Originally Posted by Brainer
Originally Posted by jsiu.dev
Originally Posted by saeran
Funny thing, Orpheus sometimes uses a tadpole, and sometimes doesn't. If you accept the final tadpole from the emperor, but then instead of transforming, you force him to leave, Orpheus is going to use that tadpole. But if you never accept the tadpole from the emperor, Orpheus is going to turn into a mind flayer without the tadpole (since you don't have any). And there is no explanation provided. laugh

At the beginning of act 3, after the party helped Emperor fight off the Githyanki royal guards, he will to convince you to change. And even you refuse, he still hands you a tadpole. So you always have a tadpole in hand. Not sure what happen if you throw it away or destroy it (possible??). I kept it in camp stash. And if I let Orpheus change, the animation always show Tav handed something to Orpheus. Assuming it is the tadpole, as the animation only show hand/arm movment.
You can destroy the tadpole if you want to, though it doesn't really affect anything as far as I am aware.
Correct, Orpheus just magically transforms without any reason or trigger.

Basically Larian wrote themselves into a corner and instead of resolving it or rethinking their "there must be an illithid" nonsense they just brute forced it with no care for story consistency.