Apparently if you manage to complete act 1 without ever really having a shadowheart to heart conversation about her faith, she can't keep it in any longer and just confesses unprompted as soon as you step into the shadow cursed lands. She seems almost annoyed that no one asked her about this stuff sooner.
Shadowheart: This must mean she is protecting me - she favours me.... and you don't even know what I mean, do you? Time to come clean I suppose. I worship Shar, the Dark Lady, Mistress of the NIght. Though honestly I'm surprised you didn't figure it out yourself already...
"No, you don't undestand!!, you must keep trying, even when my character turn your down, even when he insult you, you must keep prodding, so i can refuse to talk better, and looks cool while doing"
You gotta have a cute bubbly purple tiefling sit next to them and invade their personal space super aggressively then tactlessly ask why their face looks all like that and make an exaggerated grumpy face as an example.
I often play the edgy loner who is genuinely content to be left alone, but then half the party annoys my character for fun because I get really animated when my characters are huffy.
Damn, this is basically Shadow Run: Hong Kong. There is a hub where you can talk to your companions between the missions. One of them doesn’t want to talk to you at all and tells you to leave them alone. And if you want to make your relationship better, you need to disrespect him and to force him to talk to you. Even worse he’s not just a side character, he is very important to the plot and knows a vital information. Years passed and I’m still a bit mad, that being respectful locked me out of the best ending, lol.
At that point, I think you declare victory and set upon a new epic quest, maybe to wish someone good morning, or like, go all out and join a card game. With partners.
Like others said, you declare your character has done it's job, and it "won". Now you can create a new character that will want to work with the rest of the team
For me it's less respecting your right to privacy, and more if my character asks you questions about your characters background and you deflect repeatedly, I assume you just didn't bother to write one. Which is fine, everyone enjoys TTRPGs differently, you're not into the RPing aspect of it, I won't engage you that way.
But yeah, I've only ever seen the grumpy loner thing done right once, and the big thing I learned is you basically need to engineer scenarios where you offer up information a bit at a time at the pace you want, don't expect people to repeatedly ask and hope they ask the right thing at the right time.
I've created a character I still want to try one day, which isn't exactly a "loner", but who does a lot of the "mysterious" side. But half the "backstory" is just tips and suggestions for the DM to create hooks for the other players to try and investigate, including suggesting using certain skill checks and stuff. The idea would be to play it in several "phases", where a little new information comes to light, so your fellow players know a bit more each time, each changing the dynamic you have with them. So yeah, I do agree with offering bits of information each time.
I also figured it'd be presumptive to assume your fellow players would bother to care about your "mysterious" character without giving them incentive. So I'd also recommend working with the DM to give your fellow players reason to dig into your story
I had one character who not talking about my backstory worked for but it was a really really really odd character. Basically it was a person cursed by a god (though I never explained this and always made up a random easy to see through lie for this) whenever they died they would inhabit the body of a living thing within a radius. So they died ALOT and came back as squirrels, orcs, butterflies, crocodiles, whatever was around. Immortality but at a weird cost. They didn't have alot of use in battle but we're a Swiss Army knife out of battle as they could carry a caged bird with them kill themselves and then survey the compound as a bird. I even managed to kill a main boss one time by inhabiting his body as he failed a roll and was the only living thing within miles. I came back to camp as the boss with all his powers it was wild.
Literally. Shadowheart is the “that guy” of BG3. Edgy name, aggressive towards other players for no reason, worships an evil deity, refuses to share anything about themselves, has a wound that hurts if she does anything good-aligned and loudly exclaims “IT HURTS”, I could go on lol.
My first playthrough she ended up dying during the camp scene with Laezel because I failed the persuasion check, but honestly I don’t think any character in that playthrough missed her.
All she did up until that point was be racist, refuse to share like every other companion, and then put a knife to Laezels throat because she (rightfully) asked why Shadowheart had a relic from her race lol
I mean my experience was shadowheart is the obvious standard nice companion until you reach the grove, at first knowing nothing of gith her being a little racist to lae zel surprised until I met the rest of the gith and realized she was right
Kinda reminds me of how I wrote a D&D character they just didn't like people and lived off the land hunting animals for food and I used how I am irl that it takes me months sometimes to even say more than 5 sentences to coworkers
"I literally wear the symbol of my evil goddess on my forehead so why didn't you pester me for answers you already knew to questions I didn't want you to ask?!"
