This mod's purpose is making a greater contrast between siding with the Emperor or Orpheus, as well as giving tadpole usage more consequence at the time of choosing to become an illithid or not. In order to do so, some dialogues were altered with small new cutscenes. The changes affect the following story decisions:
- Siding with Orpheus no longer requires anybody in the party to become a mind flayer, as Orpheus can cast the spell "Karsus Compulsion" on his own. It's still possible for the player to become an illithid before freeing him, though.
- When siding with the Emperor, a half-illithid character will have a very hard time resisting the urge to transform into full illithid. Conversely, a normal character will need to pass a check to transform, instead of just giving the stones to the Emperor. None of these checks apply if you decide to free Orpheus.
- It's now possible to finish the game with both Orpheus and the Emperor! If the player romanced the Emperor and has already the Orphic Hammer, the Emperor can be convinced to stay and cooperate with Orpheus, instead of immediately betraying the party and joining the Netherbrain. Of course, you will need to convince Orpheus too. A small scene between them was added for the good ending.
- If present, the Emperor can join combat against Orpheus if he becomes hostile during conversation. This won't result in a game over, as long as the Emperor kills Orpheus extracting his brain, and there are no other mind flayers in the party (still don't know why this doesn't work with an illithid player in vanilla game).
Update 02/03/2026: Added a patch under Optional Files, to convince the Emperor to help Orpheus without the need to romance him. Give the patch higher priority than the main mod in Mod Manager.
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Update 08/01/2026**: Fixed the dialogue for the special situation in which a mind flayer player recruits both Orpheus and the Emperor.
**Installation
**Unzip and install with "BG3 Mod Manager".
Or install manually, unzipping the contents into your mods folder (usually at "C:\Users*YourUser*\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\Mods"). The manual installation requires editing the "modsettings.lsx" file as well.
You can install this mod at any time before the conversation with the Emperor, when he asks you to give him the stones so he can assimilate Orpheus.
It was tested for Patch 8 (v4.1.1.6758295), so I can't guarantee that it will work with earlier versions, or any patch/hotfix released by Larian henceforth.
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Conflicts with other mods**
Several vanilla files were edited, so this mod will conflict with any other mod that uses these same files. This is the complete list of modified base game files:
- Stats: "INT_Orpheus" entry in the Stats/Character table.
- Scripts: "Act3c_END_IllithidOptions", "Act3c_END_Misc", "Act3c_END_BrainBattle", "GLO_Journal_PostEA", Act3_GLO_Orpheus_Journal" and "Act3c_END_Gale".
- Dialogs and Timelines: "END_IllithidOptions_Assimilation", "END_IllithidOptions_OrpheusFreed", "END_BrainBattle_EnterMind", "END_BrainBattle_FinalDecision" (dialog only), "END_BrainBattle_CombatOver" (dialog only).
- Journal: Added entries for "Main Quest/Deal with the Brain/Face the Brain", "Companions/The Wizard of Waterdeep/Claim the Crown of Karsus", and "Personal Quest/Free Orpheus".
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Limitations
**- New dialogue lines are obviously unvoiced, and the conversation's flow is pretty straightforward, lacking the complex branching of vanilla dialogues.
- Some new animations may be a bit rough.
- At the start of the brain battle, it's possible that some characters will make overhead comments about how "you need to use the supreme tadpole now", if you're with Orpheus in the party and nobody is a mind flayer. Just ignore it; they're leftover comments that I preferred to leave alone.
**Tools used
**- Unlocked version of the Toolkit (Moonglasses).
- TMLGen, to edit vanilla timelines.
来源与文件
文件说明
Main mod
前往 N 网打开所选文件。安装与下载要求以原作者及平台说明为准。
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