Low-spoiler missable characters guide?

[Talbot]

I don't want to spoil the game for myself but I also don't want to lock myself out of any characters. Can anyone recommend a good guide to that end, or are they all pretty spoiler heavy by necessity?

I guess more broadly, how easy is it to miss characters as a general rule? Am I worried about nothing?

[Belforks]

this one is pretty good https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3038171486

it does have a bit of spoilers but look at the overview and it'll tell you when these companions are available to be recruited.
like bai jin, shangguan hong and sima ling are technically available even before joining wudang but you can get them a bit later.

but for certain companions they can be missed out on if you don't go to them after a few main quests like kong liang.

[Thorunn]

I think it's the opposite, most of the guides about the companions need very little spoilers. but imo the game peak isn't easily missed, which is the last dialogue before fighting Kama at the top of Buddha's Hollow. BUT you can easily miss surrounding events if you don't know what you can do at certain points in the game (like leaving the city before resting in a certain quest). you don't need to 100% the first run as much of this game's value is around the replayability. I missed Kong Liang (mostly irrelevant by himself) and missed Ye Fei by a hair (he's extremely relevant to 100% the game and to get some of the endings) and still got to do both the DLCs in my first run (before reading any guides).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K_qPs8IH-relSXdUx7U4BIklrW0UjtWc8cRg-7b_x4I/edit?gid=0#gid=0 this is my favorite guide. if you follow the "walkthrough" section you won't miss any of the companions, and since you'll be reading it as you complete the quests, you won't get any spoilers.

[Thorunn]

and yeah, it's very easy to miss characters tho most of them won't change the ending, you just won't get to know what happens to them after the story ends