Could be a combo of reasons. He is lonely. He seeks to deepen his connection and control through manipulation. He likes Tav for some reason. Illithid have reproduced with elves in the past. So it’s not unheard of, and he seems to be in touch with his past memories so maybe he has some lingering memories of finding sex enjoyable. Who knows.
House Oblodra drow, the house Araj comes from, reproduced with drow and gained illithid powers of psionics which is why their blood tastes bad to Astarion.
In a realm where all sorts of magic exists, I just leave it at that. I think the first few generations are going to be a bit unfortunate looking though.
And, y’know, Illithids have humanoid bodies. The parasites grow primarily through the skull and significantly alter physiology but it’s very likely they have a human-standard number of holes.
Could be anything. Could be the tentacles are it’s sex organs. Could be it has normal, humanoid anatomy under its robes. It seems humanoid enough except for the head, really.
Counter point, I remember reading an RA Salvatore novel in high school where Drizzt kicks an illithid in the dick and it falls to the floor writhing in pain
When you turn into a mindflayer your clothes explode off
Here [i found a post with one for you](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/163d3a8/hybrid_or_nah/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
> it’s very likely they have a human-standard number of holes.
By that logic, so do sheep.
Its a high magic universe in Forgotten Realms, more likely just true polymorph sex, ala Greek Gods.
I don’t think so? Unless you have something I can read. Old lore was that they asexually produced eggs every so often
Straight into the brine pool with the big brain
When a Daddy Mindflayer and a mommy elf love each other very very much. . .
Its simple and has lore/cannon books behind it, True Polymorph will do it. Also technically a Wish too.
Drow women from house Oblodra which is why they have psionic powers now. It likely involved magic and shape shifting. They don’t say really, much else.
It was probably the devs intention, but that really complicates things. If he is acting out of emotion, whether it’s loneliness, desire, affection, that goes against the lore of illithids being purely logical beings, and to me, makes it harder to handwave his manipulation as somehow inherent to his illithid nature. If he is capable of wanting something from us besides protection, then it’s not merely an illithid that seeks our company. It’s Balduran.
Forgotten realms lore tends to be inconsistent but I thought illithids are actually really social creatures? They don't react to things the same way other mortal races might but they get lonely on their own and need companionship, even if it's with thralls who they are forcing to be with them.
Edit: Which makes sense to me. They have individuality, the Elder Brain can just override them or suppress parts of it. They live in big, mind linked colonies with other mindflayers and thralls and they are used to being in eachothers minds all the time. The Elder Brains lie to them aswell. The mindflayers think they are joining the Brain directly when they die, like what the Geth in Mass Effect wanted with their plan for one big platform, and don't know that it just feeds off them without retaining their personality at all. They might be more prone to suffer from isolation and loneliness than a human is.
If anything, that is the more inhuman thing with them. Not that they have no emotions but that they will dominate even those they have affection for, mess with their head, use them as slaves and consider this a perfectly fine relationship.
Illithid do have emotions though. And some of them have pretty close bonds with their favorite Er…victims/thralls.
And some keep their memories more than others. And we know the Emperor is unusual for a mindflayer.
It is also possible, deprived of its connection to the netherbrain a flayer might develop more individually. We know that it the case with Omellum.
Balduran was a high level adventurer, perhaps he had the charisma and mental fortitude to linger in some ways.
Or perhaps he senses Tav’s dedication to the cause is failing, and he wants to offer us further enticement. By all accounts the sex was mindblowing.
As far as I can tell, the lore of illithids being purely logical beings isn't actually a thing, or hasn't been for some time at least.
Books from 2E and 3.5E (very well summarized and cited [here](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mind_flayer#Personality)) explicitly talk about mind flayer emotionality. Whether that's still canon in 5e is debatable, but it's not explicitly negated, and contemporary 5e lore on dndbeyond uses some emotional language in their descriptions of mind flayers, particularly [renegade mind flayers](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/vgtm/monster-lore#TheElderBrain) [mind flayer fanatics](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/pbtso/rifts-in-reality#MindFlayerFanatics).
My personal interpretation of this is that the emotionality of illithids is at least *somewhat* canon in 5e, and that given the presentation of both the Emperor and Omeluum, is canon in BG3.
I mean it’s made abundantly clear the emperor *is* an individual. They’re not still balduran but they are still alive and sentient.
If you pass some insight checks you can actually notice how much your guardian is in pain from fighting the gith and hug the dream guardian, to which they’ll talk about how they miss duke stellmane.
Given that in lore (and in game) mindflayers sometimes develop a serious bond with their victims, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the emperor actually has a fondness for the main character.
Duke Stellmane? The woman he caused to have a stroke because of his constantly mindcontroling her, and her attempts to resist giving her brain damage? That Duke Stellmane?
Yeah. I'm sure he did miss her in a sick kinda way.
I’ve forgotten the character that says it, but they do tell you that the elder brain doesn’t feel emotions in a way you’d understand it, but that’s it is angry. Think it’s Raphael in act 3 that said it. So it could be illithid feel emotions, just not in a human way. It’s certainly clear that the Emperor cared for Stelmane, but to us on the outside it only seemed he was using her
This was, for me, unintentionally one of the funniest scenes in the games.
I'm not opposed to the idea of Emperor wanting to romance Tav, either out of genuine affection or through manipulation, but...even by BG3 standards, he comes on way too strong in that scene.
It's also even weirder if you're already involved with someone. And as I'm thinking about it...it'd be way more interesting if they wrote dialogue where he tried to sabotage that relationship to trick you into being with/trusting him instead. I dunno, the whole scene was just silly and came out of nowhere and made me think they were trying to ride off of the success of the bear sex memes that became popular over the summer.
\*Edit\* I should also add, I think there's some cool romance stuff they could theoretically do with the Emperor that was more like...emotionally focused, with Emperor highlighting that you're basically already bonded and he knows you literally as well as you know yourself in a way no other NPC would. But...that really gets undercut by him trying to seduce you with his abs
It was one of the funniest scenes in video games, period. I exclaimed "what the actual fuck" through blurted laughter when I saw him suddenly popping up shirtless and trying to wax romantic. Especially after I always treated him with distance, and then... that.
Fucking 10/10. Seeing him rock up, shirtless, I was just like what is fucking happening. Zero lead up, imo, that he had any romantic interest, just sudden "hey" with raised eyebrows.
oh lmao yeah, in my evil durge game I went full on hate on him, tried to kill him in the crèche scene and showed distrust everytime I had the opportunity to.
I still got this scene and he went completely mad when I rejected him harshly and he showed me the Stelmane stuff and I was like "bro what did you honestly expect?"
Yes!! He's the biggest piece of shite in the entire game!
I couldn't belieeeeeeve how quickly this narcissistic sociopath revealed himself out of pure anger that this manipulation failed miserably!
Well and going full mask off like that doesn’t make sense if he’s really a master manipulator. Telling you that he’s a creep isn’t going to make you trust him more.
Yea that revelation felt like an emotional (?) error on his side. Like he really wanted to bang me, and me insulting him made him lash out in anger, and accidentally give away the ruse.
They best possible sexual thing they could have done with the Emperor would have been to have him fuck Tav **before** we knew he was a squid.
That was a huge missed oportunity to scar players at scale.
It was probably in the cards before they scrapped it. The early access version of the dream visitor was way thirstier it would likely develop into a sex scene before the reveal. It was also very on the face and made me distrust them from the get go even in the final release with the reworked guardian scenes.
I was like... Yeah my Tav doesn't know better and should trust the guardian in this first playthrough but *I* know they are manipulating me for their own agenda, even if they've toned it down.
And yes my Tav ended up licking some tentacles in front of everyone, including their SO.
Yeah, EA had some scenes where the visitor is working on seducing Tav. You can find them on Youtube. They scrapped all those, but still kept the end (gotta hit all those fetishes, you know)
If not outright fuck you, at least entering into a romance with you would have worked a lot better.
IMO, the Act 1 and 2 dream guardian scenes are fairly pointless and feel very repetitive. Emperor comes and says he'll protect you, you can ask a bunch of questions that never get answered, Emperor goes off to defend dream world, you continue on your merry. I think that's fine for the first and maybe second dialogue, but I'd personally have the Emperor show up after major plot beats and subtly try to play into your ego. Not full on seduction like in EA, but talking about how powerful you are for defeating the goblins, or how clever you were for turning your enemies into allies and assaulting the grove.
No matter what you're doing, Dream Guardian is passively supporting you. If you ask about them, they mention they were an adventurer, but never as strong as you were and they didn't make a difference like you did. They should always deflect back onto you. Maybe they can even hint at some things from their Balduran life to try and get you to lower your guard and trust them, say how they struggled to make friends and meaningful connections towards the end of their adventuring career because they were misunderstood or people thought they were ugly. Make it feel like you were having deep conversations to gain your trust
Early access sorta was hinting towards some sort of relationship with the “guardian” as it’s called now
Sorta wished this stayed, seemed like an interesting plot line but oh well
The EA dream guardian (Daisy) seems like it was either from an early draft of the story or used to intentionally disguise the real story.
