Hey Mofu-san, I know youre currently working on replacing the characters you lost but I also wanted to give an additional idea, what about a cow family of 3? They could own a mushroom farm that they they like to harvest as well as a milk farm. They could be like another store like catera and could often have quests for Nene. These three could be of different ages like the oldest could be the aunt/Mother that is strong-willed and bold, has short hair. The 2 younger ones could be sisters or cousins. The middle girl could be on the innocent shy one who gets very embarrassed even though she's the older sister/cousin. And the youngest could be a troublemaker but is also surprisingly busty(like oppai loli) since they're all cows. Of course they would still have different size figures and ages. They could wear the usual farmers clothing like overalls etc. And have different skin tones, freckles, or have redish, yellow, or orange hair etc(Since I noticed you gave ophelia bright colored hair. I wanted to keep your vision the same)
These farmer girls could offer different types of milking or harvesting "events" and in return they could offer you different kinds of mushrooms that could help Nene with various magical buffs or ingredients (i dont know if your gonna have a crafting system this is just a guess). Or have magic milk that comes from both types of ....white fluids. The different milks or semen could give different effects.
These are ideas I wanted to help you not only replace but to further increase the possibilities to expanding your forest and help it feel alive. Feel free to pick and choose or modify whatever. I just wanted to help you with your recovery with development. I don't claim any ownership, because these are just ideas and can't be made real until you make them. Which is why these characters become special.