Itron (pron. ih-trown) is Breton for Lady, a title of nobility or ownership.
Leannan was born Leanan Glengawad in 2E 492. The sixth and last child and only daughter of Aotrou (Lord) Kenedus and Itron (Lady) Elesbed Gawadunen, exactly 86 years before the current Serpentine Madness began.
Leannan's world was still one of strife, however. The peoples of High Rock, Sentinel and Orsinium were struggling with and against one another for dominance in the western reaches. House Glengawad needed strength of magic and brawn in the wars at the time.
By the age of twelve, Leannan began to delve into the arcane arts, looking for power to aid her as she was being groomed to be wed to the son of a rival noble house in an arrangement of alliance.
For four years, Leannan researched the arcane arts, and at sixteen, stumbled quite by accident, on a set of musty old scrolls supposedly copied and re-copied and handed down from originals written in the First Era. These scrolls discussed a ritual for forming a pact with the vile Daedric Prince, Molag Bal, in exchange for immortality and great power in Nirn.
That year, Leannan was wed to Aotrou (Lord) Aubrey Galaden, and House Glengawad and House Galaden became blood allies in the struggles for power in Daggerfall, and the battles for dominance in the region.
Leannan continued her studies, pursuing additional knowledge on how the ritual was to be conducted. For ten long years she pursued this knowledge, bearing two daughters and a son to her Lord in that time.
Meanwhile, Leannan's parents died of old age, and her older brothers either died in battle or succumbed to disease or treachery by other noble houses, leaving House Glengawad bereft of male heirs and Leannan as the sole heir of the family line at age twenty seven.
As blood heir of Glengawad, she took the title of Lady Glengawad in addition to being Itron yn Briedelezh Galaden (Lady in Marriage of House Galaden).
For five more long years, Leannan stretched her attention between House Galaden and House Glengawad, as well as researching the secret of the ritual of pact to the evil Molag Bal. Her son, Gwilherm, through Aubrey was Aotrou yn herez eo House Galaden (inheritor), so Leannan set her eldest daughter, Sorscha, to head House Glengawad when the girl turned fourteen. She sent Sorscha to her family's holdings to be advised and tutored by Glengawad's majordomo, Pennrod.
Finally, a breakthrough! Leannan succeeded in summoning a Dremora Lord and binding the foul Daedra to her will. The Dremora told Leannan the secret to summoning Molag Bal in the ritual, and the secret to assuring the pact: the sacrifice of a living virgin girl, followed by 100 humanoid souls of any state and disposition. A total of 101 sacrifices, including the initial virgin.
There was one such...offering immediately at hand that Leannan knew of. Her maid in waiting, Bleunian, had a daughter of twelve by an unknown suitor the woman did not speak of, save to say that Mara could not bless their union.
Arranging hired thugs to kidnap the girl and securing their entrance to Galaden's manor, Leannan took the virgin child to her hidden research lair, a cave in the mountains of Rivenspire, and prepared for the ritual of Cold Harbour. She sent her hired thugs throughout the lands to kidnap others and bring them to the cave.
The ritual was a filthy, horrifying, degrading submission to the vile Daedric Prince, in which Leannan nearly lost her mind. But she endured her wicked murder of the daughter of Bleunian and one hundred others, and then her own vile torture. At the end of her rapine at the hands of the Daedric Prince and his minions, Leannan was given the Blood of Molag Bal and made a Daughter of Cold Harbour, a vampire of abominable legend.
Half-mad, blood hungered and immortal at last, Leannan emerged from her cave lair to feast upon the blood of the living. At first she had no restraint and slaughtered at will those hapless souls who crossed her path in the wilds of Rivenspire. Eventually Leannan became more herself, gaining control over her scarred mind and unholy blood lust. After a full cycle of the moons she returned home again to Glenumbra and the holdings of House Galaden.
Her husband, Aubrey had returned from war to find his wife gone and the house in an uproar of her disappearance and the disappearance of Bleunian's young daughter. When Leannan returned in the dead of night, she discovered Aubrey with Bleunian, thus learning the secret of the conception of her maid's daughter. Leannan was furious at Aubrey's infidelity and she devoured him upon her discovery. She accused Bleunian of seducing him with sorcery, then murdering Aubrey after Leannan discovered what was afoot, forcing her husband to spurn the maid in order to save his marriage to Leannan.
Bleunian was burned at the stake for murdering a noble, sedition and using Daedric magic against the family she served. Leannan's son, Lord Gwilherm, continued to lead Galaden, now under the council and sorcerous influence of his mother. In a fit of blood lust, Leannan drained Gwilherm near the point of death quite by accident, and turned him with her own Daedric tainted black blood. The poor young man was unable to adjust to his new, horrible fate and went mad. To protect her dark secret, Leannan burned him alive in his chambers, making the event appear to be an insane suicide by Gwilherm. It was assumed the young man simply lost control in grief over the foul murder of his father, and the matter was put to rest by the Breton authorities.
Leannan continued to lead for another ten years, placing her youngest daughter, Morrigana, in charge of House Galaden, though she eventually petitioned for complete merger of both Houses under Glengawad, due to the loss of hers in both over the years. Her petition was eventually granted, and Galaden was merged officially into Glengawad under Lady Leannan Glengawad.
At the end of this decade, servants and rival nobles alike became more and more suspicious of the continued strange rumors surrounding Glengawad. When a visiting third son of the noble House Dervenn Ruz disappeared while staying in the former manor home of Galaden, a formal investigation including inquisitors of the Mages Guild was launched by the High King's Council.
When the inquisitor discovered the evidence of Daedric and necromatic magic in Glengawad, particularly around it's Matriarch, Leannan, the High King's Council's Inquisitor ordered soldiers to arrest the "Lady" of Glengawad. Leannan managed to escape, setting the manor home ablaze and using magic to make herself unseen. She fled the manor of Galaden to that of Glengawad, keeping her presence there unknown to all, including her daughter Sorscha. She took up residence in secret tunnels beneath the manor's cellars and was not found when the Inquisition showed up to investigate, this time with Agents of Stendarr as support.
The Inquisition concluded that the vile necromancer and Daedra worshipper, Leannan, was burned alive in the manor home and returned to Daggerfall to report their findings.
Ever after these horrid events, House Glengawad was shunned in court and in the society of the nobility. The once proud house fell into obscurity and eventually disappeared entirely from all society. Secretly, Leannan maintained her Matriarchy over the house and her decendants. She changed their familial name to Gawad Du, Black Blood, and kept her family from notice for decades. That is, until the current Serpentine troubles began.
gawad-du.enjin.com/
"For what deem'st thou so dear thy blood, when through my veins it will flood?"