll find on many free game sites that try to get repeat users - Yahoo Fantasy Football and Kongregate that I use personally - is a badge-style reward system. Us gamers love to earn rewards. We'll mash buttons forever if you give us a badge at the end of it. Couldn't that apply to a more detailed game like CF? So here's what I think would be great for retention and attracting new talent:

Character creation asks for your CF account - probably an email address. You set this up on the website. Optionally, if you don't want to tie your character to an account you can leave it blank, and just earn no badges.

All kinds of in-game milestones can be set to grant a badge to an account, maybe upon the deletion of the character. Hero Warrior Badge! Battle Cabal Badge! Leader of Tribunal Badge! 100-pk Win Badge! Visited Satan Badge! Killed Tiamat Badge! Became Undead Badge! Died to the Elixir Badge! Had a PBF Published Badge! Won a Role Contest Badge! Etc etc. The possibilities are endless, from easy to achieve to really rare.

Then stick the badges, or a link to them, on the associated forum handle. Your posts are credible - look at all your badges! Earn the badges multiple times. Hold contests to design artwork for the badges themselves, or create new badges.

I'm sure you get the idea now. I think it would work for CF.

Aarn