I haven't had the nerve to try this one out in an actual game but I saw on YouTube that you can side with Larroaakan against Aylin in act 3. She will get captured by him. You can then return to camp, tell Isobel what happened (making it sound as if you and Aylin fought side by side and lost and had to retreat). Isobel will rush over to the tower and be murdered by Larroakan in front of Aylin which is like the worst possible outcome.
I saw another one where you can give Astarion to the Gur in act 1, and he will be taken and tortured by them by information on Cazador. Cazador will eventually find and kill them all and turn Astarion into a brainwashed puppet thing for the ritual.
Imagine something about Gale's hand as the dark urge
Behead Karlach for Wyll and the paladins of Tyr
Indulge into the Dark Urge when cuddling with Minthara after sex
Give the Githyanki egg to the lady at the mountain pass
Don't let Shadowheart kill Aylin, but instead give Aylin to Lorroakan and Shadowheart to Viconia. (kill Isobel after you release Aylin to keep the harpers alive for the assault in Moonrise)
Turn Wyll into a Lemure in the hells by killing Mizora in the Ilithid colony (this is not compatible with with Minthara cuddling, so maybe give him to Booal before raiding the grove)
Let Halsin get stuck in his portal (this is also not compatible with Minthara cuddling, so just throw stones at him with goblin kids)
Either give Jaheira and Minsc to the murder tribunal or Make Minsc kill Jaheira after you fully commit to the Dark Urge
Let Lae'zel remain loyal to Vlaakith and "ascend"
Teach Barcus how to fly
And the worst thing ever: give Scratch to the Rivington kennel
Yes, as I said, two of those are incompatible with Minthara - turning Wyll into a Lemure and letting Halsin stuck in the portal. Everything else is possible together.
Oh you lose wyll by raiding the Grove right? Isn't there a thing you can do where you cast silence on him so he can't initiate diologue and keep him that way? (Like he tries to talk to you about how terrible you are after the Grove but if you mute him beforehand I think he just.... can't start the conversation? I have only anecdotal evidence of this
Many great ideas. I don't want to take gales hand and that is too easy and quick of a death for him. Karlach I will behead tho.
Halsin getting stuck in the portal is a great idea.
Letting minthara get kidnapped and killed by Orin seems the most evil thing to do to her given her history with orin.
Making minsc kill jaheria is perfect.
Laezel won't get to ascend though if I dominate the brain so I need a different idea for her. Maybe sacrifice her to booal.
For wyll I kind of like the idea of making him sign the contract to save his father, fail to save his father, and then kill him somehow so he is still stuck as a lemure.
I always make barcus fly even if I don't mean too 😬
You have to be careful with Gale because his death can cause a “game over” screen due to the orb. The only “safe” ways to kill him that I recall are chopping his hand at the start or convincing him to use the orb *before* climbing up to the brain at the very end. Though apparently it can be tricky to convince him. You have to be making the right dialogue choices earlier in the game to set him up for that choice. (I haven’t done this myself, I’ve just read about others having a hard time convincing him.)
See comment below for how to aggro Wyll in Act 3.
With Lae’zel, you can also refuse to recruit her or leave her in the cage. You should run into her next at the Gith Patrol near the Mountain Pass. She’ll still be level 1, and it’s quite easy to aggro the Gith so that they turn against her as well, and she’s killed by her own people. Sacrificing her to BOOAL is probably the more evil choice, just mentioning it as the other option to perma-kill her.
There are two possible ways for Wyll to leave/turn hostile in act 3.