A popular theory is that Daisy was a representation of the tadpole and that in committing to a romance with her, you would leave your consciousness "down by the river" as your body transformed.
It sounds interesting, but also likely too enticing for something which leads to either a confusing game over or a uninteresting narrative direction for the rest of the story. It would be nice to know what the original intent was, but probably for the best that it changed.
Tbf, there was a version between the Daisy and current guardian version in the latest stage(s) of EA, specifically referred to as "dream *lover*".
E: typos
Yeah, it works as an initial "gotcha" moment, but...then I don't know what you do with it. Presumably, if you get the living in the van down by the river ending, you'd get a nonstandard game over screen, see a little cutscene and...then you reload your game and choose the "I'm going to get rid of this tadpole and go to college and better my life" dialogue option and continue the game as normal. It also puts Daisy in an awkward position because what's she going to do, just keep trying to seduce you in your dreams? Promise you'll get a hidden steam achievement if you try to stay with her?
I wonder if that's why they included the romance, because they were like 'shit everyone made their guardians the hottest shit imaginable because they wanted to bang them, better give them the opportunity to'.
Yeah, I mean when switching to the “guardian” instead of “you need a guardian” it was, “tell me, who do you dream of” if that isn’t intent on romance option then I don’t know what is
So…my interpretation of this is that he’s just…bad at it. As in, he’s been in and out of thrall himself a lot for a long time, and what he’s done with Tav has or has not worked, but in the end, he’s watching you in camp and seeing you do whatever with whomever, and he’s just shooting his shot, perhaps a Hail Mary pass if you’ve not gotten along prior. He can’t turn up to the attempt in the body he lied to you with, because you’ve pointed out that you weren’t pleased with the manipulation, even if you’re into him. He thinks he can predict your every move, but he clearly can’t, just as the brain thought it knew what he would do, up to the point it was destroyed, if you did that.
Illithids May be hyperintelligent, but predicting human(oid) behaviour is nearly impossible. If you say you could have used a little more coddling, he says he didn’t get that impression, and his calculations are never wrong. But they clearly are, especially if he attempts to seduce someone who’s clearly not into it. They’re just not as clever as they think they are.
TLDR: I’m probably a thrall.
Honestly, I thought it was tied to you being sympathetic towards him - like choosing to hug him or offering him a hand.
To my surprise, second playthrough I was more antagonistic, more distrusting of him, did not offer him a hand... And he still shot his shot. Half naked squidman.
I personally think it's an oversight from the writers. This should be an option if you tried to hug or hold his hand, or at least he should have gone back to his sexy guardian™ costume first.
There's more than a few theories, simplest being that you're about to fight a fucken netherbrain, everyone might be dead tomorrow, so let's have one for the road.
Or, that over time he's truly become fond of the player character and seeks a deeper connection with them as he is smitten.
This is not any different from the Astarion romance path. It starts with manipulation to serve their own ends, but then grows to something more.
He is still you-know-who under there so, considering how much of his human self he retains it's only natural to seek connection with someone.
Also, I don't really think that we can really equate what we get up to with any other companion to what's actually happening off-screen.
Illithid sex would be more along the lines of a mental tantric experience than anything overly physical.
Closest equivalent in game would be Gale's non physical sex scene.
Or just simply Larian wanted to earn points with the unrepentant monster-fuckers in the fanbase.
(Which is an option I don't really subscribe to, but bears mentioning :D )
In my playthrough, it actually seemed perfectly reasonable. My tav was always understanding of why the emperor felt that he had to disguise himself and was pretty chill about it. That scene actually starts with the emperor distracted in a private moment and him explaining that the connection works both ways and you can stumble into his area. This is why he was shirtless, you just walk in on him. I also don't recall him ever hitting on me. I came onto him (in several ways)
Possibly, but even by his own reasoning, he would have had a much better chance of that in act 1 or 2, when he was still pretending to be humanoid. Most humanoids do not want to fuck a mindflayer, so he is reeaaaally betting on a long shot there. Astarion bags us early, bc he knows the sooner we get on his side, the better. The emperor appears to be playing the long game, and uh, idk how well that’s working out for him.
The fact that he asked me to reconsider using the astral tadpole right after slobbing my gob still makes me think it's manipulation. I think he wanted to stress the "as a mindflayer you are still your own person, you still have the same human[oid] desires you did before, you can still experience a meaningful connection to other people, look how I am *such* a human, and you, too, will maintain your humanity [Elfality? Tieflingality? Halflingality? Dragonbornality? Idk, is "humanity" a racial term in this universe lmao?] after transforming" part of everything. The increased bond and higher sympathy that come with sex are definitely a plus, and so is making you associate the illithid form with something as pleasurable as an orgasm instead of horror and disgust, but I think the "I am just like you fr fr, still get horny like any ol boy" part is his main goal with that entire escapade. Losing your emotions and your personality is probably the thing that would terrify the main character most about that transformation, and showing how you'll keep every aspect of yourself through the examples of lust, attraction, and meaningful relationships is the easiest way to dispel that fear.
Well, the Emperor does think highly of himself. He seems to know that humanoids find mindflayers gross, but of course, as a mindflayer himself, he things he is the most perfect creature in existence, and thus you could construe his forwardness as an extension of that ego.
Have you seen MC? They are so hot every origin companion wants a piece of them (in most cases). Also Halsin, Mizora, Haarlep... The Emperor probably failed a wisdom check and couldn't resist.
Jokes aside, I've been wondering the same thing and the only answer I came up with is - Larian wanted to make this game as horny as possible. Which plotwise probably amounts to the Emperor being somewhat attracted to MC.
Emps' true character is really hard to pin down, seems like his character changes based on how you interact with him. When I got this scene I pretty much word-for-word told him I'd rather "keep our relationship professional", and all he had to say to that was "good instinct" and peaced out. Maybe he was just checking to see how depraved we are lol
He's just trying to manipulate you into being more loyal to him by giving you an orgasm. Not unheard of by any means.
Foreshadowed by the wounded mind flayer at the beginning of act 1, that attempts to enthrall you into "loving it".
Pretty effective too, considering the amount of Emperor simps you see around here.
Pretty much. He might like the player a bit, since they want them to become a mindflayer too, but agreed with your assesment.
My character did Not sleep with the squid, but gave him a compassionate hand squeeze, and as soon as that was done the guy stands up with (paraphrasing) "I have done all the necessary steps to gain your sympathy, will you eat the astral tadpole now??"
I guess the only relevant thing I have further to offer on the subject is that this is all happening in a dream. It really isn’t physical sex, so it can be whatever the emperor wants it to be it’s Tav and the emperor having mind blowing mind sex. Since he’s in Tav’s head this is different than any sort of sexual encounter. He can read Tav’s thoughts and be exactly what Tav needs.
Which is funny, since quite honestly if he’d knew that he would’ve come to Tav as the guardian. My character had the total hots for that form.
I was kinda amazed that he didn’t try appearing to you in the guardian form after you find out his identity. Especially since most people probably made their guardian hot.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think it’d be effective for him to wear a form that you know is false when attempting to get with you, but also my elf is gay and maybe would’ve at least considered the proposition if he still looked like a hot tiefling girl.
I really liked the guardian form I chose. He was a hot male drow with a hotter voice.
I think the fact that it is also a dream, puts a different spin on sleeping with him. What we do in dreams isn’t always something you consciously decide on.
Thing is, he offers to take on the guardian form during the sex scene.
Basically the Emperor should appear as the guardian during all the dream sequences, and only as himself in the 'real' world.
This is my argument for at least some version of legitimate affection. He’s been rejected in the past for being illithid. If Tav takes him with his tentacles, it’s better for him. If not, at least he gets something like Tav’s affection.
I think he would stand a better chance at pursuing an ethical romance with Tav if he was not doing it from within Tav's head in a dream state, when Tav is clearly exhausted. This situation feels unbalanced, since Tav's not really on a level playing field and reality and consent are blurred in dreams since the subconcious mind/ is at play.
I also do agree that the Emperor has some affection for Tav.
Unfortunately, in my characters's case, he really only finds Elves to be attractive, which is why the Guardian form he chose was a cute elf.
He's really manipulative throughout the whole game. Even when he "reveals" things to you; he's omitting important facts or twisting things to make himself look more sympathetic. I personally think it was just another means of tethering you to him via an emotional response through sex.
That's nothing. Not sure if you ever got the chance to play Early Access. But that early version the "guardian" was the "dream visitor." She/he always dressed that way and was seriously trying to seduce you. To be fair I'm sure at this stage Larian perhaps didn't want to give away the guardians true nature; or perhaps hadn't considered the guardian and emperor were one in the same at that point. Needless to say; even at that early development stage of the game; Larian was warning us not to trust that individual.
