I don't read as much fiction as I used to, but I have a terrible time distinguishing characters, even with both names and descriptions. If you are going to have more than five main characters, I will start forgetting them. This is a particular problem right now because I'm trying to get through the (rather bad) last Clan of the Cave Bear book, and all the characters have three-syllable names and show up for short periods of time since they keep traveling. It's a bad situation.