>>49910980
>new fossil hus when
Well, there need to be new portraits made; people need to play through the game enough to determine basic characteristics, relationships, jobs, movement patterns, etc.; and there should probably be a new map added, as well, since Asama Joue is distinct enough to justify it, unlike the previous few games that took place in existing areas.
It's gonna take a while, is what I'm saying.

>>49914678
>how big of a problem is it if the character im writing for isn't even in era yet
You could obviously start writing already and work it into an actual dialogue later (or at least flesh out a concept beforehand), but you obviously won't be able to just test it like that.
>just slap placeholder IDs and hope for the best?
Easier to just keep the template placeholder and replace it when the actual character is added properly, or you could just use an existing character's id for the time being and use them to test it for the time being. Guessing their likely id won't achieve much since the character itself still wouldn't exist.
As an aside, I would strongly recommend using a prefix like the ones for alternate dialogues regardless of it being the first dialogue for the character, since it ultimately makes it far easier to manage them across various language versions. There's no meaningful downside to it, but it can prevent some issues down the line.
>im assuming I don't get to pick her favourite food either, since chiyari has no lines but the data for her lists blood sausages as being her food already, JP side decides this stuff?
Yeah, basically.
It's important to draw a distinction between a character's general settings, mostly located in their respective .csv and Chara_data files, and the actual dialogue, placed in the KOJO files.
The general settings exist for all characters, establish their core traits, titles, home area, outfit, tastes, and whatnot, and ensure the character can exist even without a dialogue or with it disabled.
The KOJO dialogues are all built on top of that. It's possible to change a lot of the general settings through a KOJO by properly configuring it, and it's perfectly appropriate to change a character as you see fit, since people can always turn the dialogue off if they don't like it (seriously, feel free to do anything, author freedom is key here), and characters can easily have multiple unique dialogues, each very distinct from one another (and people should not hesitate in writing an alternate dialogue if they want to, and shouldn't feel forced to write a dialogue for a character who doesn't have one yet out of some weird sense of obligation). The sky's the limit, really.