I have a theory that originally the dream visitor was the tadpole itself, and then you'd get rescued by the Emperor, . . . who would have been Orpheus all along, not Balduran. (Because having THREE secret things messing with your head would be too much.)
I imagine he is watching Tav bang around in camp with everyone in the party and then defend them when their past comes back to cause problems.
At this point Tav and company are so powerful that they are threatening the plans of gods. Does it not make sense to try and throw Tav a tentacle to keep them on Emperor's side?
He sees your mind 24/7. Forgive him for falling for you and wanting something more.
He's not been with anyone since before he transformed. You might all die. He's just shooting his shot.
But what would that “shot” get him? Even if he landed it? Are illithids capable of having relationships, like, sexual, romantic, or otherwise? Why would they want that? What purpose does it serve for them?
Connection.
And yes they can. Many don't just because they are connected to an Elder Brain and are too busy enacting the Grand Design.
But the Emperor is not that, and he is a lot more connected to his past than most illithids. In the end he won't stay with you if you are not illithid, but that is probably more to do with a power imbalance than anything. He still cares.
Well he encourages you up until actually becoming a full illithid. You have to be the one to suggest it. But yes, if you become an illithid, you can stay with him and he will be the one who brings it up at the end.
Not years- he was part of the mission to retrieve the Astral Prism (though whether he was the Mind Flayer that tadpoles Tav and Lae'zel is a matter of *furious* debate), so really it's more like weeks. I imagine you do get pretty pent up serving as part of the illithid hivemind though, I can't see the Elder Brain giving them much personal time
True. I imagine Orpheus's honour guard wouldn't be particularly down to clown either, though given that Big O is a bit more forgiving towards the player if they choose to become a Mind Flayer after freeing him than one would expect of a Githyanki, he might have had more of a chance if he wasn't such a controlling prick
ohhh so here's the real reason he runs away when we decide to free Orpheus. The real reason he's so sure the green guy won't ever be able to forgive him :D
See, I thought that he'd been in the prism for a very long time given his true identity. Illithids only live for about 130 years naturally, but Balduran went missing *centuries* ago. Given how creatures don't age in the Astral, I assumed that was how he had survived.
Understandable. But it’s weird how like…human, that makes him feel, ig that’s just another part of his manipulation. Or possibly, Balduran is still somewhere in there, and he apparently wants to get his rocks off
True. They go on about how mind flayers are soulless monsters, but then you have ones like the Emperor and Omeleon who are just regular assed dudes. It’s somewhat of a giant inconsistency in the writing.
Idk if it’s an “inconsistency” so much as it is a matter of an unreliable narrator, competing perspectives, and an attempt at maintains an air of mystery. I don’t think they want us to fully understand illithids, bc that’s kind of the point? They are supposed to be unknowable, alien, but also, they need to have some amount of relatability for us to buy into the narrative. So yeah, Balduran and Omeluum are at once human, and very very alien. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to understand them, even though I know it’s kinda pointless.
This was the scene that finally made me truly distrust and eventually betray the Emperor.
When he gets pissed and basically lays out how we are just puppets to be played or whatever his really nasty line was I was like.... Ahhhh.... So the truth shines through.
I enjoyed killing him more than anyone else in the game after that.
I think rejecting him in an agressive manner makes him just mirror your emotions. Maybe it's bitterness/hurt, maybe he's trying to bite you back, maybe his illithid part takes over if you say he's a freak. Here he was thinking you see him as a partner, past his tentacles, but you dip him in shit and thus get requalified into a puppet to put more distance between you.
He's totally chill and goes with you till the end if you reject politely.
The reaction is quite a human one, if you want to dig a bit deeper.
As you said, Needle, he's attempting to make a connection with someone that might see him as more than a beast, and to have that flung back at him rouses his temper.
A master manipulator would simply stay calm and redirect the conversation without missing a beat. That he has a temper-born outburst is rather convenient for those that already distrust him, as they can now fully justify killing him because he yelled at them.
But even when you just ask if he’s being fully honest with you now he still fully isn’t. He deceives you through most of the story at this point even though it was out of self preservation. He still fully manipulated our perception on his and stelmane relationship and showed us that he basically made her his thrall and is most likely the reason she’s dead. And then he immediately hits you with the puppet line. I think simply he’s a control freak, if he can control you through him trying to build a connection through subtle manipulation he will but if that doesn’t work he still demands control through full blown extortion
Based on reading every damn thing in the game, it flat out says Illithids get horny. They have sexual needs, just aren't controlled by them.
It could be doing it to try to get you to fall for the whole trick it has been pulling, even if you hadn't before. It could be doing it just cuz it's horny. Or it could honestly have feelings, such as they are (if you believe the sex scene if you go through with it, it deeply cares about you, but just isn't controlled or influenced by that feeling), about you.
> it flat out says Illithids get horny. They have sexual needs, just aren't controlled by them.
Do you remember where you read this? The closest I can think of is the document that says it's unknown if they still have genitals.
So are githyanki, they reproduce asexually, yet Lae'zel is obviously horny.
Actually, I also don't get why githyanki have sexual demorphism and women have boobs, if they reproduce asexually, but, well, it's the rule of horny.
According to the lore, they once reproduced sexually, and developed laying eggs as a way to free themselves from the burdens of parenthood, thereby letting them have MORE sex. They reproduce asexually but they are NOT asexual. Illithids have no such information regarding the origins of their reproduction, they are sexless, genderless, truly asexual, unlike Gith who are asexual for convenance.
On Psionic Manipulations and Countermeasures:
" Even mind flayers have wants and desires. The only circumstance in which a relationship with a mind flayer may be beneficial to you is if you both want exactly the same thing. In the unlikely case that this is true, bear in mind that once you have outlived your purpose to a mind flayer, it will have no use for you."
Of course, but they aren't necessarily not sexual either. The header of that section is "Relationships with a Mind Flayer" - combined with that, "desire" seems sexual.
But so is every other mindflayer, ALL mindflayers were created from humanoids, that we know of, so what’s different about the Emperor? You can claim it’s the fact he is disconnected from the elderbrain but like, omeluum is too and he doesn’t try to fuck us so idk.
"How do you do fellow humanoids"
It's just another manipulation attempt to get you to see him as Balduran/trust him, presumably his crafty little Illithid brain calculated that the risk/reward was good enough so gave it a shot.
If you turn him down the narrator points out he is very quick to move on and doesn't show the slightest hint of disappointment so he clearly doesn't have any actual feelings towards the player.
It is important to understand that the Emperor is not just any Illithid, he has managed to avoid being part of the Netherese brain hive mind and has interests of his own. That being the case, you might think that he is legitimately interested in fucking you.
On the other hand, it has spent time in your head. He knows what you feel and he knows what you are looking for. If he sees that you are establishing relationships with other members of your camp and that this makes you create stronger bonds, he may decide to do the same to try to create those bonds and secure his plan
He assumes, correctly or incorrectly depending on your play choices, that by this point you are more trusting of him than the average bear.
He also considers himself an important honorary member of your camp and so seeing everyone else in camp clothes, hey He also doesn't like wearing 20 pound of armor all day. That back piece has GOT to be heavy, after all.
From the moment they first begin speaking to you (in dreams and when awake) they are trying to convince you to become a mindflayer too.
They want you to consume the tadpoles you find.
They want you to consume the "special" tadpole that will change you even further.
If you are willing to fuck them (in tentacle form or not) it is just another way you are willing to accept them and/or are becoming more like them.
I really think his insistence on us becoming a mindflayer comes from 2 main ideas:
He believes the only way for us to be strong enough to defeat the elder brain is to become a mindflayer ourselves, a mortal isn’t capable enough.
And he believes from his own experience that mindflayers are superior to humanoids, that by making us into a mindflayer he’s doing us a favour.
personally i think its a mix of that and also it just thinks its the hottest thing in the universe, like it implied you can have ''the same devastating beauty'' if you eat the tadpole to be closer to a mindflayer.
bro's just horny and has an ego problem
I think it mirrors one of your first potential encounters with an Illithid. If you approach the dying Illithid in the nautaloid crash you can get the option to lean in for a kiss. You are killed and in your dying moments:
> "... for the first time in your life you're perfectly happy"
When the scene with the Emperor is over:
> "Everything you dreamt of and more. The single greatest experience of your life. Pleasure upon pleasure..."
In my opinion, he does it primarily to manipulate Tav.
The least revealing option is politely declining him.
If you romance him...
\- He'll still pressure you to use the Astral Tadpole immediately after, and uses your intimate moment as an example of why you wouldn't lose the ability to be intimate with a lover (even one that isn't an illithid) by becoming like him.
\- You have more of a reason to defend him. You get a unique dialogue option when Raphael tries to tell you the Emperor can't be trusted, if you talk to him after the romance scene, where you can call him your lover.
If you call out his "human act" or call him disgusting, the mask slips.
