An Eder-type companion would be great. He was so un-special and it was nice.
Yeah he was special in being so aggressively normal, something this game really lacks. Apart from the PC, who seems remarkably shallow compared to each and every companion who could rightfully be the protagonist of his own game.
As has been pointed out, it's like that because the origin characters
are intended to be the protagonists of their own games.
In some ways, the custom PC is the Eder of the game. I am not really sure why Larian decided to follow along in the same ruts as DOS2, but I suspect it's because they want to differentiate themselves from the original makers of the BG series (Bioware/Black Isle).
In any event, I second a lot of the things mentioned in this thread. I have seen people mention that there'll be more companions in the game by launch, but I haven't found any actual evidence of this... And I wonder, if they haven't already started with them, do they realistically have enough time to include more companions?
I found myself at the end of the Goblin Camp story in the home base, with no one really interested in my character except Astarion. Which is a bit awkward because I prefer to play wlw characters, and neither lady liked a good hearted PC, regardless of their gender. It might not be a big issue to some players, but romance is important to me in my RPGs and to be left out just because someone early in development decided to make both female companions either out and out evil, or at least evil adjacent does not feel real good. BG1+2 had the advantage of having a fairly big selection of companions, and so gave the player a better choice of who would accompany them on their adventures.
Anyway... I'm going to put BG3 away for a few months and come back later when the EA has advanced a bit and see what changes. (And keep an eye on the forums in the meantime.)
Z.