The Emperor: Difference between revisions

| image = Emperor Model.png

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| name = The Emperor

| image = The Emperor.png

| role = [[Temporary companion]]

| race = [[Mind flayer]]

| hometown = [[Baldur's Gate]]

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'''The Emperor''' is a [[mind flayer]] who appears in [[Baldur's Gate 3]]. It{{note|The Emperor, like other mind flayers, is addressed using the "it" pronoun. It is incidentally referred to as "he" in-game, and "they" in the game's files, possibly due to an oversight, or characters conflating its current and previous identities.}} plays a key role in the main story, but its identity is intentionally obscured until later parts of the game, allowing the player to ultimately decide for themselves if they want to know more about it, and whether or not it is trustworthy.

== Overview ==

=== Identity ===

Details about the Emperor's personal history are intentionally obfuscated during most of the game, but the player has the opportunity to learn more about it through conversations, interactions with other characters, reading books, and completing specific side quests.  

[[File:Balduran1.png|left|thumb|200px|''An Adventurer, I came from Baldur's Gate, though I was never one to be constrained by circumstance. I longed for more.'']]

[[File:Balduran2.png|left|thumb|200px|''That longing brought me to Moonrise Towers on a search for treasure. To a colony of mind flayers who caught me and changed me.'']]

Sometime before the events of the game, [[Enver Gortash]] and [[the Dark Urge]] captured the Emperor, and brought it back under the thrall of the Moonrise Elder Brain, who was now wearing the Crown of Karsus and had become the Netherbrain masquerading as the [[Absolute]]. The Netherbrain, sought to have all three Chosen of the Dead Three killed, and specifically picked the Emperor, unbeknown to it, to lead a team of illithids on a nautiloid to search for and steal from the [[Githyanki]] the Astral Prism containing their prince, Orpheus.{{ref|[[The Netherbrain]]'s dialogue to the player at the [[Morphic Pool]].}}{{clear}}

== Events of Baldur's Gate 3 ==

{{see also|Wyrmway|The Blade of Frontiers}}

Once the party completes the Wyrmway trials, they will find the corpse of [[Ansur]] the Dragon. Interacting with his body will awaken Ansur's spirit, which briefly possesses the player in order to communicate. As Ansur's introduction concludes, he will detect the Emperor within the Astral Prism.

Ansur will reveal that the Emperor in fact was formerly [[Balduran]], the founder of [[Baldur's Gate]]. Furthermore, he explains that while the Emperor initially did not want to become a mind flayer, it eventually fully embraced its new form, and its comfort with this caused a rift between the Emperor and Ansur.

===Endings===

;Let the Emperor use the Netherstones

:While the Emperor is duplicitous, it appears mostly concerned with its survival and prosperity. Should the player allow it to wield the Netherstones, it will follow through on destroying the Elder Brain, at the cost of letting it "assimilate" with [[Orpheus]].  

;Attack the Emperor

== List of interactions ==

If the player chooses to reject its advances, the Emperor's attitude in conversation will change in a way that appears to be reactively appropriate to the way it was treated. For example, if the option "Absolutely not, you freak!" is chosen at any opportunity, the Emperor's treatment of the player takes a ''much'' more hostile tone in all future interactions.

Players have a limited number of opportunities to interact with the Emperor, and as such, opportunities for romantically-styled interactions are ''much more limited'' compared to the other primary [[companions]].

Engaging in the primary scene has no effect on other ongoing romances, even when romancing [[Lae'zel]], who is generally hostile to illithids.

==Achievements==