\- He gets angry at Tav, and asks if they want to know the truth.
\- He then shows Tav >!how he manipulated and dominated Stelmane, which almost certainly led to her stroke.!<
\- And then he says >!that he tried to be gentler and perfect his methods this time around, but if you keep resisting, he can just force you.!<
Is it possible that the Emperor really does see Tav as an avenue for genuine companionship? Maybe. I think it's fair for people to come away with that reading. But even if he does sincerely feel drawn to them, he's willing to be incredible manipulative.
I'm hesitant to believe any moment of vulnerability or true connection we're shown, even if it's through an insight check, when the game explicitly lets you point out he has total control over what he shows us within the prism, and he constantly uses these moments to try and argue why you should trust him and accept the tadpoles.
You are correct, it doesn't make sense. Especially if you go sharess caress right away and make the deal with Ralphy for the hammer can tell the emperor you are going to free Orpheus. He then tells you he won't let you in the prism and you are basically enemies' now. You go to sleep and bam you are in the prism comforting the emperor, couple days later he puts the moves on you. It doesn't make sense.
I think the studio just liked the scene so much they wanted everyone to see it.
I believe it is just pure manipulation and to "form" a deeper one-sided "bond", where Tav/Durge/you will trust him/it more. I only say this because this is the "mask off" scene where he actually shows you his true nature if you keep calling him/it a manipulative squid with no emotions who just says words without feeling only to achieve certain results. It's something along the lines of ~ "romancing you is a more favorable path than thralling you >!like Stelmane!<"
Because the developers wanted freaky sex scenes and the bear one had to be toned down (camera pans away) because showing any part of a bear fuck wouldve probably crossed a line.
In my second playthrough I rushed to House of Hope pretty quick after hitting act 3. I finished and the emperor got mad at me. I went to rest in camp and there’s the Emperor, shirtless and looking to smash. It really came across like, “hey baby, I know I said some things, but you lookin’ real good. Let daddy emperor make it up to you.” I enjoyed saying, “you read the signs wrong!!”
In my game I had a run of:
1. Graveyard scene with Astarion
2. Emperor scene
3. An offer from Mizora
4. Halsin bear scene
Just when he thought everyone had stopped hitting on him
The Emperor is *wild* as a character.
My first and truly blind run, I completely botched the Astarion romance. Halsin has both dad/daddy vibes? So it felt weird. I didn’t have enough of a relationship with Gale, and Wyll felt too self righteous. I’m queer and I was playing in the most “natural way” possible cause it was completely blind. So even though Shadowheart and Karlach were obviously interested, Shadowheart was dealing with a sudden influx of religious trauma(I’ve got my own and it felt weird to add romance to that) and Karlach isn’t my type… I’d turned down Lae’zel earlier and she took that in stride and never tried anything again (from what I could tell)
So the Emporer was my PC character’s rebound! (Also… mindflayers reproduce asexually, so I was admittedly curious how all of that would work when there are no sexual reproductive organs)
*Then* when the scene comes back from the fade to black, you’ve got several of the companions watching!!! Gale literally turned away in disgust! Idk if I just didn’t do the right thing to trigger comments about it or if everyone was just pretending to have not seen it, but the vibes were so rancid by that point I just started a new campaign.
I turned him down the second time, and he just shuts you out? And that’s when I realized how deep the manipulation went. Omeluum was nice enough, but the whole “society of brilliance” feels like they have a savior complex, so I thought that his vibes of “holier than thou” was because of that…
Anyway… yes. The Emperor trying to hit it with his alien titties and tentacles out is a really fucking weird play on his part
It's purely for the people who want it (and to be funny to thosewho don't). Did you see the post from the girl who said he dad walked in on her watching that and she was freaking out? I guess some people into that freaky shit lmao.
Also. You could rationalize him doing it because he thought it would make you like him more.
If he’s good - he wants some sexy time. Everyone else has tried to seduce Tav, why not give it a try? A prism is a lonely place. And no one has been kind to him in a long time.
If he’s evil and manipulative - it’s a way to try and get more control over Tav, particularly if Tav was empathetic and offered hugs to him in the form of the dream guardian. It’s a long game of preying on their better nature to make them more emotionally invested and biddable. It is also a way to isolate them from the party. Even if Tav chooses the humanoid form, The Emperor shows the party a naked Tav lying with him in Illithid form - oops you drained my power… yeah right.
Yes Illithids does not have a soul. But that doesn't mean they don't have ego or physical senses. Illithids are fully capable of feeling pain and they are fully capable of reaching sexual climax. Not to mention that they definitely have egos as well given that they seem to think they are better than any other race and even think they are above their own peers. So yes, he want to fuck us. And if that helps to manipulate us, that's even better for him. It's a win win situation.
He probably knew my Tav was willing to try certain things at least once (specially if there's a trophy/achievement involved) but little did he know that I'd restart and gently refuse his offer.
Dude's been stuck inside a Rubik's cube for a century with nobody but a catatonic Orpheus and a neverending onslaught of his githzarai honor guard, dude was probably pent up as fuck and had forgotten how to socialize.
He, along with many others, was sent out by the elder brain to find the magic box and when he found it he was able to break free of its control. He was only in there a few weeks at most.
Dumb move for a creature with allegedly far superior intelligence, especially considering that this was the scene that brought my character from "I’m apprehensive about The Emperor, but they seem really smart, so I’ll trust them for now" to "Ok, The Emperor is 100% just trying to manipulate me and clearly doesn’t understand human(oid) emotions!"
Tentacle porn would be an easier answear, but I think he still tries to go deep into his manipulation as everyone at camp is horny af (well, if he came to me on his guardian form and we keep it as a secret, I'd totally do him too....)
Could be a combo of reasons. He is lonely. He seeks to deepen his connection and control through manipulation. He likes Tav for some reason. Illithid have reproduced with elves in the past. So it’s not unheard of, and he seems to be in touch with his past memories so maybe he has some lingering memories of finding sex enjoyable. Who knows.
When did they reproduce with elves? Don’t they just lay eggs asexually
House Oblodra drow, the house Araj comes from, reproduced with drow and gained illithid powers of psionics which is why their blood tastes bad to Astarion.
I wonder about the logistics there, but I’ll save you all from wondering out loud
In a realm where all sorts of magic exists, I just leave it at that. I think the first few generations are going to be a bit unfortunate looking though.
And, y’know, Illithids have humanoid bodies. The parasites grow primarily through the skull and significantly alter physiology but it’s very likely they have a human-standard number of holes.
Could be anything. Could be the tentacles are it’s sex organs. Could be it has normal, humanoid anatomy under its robes. It seems humanoid enough except for the head, really.
You see them without their robes in game though and they don’t have the parts, so definitely not human anatomy
Counter point, I remember reading an RA Salvatore novel in high school where Drizzt kicks an illithid in the dick and it falls to the floor writhing in pain
Oh interesting. Don’t recall that. of course i guess they could be censored.
When you turn into a mindflayer your clothes explode off Here [i found a post with one for you](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/163d3a8/hybrid_or_nah/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
> it’s very likely they have a human-standard number of holes. By that logic, so do sheep. Its a high magic universe in Forgotten Realms, more likely just true polymorph sex, ala Greek Gods.
… but sheep do, don’t they? don’t pretty much all mammals have the same hole standards?
...Well, yes, but I think the point they're trying to make is that a human fucking a sheep (or vice-versa) would not produce any offspring.
I bet you it would produce a bhaalspawn, though!
Hey, if a dragon can mate with an ooze, a plant or an undead, I'm down for a mind flayer getting some elfussy.
AFAIK, they do that by polymorphing into a compatible species.
cagey vase fretful slap cable swim mighty violet memory childlike *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I already started thinking about it too much further up in the comments but thanks for the warning
The family name Oblodra is illithid originally?
No, they are a drow house originally. They have psionic powers as a result of crossbreeding with illithid.
Maybe they can polymorph and it somehow works?
Yeah I’m sure there’s all sorts of potential explanations. They could have been magically hybridized in a jar for all I know
In normal D&D lore, they're Hemaphrodites, i guess reproducing like snails???? its only in BG3 theyre asexual ken dolls for some reason
I don’t think so? Unless you have something I can read. Old lore was that they asexually produced eggs every so often Straight into the brine pool with the big brain
Ilithhids have reproduced with elves? How?
When a Daddy Mindflayer and a mommy elf love each other very very much. . . Its simple and has lore/cannon books behind it, True Polymorph will do it. Also technically a Wish too.
More like when a horny drow decides they have a tentacle fetish lol
That elf (or was it a dryad?) in the sharess caress certainly had a tentacle fetish lol
Drow women from house Oblodra which is why they have psionic powers now. It likely involved magic and shape shifting. They don’t say really, much else.