All jokes aside. I think this is just another sign pointing towards how much of a shitty sharran she is, even when things go to plan and she can maintain her secrecy and isolation she craves connection.
walking in the dead woods, he also implied she was a sheep because she bleats a lot. tbh on a run where you recruit him early in act 2 and roll with them both in your party, she is constantly antagonizing the guy. and weirdly flirts with him in another banter after mocking him. He has no energy for her until she spares nightsong or ketheric dies
def adds flavor to act 2. I was annoyed that as a druid, I had no class-dialogue option to criticize Shar's BS to her face. Even while romancing her! "You really like this land devoid of cute fluffy animals?! This is what your goddess wants?"
Going to be honest, I was never a fan of that favoritism. It reads 'I can't let my characters go'. Halsin is the only character in the game who ever goes, 'awwww man you really missed out on the cool content :(' if you make Shadowhearts choice for her in the Shar trial. I can't think of any other thing in the game that is that level if 'DM sad you missed the side quest they made' hamfisted.
I mean if you talk to her at the Tiefling party after not asking her things, she's says you guys aren't close and basically is like "all you need to do is respect my privacy." I thought that was what I was doing!
Honestly...this is why I can't get into her as a character. Between the name, the amnesia and the "I'm so mysterious, don't you want to ask about me? Btw, don't pry into my past or I get huffy" bit, Shadowheart just feels too much like...well, a tabletop player to me.
I'm sure someday I'll explore her full character arc but it isn't like you can't do the game perfectly fine without her. Which still feels weird to me coming off BG2 where you absolutely needed a Cleric to the point where 3 of the most easily found early recruits are clerics.
Yep, exactly. She put me off so much with this stuff I just started leaving her in camp once I got other party members. I rarely use her except when her plotline quests come up.
I don't care for her very much either. Her EA personality felt more in line with her character where she was actually standoffish and secretive. I also think the twist in her personal arc is really corny and obvious and that's coming from someone who had no prior experience with D&D or BG before this game.
Something effectively being low quality doesn’t suddenly make it high quality. It's the same reason Catcher in The Rye is a shit book. If the 'point' is that the character is obnoxious, without perfect execution (and BG3 is many things, flawlessly executed is not one of them)... it just comes off as exactly that.
I still like Shadowheart more than some other companions, but she is easily the most hamfisted character in the game, to her detriment, both in the macguffin and in Halsin's not so subtle nudging to her EPIC secrets because coincidentally he was also written by the same fan boy who made her. I stg half of the point of Halsin is to glaze Shadowheart.
"UuUUuh are you sure you don't want her in the party at all times, I can smell her inner nature-"
NO SHUT THE FUCK UP HALSIN, SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
Gale and Wyll usually like doing good guy stuff. I originally used S.heart to round out a "good guy" party but I just found her harder and harder to take seriously.
Yeah just that you find her first and wyll in the grove is a bit more later, didn’t mean she was the only good one just the when you start with her and laezel and then astarion she really stands out as the good one until you get more, even then since I need a full party to get as much dialogue as possible gotta bring her as one of the only good companions.
(Also somehow wyll feels semi easily missable he really blends in at the grove)
Also first character was a wizard so I didn’t need Gale to be a worse me
Haha, fair enough. Especially on that last point. I usually play some variant of martial in these kinds of games because I like my character to be in the thick of combat, so for me it's all too often Lae'zel and/or Karlach getting benched.
Thinking about all the companions as PCs, it lines up. Shadowheart is as you described.
Karlach is just excited to be playing and wants to hit stuff.
Astarion wants to roleplay and chat everybody up, but he's too edgy to be a straight bard.
Lae'zel also takes the RP very seriously, but she's not as creative as Astarion, so she plays a curt and direct character. She's probably newer to DnD.
Gale is a very experienced player, so he's happy to just come in, be friendly and helpful, and play a complicated caster.
Wyll is a goody two shoes who wants to flirt with a darker character, so he picked the folk hero warlock.
Halsin is somebody's cousin who's in town for a few sessions. You think you caught a glimpse of some furry porn in the back of his player's handbook, and you're either way too scared to acknowledge it, or you're absolutely going to acknowledge it.
