Kuzco is the young ruler of a mythical South American empire and the world revolves around him. Everything is going his way because he always gets his way--whether it's building his Kuzcotopia summer house over the ancestral home of the peasant Pacha or firing his long-time advisor Yzma. The somewhat aged and very vain Yzma doesn't take too kindly to her forced retirement and she decides to poison Kuzco then take the Empire for herself. Unfortunately her well-meaning but dimwitted sidekick, Kronk, bumbles the job and Kuzco ends up a being tranformed into a llama then dumped into the wagon of peasant Pacha, the llama herder. When the talking llama pronounces who he really is, Pacha agrees to help him get back to the palace but only if the spoiled Emperor decides to build his Kuzcotopia somewhere else.