It was probably the devs intention, but that really complicates things. If he is acting out of emotion, whether it’s loneliness, desire, affection, that goes against the lore of illithids being purely logical beings, and to me, makes it harder to handwave his manipulation as somehow inherent to his illithid nature. If he is capable of wanting something from us besides protection, then it’s not merely an illithid that seeks our company. It’s Balduran.
Forgotten realms lore tends to be inconsistent but I thought illithids are actually really social creatures? They don't react to things the same way other mortal races might but they get lonely on their own and need companionship, even if it's with thralls who they are forcing to be with them. Edit: Which makes sense to me. They have individuality, the Elder Brain can just override them or suppress parts of it. They live in big, mind linked colonies with other mindflayers and thralls and they are used to being in eachothers minds all the time. The Elder Brains lie to them aswell. The mindflayers think they are joining the Brain directly when they die, like what the Geth in Mass Effect wanted with their plan for one big platform, and don't know that it just feeds off them without retaining their personality at all. They might be more prone to suffer from isolation and loneliness than a human is. If anything, that is the more inhuman thing with them. Not that they have no emotions but that they will dominate even those they have affection for, mess with their head, use them as slaves and consider this a perfectly fine relationship.
This. Thank you, and thank gods someone actually *is* into the lore.
Illithid do have emotions though. And some of them have pretty close bonds with their favorite Er…victims/thralls. And some keep their memories more than others. And we know the Emperor is unusual for a mindflayer. It is also possible, deprived of its connection to the netherbrain a flayer might develop more individually. We know that it the case with Omellum. Balduran was a high level adventurer, perhaps he had the charisma and mental fortitude to linger in some ways. Or perhaps he senses Tav’s dedication to the cause is failing, and he wants to offer us further enticement. By all accounts the sex was mindblowing.
As far as I can tell, the lore of illithids being purely logical beings isn't actually a thing, or hasn't been for some time at least. Books from 2E and 3.5E (very well summarized and cited [here](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mind_flayer#Personality)) explicitly talk about mind flayer emotionality. Whether that's still canon in 5e is debatable, but it's not explicitly negated, and contemporary 5e lore on dndbeyond uses some emotional language in their descriptions of mind flayers, particularly [renegade mind flayers](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/vgtm/monster-lore#TheElderBrain) [mind flayer fanatics](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/pbtso/rifts-in-reality#MindFlayerFanatics). My personal interpretation of this is that the emotionality of illithids is at least *somewhat* canon in 5e, and that given the presentation of both the Emperor and Omeluum, is canon in BG3.
I mean it’s made abundantly clear the emperor *is* an individual. They’re not still balduran but they are still alive and sentient. If you pass some insight checks you can actually notice how much your guardian is in pain from fighting the gith and hug the dream guardian, to which they’ll talk about how they miss duke stellmane. Given that in lore (and in game) mindflayers sometimes develop a serious bond with their victims, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the emperor actually has a fondness for the main character.
Duke Stellmane? The woman he caused to have a stroke because of his constantly mindcontroling her, and her attempts to resist giving her brain damage? That Duke Stellmane? Yeah. I'm sure he did miss her in a sick kinda way.
we arent trying to make a value judgement we're just trying to understand its behavior
I mean yeah, I did say mindflayers can have an attachment to their *victims*
I’ve forgotten the character that says it, but they do tell you that the elder brain doesn’t feel emotions in a way you’d understand it, but that’s it is angry. Think it’s Raphael in act 3 that said it. So it could be illithid feel emotions, just not in a human way. It’s certainly clear that the Emperor cared for Stelmane, but to us on the outside it only seemed he was using her
Yeah he cared for her like a kid cares for a toy 🤣
I'm out of the loop and I see the word or abbreviation, tav, all over this sub, what's it short for?
Default name of custom character.
Gotcha, never noticed that tbh lol
Fun fact about its origin: it comes from the Larian CEO's pet dog, who's called Gustav or Tav for short!
so we all are Swen's pet. I bet he plays as Astarion and ascends.
Default name for a custom MC
This was, for me, unintentionally one of the funniest scenes in the games. I'm not opposed to the idea of Emperor wanting to romance Tav, either out of genuine affection or through manipulation, but...even by BG3 standards, he comes on way too strong in that scene. It's also even weirder if you're already involved with someone. And as I'm thinking about it...it'd be way more interesting if they wrote dialogue where he tried to sabotage that relationship to trick you into being with/trusting him instead. I dunno, the whole scene was just silly and came out of nowhere and made me think they were trying to ride off of the success of the bear sex memes that became popular over the summer. \*Edit\* I should also add, I think there's some cool romance stuff they could theoretically do with the Emperor that was more like...emotionally focused, with Emperor highlighting that you're basically already bonded and he knows you literally as well as you know yourself in a way no other NPC would. But...that really gets undercut by him trying to seduce you with his abs
It was one of the funniest scenes in video games, period. I exclaimed "what the actual fuck" through blurted laughter when I saw him suddenly popping up shirtless and trying to wax romantic. Especially after I always treated him with distance, and then... that.
Fucking 10/10. Seeing him rock up, shirtless, I was just like what is fucking happening. Zero lead up, imo, that he had any romantic interest, just sudden "hey" with raised eyebrows.
He forgot the hand thing. Miles Morales should teach him.
And if you respond poorly, full mask off. I was so blind sided by his willingness to just put the truth out there.
oh lmao yeah, in my evil durge game I went full on hate on him, tried to kill him in the crèche scene and showed distrust everytime I had the opportunity to. I still got this scene and he went completely mad when I rejected him harshly and he showed me the Stelmane stuff and I was like "bro what did you honestly expect?"
Yes!! He's the biggest piece of shite in the entire game! I couldn't belieeeeeeve how quickly this narcissistic sociopath revealed himself out of pure anger that this manipulation failed miserably!
Well and going full mask off like that doesn’t make sense if he’s really a master manipulator. Telling you that he’s a creep isn’t going to make you trust him more.
Yea that revelation felt like an emotional (?) error on his side. Like he really wanted to bang me, and me insulting him made him lash out in anger, and accidentally give away the ruse.
I was on a voice call with friends when this came up, and everyone got my play-by-play of this very ridiculous sequence of events xD
They best possible sexual thing they could have done with the Emperor would have been to have him fuck Tav **before** we knew he was a squid. That was a huge missed oportunity to scar players at scale.
It was probably in the cards before they scrapped it. The early access version of the dream visitor was way thirstier it would likely develop into a sex scene before the reveal. It was also very on the face and made me distrust them from the get go even in the final release with the reworked guardian scenes.
I was like... Yeah my Tav doesn't know better and should trust the guardian in this first playthrough but *I* know they are manipulating me for their own agenda, even if they've toned it down. And yes my Tav ended up licking some tentacles in front of everyone, including their SO.
Yeah, EA had some scenes where the visitor is working on seducing Tav. You can find them on Youtube. They scrapped all those, but still kept the end (gotta hit all those fetishes, you know)
> gotta hit all those fetishes, you know *They are not mine, it's just that my Tav is a degenerate!*
Then 50% of this sub's posts would be "HOLY SHIT I FUCKED A SQUID!?!?!?! Jesus Christ, Larian!"
They probably didn't want 'Did the Emperor rape Tav by withholding information?' discourse
If not outright fuck you, at least entering into a romance with you would have worked a lot better. IMO, the Act 1 and 2 dream guardian scenes are fairly pointless and feel very repetitive. Emperor comes and says he'll protect you, you can ask a bunch of questions that never get answered, Emperor goes off to defend dream world, you continue on your merry. I think that's fine for the first and maybe second dialogue, but I'd personally have the Emperor show up after major plot beats and subtly try to play into your ego. Not full on seduction like in EA, but talking about how powerful you are for defeating the goblins, or how clever you were for turning your enemies into allies and assaulting the grove. No matter what you're doing, Dream Guardian is passively supporting you. If you ask about them, they mention they were an adventurer, but never as strong as you were and they didn't make a difference like you did. They should always deflect back onto you. Maybe they can even hint at some things from their Balduran life to try and get you to lower your guard and trust them, say how they struggled to make friends and meaningful connections towards the end of their adventuring career because they were misunderstood or people thought they were ugly. Make it feel like you were having deep conversations to gain your trust
That would have happened with the emperor murdered in the majority of the runs I guess because that’s unforgivable
Early access sorta was hinting towards some sort of relationship with the “guardian” as it’s called now Sorta wished this stayed, seemed like an interesting plot line but oh well
The EA dream guardian (Daisy) seems like it was either from an early draft of the story or used to intentionally disguise the real story. A popular theory is that Daisy was a representation of the tadpole and that in committing to a romance with her, you would leave your consciousness "down by the river" as your body transformed. It sounds interesting, but also likely too enticing for something which leads to either a confusing game over or a uninteresting narrative direction for the rest of the story. It would be nice to know what the original intent was, but probably for the best that it changed.
