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this post was submitted on 01 Jan 0001
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I'm playing evil and I'm only level 4 for now, but I would assume Astarion and Shadowheart must cause problems to good characters? Astarion doesn't even try to pretend to be good, and Shadowheart… she's a freaking cleric of Shar, it's hard to get more evil than that. :D
I actually gasped when I saw the "cleric of Shar" label in her character sheet during early access, and I decided to go evil for that reason, when creating my main character upon release. To give you an idea, besides all the various conflits with Selûne and the Harpers, Shar is responsible, with Cyric, of the assassination of Mystra, the goddess of magic (she was later resurrected by Ao, the overgod). This is what caused the Spellplague, the massive multiplanar cataclysm that marks the beginning of the 4th edition. And she did it basically because she was jealous of Mystra, and wanted the weave for herself (well, her own version of the weave, which was called the shadow weave). Oh, and also, her ultimate goal is to bring back the whole creation to nothingness, where things were pure and simple, in her views. So yeah, Shadowheart serves her. Is that evil enough for you? ^^
Here the Forgotten Realms Wiki page on Shar, if you want to know more. That wiki is the best source of information on the Realms, besides the books.
Shadowheart is a big softie, though. She approves when you pet the dog, nobody evil can approve of that.
Edited to remove spoiler.
I don't know if it's like this for anybody else but your spoiler is showing as plaintext for me :(
Oh no, I'm sorry! It looked okay on mobile but I've had trouble getting spoiler tags to work right lately.
Note that there are many reasons for a good character to serve an evil God in a world where they KNOW gods exist.
Nobody living in the harsh north wouldnt go without occasionally sacrifice food to The Frostmaiden to avert the worst of her wrath. And no sailor would dare go on ships without asking Talos for fair winds. They dont need to sacrifice humans. For most common people, those lost at sea or disappeared in snow was all the sacrifice the Gods needed.
Sure, common folks do opportunistic prayers (although, in my games, praying to Shar or Bane even occasionally would certainly be frown upon by authorities in the Lords Alliance). That's quite a stretch from becoming their cleric, though. :)
In the case of Shar they are tasked to kill a disciple of Selune, Mystra or Lathandre every few years. Does that count as a sacrifice?
Those rules are for extremists, cultists who recide in big, multi-religious cities, where they are usually banned.
Or at least thats my headcanon, how else would Shar have as many followers as she does? Nobody would throw away a priest who drew followers to their cause just because the priest didnt believe in the sacrificing part. Of course we as players know the meta that Shar is evil and will corrupt most who follows her to eventually do bad stuff, but people in game doesnt care about religious politics and every religion calls out the other religion for walking the wrong path. Townspeople might form a small cult of Shar in a small town just because they were in grief for something and she's the one who promises to remove that grief. Over time that becomes a bigger church. And an easy recruitment center for extremist Shar cultists.
This makes for better stories than "All priest of Shar has to kill a Selunite", imho.
Not sure where you are in the game. This command is for the special heralds of Shar. You discover about it in the underdark in an old fortress of Shar.
It's more about the religious war than attracting adept, and Shar cult is forbidden on most places I believe. Which they don't care because they promote secrecy.
There's something elegant about this cult that is about secrecy that protects it from its enemies and will better catch new acolytes.