You make a good point. In particular, it's interesting to see that religion checks are definitely in-game as i've had numerous times where my main character or one of my party noticed something and talk about it, and yet with our own party, everyone seems to suddenly be stupid and checks don't seem to matter. There's a disconnect for me between the party interactions and the world building.
I know we're all just repeating what has been said a hundred times at this point, but a simple religion check to whether or not we notice anything odd about Shadowheart and hell, if the devs want to continue to make her reveal a big part of earning her trust, she could deny it and give some support to our "it's just a circle!!!" friends on the forums. That said, if she did that and then we found out that she was a follower of Shar, it would make her seem really childish and petty.
I still think GM4him had a good idea, hide the circles/head piece, have a simple line of "Shar has a reputation for being evil because of blah blah blah" when told she's a follower of Shar, and that would solve all of the oddness with the situation. If there are players who don't care about the lore and just want the sexy sexy party, that's fine, they can still just ignore it anyways. It gives the lore fans a better connection to the world and party members.
