Like you, my groups tend to generational stories, as far as grogs are concerned. I don't have his stat sheet handy at the moment (it's on my desktop and I'm in mid-holiday-travel mode) but my favorite grog ever from a saga I SGed for is the Legend of Horse.
Horse began his career as Abram, a young Jewish boy adopted by the covenant because he had a strange way with animals that disturbed his parents (Animal Ken). One of the wizards, Ventulus Ex Miscellanea, was an Auram master with a Bird magical focus, who was trying to accumulate an impressive aviary. He claimed the boy as his servant, and put Abram's talents to use as a bird-keeper. He remained somewhat in the background, a pet servant of Ventulus, until a story came along that involved the magus tracking down rumors of a magical eagle he wanted as his familiar. Abram (now probably about 18ish) was brought along as an 'interpreter' for any magical beasts they happened to encounter.
When the travelling party was waylaid by a group of (mundane) bandits, Abram hung back a bit with the other non-combat member of the troupe - until one of the turb's two mounted warriors was taken down by an arrow and his mount bolted. Then Abram (and his player at the time) started getting visions of heroics...
In sober retrospect, the group wasn't in SERIOUS danger. Ventulus was a reasonably powerful wizard more 20 years past his Gauntlet, and the other mounted warrior was a companion-class turb captain, and a MEAN S.O.B. in a fight. I had really just designed the encounter to let Venty show off a couple of badass new combat spells he'd been devising. However, in the energy of the moment, Abram's calming of the bolting horse, his mounting with just an improvised club in hand, and his headlong charge at "the biggest, meanest-looking bandit I see" took on a kind of epic "coming to the rescue" quality - especially because the bandit botched his defense roll, and Abram knocked him out in one mighty swing of his club. Because the wizard then fried one of them and Abram had just pounded their leader, I judged that the rest of the bandits made a hasty retreat (mostly being mopped up as they fled by the turb captain, naturally.)
Everyone was so impressed with Abram's boldness that the turb captain jokingly referred to him to Ventulus as his "Knight" - but since the Turb captain's Latin score was poor, he called him "Equus", "Horse", instead of "Eques", "Horseman". The wizard laughed, and the nick-name was cemented.
Horse retained his 'day job' as keeper of the aviary (the birds, after all, were good friends), but following that exploit, Ventulus treated him as an honored member of his staff, and gave him an assistant. The Turb Captain also took him under his wing and trained him as a warrior as well. He came to be an exceptional horseman, and pretty decent with a lance. He defended the magi well on several other occasions, though none quite so dramatic as the first. Not too many years later he found a nice Jewish girl (hah!) from a nearby town, settled down in a fine cottage that Ventulus commissioned for him out of gratitude, and started a family. He retired from active duty in the turb around fifty when his age first started to really slow him down, but he lived out the remainder of the Saga. His three sons also became important members of the covenant staff. His eldest became a warrior (who by the time the saga wrapped up had risen to become the new Turb Captain and was taken by a player as a companion), his second son left the covenant to become a merchant but helped the covenant grow its income, and his youngest son (at Horse's request) was taught to read, became versed in the rudiments of Magic Theory, and became the chief scribe of the covenant.
When the saga came to a close, Horse was approaching his 70th birthday, celebrating the birth of his first grandson (two granddaughters had already been born, the eldest exhibiting signs that she might have the Gift...) and still working as the aviary-keeper, and closest friend, of Ventulus Ex Miscellanea.
We use common grog stats (we have only 7 grog templates in the whole covenant, I think), but each grog has a different personality and abilities. The templates we use are: child, worker, fighter, servant, and worker, fighter servant (veteran).
. Originally bitter at his namesake, he grew to enjoy the Reputation it gave him, he however pays back the men by giving them all his own nicknames. He was taken on a few adventures and continued to survive despite being wounded severely many many times. He was passed around to other players a few times, each time becoming a more grizzled veteran. He quibbles and gripes about having to do anything with the magi, however shuts up if the Capt comes around or his pay is threatened. He was getting played so much, he was made a companion. Now is the second in command of the men. He now sports a "magic" greek helmet found during one of the adventures, it's not magic it's an item of quality looted from Nicopoli, but he swears it is because "How come I can see in it?"