Selûne & Shar, Goddesses of the Moon [D&D / Baldur's Gate 3]

This week we huddle around the campfire and look up at the moon in hopes of answering who are the twin goddesses of the moon, Selûne and Shar? We dive deep into sources everywhere from 3rd edition onward to answer the who, what, when, where, and why of some of the most powerful deities in the Faerunian pantheon.

If you have an idea for an episode, or just want to say hello, please send it over to loredtodeath@gmail.com or at one of the social media links below!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:41 Selûne
• 14:07 Shar
• 29:07 The Darkmoon Heresy
• 30:02 Birth and Creation
• 31:29 The Eternal War of Light and Darkness
• 37:45 The Dawn War
• 38:32 The Time of Trouble
• 46:58 Mystra's Demise
• 47:38 Shadowheart and Baldur's Gate 3
• 49:06 Outro & Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast– a deep dive into the lore of your favourite games, movies, shows, and more! My name is Brett, and today we’re dropping back into the world of Baldur’s Gate 3. In this week’s episode of “overexplaining the Faerunian pantheon in an attempt to shed some light on a misunderstood character” we’re going to be talking about the two goddesses of the moon: Selûne and Shar.

Because we’re going to be talking about these goddesses, we might end up talking about Shadowheart from Baldur’s Gate 3. However, there won’t be any spoilers for the main game, so even if you haven’t completed the story, you are free to listen to this episode without having it spoiled. But we will talk about Shadowheart’s questline, so if you haven’t completed that or you don’t want any spoilers about her journey, then this is your spoiler warning.

Before we started I just wanted to ask that you rate this podcast 5 stars wherever you’re listening to it, or like and subscribe if you’re on Youtube. The only way I know that you’re enjoying the content I’m making is if you let me know! So rate the show, leave a comment, or send an email to loredtodeath@gmail.com to suggest an episode, or just say hi! So with that out of the way, let’s get on with the episode.

It’s hard to know where to start with this one, but I think that the best place to start is in a happy place. Or, at least, not the most depressing of places. And that would be with Selûne– Faerun’s Goddess of the Moon. However, it’s not fair to just call her the Goddess of the Moon, because she also had the portfolios of stars, navigation and navigators, wanderers, questers, seekers, and non-evil lycanthropes. However, these all make sense under the umbrella of the moon so that is what she is most known for. She’s also most known for the moon because she shares a name with the moon of Toril, Selûne, but it’s unknown which is named after which. One is likely named after the other, and we’ll come to know that Selûne is certainly older than the moon, but regardless most Faerunian humans believed the moon to be the goddess herself watching over the world.

And, because she has been around forever, in the time of the ancient Netheril, she also held the portfolios of beauty and purity, love and marriage, diviners and dreams, and autumn as a greater goddess. She still possessed the portfolios of good lycanthropes at the time, but also presided over neutral lycanthropes, as well as having the portfolios that she carries in modern times mentioned before. And this really got me thinking how important the moon is that she was able to carry all of these portfolios, but it makes a lot of sense and it goes even further than that. Because she was the goddess of the moon, that also made her responsible for the ebb and flow of the world’s tides. And because she was the goddess of love and marriage, along with the moon, she also governed a mother’s reproductive cycles. And, of course, it goes without saying that she would be responsible for Lycanthropes changing form under a full moon. Which doesn’t seem like a particularly good thing, if you think about it, but remember that she only presided over non-evil Lycanthropes, whereas evil lycanthropes were under the guidance of Malar, but that’s neither here nor there.

And just like the moon, Selûne had plenty of different faces which would change with the moon. Her nature, appearance, and mood would all change with the phases of the moon. Partially because of that, she had plenty of different pseudonyms depending on where you were. In the Farsea Marshes, she was known as Bright Nydra and as Elah among the Beine of Anauroch. As Lucha or “She Who Guides” in the Shining Lands. There were also those who called her Our Lady of Silver, the Moonmaiden, and the Night White Lady. 

Although no matter where you were, her teachings were that of compassion and guidance, which was pretty generally appealing to folks. Especially to those who were sailors or navigators, as per her portfolio, who relied on the moon for living their day-to-day lives, praying to the Night White Lady to protect them from Umberlee, the Queen of the Depths. Lycanthropes who embraced their condition worshipped Selûne as the Moonmaiden who gave them their condition, and was their Goddess by nature. Spellcasters who were born under a full moon, or diviners who used the power of the moon to predict fates drew their power from Selûne. These groups, and more, made up Selûne’s worshippers and it goes to show how diverse a group her followers were, and the ones who followed her were faithful to a tee. 