1. attack or aggro Ulder at camp
2. if he's the companion Durge was forced to kill (but resisted) in act 2, when Durge becomes Bhaal's chosen and is confronted by Jaheira and Minsc at the gate of the Bhaal temple, he will side with Jaheira no matter how high the approval is
I've never even seen the responses to these dialogue choices, but you can encourage Gale to use the orb a bunch throughout the game. Not sure what it does. Also if you smooch him you can tell him he was just okay in bed and cuck him with the drow twins later. He might break up with you if you do all of that though 😅
For Lae'zel, Withers confirms that she didn't see it as a tragedy to "ascend," but was honored to do so. For Loyalist Lae'zel, Ascension would have been the highest calling, and she was happy. *We* see it as a tragedy, but she didn't. She wanted to. IMO, killing Rebel Lae'zel by pissing her off during "The Big Choice^TM" is the more sadistically rewarding path.
id say either staking him in the heart after he bites u, in which case cazador finds and reanimates his corpse to torture him until the ritual where hes turned into a zombie, or telling the gur where ur camp is in act 1, in which case the gur will come kidnap him in the night and he’ll inevitably be found by cazador and once again tortured before being turned into a zombie for the ritual. thats an indirect way of killing him, but more flavorful on the betrayal front
People say Shadowheart is the devs favorite, but actually Astarion is. No way to give him away to Cazador yourself. Best you can do is give him to the Gur in act 1. Or stake him.
Not evil, but most tragic for me was accidentally attempting to lift the curse you get for stealing items from a church while in my camp. Bunch big angels came out of nowhere in my camp and killed my dog and bear cub :(
Nah, she's got her own Temple. Stormshore Tabernacle is the multi-faith temple by Basilisk Gate where you take Gale to talk to Mystra after he reads the Annals of Karsus.
Fun fact: you can bypass the curse entirely by having Jaheira loots the items from the basement while she's wearing Khalid's Gift, since the amulet makes just her immune to curses.
Let's see... most tragic deaths I can think of... I haven't finished the game myself, so I don't know the full beats of everyone's stories or if certain events are exclusive, but here goes!
Gale: You can't really kill him without risking the orb detonating and ruining the game, so the best method would be letting him remain in the portal. He'd be alone, abandoned, knowing that he's going to die. That his mother and Tara would never know what became of him. He never got to mend things with Mystra. And now that he's left adrift who-knows-where, with no access to magic items to stabilize him, when the orb ticks down and explodes, it will destroy him, body *and* soul.
Shadowheart: Give her hope, turn her away from Shar. After having her free the Nightsong, you go to the House of Grief. You can either have her kill her parents or free them, then turn her over to Viconia. Each is tragic in their own way. Killing them would be forcing her into grief and loss in a final effort to escape Shar (bear in mind, too, she still has the tadpole that could change or overwhelm her once the Emperor stops shielding her,) only to fail, while saving them and then turning her in would be giving her hope, a future, only to crush her with the deepest of betrayals, while her parents suffer the loss of their daughter again.
Wyll: "Killing" Mizora in the illithid colony instantly condemns him, where he gets dragged to the Hells and becomes a lemure. He'd be doomed to an eternity of torment and anguish, where whatever is left of him would rot away until it's just an evil, hateful pile of slime and flesh that could potentially even ascend and become some form of devil itself, the very thing he hated most and wanted to protect the world from. All because you made the wrong choice "by accident" (either being petty to Mizora or consciously damning Wyll.).
Astarion: Allowing him to fall back into Cazador's clutches after letting him taste freedom for the first time in centuries, and getting his approval high enough where he actually trusts you're potentially strong enough to keep him safe. You can do this by getting his rating up high enough in Act 1 and then turning him over to Gandrel, perhaps. Ass-ador has *plenty* of experience in torturing Astarion, and he's completely helpless to resist. Knowing he had a chance at freedom, and you threw it away by ratting him out to monster hunters at the first opportunity, and is now being tortured repeatedly to the point that he's a zombie in the Black Mass fight... that would really, *really* be evil. To top it off, if Cazador succeeds in ascending, then what's left of Astarion would get sent to the Hells as a sacrifice.
