I hear yah there. My first Gholl beasty was a mercenary of sorts working for a lower level wizard in some tower. And the wizard died, so he joined up with the party as it wandered by to loot the place. His end goal was to either stay employed with the party, or eventually get enough cash to go carve out his own piece of the world and hang onto it.

The Minotaur was somewhat dim, but generally just wanted to fight his way out of the dungeon he was thrown in, get his shit back together as it were, and to back to being a sailor. Perhaps with his own ship and crew!

And it all went on like that. ^^ I'd also do crazy things like send monster types out from the eastern kingdoms on pilgrimages to learn more about the world and whatnot, yadda yadda.