While anyone could worship her, most of her followers ended up being human women. This is largely because of her connection to love, beauty, and fertility. Young women would pray to Selûne for guidance, courage, and those who were married would pray that they were blessed with children. Many women interpreted their worship as female empowerment, and that drove more and more women to worship Selûne as a result, which I think is amazing that she has that effect on people. However, everyone was free to interpret it as they wanted to (as with any religion). Most people interpreted it as a general philosophy on self-reliance and finding one’s own path, which is a generally good mantra which made Selûne popular even amongst those who were not particularly religious, or those who didn’t specifically worship her. It’s said that most folks, whether in her camp or not, would pray to Selûne during full moons or if they happened to be travelling at night to ward off evil and pray to make it through to the dawn.

Those who worshipped Selûne were known as either Children of Selûne or Selûnites. Her holy symbol was that of two feminine eyes surrounded by seven stars, and the preferred weapon of her knights was a heavy mace. Her followers typically ended up on the good side of the alignment chart with some leaning more into neutral, but never evil (just like their goddess). The church’s ethos was to encourage acceptance and tolerance towards those of any background, which made her extremely accessible as a God. All beings who worshipped Selûne were treated as equals and fellow worshippers were treated as close friends, which is pretty different from most gods in most pantheons. They were taught to be compassionate towards their fellow man, whether they were a Selûnite or not, and were often found helping others who were less fortunate. And, the great thing about being a Selûnite was that Selûne rarely made any demands of her followers as her entire deal is about being able to choose your own path. It wouldn’t be very good for a goddess who preached paving your way to suddenly start making demands that you give your entire life to their cause, would it?

However, there were those who decided that their path was to serve Selûne and do nothing else, and those were members of the clergy. There two two different kinds of priests; temple priests, ones who stayed at the church, and itinerant priests were missionaries of sorts.

Temple priests stayed back at the church to provide an unmoving location where help was available to those who needed it. They would help their community by providing healing services and charged very little for it, as their goddess dictated that helping others was more important than personal gain. Instead, to make money for themselves and their church, they would practise astrology and make good coin off of telling fortunes to greater success than any other common folk since they were given divine help from the goddess of the moon herself. They would also visit local asylums and sanitariums to provide the same services.

Itinerant priests would carry out these same practices, but on the road. They would seek out other Selûnites across Faerun and hope to connect with those who were not yet worshipping Selûne but could be swayed into it. They also kept on the watch for lycanthropes who were wandering around, and would offer them healing and help or direct them to a Selûnite temple if they needed more help than one priest could give them. Their goal was to cure or eliminate the affliction of lycanthropy, as it was typically a curse upon farmers and other locals in the area as there were lycanthropes who did not control their transformations and weren’t in full control of their actions, causing them to be reckless and dangerous to those around them. Selûnites were fearless in approaching them, which often granted them the respect of the townsfolk who witnessed their deeds. Since they were on the road, payment for their healing services were usually taken in the form of a warm meal or a place to stay.

And, of course, like any religious following, Selûnites had their share of rituals and rites that they would perform for the sake of their goddess. While everyone had their own way of performing these rites and they were largely personalised, there was a commonality amongst them. For instance, milk was a sacred fluid and was a vital substance in holy ceremonies. Rituals would often make use of milk and/or wine as a holy substance and were offered in rituals along with dancing in the moonlight. By offering these rituals they could produce a holy substance known as moonfire which is described as opalescent in appearance and soft as silk with the consistency of custard. Moonfire could be used to enchant items, grant a boon from Selûne, or destroy undead. Further on the milk oddity, Selûnites would often put out a bowl of milk when the moon was full as an offering, as if Selûne was a stray cat.

There was also an annual holy day known as the Mystery of the Night in which priests would perform a ritual. In this ritual, the priests would cast a series of spells and then sprawl out on the ground before an altar where they would fall into a deep trance. Then, they would fly upwards and zoom around the night sky where they would allegedly circle the moon while communicating directly with Selûne through visions. As you might imagine, there were several moon-zoom related injuries related to this ritual. Thankfully, Selûnites were skilled healers and with enough time, the priests were back to good health.

But I think that’s enough about the Selûnites, and I wanted to get back to Selûne herself who, just like any other god, would occasionally stroll amongst the mortals in the form of an avatar. Just like the moon, her avatars appeared in many different forms. I think the most known is a dark-skinned human female who was known for her exquisite beauty. She had wide, lime green eyes and long, ivory hair that was down to her knees. Another was a small-framed young girl who had dark eyes, hair, and wore white robes. Another, which I love the most, was a homely middle-aged woman who was described as plump, yet fair and ageing gracefully. This avatar was known as Luna, and was the only one that I can find that had a name because she lived amongst mortals in this form for quite some time. Luna was an innkeeper for the Selûne’s Smile tavern in Waterdeep in the mid 1300’s DR. Luna was, I think, the most different of her avatars but all of them had one similarity between them, and it was that they continually emanated a faint blue-white glow similar to that of bright moonlight. I think it would be hard to conceal your status as a goddess’ avatar when you glow like a night light, but to each their own.