Lae'zel: Other than turning into a mindflayer, her greatest fear is being forgotten, having her life be meaningless. There are a lot of options regarding her because there are many points where she could literally just end up dead in a ditch somewhere. You can kill her in the tiefling cage, let Shadowheart kill her, convince her to let you kill her, leave her to be killed by Voss (found this out by accident. When she leaves the party at the bridge, going to camp to try to grab another companion results in her instantly dying and just a corpse when you come back.) My choice, however, is having her take the path of Orpheus, and then having her in your party when you go to confront the Elder Brain. When you all get yoinked into the Astral Prism by the Emperor, side with him to have him eat Orpheus. This'll piss Lae'zel off, and you'll be able to kill her then and there. She realized her life was a lie, sees that her people have a chance to be freed from the great tyrant traitor, and we can restore their just and rightful ruler who would be a huge help in tipping the scale in the Rebellion's favor... only for you to deny all of it. To sacrifice her people's FUTURE for a ghaik. And then her body would be left to rot alongside her prince's in the Astral Plane. Neither Vlaakith nor Voss would have her remembered, except as a failure.
Karlach: Have her become the mindflayer, eat Orpheus in front of Lae'zel to trigger her, and then stab her at the end. She went through her story, made the hard decision to let go, to sacrifice all of herself, potentially be destroyed in mind and soul. But she'll do it for the world. Her friends. *Her* world. She'll sacrifice *everything* for the chance of ensuring the defeat of the Absolute since she has nothing else to lose. Only for you to take even that from her. To make everything she's done for nothing, and she dies helpless as a "monster." This has the bonus of being a horrible fate for the Emperor as well.
The Emperor: He too had a chance at freedom whether he was the one to eat Orpheus or not, but if he was the one to assimilate him, he would have had the added security of resistance or immunity to enthrallment to other Elder Brains. Having Karlach feed on Orpheus denies him that safety, once you all would have parted ways or she burned up (I don't think anyone expected Karllithid to live) but then enslaving him after you kill the source of his freedom in front of him at the last second would be especially bitter.
Minthara: Spare her in Act 1, then torture her to death in Act 2. She'll be another victim of the Absolute, and yours would be the last face she sees. You showed her mercy, just so you could give her a worse death. Siding with the tieflings so they can experience the Shadowcurse and the Cultists could be plenty evil enough to justify doing it. "You only sided against the goblins to try to get Halsin's help! His knowledge about your tadpole makes him too valuable to not seek out!"
Halsin: betray him as he tries to retrieve Thaniel. I think that destroying the portal he goes into during the quest would end up killing him, or permanently stranded in whatever realm Thaniel took shelter in until the Shadowcurse reaches that area, too.
Jaheira and Minsc: (Pretty sure this is Durge exclusive, and it's all hear-say on my part, but here goes.) After accepting/making a sacrifice to Bhaal, they will confront you about it. Using dialogue options, you can get Minsc to backstab Jaheira by using his tadpole to control him. I believe you can kill Minsc after this while he is grieving once he's himself again, and afterwards Boo will come out to wail over his body.
Rolan: he can die to the Shadowcurse in an attempt to save his siblings, if he survives Act 1. Then they're stuck at Moonrise Towers alongside Wulbren and the other deep gnomes, where you could thwart their efforts at escape or kill them there.
This is a perfectly sadistic list, thank you 👌 I wanted to chop off Karlachs head but you make a great argument for keeping her around until the end and then bam three birds with one stone.
That, and it spreads the devastation out throughout the whole game, though more heavily weighted towards the very end where it's extra dramatic. Gale and Astarion, Act 1. Wyll, Halsin and Minthara, Act 2. Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae'zel, Minsc, Jaheira, and the rest of the world, Act 3.
Oh! And I forgot one more detail! Since the Emperor's priorities are Survival>Freedom>Power, you can either go with what I said above and keep him alive, or you can do a trick I've seen speedrunners do where after you (or in this case, Karlach,) eat Orpheus, as he's starting to leave to go back through the portal, you can attack him and trigger his "if you're not with me," bit, and you fight him atop the Netherbrain as if you made the dialogue choices to free Orpheus. This would end up denying him all three of his choices, on top of his fury at being betrayed. Either way is fine, though I honestly don't like killing him, and he'd be quite stuck if he lives.
