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# Shadowheart's Character Overview for Baldur's Gate 3

## Background

A devout follower of Shar, **Shadowheart** is the sole survivor of a holy mission undertaken on the Mistress of the Night's behest. She alone must deliver a relic of immense power to her coven in Baldur's Gate, while threatened by a strange new magic that is burgeoning from within. Her faith plays an important part in her story throughout the game, and she can be steered to or away from it.

### Starting class

Shadowheart starts as a **Trickery Domain cleric**, giving her access to:

- **Spellcasting** – with a particular focus on illusion magic
- **Blessing of the Trickster** – a class action that grants another creature advantage on Stealth checks

This makes her an ideal support character, albeit with few offensive options.

### Special features

- **Fear of Wolves**: Whenever a wolf approaches her, she must make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened.
- Shar, Shadowheart's goddess, plays an integral part in her story, and is far more involved in her life than the standard Cleric class experience.

#### Medium Humanoid
- **Level**: 1 Trickery Domain Cleric High half-elf

#### Stats

- **Armour Class**: 15
- **Hit points**: 10
- **Movement speed**: 9 m (30 ft)
- **Weight**: 75 kg (150 lb)
- **Initiative**: +1

#### Ability scores

| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 13 (+1) | 13 (+1) | 14 (+2) | 10 (0) | 17 (+3) | 8 (-1) |

- **Proficiency bonus**: +2
- **Saving throws**: Str +1, Dex +1, Con +2, Int 0, Wis +5, Cha +1

### Features

- **Darkvision**: Can attack nearby creatures in the dark without disadvantage.
- **Fey Ancestry**: Immunity to Sleep and advantage on saving throws against being Charmed.
- **Fear of Wolves**: When near wolves, make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened.

Shadowheart can be recruited as a temporary companion during the Prologue on the Nautiloid by freeing her from the mind flayer pod. She can then become a permanent companion during Act One.

Shadowheart dislikes those that disapprove of her worship or people pressing her for answers or details. She does not like needless cruelty or violence and can respond unfavorably to being too open with untrustworthy or unknown individuals. Straying from Shar's mandates results in Shadowheart being punished through the wound in her right hand, a reminder to follow Shar's wishes.

## Romance

Shadowheart can be romanced by characters of any gender, and is one of the few characters willing to have a casual relationship. Throughout it, she will have to deal with the topic of her identity and how the idea of love fits the Sharran concept of self-sacrifice for their goddess.

## Personality

Zealously devoted, independent and headstrong, she prefers pragmatic solutions to issues, decisive action and staying uninvolved in the problems of others. While she initially seems guarded and reserved – hesitant to reveal information about herself – she is in fact amnesiac, with little memory of her own past. Fiercely devoted to Shar, she doesn't tolerate any slights against her goddess, often reacting defensively. Trained in the Sharran ways, she's also not above forceful actions, duplicity or even killing, to achieve her goals.

Still, Shadowheart displays traits that are often at odds with her Sharran training. She has a fondness for flowers and animals, disapproves of indiscriminate violence, prefers relatively peaceful resolutions to conflicts when possible and often sympathizes with the plights of party members. She can be as sarcastic as Astarion, and doesn't shy away from dark humour. She is introspective, and often harbors doubts as can be seen by romancing her, and, when guided away from Shar, she's much more open and honest with her feelings.

## History

### Early life

Born to parents Arnell and Emmeline Hallowleaf, Jenevelle, as she was named, was raised in a Selûnite household in the forests outside Baldur's Gate. Devout followers of the Moonmaiden, they worshipped her in quiet seclusion away from the city, raising young Jenevelle in the ways of Selûne. In time, she would take part of an ancient Selûnite initiation rite: abandoned in the wilds, she would have to rely on her skills and faith to fend for herself, proving herself as a devout believer once she returned.

Yet Shar, Selûne's dark sister, had other plans for the child, and commanded Viconia DeVir and a cadre of Sharrans to kidnap the child. Arnell had learned of this ploy after capturing a Sharran spy, and taking his wolf form, he raced towards Jenevelle. But young Jenevelle never learned of his father's curse of lycanthropy, and instead of being rescued by her father, all she saw was a great wolf hunting her. The Sharrans caught up to the pair and kidnapped both, taking them to a secret cloister of the Dark Lady in Baldur's Gate.

### Life as a Sharran

Jenevelle would be brought to the Cloister of Sombre Embrace, a Sharran temple in Baldur's Gate set up and ran by Mother Superior Viconia DeVir after her previous endeavors in Waterdeep had failed. Viconia's mission, given to her directly by Shar, was to mold young Jenevelle into a champion of the Dark Lady, an effort that would ultimately take almost half a century. Jenevelle resisted the indoctrination at first, but the brutal training she would be put through, being lied to that her parents perished defending her from wolves, as well as repeated forced use of the temple's Mirror of Loss, would slowly erase her past and in time forge a new identity: Shadowheart.

### Hunting after the mysterious artefact

At some point during Shadowheart's last stages of training, whispers of the rise of a mysterious cult would reach the Mother Superior's ears. This Cult of the Absolute, as it was being called, was quickly gaining traction among the populace and threatened the Sharran influence over the city. As luck would have it, the Sharrans would capture a githyanki scout who, after being subjected to merciless torture, revealed the existence of a githyanki artefact of immense power that the cult were desperate to find lest it be used against them. Such an artefact could prove an asset for the Sharrans in thwarting the absolutist presence in the city, and so the Mother Superior quickly formed a party of elite devouts, tasking them with its retrieval. Though deemed a suicide mission, Shadowheart and four other companions set out to fulfill what they believed were Shar's commands.
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