When she was manifested as an avatar, she had many magical abilities at her disposal. All of them would take the form of the moon in some way, often looking like a moonbeam or something similar. Notable exceptions from her arsenal would be any magic that conjured darkness, and she would avoid any healing spells that would damage something in the process like necromancy but she could use those spells in a pinch if need be. She just preferred not to. Most of the spells that she wielded were divinations, as you might expect, and she radiated protection from evil to a distance of 90 metres which had a really cool secondary effect; no creature summoned from a good source could be dispelled or banished within this radius. Meanwhile, within this radius, a holy word uttered from Selûne would automatically banish extraplanar beings. While in battle, she could not be harmed by electricity or light spells, and was not affected by illusions, enchantments, or charming spells. Honestly, Selûne was a badass. She preferred not to fight, but when she did it was an awesome display of martial prowess, as expected of a being who has been around as long as she has.

Of the times that she was compelled to battle, the most notable is in her everlasting feud with the Goddess Shar. And I think that now is as good a time as any to switch over to the dark side of the moon. On top of being fun to say, being the dark side of the moon means that she was the twin sister of Selûne who held the portfolios of darkness, forgetfulness, loss, and night initially. Though, after slaying the underground god Brandul, she claimed their portfolios of caverns, dungeons, and the Underdark. Just like Selûne, she was also there during the time of ancient Netheril where she also held the portfolios of hatred, sleep, nightmares, illusions, trickery, hiding places, betrayal, treachery, seduction, thieves and thievery, murder, and winter before she lost these to other gods. What an absolute mouthful.

By that description, you can probably already tell that Shar is the polar opposite to Selûne and was known also as the Mistress of the Night and the Lady of Loss. She was the living embodiment of the void, the nothingness that existed before she was born, which she longed to return to. And to that end, she was intent on disrupting order and bringing down established systems in order to undo the creation of everything and bring it back to the silent nothingness from whence she came.

To that end, she was defined by loss and the idea of life’s inherent emptiness and pointlessness. Shar was kind of the embodiment of a grudge– the concealment of hatred and immoral desires that lurked in everyone’s heart and she would nurse that hatred no matter how cold it was. And so she enjoyed concealing things under the shade of night so that they would never see the light of day. The depths of her evils were deeply twisted and perverse, as her goal was to undo the creation of everything. And to that point, even her own followers were just pawns to her in a game of chess against life itself. She would sacrifice anything and everything to achieve her ends, and spare no thought towards the people it affected, or the universe it was harming.

We talked about how chaotic Selûne is and how her very mood and personality changes with the phases of the moon, but Shar was not like that. She was very much neutral evil, which is to say evil for the sake of evil and that part of her never changed. Selûne could be more benevolent at times, but Shar was always the same murder hobo through her entire existence. While it was her goal to destroy established order, it wasn’t so that disorder could rise but more so that everything would wither away and die.

So you might wonder, what brought people to worship Shar if she was openly an awful, conniving god? And that’s a great question. Basically, Shar pretended to be a healer. She was supposed to soothe one’s grief by letting them forget their woes. We see this in the House of Grief in Baldur’s Gate where it’s supposed to be somewhere that someone can go to get their heart mapped out so that they can get rid of any grief, sorrow, or woe that might be affecting them so that they can move on from past or current traumas by numbing them to the pain and giving them a sense of acceptance. In reality, it was a place where people were effectively tortured for Shar’s own sadistic pleasure. Shar did not believe in helping people by healing their grief, but wanted to harness it and nurture the hatred and spite that was within their heart. And so her followers (whether inadvertently or not) had a pretty bleak outlook on the world and were taught to trust no one and not to look for any good in people, not even themselves.

For the most part, the people who followed Shar were not those who wanted to directly cause harm to people, but were usually those who were deeply suffering and were looking for a way to be able to continue living with that darkness inside of them. These were people who had severe depression or other mental illnesses who felt like they had no other option but to pray to the goddess Shar so that they could move out from the cloud that was perpetually overhead. Of course, most people knew that Shar was dark and vindictive, but people saw this as a last resort and trusted the clergy of Shar to not take advantage of their feelings. And so, desperation is largely how Shar’s followers grew in number. However, there were those who knew about her darkness and worshipped her because of it. Beings who despised the light like thieves and killers; people with something to hide and who needed the power of darkness to get through another night of sin. However, there were also those who were steeped in perpetual darkness like miners or those who worked in the nighttime who would pray to Shar to keep the evils of night away (similarly to how they would pray to Selûne to keep them safe at night). These people also included goblinoids and other creatures who abhorred the light or lived underground, hence her connection to the Underdark.