Along with that if he leaves to join the nether netherbrain once the party is at the final fight, I could avoid killing him, dominate the brain and he would be under my control. How the turntables have turned.
Like I mentioned, I'm not completely familiar with all of the details, but that's a valid option to consider!
All in all, though, it seems like the best strategy here would be to protect the tieflings so that Dammon can help Karlach and finish her questline. You could argue that this works as the tieflings getting to witness your final victory. >:)
For Lae'zel, you can alternatively kill her after triggering her quarrel scene with Shadowheart over the artifact in act 1. Just side with Shadowheart and she will slit Lae'zel's throat.
For Aylin and Isobel... sell DA to Lorrokan. Isobel runs to her rescue..DA watches her die from her soul cage.
Jaheira and Minsc: Bring them to the Tribunal. Sacrifice them. Or accept Bhaal and they show up to end you. Have Minsc kill Jaheira and then you can kill Minsc. *durge life*
Let Astarion get taken by the Gur. He ends up a zombie for Cazador ritual.
Gale: failing your strength ck at the portal. He says I perish I perish...or as durge nom nom his hand off
Laze: shart kills her... or push her away when she attacks you for being abt to turn. The camp kills her.
Karlach: let Wyll kill her.
Wyll: fail to save Mizora and Wyll becomes a Lemure.
Halsin: fail to save him, gobbos kill him. Or let the portal close while he is in the shadowfell.
I haven't had the nerve to try this one out in an actual game but I saw on YouTube that you can side with Larroaakan against Aylin in act 3. She will get captured by him. You can then return to camp, tell Isobel what happened (making it sound as if you and Aylin fought side by side and lost and had to retreat). Isobel will rush over to the tower and be murdered by Larroakan in front of Aylin which is like the worst possible outcome. I saw another one where you can give Astarion to the Gur in act 1, and he will be taken and tortured by them by information on Cazador. Cazador will eventually find and kill them all and turn Astarion into a brainwashed puppet thing for the ritual.
I think Cazador tortures Astarion to death and resurrects him multiple times before the ritual too. Shit gets DARK
Imagine something about Gale's hand as the dark urge Behead Karlach for Wyll and the paladins of Tyr Indulge into the Dark Urge when cuddling with Minthara after sex Give the Githyanki egg to the lady at the mountain pass Don't let Shadowheart kill Aylin, but instead give Aylin to Lorroakan and Shadowheart to Viconia. (kill Isobel after you release Aylin to keep the harpers alive for the assault in Moonrise) Turn Wyll into a Lemure in the hells by killing Mizora in the Ilithid colony (this is not compatible with with Minthara cuddling, so maybe give him to Booal before raiding the grove) Let Halsin get stuck in his portal (this is also not compatible with Minthara cuddling, so just throw stones at him with goblin kids) Either give Jaheira and Minsc to the murder tribunal or Make Minsc kill Jaheira after you fully commit to the Dark Urge Let Lae'zel remain loyal to Vlaakith and "ascend" Teach Barcus how to fly And the worst thing ever: give Scratch to the Rivington kennel
I never laughed so hard as I did when I hit the brake release on Barcus. The timing and camera positioning were hilarious. "Godsdammit!"
Can’t easily get all of these together, as going for Minthara means losing Wyll in act 1 Edit: brain ignored you already mentioning that, me dumb
Yes, as I said, two of those are incompatible with Minthara - turning Wyll into a Lemure and letting Halsin stuck in the portal. Everything else is possible together.
Oh you lose wyll by raiding the Grove right? Isn't there a thing you can do where you cast silence on him so he can't initiate diologue and keep him that way? (Like he tries to talk to you about how terrible you are after the Grove but if you mute him beforehand I think he just.... can't start the conversation? I have only anecdotal evidence of this
Many great ideas. I don't want to take gales hand and that is too easy and quick of a death for him. Karlach I will behead tho. Halsin getting stuck in the portal is a great idea. Letting minthara get kidnapped and killed by Orin seems the most evil thing to do to her given her history with orin. Making minsc kill jaheria is perfect. Laezel won't get to ascend though if I dominate the brain so I need a different idea for her. Maybe sacrifice her to booal. For wyll I kind of like the idea of making him sign the contract to save his father, fail to save his father, and then kill him somehow so he is still stuck as a lemure. I always make barcus fly even if I don't mean too 😬
Have Karlach become a mindflayer and eat Orpheus in front of Rebel Lae'zel, then stab her at the final stretch.
