Uh, random, potentially degenerate question.
Are there enough potential recruitable party members to form me a fantasy harem to journey with?
Also, a big fan of these kinda oldschool sandbox RPGs
There are quite a few characters, both male and female, that you can recruit throughout the game. You just need to find them, first! You can recruit more characters than you can have in your party, and as such the extra characters chill out in your base that you start at at the beginning of the game.