Shar’s holy symbol was a black disc ringed with deep purple, although it was not always that. In the time of ancient Netheril, she had two different symbols. One was an eye, purple with a black pupil outlined in black (sort of like an evil version of Selûne’s symbol), and the other was a cowled black cloak designed for hunting.

The clergy of Shar were very secretive by nature, as you might imagine, and tended not to deal with their opposition head on but rather did so from the shadows using subterfuge and other devious tactics. Because of the nature of their worship and their tactics, worshipping Shar was barred in many cities. This meant that her worshippers tended to worship in private, and their temples were seemingly ordinary buildings on the outside. Again, think of the House of Grief in Baldur’s Gate. Most people who went in there probably just thought it was a house of healers, or something similar, and didn’t realise it was a temple dedicated to Shar. And that’s largely how they operated. But still, people flocked to their temples one way or another. In fact, back in the times of ancient Netheril, Shar was among the deities that were looked up to and respected by the lower class. 

And in addition to regular clerics amongst the clergy, there was also an order of elite sorcerer monks called the Order of the Dark Moon who could tap into the power of the shadow weave. The shadow weave is actually quite interesting. As the name suggests, it’s a corrupted version of the goddess Mystra’s weave which was, in essence, raw magic that magic users were able to tap into to cast their spells. In other words, the weave is the source of all magic. And alongside it, the shadow weave was the source of dark magic, created of a distinct nothingness just like Shar. A magic user, like those in the Order of the Dark Moon, who wanted to use the power of dark magic had to either worship Shar or make some sort of arrangement with Shar to be able to tap into the power of the shadow weave. The consequence of not doing so would be pretty severe, and would cause one to permanently lose a piece of their mind if the conditions of using the shadow weave were not met.

So you might be wondering, why even use the shadow weave? It’s not like it’s necessary to perform necromancy or other dark spells which any spellcaster could technically use. But it does give dark spells a nice boost in power. That would include spells from the school of enchantment, illusion and necromancy while spells from the evocation and transmutation (spells that can create life, in a sense) would be impaired by calling upon the power of the shadow weave and it cannot be used to cast spells that would create light. So it would make sense for a dark mage like a necromancer or used spells to create darkness to call upon the shadow weave for its power, and usually those people would be evil-aligned so it makes further sense that their patron deity would be someone like Shar or at least someone adjacent who could make a deal with Shar to let them use the shadow weave.

As well, you might know that the weave has restrictions on it placed by Mystra after the fall of Netheril which would be known as Mystra’s Ban. This was put into place because of Karsus’ Folly, which I don’t want to get too deep into because it’s really only relevant for about a sentence at the end of the paragraph, but basically Mystra’s ban was put into place to stop mages from being too powerful. This meant that mages had to memorise spells in order to use them properly, and there were only a certain amount of spells that a mage could have “active” at any time, and this is why we have limited spell slots in DnD. It also meant that anything above a 9th level spell was effectively banned from being used because when you get to that point in spellcasting, you start shaping reality itself and… well… you can seriously ruin the world with magic that powerful. The point of that is to say that this was put in place by Mystra; her being the essence of the weave. She could not exist without the weave, and vice versa. There was no such tie with Shar and the shadow weave, though. Shar did not put limits on how the shadow weave could be used, and that’s largely because she embraces chaos because it has the power to undo life itself, which we talked about was her ultimate goal. This is pretty dangerous, as you might imagine, and magic users might choose to be aligned with it so that they can have unlimited power. Looking at you, Sheev.

It was a little long-winded, but I think it’s important to bring up the shadow weave since that’s Shar’s domain. The fact that Shar is able to be the one to be the wellspring of power for the shadow weave speaks to her power and importance in the world of magic in general.

We talked about Selûne’s avatar forms, so we might as well talk about Shar’s as well. In most religious artworks, Shar is depicted as a young woman with long, black hair and purple skin, typically clad in all black as well as having a furled cloak that seemed to flow into shadows. This was typically the form that she would take when appearing in someone’s dreams or visions, with cold, black and purple eyes as deep as the void, and a haunting, cold smile and hair that flowed in an almost weightless fashion, as if she were unaffected by gravity.

Her avatars, however, were a bit different. Shar had two avatars that she would often appear as. The first was known as the Nightsinger, who was an amazonian figure standing anywhere from 10 to 12 feet tall that was shrouded almost entirely in a cloak of shadows that seemed to cast a darkness all around her. She wore a mask that was made of various feathers which partially obscured her face. The mask and cloak gave her a very mysterious, eerie vibe that was probably intentionally unsettling to look at, even without factoring in the immense height. In this form, she gained her name by not speaking normally but instead singing every word in a morose song. It tended to make those who she was around fall into a despair, which of course fueled her and caused those affected to seek aid for their woes at her temples.

