I'll admit to having a type preference myself - I have two main pulls if we could get a small-sized companion:
A) I'd appreciate someone witty, intellectual and a bit scathing towards others with a dry and enjoyable sense of humour to those able to repartee and/or snark at their level.
B) Someone who is good-hearted and good-natured, who knows that they aren't much of anything, in the big picture, and aren't important in the world-saving scope of things, but isn't discouraged or put off by that, and is the sort to want to do what they can, because it's what they can do and because it needs to be done. Probably still learning not to set themselves on fire to keep others warm.
I think I'd generally prefer male characters in the first category and female ones in the second, but either works ^.^
Just as an extra aside - I know the conversation has moved on so I'll spoiler it:
Regarding Astarion:
--I'm not terribly concerned with what vampire spawn are in 5e. Really. It sounds to me like Astarion is way more interesting than whatever vampire spawn are in the tabletop version, which means I think it was a great change.
I think the main thrust of what folks discussing that were getting at is that labelling Astarion as a spawn was a poor move, not that his actual character and personality should be changed or different to match with the realms definitions of spawn. More that, after making and developing Astarion's character, they had a decent handful of possible options to pick from for "what" exactly to classify him as being and that going for 'vampire spawn' was, for the realms, probably one of the least appropriate choices, given the details and features of the character presented, and other realms-appropriate classifications might have been more solid and lore-appropriate choices without needing to change his character or design.
