Conrad Shadowlands lived in Krezk, Barovia with his wife,
Sharon and had two
sons, Leif and Connor, who died in
infancy. As a miner,
Conrad earned a meager living, but the Shadowlands family lived no better or
worse than most Barovian peasants. After Sharon's death and Leif's departure in
search of her past, Conrad threw himself into his work, trying to bury the pain
of the family that he had lost. His years with them were an all too brief
moment of sunlight in the dreary Barovian winter.Less than a year after Leif left home, he received a strange visitor: the noblewoman Cynthia DeGrieves. He was instantly ensnared by her charms, seeing in her a kindred soul who had lost much, as he had. He did not know that she was a Vorlog, trapped between life and death, and condemned to seek out those who reminded her of her slain vampire lover, Baron Metus. Soon, they were wed, and Cynthia brought Conrad to Port-a-lucine, where she could mould him into a sophisticated gentleman, as Metus had been. He started to work as a sculptor, but his vibrant and primal works were deemed unsophisticated by the Dementlieuse audience. When he failed to live up to her image of Baron Metus, after five years of grooming, Cynthia turned on him, and he was saved from her wrath and the deadly spirit of Metus himself by the timely arrival of Ludovic, Duffy, Leif, and Kerri. With Baron Metus's spirit destroyed and Cynthia defeated, they set Conrad up in a new home in Port-a-lucine and a new job, running a gunsmith shop on the Rues des Pistolets with Hugues Maigney's former apprentice, Jim Sneed.
With Cynthia's influence broken, Conrad is ashamed of his behavior and feels that he betrayed the memory of his wife, Sharon. But reconciling somewhat with his son, Leif, and his newfound direction in mentoring Jim have saved him from crushing despair.