I am pretty sure the artifacts was said to have 'the Githyanki inscriptions' on it. Thats why I think it is a portable prison kinda thing for a powerful entity that yearns to free itself. Made by gith artisans. It might be the case that the only way the entity can influence the outside is by those whispers, pushing others to do its bidding.
There I should probably stop derailing the thread...
Very possible as well but we don't know Shar's precise role in all this...it is her magic that is used by the dead three and Illithids to keep the tadpole in stasis though so I only see two scenarios here:
1) She is not directly involved with the dead three and given they are gods with grand designs for the world she most likely wants to have her own 2 cents on the matter.
or
2) She is in alliance with them but as alliances between evil gods go it is a precarious and fragile alliance at best where all parties involved almost certainly have schemes and designs to come out on top at the expense of the others.
Either way it was her quest for Shadowheart that brought this artifact to us...so it is a legitimate question to wonder whether she is completely out of the loop here. I am inclined to doubt it since a part of her magic is in our heads, containing that tadpole. There might even be the soul of a god in that artifact for all we know though...but who? Could even be Shar herself for all we know. Shadowheart's mission is to deliver it to the city of Baldur's gate to Shar's followers...they might be trying to rescue their goddess for all we know.