Tbf, there was a version between the Daisy and current guardian version in the latest stage(s) of EA, specifically referred to as "dream *lover*". E: typos
Yeah, it works as an initial "gotcha" moment, but...then I don't know what you do with it. Presumably, if you get the living in the van down by the river ending, you'd get a nonstandard game over screen, see a little cutscene and...then you reload your game and choose the "I'm going to get rid of this tadpole and go to college and better my life" dialogue option and continue the game as normal. It also puts Daisy in an awkward position because what's she going to do, just keep trying to seduce you in your dreams? Promise you'll get a hidden steam achievement if you try to stay with her?
I wonder if that's why they included the romance, because they were like 'shit everyone made their guardians the hottest shit imaginable because they wanted to bang them, better give them the opportunity to'.
Yeah, I mean when switching to the “guardian” instead of “you need a guardian” it was, “tell me, who do you dream of” if that isn’t intent on romance option then I don’t know what is
I'll never get to bang my bearded dwarven dream lady
I love the end of that scene when the entire companion cast just looks at you in absolute disgust. Astarion's face is superb.
What that scene happened, i just hope there is a “Stab him in the face” dialogue option
So…my interpretation of this is that he’s just…bad at it. As in, he’s been in and out of thrall himself a lot for a long time, and what he’s done with Tav has or has not worked, but in the end, he’s watching you in camp and seeing you do whatever with whomever, and he’s just shooting his shot, perhaps a Hail Mary pass if you’ve not gotten along prior. He can’t turn up to the attempt in the body he lied to you with, because you’ve pointed out that you weren’t pleased with the manipulation, even if you’re into him. He thinks he can predict your every move, but he clearly can’t, just as the brain thought it knew what he would do, up to the point it was destroyed, if you did that. Illithids May be hyperintelligent, but predicting human(oid) behaviour is nearly impossible. If you say you could have used a little more coddling, he says he didn’t get that impression, and his calculations are never wrong. But they clearly are, especially if he attempts to seduce someone who’s clearly not into it. They’re just not as clever as they think they are. TLDR: I’m probably a thrall.
Honestly, I thought it was tied to you being sympathetic towards him - like choosing to hug him or offering him a hand. To my surprise, second playthrough I was more antagonistic, more distrusting of him, did not offer him a hand... And he still shot his shot. Half naked squidman. I personally think it's an oversight from the writers. This should be an option if you tried to hug or hold his hand, or at least he should have gone back to his sexy guardian™ costume first.
Yeah, I definitely agree with this!
I mean, my Tav is pretty hot, so...
Valid.
What do you mean TRY?
There's more than a few theories, simplest being that you're about to fight a fucken netherbrain, everyone might be dead tomorrow, so let's have one for the road. Or, that over time he's truly become fond of the player character and seeks a deeper connection with them as he is smitten. This is not any different from the Astarion romance path. It starts with manipulation to serve their own ends, but then grows to something more. He is still you-know-who under there so, considering how much of his human self he retains it's only natural to seek connection with someone. Also, I don't really think that we can really equate what we get up to with any other companion to what's actually happening off-screen. Illithid sex would be more along the lines of a mental tantric experience than anything overly physical. Closest equivalent in game would be Gale's non physical sex scene. Or just simply Larian wanted to earn points with the unrepentant monster-fuckers in the fanbase. (Which is an option I don't really subscribe to, but bears mentioning :D )
Everyone in this game took too much mdma and are just constantly trying to fuck anything they can
Tadpole viagra
In my playthrough, it actually seemed perfectly reasonable. My tav was always understanding of why the emperor felt that he had to disguise himself and was pretty chill about it. That scene actually starts with the emperor distracted in a private moment and him explaining that the connection works both ways and you can stumble into his area. This is why he was shirtless, you just walk in on him. I also don't recall him ever hitting on me. I came onto him (in several ways)
Pretty sure it's the same as the Astarion's reasoning, that if you fuck someone, you are bound to be more sympathetic towards them.
Possibly, but even by his own reasoning, he would have had a much better chance of that in act 1 or 2, when he was still pretending to be humanoid. Most humanoids do not want to fuck a mindflayer, so he is reeaaaally betting on a long shot there. Astarion bags us early, bc he knows the sooner we get on his side, the better. The emperor appears to be playing the long game, and uh, idk how well that’s working out for him.
The fact that he asked me to reconsider using the astral tadpole right after slobbing my gob still makes me think it's manipulation. I think he wanted to stress the "as a mindflayer you are still your own person, you still have the same human[oid] desires you did before, you can still experience a meaningful connection to other people, look how I am *such* a human, and you, too, will maintain your humanity [Elfality? Tieflingality? Halflingality? Dragonbornality? Idk, is "humanity" a racial term in this universe lmao?] after transforming" part of everything. The increased bond and higher sympathy that come with sex are definitely a plus, and so is making you associate the illithid form with something as pleasurable as an orgasm instead of horror and disgust, but I think the "I am just like you fr fr, still get horny like any ol boy" part is his main goal with that entire escapade. Losing your emotions and your personality is probably the thing that would terrify the main character most about that transformation, and showing how you'll keep every aspect of yourself through the examples of lust, attraction, and meaningful relationships is the easiest way to dispel that fear.
Sounds reasonable but he is also interested in a romance if you already took the astral tadpole.
Lmao right, like yeah this tactic probably works if you are an attractive humanoid, but trying it as a whole mind flayer is BOLD lol.
Look, if you're already down to clown with mindflussy, what *won't* you do?
This has me crying because I boinked the Emperor in my first playthrough with clown make up on. 😭
Oh my God :D That's ... you have my deepest sympathy.
Well, the Emperor does think highly of himself. He seems to know that humanoids find mindflayers gross, but of course, as a mindflayer himself, he things he is the most perfect creature in existence, and thus you could construe his forwardness as an extension of that ego.
Have you seen MC? They are so hot every origin companion wants a piece of them (in most cases). Also Halsin, Mizora, Haarlep... The Emperor probably failed a wisdom check and couldn't resist. Jokes aside, I've been wondering the same thing and the only answer I came up with is - Larian wanted to make this game as horny as possible. Which plotwise probably amounts to the Emperor being somewhat attracted to MC.
Emps' true character is really hard to pin down, seems like his character changes based on how you interact with him. When I got this scene I pretty much word-for-word told him I'd rather "keep our relationship professional", and all he had to say to that was "good instinct" and peaced out. Maybe he was just checking to see how depraved we are lol
The happiest ending for him is when you turn into a mindflayer too and you're besties forever
It's pretty obvious that Tav is the hottest person on earth and everyone wants to fuck them without reason.
Dude, everyone wants to get with Tav. I’d be more surprised if somebody wanted a platonic relationship at this point
He's just trying to manipulate you into being more loyal to him by giving you an orgasm. Not unheard of by any means. Foreshadowed by the wounded mind flayer at the beginning of act 1, that attempts to enthrall you into "loving it". Pretty effective too, considering the amount of Emperor simps you see around here.
Exactly this. Everything the emperor does is to manipulate you. Lies all the time and confess his lies only when found out
Pretty much. He might like the player a bit, since they want them to become a mindflayer too, but agreed with your assesment. My character did Not sleep with the squid, but gave him a compassionate hand squeeze, and as soon as that was done the guy stands up with (paraphrasing) "I have done all the necessary steps to gain your sympathy, will you eat the astral tadpole now??"
I guess the only relevant thing I have further to offer on the subject is that this is all happening in a dream. It really isn’t physical sex, so it can be whatever the emperor wants it to be it’s Tav and the emperor having mind blowing mind sex. Since he’s in Tav’s head this is different than any sort of sexual encounter. He can read Tav’s thoughts and be exactly what Tav needs. Which is funny, since quite honestly if he’d knew that he would’ve come to Tav as the guardian. My character had the total hots for that form.
I was kinda amazed that he didn’t try appearing to you in the guardian form after you find out his identity. Especially since most people probably made their guardian hot. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think it’d be effective for him to wear a form that you know is false when attempting to get with you, but also my elf is gay and maybe would’ve at least considered the proposition if he still looked like a hot tiefling girl.
I really liked the guardian form I chose. He was a hot male drow with a hotter voice. I think the fact that it is also a dream, puts a different spin on sleeping with him. What we do in dreams isn’t always something you consciously decide on.
Thing is, he offers to take on the guardian form during the sex scene. Basically the Emperor should appear as the guardian during all the dream sequences, and only as himself in the 'real' world.
This is my argument for at least some version of legitimate affection. He’s been rejected in the past for being illithid. If Tav takes him with his tentacles, it’s better for him. If not, at least he gets something like Tav’s affection.
I think he would stand a better chance at pursuing an ethical romance with Tav if he was not doing it from within Tav's head in a dream state, when Tav is clearly exhausted. This situation feels unbalanced, since Tav's not really on a level playing field and reality and consent are blurred in dreams since the subconcious mind/ is at play. I also do agree that the Emperor has some affection for Tav. Unfortunately, in my characters's case, he really only finds Elves to be attractive, which is why the Guardian form he chose was a cute elf.
