Flavour: companions and distinguishing your active party.
Why didn't anyone ever tell me that horses are good swimmers?! Apparently trainers even throw horses in pools for strength training. But then again, as far as I know most of you are no more country than I am, and I'm certain that none of you are in a position to own horses for the helluvit, so maybe it's something that hasn't come up and you don't know any more than I do.
I'd been thinking of performing a similar exorcism in FOE to the one I did in Soulthieves: replacing horses wholesale with deer, since deer can swim. But now that I know horses are pretty good swimmers as well, that becomes less of an issue in the Land of Mirth.
Why is this a salient question at all? Keeping in mind that this is a fantastical world, it has to be plausible that the companions in your active party can follow you wherever you go, even across pools and streams. Since horses can swim, fantastical Mirth horses can swim, even with riders mounted on their backs. Yay!
When I considered this, I thought about crossing the Titter River. There are two main streams in the overworld, the Titter River and its left tributary, Cackle Crick. For game balance reasons, the Titter River, which divides Mirth and the adventure into distinct western and eastern halves, is a very swift river that only highly skilled swimmers can conquer, whereas Cackle Crick is much calmer (you'd be able to swim between the wards of Cachinnatia). You can't swim across Titter River in the early game because it's highly unlikely you'll have a high enough Swimming skill, and this is important in keeping you from wasting time and resources. You start the game on the western side, and before you move on to the eastern side you have to accomplish the early tasks first. But if you do cross early, although you won't be able to enter Elemayo Caverns, you will be able to enter Hyuck Tunnel or take on side quests, including the frying pan quest, which is a difficult combat quest. It's not impossible to cross the river if you find a suitable location for swimming practice and you're really, really patient, but it's absolutely not advisable.
In any case, you don't necessarily want to swim across the river. If you have companions, they may not be able to follow you. If they try, they may just get swept downstream like you do, except you would still get separated from one another. If you're mounted on a horse when you enter the river, you'll both get swept down and you'll wash ashore alone. What happens to the horse? I don't know.
And this is where this train of thought is going. This is only one scenario in which you might be separated from your companions. There will be a screen that can be called up that will list all your companions, no matter where they are in the game world. Here we have to distinguish between your active party and your inactive party. If you're familiar with RTS games like Starcraft or Pikmin this is a pretty straightforward distinction. Over the course of the game, you can build up a force of companions, but they might not all be in your immediate vicinity and thus you have no command over them and no access to their respective advantages. In an RTS, there are all kinds of reasons for having inactive units stationed in particular places; they might be placed to defend a strategic position or to protect non-combat units. In practice, more like an RPG, these considerations don't come up. You're not technically controlling an entire force, you're only controlling yourself; your companions are only with you by choice, and they will remain with you and accept your leadership as long as they feel your goodwill. There are few reasons to station companions unless it's in your immediate vicinity. All your companions in FOE are supposed to always be following you around, so getting separated from them is not useful or desirable.
One exception I can think of is when you're trying to escape or to protect wounded companions; you might command a strong companion or three to stand up in a bottleneck to give some time. Escaping would generally entail ascending (or descending) a flight of stairs to go to the neighbouring level, and this would inactivate any companions left behind. I could probably even offer a Flee command where you would hold the position to allow your companions to escape to the next level on their own. If they got to the next level, they would be inactivated until you caught up with them yourself.
So, on the companion list screen, you'll be given separate lists. The first list will have your active party members. When you look around yourself in the graphic pane, you should see most if not all of these companions; in the underground labyrinths, some of them might be around a bend or straggling somewhere on the level, but they're still trying to stay in the party so they will be considered active. Some companions who straggle too far behind or get distracted by combats may become inactivated; in this case they won't be actively pursuing you anymore. On some large maps, like walking through Guffawston or Cachinnatia, some companions may be inactivated just by getting lost in the crowd. In principle, to be considered active, they have to be close enough to you to follow you when you move on to a new location. Inactive companions will be in the second list. It will be possible to summon these companions to your location with a magic bugle, if you have one, and even the effectiveness of the magic bugle is dictated by your Wand Magic skill; your magical ability may only suffice to summon some of those companions, not all of them, and certainly active companions take precedence over inactive ones because the magic works on them more easily. If you don't have such a magical means of recalling them, you have to manually find each one and reactivate them.
What about that case when you get separated from companions while trying to cross the Titter River? In this case, you're not sure where your lost companions have washed up, assuming they even did. This can apply in other wilderness encounters as well; if you get ambushed in the wilderness and you escape without a companion, you can't really be sure they got away safely, and even if they did they probably wouldn't be keen on staying loyal to you in any case (you coward). Considering this, I noted a third category of companions for listing, those of indeterminate status. You don't know if you can count them as inactive companions, because you're not sure they're still friendly or even still alive. While wandering the wilderness, you may bump into some of them. In this case, they will immediately rejoin your active party. But the only way to really be sure is to use a magic bugle with high skill. Any lost companions that aren't summoned are probably gone for good and they'll be removed from the list. At lower skill, you'll probably just in a manner "sense" that particular familiars can't answer the call and they'll be removed from the list like that.