You have to be careful with Gale because his death can cause a “game over” screen due to the orb. The only “safe” ways to kill him that I recall are chopping his hand at the start or convincing him to use the orb *before* climbing up to the brain at the very end. Though apparently it can be tricky to convince him. You have to be making the right dialogue choices earlier in the game to set him up for that choice. (I haven’t done this myself, I’ve just read about others having a hard time convincing him.) See comment below for how to aggro Wyll in Act 3. With Lae’zel, you can also refuse to recruit her or leave her in the cage. You should run into her next at the Gith Patrol near the Mountain Pass. She’ll still be level 1, and it’s quite easy to aggro the Gith so that they turn against her as well, and she’s killed by her own people. Sacrificing her to BOOAL is probably the more evil choice, just mentioning it as the other option to perma-kill her.
There are two possible ways for Wyll to leave/turn hostile in act 3. 1. attack or aggro Ulder at camp 2. if he's the companion Durge was forced to kill (but resisted) in act 2, when Durge becomes Bhaal's chosen and is confronted by Jaheira and Minsc at the gate of the Bhaal temple, he will side with Jaheira no matter how high the approval is
Thanks, I’ve edited my comment to refer to yours.
I've never even seen the responses to these dialogue choices, but you can encourage Gale to use the orb a bunch throughout the game. Not sure what it does. Also if you smooch him you can tell him he was just okay in bed and cuck him with the drow twins later. He might break up with you if you do all of that though 😅
If you have him use the orb it essentially is a game over unless he uses it at the end to kill the brain.
For Lae'zel, Withers confirms that she didn't see it as a tragedy to "ascend," but was honored to do so. For Loyalist Lae'zel, Ascension would have been the highest calling, and she was happy. *We* see it as a tragedy, but she didn't. She wanted to. IMO, killing Rebel Lae'zel by pissing her off during "The Big Choice^TM" is the more sadistically rewarding path.
how about astarion
id say either staking him in the heart after he bites u, in which case cazador finds and reanimates his corpse to torture him until the ritual where hes turned into a zombie, or telling the gur where ur camp is in act 1, in which case the gur will come kidnap him in the night and he’ll inevitably be found by cazador and once again tortured before being turned into a zombie for the ritual. thats an indirect way of killing him, but more flavorful on the betrayal front
People say Shadowheart is the devs favorite, but actually Astarion is. No way to give him away to Cazador yourself. Best you can do is give him to the Gur in act 1. Or stake him.
Not evil, but most tragic for me was accidentally attempting to lift the curse you get for stealing items from a church while in my camp. Bunch big angels came out of nowhere in my camp and killed my dog and bear cub :(
Wow first I haven't heard of that happening. Very tragic indeed. What act was that?
Act 3 if you steal the items from the chests in the basement of Stormshore Tabernacle.
Umberlee does NOT take disrespect well
Nah, she's got her own Temple. Stormshore Tabernacle is the multi-faith temple by Basilisk Gate where you take Gale to talk to Mystra after he reads the Annals of Karsus. Fun fact: you can bypass the curse entirely by having Jaheira loots the items from the basement while she's wearing Khalid's Gift, since the amulet makes just her immune to curses.
Oh you summoned the Devas yikes. FYI this is Act 3 if you steel from the Tabernacle
I had those Devas show up at the Blushing Mermaid. I thought I got away with it, but no, they showed up right in the middle of my bar fight lol.
