The only playable race is human (male or female). You can customize the look of your character, but I don't know if any of the selections will have some 'elfish' looking features, etc. There are no significant differences between male and female characters due to the already very large conversation tree; a selection of different races would have increased that exponentially.
There will be a place to settle down. A French review mentioned a battle tower where you could train and upgrade weapons (it was a brief reference in a babblefish translated page), and Lar mentioned this tower in relation to the new inventory system (but without any details).
In a suggestion topic some time ago where people were talking about buying/building a mansion or castle and possibly upgrading it, Lar said there would be something like that in the game. I'm guessing these two places are the same, but they may not be.