I might have a fourth list as well for passed companions. If this list is very long, it might make future prospective companions more wary of joining your party, although in this case you can suppress that effect with high Charisma.
I've been working on this post too long, but if I think of more stuff to say I'll edit this later.
I'd been thinking of performing a similar exorcism in FOE to the one I did in Soulthieves: replacing horses wholesale with deer, since deer can swim. But now that I know horses are pretty good swimmers as well, that becomes less of an issue in the Land of Mirth.
Why is this a salient question at all? Keeping in mind that this is a fantastical world, it has to be plausible that the companions in your active party can follow you wherever you go, even across pools and streams. Since horses can swim, fantastical Mirth horses can swim, even with riders mounted on their backs. Yay!
When I considered this, I thought about crossing the Titter River. There are two main streams in the overworld, the Titter River and its left tributary, Cackle Crick. For game balance reasons, the Titter River, which divides Mirth and the adventure into distinct western and eastern halves, is a very swift river that only highly skilled swimmers can conquer, whereas Cackle Crick is much calmer (you'd be able to swim between the wards of Cachinnatia). You can't swim across Titter River in the early game because it's highly unlikely you'll have a high enough Swimming skill, and this is important in keeping you from wasting time and resources. You start the game on the western side, and before you move on to the eastern side you have to accomplish the early tasks first. But if you do cross early, although you won't be able to enter Elemayo Caverns, you will be able to enter Hyuck Tunnel or take on side quests, including the frying pan quest, which is a difficult combat quest. It's not impossible to cross the river if you find a suitable location for swimming practice and you're really, really patient, but it's absolutely not advisable.
In any case, you don't necessarily want to swim across the river. If you have companions, they may not be able to follow you. If they try, they may just get swept downstream like you do, except you would still get separated from one another. If you're mounted on a horse when you enter the river, you'll both get swept down and you'll wash ashore alone. What happens to the horse? I don't know.
And this is where this train of thought is going. This is only one scenario in which you might be separated from your companions. There will be a screen that can be called up that will list all your companions, no matter where they are in the game world. Here we have to distinguish between your active party and your inactive party. If you're familiar with RTS games like Starcraft or Pikmin this is a pretty straightforward distinction. Over the course of the game, you can build up a force of companions, but they might not all be in your immediate vicinity and thus you have no command over them and no access to their respective advantages. In an RTS, there are all kinds of reasons for having inactive units stationed in particular places; they might be placed to defend a strategic position or to protect non-combat units. In practice, more like an RPG, these considerations don't come up. You're not technically controlling an entire force, you're only controlling yourself; your companions are only with you by choice, and they will remain with you and accept your leadership as long as they feel your goodwill. There are few reasons to station companions unless it's in your immediate vicinity. All your companions in FOE are supposed to always be following you around, so getting separated from them is not useful or desirable.
One exception I can think of is when you're trying to escape or to protect wounded companions; you might command a strong companion or three to stand up in a bottleneck to give some time. Escaping would generally entail ascending (or descending) a flight of stairs to go to the neighbouring level, and this would inactivate any companions left behind. I could probably even offer a Flee command where you would hold the position to allow your companions to escape to the next level on their own. If they got to the next level, they would be inactivated until you caught up with them yourself.
So, on the companion list screen, you'll be given separate lists. The first list will have your active party members. When you look around yourself in the graphic pane, you should see most if not all of these companions; in the underground labyrinths, some of them might be around a bend or straggling somewhere on the level, but they're still trying to stay in the party so they will be considered active. Some companions who straggle too far behind or get distracted by combats may become inactivated; in this case they won't be actively pursuing you anymore. On some large maps, like walking through Guffawston or Cachinnatia, some companions may be inactivated just by getting lost in the crowd. In principle, to be considered active, they have to be close enough to you to follow you when you move on to a new location. Inactive companions will be in the second list. It will be possible to summon these companions to your location with a magic bugle, if you have one, and even the effectiveness of the magic bugle is dictated by your Wand Magic skill; your magical ability may only suffice to summon some of those companions, not all of them, and certainly active companions take precedence over inactive ones because the magic works on them more easily. If you don't have such a magical means of recalling them, you have to manually find each one and reactivate them.
What about that case when you get separated from companions while trying to cross the Titter River? In this case, you're not sure where your lost companions have washed up, assuming they even did. This can apply in other wilderness encounters as well; if you get ambushed in the wilderness and you escape without a companion, you can't really be sure they got away safely, and even if they did they probably wouldn't be keen on staying loyal to you in any case (you coward). Considering this, I noted a third category of companions for listing, those of indeterminate status. You don't know if you can count them as inactive companions, because you're not sure they're still friendly or even still alive. While wandering the wilderness, you may bump into some of them. In this case, they will immediately rejoin your active party. But the only way to really be sure is to use a magic bugle with high skill. Any lost companions that aren't summoned are probably gone for good and they'll be removed from the list. At lower skill, you'll probably just in a manner "sense" that particular familiars can't answer the call and they'll be removed from the list like that.
I might have a fourth list as well for passed companions. If this list is very long, it might make future prospective companions more wary of joining your party, although in this case you can suppress that effect with high Charisma.
I've been working on this post too long, but if I think of more stuff to say I'll edit this later.