Originally Posted by Chlamydia
I really don't get why he needed to be in the story.

I feel just Orpheus being trapped in the artifact would have been enough of a twist. There didn't need to be two inhabitants.

It'd be a pretty short game with almost zero choices for players otherwise.


Orpheus has been in the astral prism for 1000 years, Vlakiith's entire reign, and been helpless to get free. Him suddenly being able to affect anything outside of the prism wouldn't make sense.

Without the Emp, the party would not be shielded from the Absolute, because we are outside the prism.

Even if they deus ex machina'ed Orph to suddenly be able to reach beyond the prism, his only power is to block mindflayer control. So he could shield tadpoled people outside the prism, but be unable to talk to anyone, because he's not mindflayer and can't connect to tadpoled people. So we'd be free but completely directionless unless we went to the gith creche and got put into the prism by Vlakiith to talk to him. So anyone that goes to Act 2 via the underdark would be completely clueless as to who is helping them, why they are free, and what we need to do. Unless we were railroaded into having no choice but to go to the creche, taking away a lot of choices for players in the game.

Even if they gave him a way to reach out of the prism, the motivation to free the party from the absolute, came up with a reason he could speak mentally to you, your entire game would be:


"I am your only path to being free, help me. If you don't do what I say, I will let the Absolute turn you into a mindflayer and get someone else to help me."

Choose your response:

1) "Ok"
2) Turn into a mindflayer and serve the brain until the Gith kill you.

1) "You must kill this demon for the hammer. Don't bother bargaining with him, I'm sending you my loyal Gith/royal guards. Then free me."

*steamroll Raphael with Gith Royal Guards on red dragons, get hammer, free him, kill brain*

*also, probably be killed by Orpheus afterwards because canonically, Gith are EVIL alignment. They will kill/torture/enslave anyone who gets in their way of hunting mindflayers. There would be zero reason for Orpheus to help you or not outright kill you after you help him kill the brain, especially if you used tadpoles to enhance your power along the way, making the choice of using tadpoles an instant death sentence.*

2) Play mindflayer mini-game of inserting tadpoles into people's eyes until a group of Gith bust in and kill you.

Roll credits.


There would be no sense of mystery for the player to figure out what is really going on. Zero choices on who to trust, who to follow, what path to take. Zero choice to enslave the brain yourself. None of our choices in game would make much difference since they would all have to end with us siding with Orpheus or nuking with Gale.

For that kind of railroading, just play a Telltale game.

Last edited by Myrrh; 27/09/23 02:55 AM.