Melvin the Wizard
When the DM's away, the players will, uh, play. Or something. We're missing our DM for a couple of weeks so we'll be playing a mini-adventure in the meantime. This calls for new characters; new 9th level characters, in fact.
I have chosen to play a Wizard, and so have created Melvin. It can be tricky building a high level character from scratch, so don't expect there to be much subtlety or originality in the design, particularly as I have made him an Evoker, as specialist in Evocation magic. Yes, this includes Fireballs and Lightning Bolts. Woo!
However, I have been keen to play a Necromancer at some point, so most of the spells that aren't Evocation spells are from the school of Necromancy, so that I can see how they play. I selected his feats to make his Evocation and Necromantic spells harder to avoid, and included the Empower Spell feat as the bonus wizard spell so that I could beef up my Fireballs instead of using Cone of Cold, seeing as we will be adventuring in Winter climates.
The equipment is mostly to increase his Intelligence, to make spells more potent, and Armour Class. The Metamagic Rod of Lesser Empowerment should give 3rd level or lower spells (i.e. Fireball and Lightning Bolt) a nice boost up to three times each day, as it lets me cast them as empowered without having to learn them as such.
Melvin the Wizard. Let's hope he lasts the first encounter.