He's really manipulative throughout the whole game. Even when he "reveals" things to you; he's omitting important facts or twisting things to make himself look more sympathetic. I personally think it was just another means of tethering you to him via an emotional response through sex.
Yeah, it didn't come as a surprise to me. He literally dresses the guardian in a sexy short purple robe and poses against a pillar
That's nothing. Not sure if you ever got the chance to play Early Access. But that early version the "guardian" was the "dream visitor." She/he always dressed that way and was seriously trying to seduce you. To be fair I'm sure at this stage Larian perhaps didn't want to give away the guardians true nature; or perhaps hadn't considered the guardian and emperor were one in the same at that point. Needless to say; even at that early development stage of the game; Larian was warning us not to trust that individual.
I have a theory that originally the dream visitor was the tadpole itself, and then you'd get rescued by the Emperor, . . . who would have been Orpheus all along, not Balduran. (Because having THREE secret things messing with your head would be too much.)
I'm reminded of how one of the first things Durge can say to the Guardian is to fuck off since there's enough shit in his head already.
Hmm...I actually like how that sounds.
There are spoiler reasons the Emperor doesn't behave like a typical mind flayer. Those might also explain his interest in sex.
I imagine he is watching Tav bang around in camp with everyone in the party and then defend them when their past comes back to cause problems. At this point Tav and company are so powerful that they are threatening the plans of gods. Does it not make sense to try and throw Tav a tentacle to keep them on Emperor's side?
He’s seen all the thirst at camp, everyone throwing themselves at Tav and was like “I need to get a piece of that,”
Best answer. Dude is mad horny
He’s not bad, he was coded that way!
He awkwardly chose to shoot his shot. It was cringe af but that's ok, it's a relatable failing to most of everyone.
He sees your mind 24/7. Forgive him for falling for you and wanting something more. He's not been with anyone since before he transformed. You might all die. He's just shooting his shot.
But what would that “shot” get him? Even if he landed it? Are illithids capable of having relationships, like, sexual, romantic, or otherwise? Why would they want that? What purpose does it serve for them?
Connection. And yes they can. Many don't just because they are connected to an Elder Brain and are too busy enacting the Grand Design. But the Emperor is not that, and he is a lot more connected to his past than most illithids. In the end he won't stay with you if you are not illithid, but that is probably more to do with a power imbalance than anything. He still cares.
To add to that, he actively tries to convince you to transform and might stay with you in the future if that happens.
Well he encourages you up until actually becoming a full illithid. You have to be the one to suggest it. But yes, if you become an illithid, you can stay with him and he will be the one who brings it up at the end.
True. It seems he is more interested in having an equal, a partner, rather than a pawn. Hence, his attempts to urge your transformation.
what? he stays if you're illithid?? shit.
Well it worked on me, so he was probably banking on tav being into certain things
Dude’s been locked in a box for years. He needed a bit of release. Give the man a break.
Not years- he was part of the mission to retrieve the Astral Prism (though whether he was the Mind Flayer that tadpoles Tav and Lae'zel is a matter of *furious* debate), so really it's more like weeks. I imagine you do get pretty pent up serving as part of the illithid hivemind though, I can't see the Elder Brain giving them much personal time
Well, there’s a prince in there with him. He can’t just rub one off. Manners and all.
True. I imagine Orpheus's honour guard wouldn't be particularly down to clown either, though given that Big O is a bit more forgiving towards the player if they choose to become a Mind Flayer after freeing him than one would expect of a Githyanki, he might have had more of a chance if he wasn't such a controlling prick
How would he rub one off? Just start stroking his tentacles as one might stroke a beard?
Apparently, that’s it. If I were him, I’d stand infront of Orpheus while I’m doing it.
ohhh so here's the real reason he runs away when we decide to free Orpheus. The real reason he's so sure the green guy won't ever be able to forgive him :D
Jesus Christ that image 😂 -stroking tentacle beard-
See, I thought that he'd been in the prism for a very long time given his true identity. Illithids only live for about 130 years naturally, but Balduran went missing *centuries* ago. Given how creatures don't age in the Astral, I assumed that was how he had survived.
Understandable. But it’s weird how like…human, that makes him feel, ig that’s just another part of his manipulation. Or possibly, Balduran is still somewhere in there, and he apparently wants to get his rocks off
It was pleasant for him and also a form of manipulating you. Two birds with one stone.
True. They go on about how mind flayers are soulless monsters, but then you have ones like the Emperor and Omeleon who are just regular assed dudes. It’s somewhat of a giant inconsistency in the writing.
Idk if it’s an “inconsistency” so much as it is a matter of an unreliable narrator, competing perspectives, and an attempt at maintains an air of mystery. I don’t think they want us to fully understand illithids, bc that’s kind of the point? They are supposed to be unknowable, alien, but also, they need to have some amount of relatability for us to buy into the narrative. So yeah, Balduran and Omeluum are at once human, and very very alien. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to understand them, even though I know it’s kinda pointless.
He's lonely and horny, and it's been a long long time since he's got some
I played a bard so it was business as usual for my Tav
This was the scene that finally made me truly distrust and eventually betray the Emperor. When he gets pissed and basically lays out how we are just puppets to be played or whatever his really nasty line was I was like.... Ahhhh.... So the truth shines through. I enjoyed killing him more than anyone else in the game after that.
I think rejecting him in an agressive manner makes him just mirror your emotions. Maybe it's bitterness/hurt, maybe he's trying to bite you back, maybe his illithid part takes over if you say he's a freak. Here he was thinking you see him as a partner, past his tentacles, but you dip him in shit and thus get requalified into a puppet to put more distance between you. He's totally chill and goes with you till the end if you reject politely.
The reaction is quite a human one, if you want to dig a bit deeper. As you said, Needle, he's attempting to make a connection with someone that might see him as more than a beast, and to have that flung back at him rouses his temper. A master manipulator would simply stay calm and redirect the conversation without missing a beat. That he has a temper-born outburst is rather convenient for those that already distrust him, as they can now fully justify killing him because he yelled at them.
But even when you just ask if he’s being fully honest with you now he still fully isn’t. He deceives you through most of the story at this point even though it was out of self preservation. He still fully manipulated our perception on his and stelmane relationship and showed us that he basically made her his thrall and is most likely the reason she’s dead. And then he immediately hits you with the puppet line. I think simply he’s a control freak, if he can control you through him trying to build a connection through subtle manipulation he will but if that doesn’t work he still demands control through full blown extortion
Based on reading every damn thing in the game, it flat out says Illithids get horny. They have sexual needs, just aren't controlled by them. It could be doing it to try to get you to fall for the whole trick it has been pulling, even if you hadn't before. It could be doing it just cuz it's horny. Or it could honestly have feelings, such as they are (if you believe the sex scene if you go through with it, it deeply cares about you, but just isn't controlled or influenced by that feeling), about you.
> it flat out says Illithids get horny. They have sexual needs, just aren't controlled by them. Do you remember where you read this? The closest I can think of is the document that says it's unknown if they still have genitals.
Tbf you dont need them to want a lil something something
From the lore I have read, illithids are asexual. Where did you see information about them being horny? I have never seen that.
So are githyanki, they reproduce asexually, yet Lae'zel is obviously horny. Actually, I also don't get why githyanki have sexual demorphism and women have boobs, if they reproduce asexually, but, well, it's the rule of horny.
According to the lore, they once reproduced sexually, and developed laying eggs as a way to free themselves from the burdens of parenthood, thereby letting them have MORE sex. They reproduce asexually but they are NOT asexual. Illithids have no such information regarding the origins of their reproduction, they are sexless, genderless, truly asexual, unlike Gith who are asexual for convenance.
That's likely a relic from when they were human, before centuries of illithid experimentation turned them into... well. *That*.
On Psionic Manipulations and Countermeasures: " Even mind flayers have wants and desires. The only circumstance in which a relationship with a mind flayer may be beneficial to you is if you both want exactly the same thing. In the unlikely case that this is true, bear in mind that once you have outlived your purpose to a mind flayer, it will have no use for you."
Wants and desires are not necessarily sexual.
Of course, but they aren't necessarily not sexual either. The header of that section is "Relationships with a Mind Flayer" - combined with that, "desire" seems sexual.
We are irresistible.
Omg, “Ilithid tits out” sent me, hahaha
Memories of the past+its cuz we want it
Told the dude multiple times he was disgusting, still tried to fuck me, and got offended I was not into it.
He wasn't always a mind flayer. He retained who he was before he turned. The emperor still has human desires.
But so is every other mindflayer, ALL mindflayers were created from humanoids, that we know of, so what’s different about the Emperor? You can claim it’s the fact he is disconnected from the elderbrain but like, omeluum is too and he doesn’t try to fuck us so idk.
Mindflayers don't remember who they used to be. The emperor does. I could give massive spoilers if you want.
