Races and romance poll

The obvious name for such a creature would be Pyro-derm.

So is there a general non-human thread somewhere unrelated to a specific game? A fan of those should make one. I only suggest it because I occasionally have a fun thing to point out that is not necessarily franchise-related, but it wouldn't be a prime hangout for me generally.

Companions only interested in player characters of their own species, a la Solas. Interspecies attraction is definitely possible, but it doesn't make sense for it to be normal, much less universal.

And plenty of casually romancable npcs throughout the setting, not unlike Andromeda. Playing a badass chicka with a girl in every port and no time or energy for a real relationship but plenty of flirt in her was one of my primary joys in that game.

All human all the way. The uncanny valley is a thing for a reason guys.

If anything non-human races mitigate the uncanny valley a bit because they are supposed to look similar but a bit different to humans. 

Uncanny valley is when better technology looks more and more human, realism keeps going up and up and up... until suddenly it drops into a weird creepy valley. In the valley, characters look almost human but are juuuuust enough off that they skeeve out the part of our brain that’s really good at recognizing subtle defects in human faces.

More stylized/fantastical faces have a better chance of being unrealistic enough that they’re before the valley rather than inside it.

Yeah, dragonflambe didn't use the term right.

I've never experienced uncanny valley in a BioWare game (or any video game... I think). Uncanny valley is a genuinely disturbing feeling. It's rare.

Well we know that Kal Sharok's culture has changed from Orzammar, but not the details on how. Perhaps they've dumped the whole 'setting foot above ground makes you castless thing', which would open up the options for why a dwarf companion is on the surface.

Because that part of the brain is not thinking through things sequentially like that. It’s a snap judgment, presumably meant to keep us away from people who might be sick or in a weird emotional state.

Though we should note, most modern videogames are aware of this phenomenon on some level, so they actually don’t (or don’t often) trigger the uncanny valley. Even games that are otherwise very realistic will intentionally stylize some aspects of the face specifically to avoid this effect. We don’t really notice it that much because, due to this phenomenon, stylized faces often look “more real” to us than less stylized ones.