Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why is Shadowheart so hush-hush about Shar? Silly? Needless?

I'm a bit irritated by Shadowheart, also known as Agent 003 1/2, making such a big fuss over keeping her Sharness under wraps (until she herself spills it on the disinterested Party).
Is her faith banned? Are Shar clergy persecuted in principle? Shot on sight?
Here I may be spoiled by playing Bg1/2 with Viconia on my team, and she was not shy about voicing her preferences, with cries of "Nightsinger, grant me strength!" or "For Shar!" ringing across Fearun.
It jars my roleplay sensibilities. Miss Heart is hanging around very shady characters, a vampire, an evul! (and fugly! and FAT!) extraplaner, two human sleazos - and she's worried about reactions to her faith? They don't care! If she got her kicks from kicking puppies, then she'd be getting tips on improving her performance or "Can I watch?" offers ...

Anybody else also unhappy?
Maybe there could be some sort of meter measuring the Allignement of the party - how many Evil, Neutral etc. members, and modify gameplay accordingly?

At least - on her her Big Reveal, some members express Approve and some Disapprove.
"Dahling, so you follow the Nightsingah? How very quaint!"

If already debated - please point me to relevant thread.

"Anybody else unhappy"

I'm not unhappy. Perhaps she has reasons to keep certain details secret until she feels she can trust the party? Perhaps she has orders to obey? Perhaps she is afraid of potential discrimination or similar that might prevent her completing her goals?

Time will tell.

I am not shocked at all.
I even like this.
As IRL, some are noisy about their faith, some are discrete. I did not took it as a big reveal, but just as something personal she is ready to shar-e because she trusts you a little more after some days.

I’m fine with her wanting to keep it under wraps to begin with given she wants to insinuate herself into our good graces and the attitudes of many towards Shar worshippers, plus telling us would likely prompt questions about her top secret mission that she doesn’t want to answer. But from memory I agree that the responses we have when she tells us aren’t entirely satisfactory. Eg, IIRC my Lolth-sworn ranger made a comment to the effect that lots of people distrust or dislike Shar worshippers and she reacted as though I was objecting to the fact the religion was evil. As a Lolth worshipper that was very not much my problem with Shar!

+1
BTW - this made me wonder? Is there any knowledge in the Underdark of the Great Betrayer Drizzt? Maybe some Drow have heard of Priestess Viconia (assuming she was on the Bhallspawn's Party and gained fame that way)?

shar's faith is forbidden for public worshipping. also

I dunno, I can buy her hostility towards the gith. I think the implication is that the githyanki really did a number on her. After all, she doesn't say it was the mindflayers who killed the rest of her team. Plus based on my limited knowledge of the two factions, I feel like selunites wouldn't be wild about the githyanki anyway.

And yeah, from what I've learned from the forums, worshipping Shar is supposed to be akin to devil worship, and most people on this forum at least are annoyed she's as open about it as she is.

This explains a lot, thanks.

In all politeness, I would have figured a glance at Shar would have explained much: "the domain of The Mistress of the Night was not only that of dark places, including caverns, dungeons, and the Underdark, but of deeds done under darkness, of secrets, loss, hidden pain, and the ability to forget."

She's neutral evil and has been responsible for some pretty horrific stuff, like the events in The Twilight War. She also created the shadow weave which basically improved the 'evilist' kinds of spells alongside its usual better known copying stuff.

Shar is not the kind of deityyou go around bragging you're a priest of, typically speaking, so there's every reason and a half for her to not want people to know.

I admit that my perception may - or simply is - skewed by having Viconia - Shaaran and proud and VOCAL - on my team in BG1 and 2.

Given folk already hate Viconia as she's a drow, and might otherwise think she worships Lolth, she might see Shar worship as the least of her image problems. In fact, having just come across her in my BG1 playthrough recently I think there's an implication she doesn't initially realise how negatively Shar is viewed, given she so proudly tells you that she no longer worships Lolth but is now a follower of one of the "surface gods" Shar, as a reason for letting her join us, though of course most surfacers would be no more keen on a Sharran than a Lolth worshipper. I suspect this is intentional on the part of the writers, and is a nice and (I found) slightly poignant touch.

