I just restarted the game, and I'm right back in the camp of, "As soon as I meet Shadowheart, a Religion roll should be made to determine who she serves." I don't care what you say, the armor DOES scream Shar.
Someone said that her armor has no big, black onyx gemstones on the pauldrons. Wrong. There there, as big and black as night. Huge black gemstones the size of fists on her shoulder armor. And that stone on her circlet is also pretty sizeable right smack dab in the center of her face. You can't miss it. She's got Shar written all over her look, and her name is flipping Shadowheart, like she just oh so loves the shadows. Even if the big black circle on her chestplate has a symbol that looks maybe like a sunrise between two hills painted in gold lines against a black background, it's still a black circle, and piecing it together with the huge onyx stones on her shoulders and her name and her big onyx forehead stone, I'm sorry, I just can't imagine her being any other cleric but a Sharran cleric.
And, keep in mind, people, that although BG3 doesn't focus on spell focus items, they are supposed to be a thing in D&D. Clerics and wizards and such can't cast spells without a spell focus. So, the circlet would naturally be a spell focus that she's wearing, and the spell focus for a cleric is their god or goddesses' holy symbol. What god or goddess in FR has a big black circle as their holy symbol? Shar.
And yeah, everyone would know Shar. Everyone!!! She is the primordial goddess of darkness and evil. It would be like someone in FR hearing the name Lolth and going, "Who? Is she good?" Everyone knows Lolth because everyone knows that she is the primary goddess of the majority of an entire race of people. It would also be like someone in FR asking who Tyr is. Shar is a major goddess. She's not some baby, lesser goddess, and she's as evil as sin, not misunderstood. Misunderstood is the kid who is a bit mischievous but never really hurts people. Everyone calls them bad because they do some mischievous things, but when push comes to shove, the kid does what's right. Misunderstood is the quirky woman who lives in a spooky house alone with her cats, so everyone calls her an evil witch. Misunderstood is the guy who plays video games all day and people tend to call him a sick pervert when he's really a super intelligent nice guy who helps people all the time.
Evil and bad are those who commit atrocities like murder, torture, kidnapping, child sacrifices, etc. What do Shar's followers do, and she approves of it? Murder, kidnapping, mind games and manipulations, and so forth. Yes, stupid people do bad things in the name of good gods, but that doesn't make the god bad. It makes the people who performed the acts bad. However, if the tenets of the faith promote murder and other evil things, the god is plain evil. There is no "misunderstanding" there. The tenets teach evil, then it is evil.
Therefore, a Religion roll of 10 or higher should be made, assuming that it is common knowledge but maybe not everyone cares about religions and wouldn't pay attention to the symbols of every god or goddess, and if successful, the character should immediately be told that Shar is the evil goddess of darkness and loss. She is considered a vile, evil blight upon the lands, and anyone who serves her is usually arrested or killed. Then the player should be given the option to confront her right then and there about her faith or to simply pretend like they don't know this information and carry on. Then, when she does reveal it later, the player should have the ability to say, "Yeah, I know. I've known all along," and that should have a big impact on your relationship with her.
If you fail the Religion roll, you know nothing about Shar and don't question it, and you learn nothing as a new player. However, as the game progresses, because Shar and Selune are such big deals in it, the game should give you more and more information as you go via even small cutscene dialogues. "Shar," says Gale or Shadowheart or even Lae'zel or Astarion as you pick up the Unclaimed book. "Curious. I wonder why there's a book sitting there about some devotee of hers." Then you have the option of asking, "Who is Shar? I'm not familiar with her. I don't pay attention much to religions." "Shar's the goddess of evil and shadows and loss. Most hate her and her secret sect of followers. Little is actually known about her practices because the followers are so secretive. I wonder what Shar has to do with anything around here. This place is strange. There're books and tomes about so many different deities." Then later, you learn more from someone detailing how Shar and Selune are at war with each other, and they teach you a bit about Selune as well because she's obviously an important deity to the story.
When it comes to major story elements, they should be delivered in dialogue, not books. Players should not be expected to pick up and read every book that can be found in the game in order to get the basic story, and that's the point, I thought, of the thread.
And if they don't want Shadowheart to be discovered as a Sharran cleric, they shouldn't make it so obvious right from the beginning. Frankly, the way the game art has been displayed all over the place, they've revealed who these characters are from the beginning which destroys for anyone the ability to be surprised by their big reveals. If they wanted it to be a surprise, they shouldn't have splattered things all over to make it so obvious. Regardless, if I pretend I didn't know Shadowheart was a Sharran from the beginning, I'd still know because of her equipment alone.
