Nice write up.

I could imagine a situation where Orpheus and The Emperor work together. Ideally this would require some intervention on Tav's part. A persuasion check on the order of the check that brought down the mini bosses or an insight check that would impress the gods.

Because not only do you have the long standing hatred between Gith and Illithid to contend with you have the fact that The Emperor has been mind breaking and siphoning power from Orpheus all this time. It would be as if the torture victim in the goblin camp decided to get off the rack and work with Spike the torturer. Not impossible but Tav better make one hell of an argument.

And I don't think The Emperor would be declared a hero - I imagine Orpheus would say something like "I will give you time to escape and will not hunt you down - but it would better for you if our paths never crossed again"

As far as The Emperor being evil there's no question that he's evil. If the narrator says she's neutral she's wrong and she needs to talk with the writers because in the most recent interview the devs confirmed that he's evil. He's also listed as evil in the Murder in Baldur's Gate module.

https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-final-interview-game-of-the-year-2023-characters-endings

Quote
CD: We used to have this joke where ou have to get the hammer and then The Emperor is going, "What was that conversation you just had?" We used to joke that basically you were stuck between an accountant and a lawyer. One guy just wants to get back to running his nasty evil business under the city, and the other guy's trying to make his deals and catch you in a loophole.

SV: Well, there's a bit where Raphael says, and again, Raphael is a piece of shit, a lot of what he says you can't trust, but he is honest. And at one point, if you push him on it, he says, "All you are to The Emperor is a pack animal that's carrying him to where he needs to be. That's all you are to him." And Raphael's a villain, but there's truth in what he says, and having those two whisper in your ear... it's a devil and a squid.

You are right to say that he's a different sort of evil from, say, Kethric but he's evil nonetheless. Some of Kethric's evil actions are self interested but most of them are in service of Myrkul. Kethric serves a divine will while The Emperor serves himself. But self interest at the expense of others is evil.


As far as being neutral is this something added with patch 5 or are you thinking of "rogue mind flyer" dialogue that the squidified gets? Because rogue isn't the same status as neutral.

I do think your suggestion would be an improvement - no one needs to sacrifice their soul - but I would much prefer a good boss fight. To my mind this makes more sense than "I'm going to join the Netherbrain"

Emperor: I had hoped you would see reason but I've been preparing for this possibility. Have you forgotten that I can read your thoughts? That I know you have the Orphic hammer with you? Put away that hammer now or I will be forced to stop you.