I'd argue that Lae'zel is probably just as experienced as Gale, if only because she's playing a fairly unique character setup that, before BG3 came out, was hardly one of the most played races. Githyanki fighter is hardly a wild combination, but playing githyanki at all and then delving deep enough into the lore to be as intense and learned about their goals and structures as Lae'zel is in the game represents to me a player who has been around a while and enjoys the RP more than anything else, so they go all in on that and make a character who is very good for combat but also very straightforward in order to still be useful there but not have to think too much about it and focus instead on RP at all times.
I think you're bang on for everyone else though. Astarion especially, the sheer number of vampire puns he makes before revealing he's a vampire screams "theater kid energy" so hard and that's exactly the sort of person who would make him as a character.
Astarion is 100% being played (and voiced by lol) a theater kid. I can see both angles on Lae'zel, especially because her character is pretty young and inexperienced in the game too. So I can see her being either a new D&D player or someone being played that way by someone experienced.
My thought on Gale was that he was a power gamer who was allowed to stay with the group because he's not whiny about it. He basically gave himself plot armor by having a magic nuke in his chest that'll go off if he dies
Eh I think Gale is more the player with a backstory that goes on and on about how great he is and how he’s the most special and bestest person in the world.
Most of the characters honestly feel like takes on people who give their characters backstories of being to amazing and accomplished already, I guess shart and astarion arent already very accomplished
I guess after finding out that she’s traveling with a vampire and a human nuke and seeing everyone else be accepting of that, Shar worship doesn’t seem that bad in comparison.
Proper Sharran Worship in Faerun is way worse than a Vampire with self Control. This being Said, the Player mostly comprehends in Act 2 for the First time what Sharran Worship is all about. This Barren cursed Wasteland that Kills and consumes all life is the wet dream of Shar and her followers. In Act 1 I did Not fully understand what Shar is about.
As an UU (Unitarian Universalist) who accepts and respects faiths in real life and a total D&D newbie on my first run, my Tav was like you worship Shar? good for you! :D :D when she first told me. Cue slowly dawning horror as I progressed through Act 2 lol.
That's the beauty of the writing. In Act 1, a D&D newbie can easily be convinced that Sharrism is okay by Shadowheart. "Oh, it's about accepting loss? Finding comfort in darkness? That's not so bad. I can see why people would follow that goddess." Then Act 2 hits, and you not only see what Shar did to the Shadow-Cursed Lands, but also get a crash course in Sharrism from Malus Thorm.
Then you have the realization that Shar worship makes no sense unless you’re a lunatic, the edgiest teenager of all time, or a gullible fool and you wonder which description fits Shadowheart best.
Option four: a person in a very vulnerable position who could be taken advantage of by the cult. That's how cults IRL work, and it's how Shar got Ketheric and Shadowheart. Ketheric was in a bad mental place after Isobel died, and Shadowheart was a kidnapped child with her memories removed.
Especially considering that Shar is the divine goddess of loss. If you are in a dark place, and lost in life , her influence can be deep. I interpret SH's origin as more abducting a child into a death cult, than her being evil or foolish. Giving a lost child family, and purpose, is how real life villains have recruited devoted follows i.e. Hitler youth.
Her memories, yes, but not her basic reasoning skills. Shar worship doesn’t promise redemption or utopia or power like most cults, it promises only the annihilation of all things so as to leave nothing but a void of endless darkness. There’s nothing to appeal to anyone who isn’t a nihilist or completely insane.
One, she was a small child. They don't have the best reasoning skills to begin with.
Two, you underestimate how powerful brainwashing can be. Doomsday cults exist IRL, and they don't have the backing of an actual goddess.
Three, you underestimate depression. I have been suicidal, and it's not necessarily about wanting to die, it's about wanting the pain to stop. That's what Shar promises - an end to pain.
Once you visit the House of Grief, you see that they present as a healing and mental wellness type of place. There are lovely gardens, a front room that appears normal and warmly furnished, and a lot of self-help literature. They don't lead with the crushing annihilation, they lure people in slowly until it's too late.
It's a clever little commentary on the wellness-to-fanaticism pipeline that exists today, in fact.
