Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New players and the problem with Shar

Sozz, one thing they (i.e., people of the Realms) have that we don't is magic; The Forgotten Realms is by no means a low magic setting.

+1

All the magic in the world doesn't change that people living in the setting don't have setting books and FR novels tucked under their pillows. It's something I've been trying to get across, but it's a point that's surprisingly difficult to make here.

I feel like there's a major divorce between understanding the viewpoint of an individual in the setting versus an armchair viewpoint that sees the setting top-down from a source book.

Okay. Let's put this in a different perspective. The crusades. European Christians versus Islamic Muslims. Big war. These two forces were arch enemies. Do you think that the common person in Europe didn't know what Muslim symbols were? Do you think that Muslims didn't know the Christian symbol? Do you think that the common person wouldn't be able to tell the armor of a Muslim versus the armor of a Christian?

If a Muslim soldier during that time period showed up in a small town in one of the European Christian lands, don't you think someone, maybe not everyone, but someone would recognize that armor and the symbols worn by the soldier? Wouldn't a Christian priest especially have such knowledge or local town militia? And then, on top of it all, wouldn't somebody who fought in the crusades against the Muslims recognize the armor? Or what about someone who knew somebody who fought in the crusades who told them all about it and even had murals painted with images of Muslim soldiers with their symbols and armor on their walls? Shouldn't they at least recognize the armor?

And wouldn't it make more sense that the Muslim would wear Christian armor or just some sort of mercenary ragtag armor in order to hide who they are amidst an entire land of Christians?

Likewise, Shar is a major goddess, an enemy of many peoples throughout the Sword Coast. Her society is a secretive one. So why would any of her servants try to ever infiltrate any other land wearing armor that would possibly identify them as being her servants? And even if Shadowheart wasn't planning on crashing in some sort of wilderness outside of Baldur's Gate, she was still planning on returning to Baldur's Gate. So she was planning on returning to a place that is a big city in a land that knows about and is hostile towards her people.

You can give people the information as much as you like; if they don't want to read it, don't want to listen to, or don't wish to accept it, then there is nothing else you can really do to further the conversation.

The common people know about Shar; they know what her iconography looks like; they can recognise it on sight, at least to a basic degree, even if they are a common farmer who has lived their entire life in the dessarin valley.

This is factual; it was part of a realms-shaking event, and Shar was a big figure in it. The definitions of those events include a basic level of wide-spread awareness of them - everyone, even po-dunk farmers, has a basic level of this understanding at minimum - trying to argue or claim that they might not, or that it is not obvious at a certain basic level just makes a person look ignorant of the source material.

This has been pointed out multiple times - the folks who wish to argue against it are simply ignoring it, waiting for a page or two to pass, and then asserting the contrary again. This conversation is likely not a productive use of anyone's time any more, at this point.

Great discussion!

A cross is a cross, whether made of wood, obsidian, purple jewels, or macaroni. It is a symbol most of people on earth know. The Crusades is a great example of iconography.

Thus, I agree that people in Faurun would probably recognize Shar’s symbol, with or without purple, etc. Scratch that sucker in the mud, the wee ones would gasp.

However, JandK’s synopsis of Shadowheart as a character (from a few posts back) is spot on imho.

Don't feed the contrarians, guys: let them have their victory.

this. There is no discussion happening here.

What's weird is how some folks seem to think they're the final authority of what fictional people in a fictional setting they didn't create think. It's to the point where I feel like some of the folks here are appalled at the idea that someone might disagree and find their FR opinion less than impressive.

No one listen to the "contrarians"? Seriously? Basically: don't listen to people who disagree with me, folks, move along, move along.

This is a place of discussion. We're talking about how Shar is perceived in the game, by new players and by characters within the game setting. It's an open discussion. Different people have different opinions. The one thing that's certain though is that no one commenting in this thread is a final authority, proclaiming canon about what everyone in the setting thinks and feels and sees when they come across a circle.

*

Speaking of circles, there are numerous circles in FR symbols. Something else that's common: hands. There's going to be a repeat of symbol shapes and such when you're looking at a kitchen sink setting like Forgotten Realms.

Firstly I'm not trying to be a contrarian, I do think a Religion check to recognize her 'uniform' as significant is called for, what I'm trying to convey here is that, firstly taking things for granted based on so called 'continuity' shouldn't be the basis for storytelling here, none of the continuity is 'real' nor is it above revision.

Secondly being aware of Shar is not the same as being familiar with her iconography, to continue the Crusades as analogy, knowing the iconography to the Western and Eastern Churches, there's a clear front facing iconography there that is clear to anyone outside and inside, but ask a Muslim to recognize a fish symbol? Or a rosary?
Notice anything about Mary's shawl, roll for Religion.

This is a Saint

Using Islam isn't the best because of its inherit iconoclasm, but more apt analogy would be how much you'd be able to recognize the iconography of a sect within Islam, an infamous one, the Assassins, a Shia cult that had to go under the radar because of it's own success.

This is similar to what I was getting at with my Cult of Isis example. Being well known is not the same as being recognizable.

Look. When the creators of a fictional setting establish something, it may be fictional, but it is no less established.

Take a different piece of FR lore brought to my attention today. Red Wizards of Thay. They are strictly humans of Mulan descent. It is illegal to take a non-human apprentice.

So, a high elf apprentice of Thay breaches established lore.

So, FR lore has been established. Shar has been a major goddess hated by many for centuries. Her symbol is a big black circle. Then to top it off, Larian establishes in the game what their armor looks like and even says in the mural scene that you recognize Shar's symbol on the armor.

