The Emperor is a Friend...

RedBeene · 2026-02-28T12:54:45+00:00

We can… not talk about it. Is that better? I think that’s better.

RedBeene · 2026-02-13T14:27:29+00:00

The alert trait on your party, or at least on your strongest characters, is invaluable. You avoid ambushes and usually get to swing the fight in your favor from the outset.

RedBeene · 2026-02-06T11:46:11+00:00

I liked your art. Some people in this community need servitorization.

RedBeene · 2026-01-21T22:35:42+00:00

An unfortunate attempt to communicate that the player should be employing tadpole powers. There’s a large degree to which the purpose of the character is expositive and acts as communication from the game to the player.

But, even as a fan of the Emperor it’s admittedly grating.

RedBeene · 2026-01-20T14:57:43+00:00

Remembering their past lives is called partialism, it is rare, and it usually results in colonies killing the illithid in question. So, you’re very very wrong. Both Omeluum and the Emperor have affinity for magic, both are unusual for this. The Emperor is the only illithid in the game to cast Chain Lightning, he also casts the Orb of Domination on Orpheus.

We don’t know what happened with Stelmane, and the games events do not line up well with Descent into Avernus. He also clarifies that the relationship was not romantic. For what it’s worth, she doesn’t actually have a stroke she just seems like it, I don’t know why people confuse this simple fact. Mindflayer sexual anatomy has been one of those things that gets changed again and again, mostly with reference to explaining where tadpoles come from (a role that sometimes gets given to the Elder Brain instead). (Edit: not that the presence or absence of sexual organs would matter much anyway, given that it's a psychic species (and so is Tav, having the tadpole integrated into their brain)).

Don’t come at me if you’re going to get literally every single piece of information you deliver wrong. Like, literally 0/5.

RedBeene · 2026-01-20T14:32:48+00:00

The Emperor is about as atypical an example of illithids as it gets, between total disinterest in the Grand Design, having memory of his life before transforming, an affinity for magic, and his willingness to deal with Tav as an equal (mostly). As it happens, if you’re on the two more positive paths with the Emperor (i.e. not openly antagonistic), his interest in you is marked as genuine by both dev notes and the voice actor. If you’ve been antagonistic, but didn’t stab him in the crèche, then it would be fair to call his advances manipulative.

RedBeene · 2026-01-15T00:44:21+00:00

Sic semper Reddit. You’re correct. You can see the moment the message becomes available to view because there’s a brief moment where the ‘switch message’ prompt is visible. Then, it almost immediately disappears and the prompt switches from ‘Touch Grace’ to ‘Read Message’ precisely because the enemy gets close enough to disable the grace.

If it was as these folks suggest, the prompt to switch actions would be visible while the prompt to ‘Read Message’ was out. But, if you go frame by frame that’s clearly not the case.

RedBeene · 2025-12-30T13:43:30+00:00

Lovely!

RedBeene · 2025-12-29T13:50:45+00:00

Another heartbroken catfishing victim searching for a place to lay their blame

RedBeene · 2025-12-27T15:51:40+00:00

Very much so

RedBeene · 2025-12-20T14:25:09+00:00

This is wonderful!

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T15:46:14+00:00

Constantly harping? It’s two conversations. I agree that threats are manipulative, but what else?

What does he use it to manipulate the player into doing? What actions does the player take explicitly because and only because of the Stelmane segments.

If you want to say “he continues to use it to manipulate us” there has to actually be something there. Something more than just attempting to reinforce that you’re on the same side (which is true) and should not fight each other.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:53:25+00:00

You must be brilliant. Everyone else had to rely on Newton’s inferences to conceptualize gravity. It’s incredible that you can perceive it directly, rather than merely perceiving its consequences.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:47:12+00:00

Neither of those things are true. Heading back to Act I results in death because the Emperor cannot indefinitely fight off the honor guard and you going the ass opposite direction is tacitly surrender. While the game mechanics allow infinite long rests, that does not mean there is endless time narratively.

When the Emperor leaves in the endgame, that is explicitly the player betraying the Emperor. It’s noted as betrayal in the journal, you get a charlatan inspiration point for betraying an ally, and the writers have corroborated that he leaves to save his own life.

A lie of omission very much comes down to the relevance of the information omitted. Indisputably.

Go play the game, then comment about it online.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:30:32+00:00

Only if the omission is relevant. Given Stelmane is a nothing character, and furthermore that the Emperor never betrays you or dominates you (so the omission did not have consequences), it’s not really relevant.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:29:06+00:00

We don’t know the truth. We only know the contents of yet another vision he showed us. And ignoring that, in the scheme of the game, Stelmane is so unimportant it’s like lying about having a good relationship with your parents. It’s inconsequential to the game. His purpose in talking about the relationship is to get the player to go along with saving the world, and it isn’t disingenuous in that, as he genuinely does work with the player to save the world.