The other form that she took was called the Dark Dancer. Again, appearing as a tall woman (although only 7 feet fall this time) with a slim, lean dancer's build. This form was less frightening and more alluring with a divine beauty but it was still deeply unsettling. Her skin was jet black and almost sparkling as if with starlight, as were her eyes which could project magic. Like I said, many mortals saw this form as somehow deeply alluring and almost sensual, which was only exacerbated by her dancing which is said to make any mortal fall to their knees and obey her every word.

I think this is an interesting parallel to Selûne’s avatar forms, which seemed pretty benevolent by comparison. Selûne tended to take a homely form that could help her blend in so she could help people, whereas Shar seemed to be interested in becoming an amazonian woman who seduced people into doing her bidding.

I mentioned that in her form as the Dark Dancer, Shar could cast spells from her eyes and this is what she would typically use in a combat setting. Like any dark magic, she could only cast certain spells, with those of the dark variety given a power boost, and couldn’t cast any spell that would create light. That’s pretty much a constant in anything around Shar is the absence of light. When in her Dark Dancer form, any spells that were charming would be tripled in power, which is how she was able to seduce people so easily. This included her very touch, which could instil a sense of forgetfulness or straight up amnesia. And a kiss from the Dark Dancer would immediately compel the one to follow her without question and become her faithful servant, or die. They had to choose at that moment, and let’s be honest neither of these options were exactly great. As the Nightsinger, her songs could drain a target’s wits and memories, bringing them into a stupor, or kill them outright. I’m sensing a pattern here. And while she could use spells in combat, Shar also wielded twin shortswords, as well as her disks of night which were returning chakrams that she could use to fight from a distance.

However, while she had those two forms, she rarely took them in Faerun. Instead, when she manifested, she preferred to take the form of a churning cloud of darkness which emanated a purple glow. Every once in a while, within the tendrils of darkness, a deep purple eye could be glimpsed. This form was usually taken to give messages directly to her servants, and could speak to them as if it were in their head. A touch from one of the tendrils of darkness could instil numbness and even grant a tolerance to pain and would drive her followers to take drastic actions that they might not have taken due to a fear of being hurt. But since they could not feel pain, or at least were slightly numbed to it, they pushed their limits until they either passed out from exhaustion or died.

So, you can see at this point that Selûne and Shar are two sides of the same coin, the yin and yang, the light and the dark. It makes sense why one could not exist without the other, just like order cannot exist without chaos. And to that point when they were created from the primordial essence, they saw themselves as one being despite being polar opposites. Some would know them as the Two-Faced Goddess, or the Sisters-Who-Were-One, and because of this comes the Dark Moon Heresy which believed that Selûne and Shar were, indeed, one being and were literally two faces of the same goddess. I can see some merit to this heresy, seeing as Selûne is said to change moon with the phases of the moon. When the moon phase is at its darkest, would that not be Shar’s face being shown? But this is proven false by one account where the She-Spider cult of Thay tried to combine the two faiths and worship both deities as one as per the Dark Moon Heresy, but were ultimately rejected by both goddesses and therefore did not receive any divine aid from either. So, they were definitely two separate beings, not that I think that really had to be said.

Together, in the time before time, they were the “mothers” of other cosmic beings, having created others from the Abeir-Toril– the cradle of life. Through this process, they created Chauntea, the Faerunian goddess of life and bounty who, at the time of her creation, was the embodiment of all matter in Realmspace. Chauntea was created to bring life to the world, but having no warmth to be able to properly nurture any life, asked the two goddesses for warmth so that she may create life… and this was the first time that Shar and Selûne were at odds with each other. They had always been the same, but had no reason to clash until this moment. Selûne obviously believed that Chauntea should be granted warmth for the sake of being able to fulfil her purpose, and Shar believed that no more life needed to be created. Thus began the war of light and darkness, the eternal war between Selûne and Shar.

And, really, this is why I wanted to write this episode. Especially because of events that happen during Shadowheart’s quests in Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s a lot of nuance here related to this battle between Selûne and Shar that’s not really explained in the game. It’s something that I’ve wanted to explore for quite some time. But it’s hard to write an episode about just this eternal war and not go over the individual goddesses, so we have this all wrapped into one big package. So let’s talk about it.

In essence, this war started as a quarrel over the essence of creation– should there be more life in the worlds than already existed, and should Chauntea be allowed to create it? Selûne fought to make sure that Chauntea was free to foster life by creating the sun, and she did this by reaching out to the plane of fire and brought forth a fragment of the ever-living flame to create the celestial body, even though it burned and hurt her greatly. This act would give Chauntea the warmth that she needed and the means to foster life.