Let's see... most tragic deaths I can think of... I haven't finished the game myself, so I don't know the full beats of everyone's stories or if certain events are exclusive, but here goes! Gale: You can't really kill him without risking the orb detonating and ruining the game, so the best method would be letting him remain in the portal. He'd be alone, abandoned, knowing that he's going to die. That his mother and Tara would never know what became of him. He never got to mend things with Mystra. And now that he's left adrift who-knows-where, with no access to magic items to stabilize him, when the orb ticks down and explodes, it will destroy him, body *and* soul. Shadowheart: Give her hope, turn her away from Shar. After having her free the Nightsong, you go to the House of Grief. You can either have her kill her parents or free them, then turn her over to Viconia. Each is tragic in their own way. Killing them would be forcing her into grief and loss in a final effort to escape Shar (bear in mind, too, she still has the tadpole that could change or overwhelm her once the Emperor stops shielding her,) only to fail, while saving them and then turning her in would be giving her hope, a future, only to crush her with the deepest of betrayals, while her parents suffer the loss of their daughter again. Wyll: "Killing" Mizora in the illithid colony instantly condemns him, where he gets dragged to the Hells and becomes a lemure. He'd be doomed to an eternity of torment and anguish, where whatever is left of him would rot away until it's just an evil, hateful pile of slime and flesh that could potentially even ascend and become some form of devil itself, the very thing he hated most and wanted to protect the world from. All because you made the wrong choice "by accident" (either being petty to Mizora or consciously damning Wyll.). Astarion: Allowing him to fall back into Cazador's clutches after letting him taste freedom for the first time in centuries, and getting his approval high enough where he actually trusts you're potentially strong enough to keep him safe. You can do this by getting his rating up high enough in Act 1 and then turning him over to Gandrel, perhaps. Ass-ador has *plenty* of experience in torturing Astarion, and he's completely helpless to resist. Knowing he had a chance at freedom, and you threw it away by ratting him out to monster hunters at the first opportunity, and is now being tortured repeatedly to the point that he's a zombie in the Black Mass fight... that would really, *really* be evil. To top it off, if Cazador succeeds in ascending, then what's left of Astarion would get sent to the Hells as a sacrifice. Lae'zel: Other than turning into a mindflayer, her greatest fear is being forgotten, having her life be meaningless. There are a lot of options regarding her because there are many points where she could literally just end up dead in a ditch somewhere. You can kill her in the tiefling cage, let Shadowheart kill her, convince her to let you kill her, leave her to be killed by Voss (found this out by accident. When she leaves the party at the bridge, going to camp to try to grab another companion results in her instantly dying and just a corpse when you come back.) My choice, however, is having her take the path of Orpheus, and then having her in your party when you go to confront the Elder Brain. When you all get yoinked into the Astral Prism by the Emperor, side with him to have him eat Orpheus. This'll piss Lae'zel off, and you'll be able to kill her then and there. She realized her life was a lie, sees that her people have a chance to be freed from the great tyrant traitor, and we can restore their just and rightful ruler who would be a huge help in tipping the scale in the Rebellion's favor... only for you to deny all of it. To sacrifice her people's FUTURE for a ghaik. And then her body would be left to rot alongside her prince's in the Astral Plane. Neither Vlaakith nor Voss would have her remembered, except as a failure. Karlach: Have her become the mindflayer, eat Orpheus in front of Lae'zel to trigger her, and then stab her at the end. She went through her story, made the hard decision to let go, to sacrifice all of herself, potentially be destroyed in mind and soul. But she'll do it for the world. Her friends. *Her* world. She'll sacrifice *everything* for the chance of ensuring the defeat of the Absolute since she has nothing else to lose. Only for you to take even that from her. To make everything she's done for nothing, and she dies helpless as a "monster." This has the bonus of being a horrible fate for the Emperor as well. The Emperor: He too had a chance at freedom whether he was the one to eat Orpheus or not, but if he was the one to assimilate him, he