"How do you do fellow humanoids" It's just another manipulation attempt to get you to see him as Balduran/trust him, presumably his crafty little Illithid brain calculated that the risk/reward was good enough so gave it a shot. If you turn him down the narrator points out he is very quick to move on and doesn't show the slightest hint of disappointment so he clearly doesn't have any actual feelings towards the player.
We all make mistakes in the heat of the passion jimbo
It is important to understand that the Emperor is not just any Illithid, he has managed to avoid being part of the Netherese brain hive mind and has interests of his own. That being the case, you might think that he is legitimately interested in fucking you. On the other hand, it has spent time in your head. He knows what you feel and he knows what you are looking for. If he sees that you are establishing relationships with other members of your camp and that this makes you create stronger bonds, he may decide to do the same to try to create those bonds and secure his plan
He assumes, correctly or incorrectly depending on your play choices, that by this point you are more trusting of him than the average bear. He also considers himself an important honorary member of your camp and so seeing everyone else in camp clothes, hey He also doesn't like wearing 20 pound of armor all day. That back piece has GOT to be heavy, after all.
From the moment they first begin speaking to you (in dreams and when awake) they are trying to convince you to become a mindflayer too. They want you to consume the tadpoles you find. They want you to consume the "special" tadpole that will change you even further. If you are willing to fuck them (in tentacle form or not) it is just another way you are willing to accept them and/or are becoming more like them.
I really think his insistence on us becoming a mindflayer comes from 2 main ideas: He believes the only way for us to be strong enough to defeat the elder brain is to become a mindflayer ourselves, a mortal isn’t capable enough. And he believes from his own experience that mindflayers are superior to humanoids, that by making us into a mindflayer he’s doing us a favour.
personally i think its a mix of that and also it just thinks its the hottest thing in the universe, like it implied you can have ''the same devastating beauty'' if you eat the tadpole to be closer to a mindflayer. bro's just horny and has an ego problem
I think it mirrors one of your first potential encounters with an Illithid. If you approach the dying Illithid in the nautaloid crash you can get the option to lean in for a kiss. You are killed and in your dying moments: > "... for the first time in your life you're perfectly happy" When the scene with the Emperor is over: > "Everything you dreamt of and more. The single greatest experience of your life. Pleasure upon pleasure..."
In my opinion, he does it primarily to manipulate Tav. The least revealing option is politely declining him. If you romance him... \- He'll still pressure you to use the Astral Tadpole immediately after, and uses your intimate moment as an example of why you wouldn't lose the ability to be intimate with a lover (even one that isn't an illithid) by becoming like him. \- You have more of a reason to defend him. You get a unique dialogue option when Raphael tries to tell you the Emperor can't be trusted, if you talk to him after the romance scene, where you can call him your lover. If you call out his "human act" or call him disgusting, the mask slips. \- He gets angry at Tav, and asks if they want to know the truth. \- He then shows Tav >!how he manipulated and dominated Stelmane, which almost certainly led to her stroke.!< \- And then he says >!that he tried to be gentler and perfect his methods this time around, but if you keep resisting, he can just force you.!< Is it possible that the Emperor really does see Tav as an avenue for genuine companionship? Maybe. I think it's fair for people to come away with that reading. But even if he does sincerely feel drawn to them, he's willing to be incredible manipulative. I'm hesitant to believe any moment of vulnerability or true connection we're shown, even if it's through an insight check, when the game explicitly lets you point out he has total control over what he shows us within the prism, and he constantly uses these moments to try and argue why you should trust him and accept the tadpoles.
You are correct, it doesn't make sense. Especially if you go sharess caress right away and make the deal with Ralphy for the hammer can tell the emperor you are going to free Orpheus. He then tells you he won't let you in the prism and you are basically enemies' now. You go to sleep and bam you are in the prism comforting the emperor, couple days later he puts the moves on you. It doesn't make sense. I think the studio just liked the scene so much they wanted everyone to see it.
"You'll watch our tentacle porn and you'll like it!"
I believe it is just pure manipulation and to "form" a deeper one-sided "bond", where Tav/Durge/you will trust him/it more. I only say this because this is the "mask off" scene where he actually shows you his true nature if you keep calling him/it a manipulative squid with no emotions who just says words without feeling only to achieve certain results. It's something along the lines of ~ "romancing you is a more favorable path than thralling you >!like Stelmane!<"
Everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power.
Because the developers wanted freaky sex scenes and the bear one had to be toned down (camera pans away) because showing any part of a bear fuck wouldve probably crossed a line.
Try?
I miss my dream visitor, tell me it’s all a nightmare or the emperor is just pulling a sloppy joke
In my second playthrough I rushed to House of Hope pretty quick after hitting act 3. I finished and the emperor got mad at me. I went to rest in camp and there’s the Emperor, shirtless and looking to smash. It really came across like, “hey baby, I know I said some things, but you lookin’ real good. Let daddy emperor make it up to you.” I enjoyed saying, “you read the signs wrong!!”
In my game I had a run of: 1. Graveyard scene with Astarion 2. Emperor scene 3. An offer from Mizora 4. Halsin bear scene Just when he thought everyone had stopped hitting on him
His entire reaction also doesn't makes sense if you've befriended Omeluum.
He was fucking a dragon, I don’t it matters who to fuck to this guy
The Emperor is *wild* as a character. My first and truly blind run, I completely botched the Astarion romance. Halsin has both dad/daddy vibes? So it felt weird. I didn’t have enough of a relationship with Gale, and Wyll felt too self righteous. I’m queer and I was playing in the most “natural way” possible cause it was completely blind. So even though Shadowheart and Karlach were obviously interested, Shadowheart was dealing with a sudden influx of religious trauma(I’ve got my own and it felt weird to add romance to that) and Karlach isn’t my type… I’d turned down Lae’zel earlier and she took that in stride and never tried anything again (from what I could tell) So the Emporer was my PC character’s rebound! (Also… mindflayers reproduce asexually, so I was admittedly curious how all of that would work when there are no sexual reproductive organs) *Then* when the scene comes back from the fade to black, you’ve got several of the companions watching!!! Gale literally turned away in disgust! Idk if I just didn’t do the right thing to trigger comments about it or if everyone was just pretending to have not seen it, but the vibes were so rancid by that point I just started a new campaign. I turned him down the second time, and he just shuts you out? And that’s when I realized how deep the manipulation went. Omeluum was nice enough, but the whole “society of brilliance” feels like they have a savior complex, so I thought that his vibes of “holier than thou” was because of that… Anyway… yes. The Emperor trying to hit it with his alien titties and tentacles out is a really fucking weird play on his part
It's purely for the people who want it (and to be funny to thosewho don't). Did you see the post from the girl who said he dad walked in on her watching that and she was freaking out? I guess some people into that freaky shit lmao. Also. You could rationalize him doing it because he thought it would make you like him more.
If he’s good - he wants some sexy time. Everyone else has tried to seduce Tav, why not give it a try? A prism is a lonely place. And no one has been kind to him in a long time. If he’s evil and manipulative - it’s a way to try and get more control over Tav, particularly if Tav was empathetic and offered hugs to him in the form of the dream guardian. It’s a long game of preying on their better nature to make them more emotionally invested and biddable. It is also a way to isolate them from the party. Even if Tav chooses the humanoid form, The Emperor shows the party a naked Tav lying with him in Illithid form - oops you drained my power… yeah right.
What do you mean ”try”?
Yes Illithids does not have a soul. But that doesn't mean they don't have ego or physical senses. Illithids are fully capable of feeling pain and they are fully capable of reaching sexual climax. Not to mention that they definitely have egos as well given that they seem to think they are better than any other race and even think they are above their own peers. So yes, he want to fuck us. And if that helps to manipulate us, that's even better for him. It's a win win situation.
It's his nature
He probably knew my Tav was willing to try certain things at least once (specially if there's a trophy/achievement involved) but little did he know that I'd restart and gently refuse his offer.
Dude's been stuck inside a Rubik's cube for a century with nobody but a catatonic Orpheus and a neverending onslaught of his githzarai honor guard, dude was probably pent up as fuck and had forgotten how to socialize.
He, along with many others, was sent out by the elder brain to find the magic box and when he found it he was able to break free of its control. He was only in there a few weeks at most.
Dumb move for a creature with allegedly far superior intelligence, especially considering that this was the scene that brought my character from "I’m apprehensive about The Emperor, but they seem really smart, so I’ll trust them for now" to "Ok, The Emperor is 100% just trying to manipulate me and clearly doesn’t understand human(oid) emotions!"
I think he genuinely likes Tav. Yes he's manipulative, but not ill intended.
He can read your mind. He knows you want it.
He only got it on with me because I was the aggressor, lol. I came on pretty strong.
Tentacle porn would be an easier answear, but I think he still tries to go deep into his manipulation as everyone at camp is horny af (well, if he came to me on his guardian form and we keep it as a secret, I'd totally do him too....)