Shar was outraged by this, as she vehemently opposed this idea and believed that all life should revert back to the void. She started to lash out harder, and in an aggravated assault managed to weaken Selûne by blotting out all of the light and warmth in the universe. Seeing as Selûne’s powers were all fueled by light (specifically moonlight, but any light would do), this was a huge blow to her front. She knew that this would mean the end for her campaign, and she pulled a divine fragment from herself, knowing that it would nearly kill her, in an act of desperation and hurled it at Shar in the hopes that it would give her time to recover. And it did. Selûne’s essence tore through Shar and bonded with some of her sister’s essence, essentially pulling it loose and tearing a fragment of her own divinity from her body. This fragment of the two divine beings manifested itself as Mystryl, the original goddess of magic.

This is really interesting because, if you didn’t know, Mystryl would be known in her later incarnations as Mystra, who we talked about earlier as the being who was intertwined with the weave. Being the original goddess of magic, Mystryl was the first being to be the source of all magic through the weave. So you could say that Selûne and Shar were the creators of magic as well as being the mother of the goddess Mystryl. This kind of makes sense and gives some additional perspective to Shar being the holder of the shadow weave. It’s not something that she just kind of happened upon, it was something that she, in essence, birthed and was able to manifest in a way that suited her.

So, with Mystryl and the weave in the picture, magic was in the air. Being a being of both light and dark, Mystryl could have sided with either goddess, but she ended up choosing Selûne to fight for the light. This could have been for a lot of reasons, but I think it’s because Mystryl ended up having the portfolios of spring, dance and song as well as magic, so it makes sense that she would want a more bountiful world– the one that Selûne seeked to create. It could also be because the shard that created her was initially created from Selûne, and it only grasped Shar’s essence when it passed through her, so maybe she was more light than dark and preferred Selûne as her “first” mother. Either way, Mystryl chose Selûne and was able to shield her while she was wounded and evened the playing field.

Being a pretty pivotal member of this war, Mystryl was able to negotiate a sort of truce. It wasn’t fair to both parties, so having sided with Selûne it favoured her heavily. Shar was banished to her darkness for centuries while light was able to return to the worlds and Chauntea was able to go on creating life as per Selûne’s plan.

And Shar’s exile was necessary for Selûne to survive. Like I mentioned, she was gravely wounded. If Shar was able to mount an attack, Selûne might have lost the war entirely because of her condition. She needed these centuries to regain her strength, and even though her power seemed to wax and wane just like the moon she represented, she was able to eventually gain strength through her alliances and through the deities the two sisters created during the war of which there were numerous other than Chauntea and Mystryl. However, we don’t really have much information on what gods were created. We just have the passage:

“From the residues of these struggles emerged the original deities of magic, war, disease, murder, death, and others.”

This implies that Jergal, or at least his predecessor was created in this strife, but he’s never mentioned by name. I was trying to find some more information about this statement, but it largely seems to just be an ambiguous story that’s more myth than anything else. Someone likened it to the Greek pantheon, where there’s just so much happening that it’s hard to tell what was “real” or not. This is, in essence, a creation story after all so it makes sense that maybe everyone has their own interpretation as to what happened here. And, granted, at the time that this was written it was in 3e. In 3e, killing a god was pretty standard business. As time went on and we got into 5e, killing a god is a reality-shifting event that was seen as borderline impossible to achieve. But in 3e, it seems like adventuring parties were just killing gods left and right and it was all too common. It’s possible that, if we take that as an in-universe statement that in the ancient times it was just easier to kill a god, then maybe these gods that were created ended up being nameless because they simply didn’t last long. Maybe they just got killed off before doing anything important like creating life or magic and that’s why we only remember the big two, Chauntea and Mystryl, because they were able to survive long enough and do enough to be remembered.

Anyways, while Selûne gathered her strength and allies, Shar was brooding in the corner like a 10 year old me hearing Linkin Park for the first time. She was consumed by bitterness and hate, vowing revenge on the ones that locked her away. And when she was free, she chose to fight her battles not head on, but by the means that we talked about earlier. She would use subterfuge and such to assassinate members of Selûne’s faithful instead of attacking her outright. I would imagine that, at this point, Selûne had enough allies that attacking her outright would have been suicide, so Shar chose to fight her battles more strategically and carefully. And this would go on for eternity. Or, at least it’s still going on to this day. Who knows if it will ever end, much like the blood war down in the depths.

There came a time when Selûne and Shar were forced to set aside their differences and negotiate a loose peace for a time when the primordials decided to attack the worlds created in realmspace, threatening all of existence. I’m not sure exactly why Shar would have had an invested interest in keeping worlds like Toril alive when she was against there being life in it to begin with, but it seems like they teamed up against the primordials in order to defend these worlds. This would be known as the Dawn War, and there’s actually a lot of information about this period so I’m not going to go over much of it. I just thought it was interesting that Selûne and Shar were able to put aside their strife in order to take down a larger threat.