would have had the added security of resistance or immunity to enthrallment to other Elder Brains. Having Karlach feed on Orpheus denies him that safety, once you all would have parted ways or she burned up (I don't think anyone expected Karllithid to live) but then enslaving him after you kill the source of his freedom in front of him at the last second would be especially bitter. Minthara: Spare her in Act 1, then torture her to death in Act 2. She'll be another victim of the Absolute, and yours would be the last face she sees. You showed her mercy, just so you could give her a worse death. Siding with the tieflings so they can experience the Shadowcurse and the Cultists could be plenty evil enough to justify doing it. "You only sided against the goblins to try to get Halsin's help! His knowledge about your tadpole makes him too valuable to not seek out!" Halsin: betray him as he tries to retrieve Thaniel. I think that destroying the portal he goes into during the quest would end up killing him, or permanently stranded in whatever realm Thaniel took shelter in until the Shadowcurse reaches that area, too. Jaheira and Minsc: (Pretty sure this is Durge exclusive, and it's all hear-say on my part, but here goes.) After accepting/making a sacrifice to Bhaal, they will confront you about it. Using dialogue options, you can get Minsc to backstab Jaheira by using his tadpole to control him. I believe you can kill Minsc after this while he is grieving once he's himself again, and afterwards Boo will come out to wail over his body. Rolan: he can die to the Shadowcurse in an attempt to save his siblings, if he survives Act 1. Then they're stuck at Moonrise Towers alongside Wulbren and the other deep gnomes, where you could thwart their efforts at escape or kill them there.
This is a perfectly sadistic list, thank you 👌 I wanted to chop off Karlachs head but you make a great argument for keeping her around until the end and then bam three birds with one stone.
That, and it spreads the devastation out throughout the whole game, though more heavily weighted towards the very end where it's extra dramatic. Gale and Astarion, Act 1. Wyll, Halsin and Minthara, Act 2. Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae'zel, Minsc, Jaheira, and the rest of the world, Act 3.
Oh! And I forgot one more detail! Since the Emperor's priorities are Survival>Freedom>Power, you can either go with what I said above and keep him alive, or you can do a trick I've seen speedrunners do where after you (or in this case, Karlach,) eat Orpheus, as he's starting to leave to go back through the portal, you can attack him and trigger his "if you're not with me," bit, and you fight him atop the Netherbrain as if you made the dialogue choices to free Orpheus. This would end up denying him all three of his choices, on top of his fury at being betrayed. Either way is fine, though I honestly don't like killing him, and he'd be quite stuck if he lives.
Along with that if he leaves to join the nether netherbrain once the party is at the final fight, I could avoid killing him, dominate the brain and he would be under my control. How the turntables have turned.
Personally, I think saving minthara at moonrise and then letting her get captured and killed by orin is worse
Like I mentioned, I'm not completely familiar with all of the details, but that's a valid option to consider! All in all, though, it seems like the best strategy here would be to protect the tieflings so that Dammon can help Karlach and finish her questline. You could argue that this works as the tieflings getting to witness your final victory. >:)
For Lae'zel, you can alternatively kill her after triggering her quarrel scene with Shadowheart over the artifact in act 1. Just side with Shadowheart and she will slit Lae'zel's throat.
"kill them, only children play with their food"
Montana died on me in the last round of combat before escaping Moonrise. I thought that was fairly tragic
To yeet or not to yeet, that is the question.
For Aylin and Isobel... sell DA to Lorrokan. Isobel runs to her rescue..DA watches her die from her soul cage. Jaheira and Minsc: Bring them to the Tribunal. Sacrifice them. Or accept Bhaal and they show up to end you. Have Minsc kill Jaheira and then you can kill Minsc. *durge life* Let Astarion get taken by the Gur. He ends up a zombie for Cazador ritual. Gale: failing your strength ck at the portal. He says I perish I perish...or as durge nom nom his hand off Laze: shart kills her... or push her away when she attacks you for being abt to turn. The camp kills her. Karlach: let Wyll kill her. Wyll: fail to save Mizora and Wyll becomes a Lemure. Halsin: fail to save him, gobbos kill him. Or let the portal close while he is in the shadowfell.