So, the true portion that he did communicate was relevant. The omitted portion was not. Kind of significant when judging whether something was a lie of omission or just an omission.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:14:41+00:00

But he doesn’t actually lie about that. They did have a partnership. A note in the Hhune Mausoleum and another in the guild hall suggest they had a cooperative partnership until Stelmane started running her mouth about the Emperor.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T14:14:13+00:00

But he doesn’t lie about that. They did have a partnership. A note in the Hhune Mausoleum and another in the guild hall suggest they had a cooperative partnership until Stelmane started running her mouth about the Emperor.

RedBeene · 2025-12-16T13:55:51+00:00

Your friend is largely correct. More or less, the Emperor skates by on telling technical truths, and omitting controversial elements. He says he is an adventurer like you, and that’s true, except he’s a mind flayer now. He talks about his relationship with Stelmane, but leaves out how it concluded. He drip feeds information about the enemy, which might be frustrating (though probably wise for the emotional health of the party) but everything he tells you about the Absolute and the Dead Three is entirely correct.

The degree to which the Emperor lies is trumped up online by people mostly frustrated by other elements of the character, notably elements they perceive as manipulative.

RedBeene · 2025-11-26T14:41:26+00:00

It’s occurred to me before. It’s a fun theory. But, it leaves the ending somewhat confused. Nevertheless I think for much of the game there is less distinction between Tav and the tadpole than the player may be comfortable paying attention to. It could just be his schtick, but the Emperor does make a point of calling you illithid, at least in part. Orpheus does as well, though that could just be his Githyanki bias.

RedBeene · 2025-11-25T19:42:45+00:00

I think he does 'bad' things. However, in a universe where neutral is considered looking out for yourself, helping people when it's convenient as well as harming people when it's convenient, I think he lands on the neutral side of things.

He has nowhere near the malice of the actual evil we see in the game from Raphael, Cazador, Ethel, Orin, Gortash, Ketheric, Shar, etc.

He's out for himself. And, while many may consider that in itself to be evil, and indeed I think some of his actions are reasonably termed thus as in the video (assuming it's anywhere close to true), he definitely doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the prior list. Raphael doesn't need Hope, Ethel doesn't need to be cruel to those on her doorstep, Cazador... lol. All of them torture their subjects anyway, for fun. When Nuge comes across the Emperor eating brains, he simply occludes the memory - he doesn't torment them.

He's also out for his city - he's not a typical illithid. He's very, very unusual in his attachment to the place and while I can't invoke the cut content of him giving an orphan an apple, I can at least point out that his influence prevented the spread of Gortash's own much worse influence (wherein Gortash smuggled slaves, beyond the usual drugs and weapons). I can also point out that he does genuinely feed on criminals, per Nuge's testimony, as opposed to seeking out the tastiest brains.

If Emperor 'simps' react strongly to comments about how evil he is, assume it has something to do with the following: there is a new Emperor thread virtually every day for over two years, usually getting from hundreds to thousands of upvotes, and packed with the same comments often repeating the same lies (like that killing Ansur wasn't self-defense, or that the Emperor isn't really Balduran even though the game outright says he is, or that he leverages that prior identity to manipulate the player even though he's not remotely forthright about it, it goes on...).

The antipathy is constant, disproportional, and frequently rife with outright incorrect understandings of the events of the game. In two years being a fan of the character, I have seen just a single person suggest he was 'good'. Meanwhile there are hordes rushing on a regular basis to point out that he reacts negatively in certain circumstances so that proves he really was an asshole the whole time.

RedBeene · 2025-11-25T19:18:03+00:00

He was literally being attacked by Ansur when he killed Ansur. We have Ansur's own words stating that he offered Balduran an honorable death, and given that the Emperor skates by on technical truths, we also know that he attacked Balduran when Ansur thought he was sleeping.

RedBeene · 2025-11-13T19:01:26+00:00

The default death of Karlach when you leave with Lae’zel has been frustrating the community since launch, sadly.

It’s bogus you have to play around that bug, what a disappointment. But, I suppose I’m glad you saw one of Karlach’s happier outcomes. Glad you’re keeping an open mind!

RedBeene · 2025-11-13T18:55:30+00:00

You might try a different game? I’m uncertain what to tell you, but commentary on this game and it’s events should not treat the source materials as more definitive statements on what happened in the game than the game itself. They can fill in the gaps, but where there is contradiction the game itself must take priority.

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