In the year 1358 DR, during what was known as the time of troubles, magic went awry and forced the gods to live amongst mortals. For Selûne, this was no problem as she was, at that time, masquerading as her avatar Luna and seemed to remain largely unaware of what was happening. She was already restricting her non-divine powers as Luna and living amongst mortals, so she knew no more than any regular person would about the happenings of the gods. However, at this time, Shar was forced to walk amongst mortals with the other gods and so she came to Waterdeep disguised as Selûne. One evening, she called the faithful of Selûne to her and descended upon the steps of the House of the Moon, a temple to Selûne, and had them tricked into thinking that she was indeed Selûne and promised them grace and protection.

As anyone might do in this situation, the faithful didn’t question it much and most did as she asked. It was only then that Selûne, in the form of Luna, learned that this was happening and that someone was impersonating her. So she made her way to the temple to see what the fuss was about. When she got to the temple and saw that everyone was worshipping someone who appeared to be her, she called them out on their misguided faith. And, if you know anything about religious faithfuls, they don’t exactly like being called out about their faith, especially from someone who didn’t look any different from a regular mortal. The mob turned on her and Shar, still disguised as Selûne, took the Wand of the Four Moons– which was Selûne’s favoured weapon– which was given to her by the temple priests and attempted to attack Luna directly after an unsuccessful attempt to hit her with a sink spell. Shar was able to knock Selûne out with the mace and the temple guards took her prisoner.

Shar could have easily killed her at this moment. Selûne was powerless, unconscious and unable to use any of her divine powers. But she wanted revenge for the centuries that she was locked away, and the untold number of years that they had been engaged in this strife. Shar wanted to drive Selûne into madness before killing her. And what’s even funnier is that Selûne’s faithful didn’t even realise that they were imprisoning and planning to torture their own god while the opposition was masquerading as Selûne.

And so, Selûne was kept prisoner as Luna for several days and Shar, still disguised as Selûne, had her under her thumb the entire time. Selûne was driven into a confused state because she was essentially being tortured by herself and her followers seemed to have turned on her. She started to doubt herself and her reality, not understanding who or what she was– just as Shar wanted. Shar eventually broke her spirit and Luna was reconditioned into being a faithful servant of Selûne and had her join the Swords of the Lady (also known as the Lunatics) which were a radical group of knights in the Selûnite order.

At a later date, there was a party held at Waterdeep Castle in the honour of Selûne… or who the people thought was Selûne. There was a host of lords and ladies there, as well as friends of Luna’s who had come to investigate the avatar and Luna’s disappearance. However, the party was crashed in a tidal wave of irony when members of the Dark Army of the Night– a violent cult dedicated to Shar– showed up and attempted to kidnap the avatar of Selûne, because they had no reason to believe that it wasn’t Selûne and was actually Shar masquerading as her twin sister. This will never not be funny to me. Shar was taken temporarily hostage by these attackers, but managed to get free and cast a bind spell on them, leading to their arrest.

How hilarious is it that Shar had to attack her own cultists in an effort to not be unmasked to her sister’s followers? The irony is unreal.

In a state of shock, Shar went to the kitchen to be alone with her thoughts for a moment. This didn’t last long when one of Luna’s friends, Kyriani, confronted her and declared that she would expose Shar for the fraud that she was and save Luna. In response, Shar attacked Kyriani with a barrage of spells, leading to a fight that would garner the attention of the Lord Piergeiron who had to intervene to stop the two from killing each other. Although Kyriani was defeated, she actually won the battle because this sowed seeds of doubt in the nobility as they saw a violent outburst and sudden shift in attitude in their goddess who had never acted quite like that before. Kyriani was arrested by the city guard, but managed to escape shortly after.

This whole charade had instilled a sense of hope in friends of Luna’s that she could be saved, and so two of her friends, Timoth Eyesbright and Onyx the Invincible, infiltrated the false Selûne’s temple. There, they eavesdropped on a conversation that Shar was having with Naneatha, trying to get some valuable information from the shadows, before they were surprised by the Lunatics, who sought to bring them before Selûne for judgement. Among these Lunatics was Luna, who was so far gone at this point that she actually believed that she was Shar, which brings us in a really weird circle where Selûne thought that she was Shar, and Shar was doing her best to be Selûne.

Thankfully, more of her friends were not far behind and Kyriani, along with another friend Vajra, came to Timoth and Onyx’s rescue. Luna, not recognising her friends, fought hard against them and did not stop until Vajra tackled and pinned her to the ground and managed to convince her of her real identity. Meanwhile, Naneatha was still talking to the false Selûne, who she was beginning to have doubts about being the real deal and questioned her about it. Shar started to show a violent rage, very uncharacteristic of Selûne, which tipped off Naneatha that her suspicions were correct and decided that the best course of action was to react to violence with violence. She tackled Shar off of the balcony that they were standing near, and both of them hurtled to the ground before being stopped by a featherfall spell cast by Shar. Shar began hurtling meteors at Naneatha, which she was able to successfully partially divert, causing both herself and Shar to fall unconscious long enough for Luna and her friends to make their escape.

