Hello.
I have studied a game designer master here in spain. I had to elaborate various projects along the master and one of them is very similar to LiF. I probably wont develop it never so i think some of the ideas could be good for your game.
PLAYER'S DEATH
I'll start with the death feature. I suppose you would like to leave all kinds of magic out of the game, but the player's death is always a dificult topic.
I think the idea of resurrection isn't very immersive in the world you created so i'll suggest you other way:
If the player dont manage a singular character but a dinastic house, each time the player die it could be represented with the heir of the house being the new playable character.
Its only the metaphor. In the mechanics level it would be similar to your death idea (losing skills etc) but the player could chose to change the appearance and name of the new character or keep the same of the dead character.
SERVANTS (NPCs)
I dont like the idea of human NPCs that could be farmed by the players. But adding NPCs that could work for the players would avoid the player some ungrateful tasks (some players would hate to collect tomatos
) and add immersion and life-sense to the cities.
It would work in a similar way that strategic games like Settlers or Stronghold. Servants would receive a amount of money Exchange for their services and could farm, mining, build etc for the player.
Of course they only could work in the player's properties and the player should build roads between the working place and the storage place (its just for evade complex pathfindings and allow the player a higher control about the NPCs movement). If someone attacks the NPCs, they will just flee to the player's house.
And thats all for the moment. Sorry for my english i have to improve it yet
.I you are interested i will provide more suggestions in the future.
Hope it helps you in your great game