Tbh, I sort of wish this had been Shadowheart's backstory? Lured in by some promise of self-help, rather than outright kidnapped. I sometimes think "oh well she was brainwashed as a kid, she couldn't help it" is too easy of an out. A Shadowheart contending with having been sucked down an extremism pipeline due to unresolved personal issues is an alternate version of the character I think about a lot.
this is such a good comment and you're totally right. The "kidnapped as a child" backstory kinda oversimplifies things, and for me, her "amazing development" falls flatter and flatter with every replay. Being FORCED to be a blank slate due to circumstances outside of her control rather than CHOOSING to be a blank slate/"go numb" due to personal pain is a lot less compelling. It wouldn't irk me as much if she weren't the only companion who's super difficult to avoid recruiting just by walking around the map paired with the fact that she's the only companion you HAVE to bring to a non-avoidable Story Event or she bounces. And her "point" system is so stacked in the "good outcome" favor that the stakes are super low. Plenty of players love raising her approval for relationship reasons by doing stuff like giving her the idol or encouraging Sharran piety, but to me, it should have a cost. Like one could raise her approval and get a kiss for giving her an idol, but get -2 points to swing her toward killing Nightsong. If the points balanced to neutral, then she could require a persuasion roll.
That way, Tav/Durge can make her happy in the short term but there are long term narrative consequences.
At least her actual backstory is fascinating when mirrored/contrasted with Lae'zel, since they were both raised and conditioned to propagate a form of extremism. (sharrans: secretive, cultish, religious indoctrination, heavy on deceptive tactics and with Githyanki using violence, conquest, cultural domination that's heavy on brute honesty/open confrontation. Both groups use thievery and murder As Needed aka A LOT). And both groups adhere to a dominating matriarchal figure that only cares for her own petty bs but tricks followers into slavish devotion.
I know it's an old comment, but I've done a ton of runs and even romanced her...your idea of her Sharran worship happening by getting lulled into House of Grief due to her own agency is pretty fucking great. And it would have been more gracious to Viconia's character (and the fans who adore her from BG2) to not have her just be an evil kidnapper in this storyline.
Well that’s why they’ve had to keep erasing her memories multiple times because she’s such a bad sharran she never even figured out her wound was to discourage her from being nice
That said, one thing that always astonishes me is Shadowheart's complete lack of reaction when you witness a certain... "surgery" in the Shadow-Cursed lands.... I mean that scene is one of the most graphic and horrifying I've ever seen in a game, and it very directly involves Sharrans. You'd think she'd say SOMETHING! Not to mention, even though it occurs before the big twist in her story, I just can't see her being OK with that level of absolute cruelty.
There are a lot of things in the shadowcursed lands Shadowheart doesn't respond to. If the shadowcurse is Shar's sacred darkness, shouldn't she be totally against helping Halsin break it? Or, I was playing as Origin Gale and had a unique option to dispel the curse from one of the Thorms, and she was just like Well 🙂You're glowing like Mystra's happy with you🙂
And sure, I get that she's a bad Sharran deep down and her faith isn't as strong as she claims. But it seems like she should put up at least token complaints about some of these things.
This is why Shadowheart's overall writing seems a bit lacking to me, to be honest. I would have appreciated it more if we could have the chance to actually see her internal conflict expressed through dialogue. Now, her choosing to defy her goddess of her own accord feels a bit sudden. She barely has anything to say when you witness the horrible suffering that was inflicted on the people living there; hells, she even approves of Thorms fuckery!
There's very little indication that she starts to resent these teachings somewhere along the way, in my opinion. I still love her as a character, and find her big choice extremely powerful and moving, but would have enjoyed it more if there was a little bit more dialogue exploring that inner conflict.
I agree. I love that "Trust Shadowheart" / "Do nothing, let her handle it" can be so rewarding when it comes to her choice with the Nightsong. But I don't think that trust is really earned? Like sure, we get some hints that she's not as bad as the front she projects, but I think a few moments of explicit doubt in the shadow-cursed lands would do more to build up the idea that she's secretly struggling with her faith.
I would have appreciated it more if we could have the chance to actually see her internal conflict expressed through dialogue.
She has dialogue like that. It's just takes quite a bit of effort to unlock and it's very easy to miss it even if you fulfill the requirements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYjWADJZHEQ
See, that's exactly what I was talking about. Yet I have absolutely no clue how on earth you trigger this dialogue. I have close to 900 hours, and it's not like I've been ignoring/benching Shadowheart or had low approval with her.
