I ran a game a while back involving the descendants of the last generation's heroes, a mercenary/privateering company. The Players created their characters, and I created their ancestors and inherited gear from there using the backgrounds they'd given,and certain choices they'd made regarding inheritances. Turn over on RPoL being what it is, sometimes, the game faded out when I ran out of descendants.
My thought here was to create the first generation. I've a list of their accomplishments (the notable ones, anyhow) and certain specific tools/magic items they acquired, etc. And, of course, who they were and what classes they followed.
Player attrition won't matter as much, simply because the characters will stay the same. On the down side, the ability to customize will be limited, especially after the first Player for each character.
To be sure of reaching certain benchmarks for each character, the game would start at 3rd level (paths predetermined). The setting would be a Fantasy Earth setting, Europe centric, with Africa (especially North Africa) readily available. Assorted myths and time periods would be Frankensteined together to make a working (in my opinion, anyhow) whole. Access to Asia is a bit more limited, especially east of India.
If you'd like to give the game a look, it can be found at
link to another game