Shar (Forgotten Realms)

Shar, 'Mistress of the Night', 'Nightsinger', 'Lady of Loss', or 'The Darkness' is a fictional deity in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting. She is the evil counterpart to her twin sister Selûne, and presides over caverns, dark, dungeons, forgetfulness, loss, night, secrets, and the Underdark. Shar is an ancient goddess, formed together with her sister at the beginning of time, out of the empty nothingness that existed before gods or mortals. Among her array of twisted powers is the ability to see everything that lies or happens in the dark.

Shar is a Neutral Evil Greater Power whose symbol is a black disk with a deep purple border. Her divine realm is the Palace of Loss in the Plane of Shadow.

The clergy of Shar is a secretive organization that pursues subversive tactics rather than direct confrontation with its rivals. In addition to her clerics, Shar maintains an elite order of sorcerer monks who can tap Shar's Shadow Weave. Among her worshipers are the Shadovar (the citizens of Shade Enclave—a floating city which is home to the survivors of ancient Netheril who fled into the shadow plane before Karsus's folly). Shar holds power over all who use the Shadow Weave, a creation of that has made her the eternal enemy of the goddess of magic Mystra. A terrible war brews between the two powerful deities. Shar's agents work to murder Selune's avatars whenever possible.

Orders

 * Shar has a secret order called the "Dark Justicars". In order to gain admittance to the order, a priest of Shar has to have killed a priest of Selûne.


 * Shar's secretive monastic order is referred to as the "Order of the Dark Moon". They tap into the Shadow Weave through their powers of sorcery.


 * The Avatars of Shar, or the "Nightbringers" are an elite Sharran forces. They are spirits that infest hosting bodies, possessing them and using the bodies as puppets. Once one is infected with a Nightbring that person fuses to being as one with the Nightbringer gaining the strength and beauty of Shar. Only females are selected as hosts for the Nightbringers. Though their (Nightbringers) numbers were large within the Avatar Wars, their numbers fell to the hundreds in modern day settings of Forgotten Realms campaigns.

Literature and Games

 * Mistress of the Night (2004), by Don Bassingthwaite and Dave Gross is the second book in the Forgotten Realms series, The Priests. It is about the worshippers of Shar.
 * In the computer game Baldur's Gate, a Drow cleric named Viconia DeVir is a priestess of Shar. The character can join the party. Viconia also can join the party in the computer game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. She follows Shar as her personal deity after she renounced Lolth and was exiled from the Underdark.