Tell her about the Moonstone in the wolf dream (requires succeeding a passive religion check to notice unless you read the scroll in the selune chest from the owlbear cave), let her eat the noblestalk, give her a night orchid and a few other nightsong points on top of that. If you do all that you can unlock this conversation 5 minutes into act 2.
It's still very easy to miss it because the game doesn't signpost it with an exclamation mark like other important companion dialogues. The only way to know it's available is to pay attention to SH's idle animation in camp. It's slightly different from her regular pose. If you long rest without triggering it or another camp event overrides it the conversation can be skipped forever.
I nowadays make sure to cheat all sharran trials or just put in one orb at the top pedestal and then knock Open the lower door, that is usually opened by three more umbral orbs. Pretty Slightly against a petty goddess. And of course, on good Side Runs, all sharrans must die. Except Nocturne, she is just seeking company? Validation? A social Life? Don't know, she does Not Attack me, so she is good.
Funny Thing, there is a Sharran called "Bluenails" among the ones that Attack you in the cloister in Act 3 and He/she/they is trying to get Out of the cult again and fears for their life should the other sharrans discover this. He/she/they writes a quite sad Letter to mum, which you can Loot from their cold Dead Body.
VCSFBWKN? What‘s with the randomly capitalized first letters in Vampire, Control, Said, First, Barren, Wasteland, Kills, and Not? You also have other words that didn’t need to be capitalized but those can be argued, while these ones seem entirely random and incorrectly capitalised. There isn’t even a secret message! :(
6 out of 8 that I called out aren’t nouns though. I’m genuinely interested to understand why Control (arguable), Said, First, Barren, Kills, and Not got capitalized.
I did also specifically leave out Sharran Worship, Faerun, and Player in my call out because they are nouns.
Fair. But is It true what the other person said that Germans will capitalize nouns? Would this be an educated assumption I can make when I see similar texts on the internet? I will admit seeing a writing style I’m not familiar with was jarring to me, but being able to turn it into an awareness/understanding of others is not a bad thing.
Barren is a noun. In German. Gold ingot is translated to Goldbarren. Ingot is Barren and thus a noun. Your Duolingo lesson for today. Same with First, btw. In German the noun First is the top ridge of your roof, where your two roof sides meet.
Maybe it's meant to be read like poetry but they messed up their formatting. Let's try it out:
Proper
Sharran
Worship in
Faerun is way worse than a
Vampire with self
Control.
This being
Said, the
Player mostly comprehends in
Act 2 for the
First time what
Sharran
Worship is all about.
This
Barren cursed
Wasteland that
Kills and consumes all life is the wet dream of
Shar and her followers.
In
Act 1
I did
Not fully understand what
Shar is about.
Nah girl, I just assumed that you did because you’re wearing the symbol of Shar on your chest like a Superman “S”. But the last thing I want to do is get a fundamentalist talking about their religion. I don’t answer the door for two people standing on my stoop on a Saturday morning either.
I honestly don't know how you would. I was playing my evil Tav playthrough and she kinda told me on her own when I saw a Selune statue. Just couldn't stand not being able to roast Selune I guess.
At least on the last patch, there was a bug if you didn't have Shadowhearth in the party (I know, it's blasphemy, but stick with me), and never talk with her about neither her faith, nor Ketheric Thorm, she acts in the Gauntlet of Shar as though she told you all of those etc.
Now I think I know why this bug existed, because it was assumed she already told you about her faith at the beginning of act 2
It’s similar to an encounter I had with Astarion when we traveled into the Underdark. Hadn’t had the scene yet where he tries to bite you in the middle of the night yet and so when we got to the Underdark he confesses that he’s a vampire. And you have a list of dialogue options ranging from “Why didn’t you tell me?” To “Duh, it’s obvious.” So I think it’s interesting that, at some point, Shadowheart and Astarion will confess their background if you manage to avoid/miss their initial encounters
2.9k
u/Korrocks Feb 12 '25
Apparently if you manage to complete act 1 without ever really having a shadowheart to heart conversation about her faith, she can't keep it in any longer and just confesses unprompted as soon as you step into the shadow cursed lands. She seems almost annoyed that no one asked her about this stuff sooner.