So, her armor and symbol are at the very least common enough in the established lore of the game that no cleric of secrecy should be strolling around in it unless she's really not trying to keep it a secret. I can totally understand if SH was just like, "Hi. I serve Shar.". But she wears the armor and then everyone is like, "What? You serve Shar?". And she acts like it's some huge secret.

Again, if you're trying to hide your religion, you don't wear your religious symbol on your chest and forehead just in case someone recognizes it. Period. It's just stupidity to do so especially if your religion is hated by many.

Yes, and Elves can't become vampires, and the hero of BG I and II got rid of all the Bhaal-essence from the world, and Tieflings are made up of many races, what's established is merely prelude to whatever change they want to make.

What really irks me about this particular issue, I don't know if it's just an oversight on Larian's part, or if we're supposed to infer things about the world and Shar from this.

But you can take solace that, whatever the case, Larian seems game to retcon their work to make things more clear for us. So fingers crossed.

We can infer that Larian wanted this reveal (association?) to be a mystery and so they rewrote/ignored a significant part of Forgotten Realms history in order to...uh..."make it work"? It's kind of like expecting the average resident of Europe plus a good chunk of western Russia (I'd say "Earth", but Faerun is much smaller than the surface area of this planet) to not at least get the gist of Satan/The Devil/Beelzebub when they're asked about that mythological/religious figure. The difference here is worse, though, because priests of the Realms truly can raise the (un)dead, conjure demons, curse/sicken/slay with but a touch, et cetera. Finally, gods manifest themselves in ways across the spectrum from subtle to overt: from ephemeral baleful eyes in the darkness to full-fledged avatars walking the soil.

I'd like to think I've made a case for how you can have it both ways, but if this is just about deference to Wizards of the Coast continuity, their tie-in books, comics, and adventure modules then there are a lot of things indefensible BG:3. And so with most of those books and tie-ins, if you want to see how they all hold up against each other go check out BladeDancer's threads.

Not so. It doesn't matter if you're an illiterate peasant. When a Realms Shaking Event happens, such as the Spellplague or the Twilight War, where hundreds of thousands of people die and cities and even entire countries are destroyed, you hear about it and know about it. Furthermore, it is precisely events involving the gods that the peasants will especially know about, because they all live in fear and awe of the gods. And last but not least, we are not talking about people living in some location that is a very remote corner of the Realms. We are talking about Baldur's Gate and the Sword Coast. People know. *You" may not know. But people inside this game absolutely should know.

You seem to be conflating whether or not someone knows about a tragedy with whether or not decorative circles are immediately seen by everyone, literally everyone, as a sign of the devil.

Let's say you lived in the middle ages and eventually heard news that some great faraway land named China had blown up. Well, you'd probably hear a lot of things about it, some things with elements of the truth, other things stretched by fiction, fear, myth, and tall tales.

But that doesn't mean you suddenly know the secret handshake of a secret society.

And it doesn't mean that everyone for miles around thinks and knows exactly the same stuff and feels pretty much the exact same way about said stuff.

Basically, I keep hearing these one dimensional, uninsightful interpretations of how human beings and societies function. It sounds like a game setting I don't want to play in, with all the dynamic, subtlety, nuance, and life of a flat, dull rock. That's why I'm specifically providing the feedback I am, in an effort to say to Larian: "hey, some of us appreciate a more complicated and realistic setting, with human beings that aren't all carbon copies of one another who go frothing mad every time they see a piece of jewelry fashioned into a circle."

You know…this is a fair point.

For example, we have you pass a wisdom (history?) check to know about The descent into Avernus when u talk to Zevlor. That was a huge event, but apparently if you are not a history buff, you are oblivious. If we are imagining that everyone we encounter is constantly making these rolls, then it is totally plausible that some portion of them would be oblivious to the Shar symbol, as it is not something they gave encountered or can recall if they had.

Where you err is that you keep relating it to distant lands.

Same scenario but instead of China, it's France. You live in Medieval France and suddenly a major city has this huge incident occur where Satanic cultists just blew up the Eiffel Tower and slaughtered thousands of people.

Now, if you're a Satan Cultist, are you going to roam around in Satan Cult robes? And wouldn't the common person be immediately taught what signs to watch put for to ensure that secret Satanic cult doesn't rise again through the ranks of the common class?

Incidences occurred in and around Baldur's Gate involving Shar. She walked in the flesh and fought with Selune in Waterdeep and in the surrounding countryside all throughout the region. She created the Shadow Weave and was directly involved in world changing events.

Imagine Satan came to Earth in the flesh in the land you lived. He started killing and enslaving lots of people. Then God came in the flesh and fought with him in a city not far from where you live, maybe 100 miles away.

The people don't want that again. They would teach everyone what to watch for.

And we're back to "there should be a Religion check to recognize SH's symbols, but since Tav should at least know about Shar (stop thinking in small-terms, the Spellplague is more like if Shar took out electricity for years in our real world), we the player should be informed prior to SH's reveal."

Or even more at least, if we the player aren't told about Shar, then Tav's dialogue options should include an option: "Who's Shar? I lived under a rock for my whole life."

And thank you. Yes, exactly.

First of all, I forgot this before too, but this thread is about informing the player about who Shar is, not Tav. Secondly your point is about how Tav should know who Shar is, but our point is about how even if Tav knows who Shar is, that isn't the same as recognizing the trappings of a Sharist.

I live in Baldur's Gate, like most people I know that the great upheaval that took place a century ago was the work of Shar, magic ended for a while, times were hard, not so hard for my grandparents as they were for the wizards, but still. I personally have never seen a temple of Shar, nor have I ever met a follower of Shar (that I know of) I understand she is about darkness and hates the Moon (I know a lot more about Selune and her nice followers) but if you were to ask me, "What is Shar's Symbol", I might have to make a religion roll.