Shar was, understandably, livid at this point. She had Selûne in her grasp, but had failed to kill her because she was toying with her food, and so she was able to escape. Shar knew that they would be going back to Selûne’s Smile, the tavern that Luna operated, and so she went to cut them off. Armed with the Rod of Oblivion, Shar managed to get to the tavern before Luna and her friends, and began dismantling the tavern piece by piece and ambushed the group.  Shar, at this point, was ready to kill Selûne and attacked her with the Rod of Oblivion. Her friends pleaded that Shar didn’t kill Luna and attempted to hurl spells at the goddess to distract her, all of which were stopped but were able to successfully take her attention away from Luna, who was carried by her other friends through a dimensional doorway which led to Luna’s room where the divine powers were being stored. Remember that Luna divested herself of her divine powers so that she could successfully live amongst the mortals as Luna. And so, with her divine powers back, Luna transformed into the true avatar of the goddess Selûne and with her magic restored was able to fight off Shar. 

Getting back her powers gave Selûne a moment of clarity where she remembered her unending war with Shar and the responsibility that she had in keeping her in check for the sake of every living being that she had forsaken so that she could live a simple life as Luna. Selûne used her light magic to blast away Shar’s Rod of Oblivion and Shar vanished, being beaten, and their war against one another continued. Selûne ended up taking her form again as Luna, but she was ever vigilant against the darkness.

Some 50 years later, in 1385 DR, Shar hatched up another plan to disrupt Selûne. This plan was to take control over the weave for herself, and she helped Cyric murder Mystra, causing the collapse of the weave and the reshaping of planes. In all of this, Shar didn’t end up with control over the weave, but instead lost control of her shadow weave as well when the weave collapsed, leaving her with neither. Realising that her plans were foiled, she took advantage of the chaos and the reshaping of planes and combined the plane of shadow with the remnant death energy of the negative energy plane to create the Shadowfell, where she would rule over the darkness that presided there.

The latest and greatest plot to undermine Selûne, who was a favoured goddess in Faerun at this point, was in the late 1400’s DR when Shar decided that she was going to abduct the daughter of two Selûnites and raise her as her dark justiciar. A group of her followers, including the Mother Superior Viconia DeVir, were commanded to abduct the half-elf daughter of Emmeline and Anrell Hallowleaf who were both dedicated servants of Selûne. The girl’s parents were imprisoned within the Chamber of Loss under the House of Grief in Baldur’s gate, where an avatar of the goddess Shar would appear before them. Meanwhile, their daughter was forced to forget her life and was given new memories, cultivated by the mother superior and Shar, and was renamed Shadowheart and raised as a Sharran. Shadowheart was later sent on a mission to retrieve the Astral prism, which had caught the mother superior’s attention, where she would be captured by mind flayers, implanted with a tadpole, and set out on the journey through the events of Baldur’s Gate 3 where, depending on the players actions, would either become a dark justiciar of Shar, or find herself in Selûne’s grace once again.

There’s no canon answer as to how exactly that ended, so it’s hard to say if this plot really succeeded for Shar or whether it was foiled again by her lack of foresight. I like to believe that Shadowheart’s canon journey led her back to being a Selûnite, because that sounds par for the course for a years-long plan of Shar’s to be foiled by her own machinations.

And, well, that’s all we really have for this one. There’s so much history between the two goddesses of the moon, and I find it quite fascinating. And, hopefully, we get more lore in the coming years about the two. Maybe in the next Baldur’s Gate game? Probably not, honestly, but it would be nice.

So that leads me to my favourite question: what do you think? Do you think that there was any way that the two goddesses could have avoided a war? Or what do you think of the immense power that they controlled? Personally, I didn’t know much about them before playing Baldur’s Gate 3, and so I didn’t know that they were so pivotal in the creation of life itself.

You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media apps, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’re also on Youtube, so if you head over there and hit subscribe I would really appreciate it. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please send me a message wherever you can find me or at loredtodeath@gmail.com. If you’re using the Spotify app, there’s a comment section attached to the episode where you can submit any questions or topics. If you’re on Youtube… you know what to do. I would love to hear from you!

And remember, if you have your enemy in your grasp, don’t do the Bond villain thing of monologuing long enough for the enemy to escape. Just get your guillotine out of your garage, or borrow your French friends’ (trust me, they all have one) and scream “off with their head!” It’s far more effective than the former, and so much cooler.

And I’ll lore you to death in the next one. C’ya.