One thing that popped into my head today was the companion character. Usually an exotic humanoid or beast that shares some kind of close bond with the character.
Often the companion can only speak or communicate with the patron character. In the case of Chewbacca, no one seems to understand his specific language except for Han and C-3P0. Even if others could, they often go through the patron character since their bond means that the patron is more trusted.
Sometimes the patron can even see through the companion's eyes, or listen through their ears, in the case of The Beastmaster.
And the companion is often not human, or even one of the usual demihuman races, but something more strange and unusal, in the case of Dragonbait from the Forgotten Realms.
Game thoughts: My opinion is that the companion should be an NPC under the control of the patron character's player. This would make them synchrynous in how they and their relationship are played out. Plus the companion may be a beast that wouldn't be much fun playing all the time, like Kodo and Podo from The Beastmaster, but fun to pull out when a key needs retrieving or a bad guy needs distracting.
Thinking on it, we often 'adopted' interesting NPCs, making them companions to our regular PCs in our AD&D games. There were the henchmen rules, but we didn't necessarily think of it in rules terms. More like "This guy/girl/furry thing is cool. Let's take him/her/it with us!"
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