Shadowheart, of course, hasn't fairly recently come to the surface and doesn't have the same ignorance of how folk would respond to her religion. Though I'm still puzzled by exactly what her memory wipe left intact and what it removed, as based on what we have so far it seems a bit of a mixed bag .

I suspect she is not a agent of shar at all but of Selune.

I suspect that's true and that she does not even know it. The question is whether it's been wiped from her mind by her choice, as a means of facilitating her infiltration of the cult or whether the amnesia was inflicted upon her by the cult as a punishment.

Honestly it raises more of an eyebrow that anyone disapproves of her religion when Cleric-Tav's choice of religion doesn't raise an eyebrow even though they can be a Shar worshipper as well, or a cleric of similarly shunned deities like Bhaal or Lolth. At least Shar has historically had some suspicious tolerance historically since some orders of their clergy arguably did at least some social good.

Do i smell Total Recall plot twist?

Who do you dream of?

I'm looking forward to the scene where we pull the tadpole out of our head through the nose.

Not to be that guy, but more than anything I’d wonder how someone can even pretend an attempt at secrecy while openly wearing Shar’s emblem on their default outfit.

Admittedly, I'd be more surprised if we didn't get some sort of twist when Shadowheart gets her memories back, and if it didn't involve Selune in some way given the narrative potential given her virulent hatred (though to be fair, that's probably totally normal for any Sharran) and the fact that in EA SH can get a weird magic surge when approaching a Selunite shrine, but as Eagle Pursuit says there's all sorts of ways that can go and I really hope Larian aren't going to go with anything too obvious.

My own pet theory, based on the fact that SH can also get a weird magic surge in the school in Moonhaven is that she was a child in that school abducted by Sharrans. She'll make a brief comment, I think, if you pick up the Old Schoolbook from there which mentions children and their families going missing. Moonhaven seems to have been a Selunite settlement, and SH's parents could have been attached to the nearby temple, and perhaps killed by Sharrans. I reckon she might have subsequently been brainwashed and possibly repeatedly memory wiped by Sharrans and brought up in their faith, but still be a genuine Sharran as far as it goes, though perhaps one who has questioned her faith and who might question it further if she finds out more about her past. That theory would put SH at something just over 100 years old, I think, but that doesn't seem out of the question for a half-elf and Jaheira seems to only look middle-aged despite potentially having another half century on that.

Probably all totally wrong of course, though if there's anything more definite on SH's backstory that has been uncovered in datamining then I'm going to ask folk to pop it in spoiler tags.


Undeniably true. Perhaps the thinking (if there is any) is that Shar's signs are also secret, but even so then it feels as though we should get a religion check to identify it, or just know it anyway if we're a religious type, and be able to challenge her on it. Even if she then lies and says something along the lines of "Oh, this old thing? I stripped it off a corpse somewhere and had no idea what that symbol meant!" and then we proceed as now until she fesses up.

Honestly I'd be fine with SH being a kidnapped selunite, it wouldn't be my favorite plot choice but it'd be fine, however I'd hate it if she were from the ruined village. I cannot imagine us coming back to this area, the area itself is given no sense of importance and its only plot hooks so far are ones focused on getting us to leave fir Baldur's Gate, and it feels like its too convenient on top of everything else. We just happen to land in the right place to be in Shadowheart's home town? At the very beginning of the game?

Fair enough . As I said, it's probably not what's intended at all, so you're probably safe.

Personally I found the ruined village and whatever happened there and at the Shattered Sanctum an interesting mystery and still had lots of questions when we left, and am at the very least hoping to get some answers to as we get to know more about Ketheric who I think was involved, but mileage clearly varies.

As to coincidences, I personally wouldn't find it too much that a hundred years into her life Shadowheart's secret mission to steal a box from the gith led to her being captured by mindflayers on a ship that crashed in an area she'd never have otherwise visited, but includes a village that triggers some buried memories and odd power flares that kicks off a series of events in her personal life that could radically change her understanding of who she is and her connection to her faith. But then I have a reasonably high tolerance for coincidence if it drives (what I consider to be) interesting stories, but of course totally understand others might find that stretches things too far and not an interesting story anyway.

You'll just have to consider yourself lucky I'm not a Larian writer .