Jadyn West

From Last Heaven

Contents 1 Information 1.1 → stats 1.2 → in-depth 1.2.1 personality 1.2.2 background 2 Social 2.1 → relationships 2.1.1 family 2.1.2 friends 3 Miscellaneous 3.1 → random facts 3.2 → in-game events

Information

→ stats

• Name: Jadyn Eliza West.
• Nickname(s): Ice Queen, Devil Woman, Bitch, et cetera.
• Location: Paris, France.
• Date of Birth: ? 2014.
• Age: 41.
• Sexual Orientation: Asexual.
• Height:
• Weight:
• Hair Colour: Blonde.
• Eye Colour: Blue.
• Spoken Language(s): English (Native), French (Fluent), German (Fluent), Spanish (Fluent), Hungarian (Fluent).
• Image Song(s):

→ in-depth

personality

Respected. Authorative. Feared. These are the three main keys to Jadyn's personality, though they are well-hidden from her general peers beneath layers of false kindness and understanding. Jadyn is a cunning woman who has so carefully crafted her personality beyond the point of being ingenuine -- it is a downright fabrication, a falsification for the sole benefit of furthering her own career and ensuring her status in the world. As a woman who was brought up during a time of struggle and chaos, it comes as no surprise that she is hardened by her experiences during The War, though one could hardly call her traumatised. Emotionally frozen is perhaps a better term. She holds little regard for the feelings and thoughts of those around her, and only pays mind to what is best for her rather than what is best for the world as a whole. If it came right down to it, Jadyn would sooner choose to save her own life over that of a thousand innocents.

She is a capable woman, someone who goes to great lengths to ensure she gets what she desires. Jadyn has not acquired her status without an incredible amount of lies and determination, and through sheer will she has managed to accomplish things some people could only dream of. In the years that she has been involved with the World Government, she has learned that one must be clever and willing to do what it takes to get ahead, and it is with this knowledge that she willingly takes command of certain forces she herself has no real control over. Given that she has been granted such authority, it can be assumed that she is more than just willing to use it whenever it suits her, and therefore her hand does indeed stretch deep into each branch the Government has.

Yet like all humans, there is more to Jadyn than meets the eye. While she is indeed a woman who is colder than the icy waters of the Arctic, she is not unintelligent, and she is not prone to allowing others permission to see beyond her thick web of lies. Being that she is this way, Jadyn has a knack for thinly veiled insults and berating those beneath her, both in rank and social status, and is quite possibly the most self-absorbed being in the world. You dare ask her to donate her money to an orphanage? You would sooner see her voluntarily planting trees in Budapest than doing such a thing, and neither is anything she would stand for. There is more still to what it is that makes Jadyn West tick, although she would deny such a thing existed. She is not entirely without a heart, no matter how often she covers it up, and this mask may slip from time to time depending on the occasion and who she's speaking to. When it comes to her children, for example, one might find a rare time wherein she would actually put other humans before herself, those humans being of her own flesh and blood of course.

As the years roll on and time passes before her, Jadyn has become a kind of bitter woman whose realisation that her youth has passed her by has left her nothing less than angry. But that isn't to say that she dwells on such facts for longer than need be, and she is very much capable of shoving aside such thoughts in exchange for focusing on other things that strike her interest. Full of pride and a wielder of all the other deadly sins, Jadyn has made it perfectly clear to those who would dare challenge her authority that she is more than just "in charge" -- time and time again has she displayed the levels she is willing to go in order to prove just how much respect must be delivered to her without hesitation. She has a knack for intimidating those below her as a means of ensuring such respect is granted to her immediately, and though she is a brutal woman she is not stupid enough to frighten someone whose rank may suggest they be beneath her while their social circle may suggest otherwise. A bearer of grudges, there is no doubt that there are people within the World Government that she harbours a deep resentment and dislike for to the extent of her being willing to assist in their downfall, though she is careful in just how deeply involved she is in certain plans.

background

Jadyn was born into a not-so peaceful world in bustling New York City in the fall of 2014. It was this same year that The War was at its peak, but most people were ignorant of what was going on oversees and Jason and Jane Samson were more than happy to live in blissful unawareness while they tended to their brand new daughter. With an older sister and, later on, two younger brothers, Jadyn's early life was full of enough noise and love that would keep any family of seven happy for years to come. She was attentive, imaginative, and very eager to please her parents, and there was never a dull moment in their household with Jadyn's cheerfulness being so abundantly shared. Though she was by no means any better than the other children, she was always expecting praise for every good thing she did and was a shameless attention seeker. If no one paid any attention to the young girl, there would have been Hell raining down upon them and so they gave it to her willingly.

As she grew, so did her creativity. She had decided at a young age that she was going to be a ballerina -- the most talented the world had ever seen, in fact. So as the years rolled on, she was entirely devoted to this dream and she quickly turned it into her number one goal that she was determined to see fulfilled. But life never was simple, no matter how badly one wanted it to be, and so it was during the summer of [year here] that the Samsons very suddenly whisked they and theirs as far away from New York City as they could, just days before bombs would begin dropping on America. They rode planes, trains, ferries, all manner of transportation in order to make it to the far-northern part of Canada known as Newfoundland. It was there that the Samson family would attempt to rebuild what it was they lost in their American land, even as the world was left in near total-ruin in the devastating war.

It suffices to say that the Samsons' lives had been turned entirely upside down since the devastation wracked upon their planet. While Jane attempted to keep her family as happy as can be in such a time, she could not save her husband from falling into a deep depression. At the tender age of eight, Jadyn learned what it was to be an adult, as she very quickly became less of the dreamy, fun-loving middle child and more of the responsible middle. She fended off her siblings when they fought one another, left the household with her mother in order to assist her in running to the nearest open trade post to get whatever food they could for their brood and did her best to teach herself and her siblings what she remembered from her early years in school while her elder sisters taught her what they knew. Life was not simple, nor was it very kind to the Samsons. Barely a year would pass since The War ended and they would see the death of their father, Jason, closely followed by the youngest child, Jared.

Despair ravaged Jane. There were times when even she could not find it within herself to smile for the sake of her remaining family, and it was this attitude that Jadyn learned to adapt to quickly. With her childhood long since past by the time she was twelve, Jadyn had abandoned all of her own hopes and dreams in her determination to do whatever it took to help her family. It was when rumour of the newly formed World Government having restored a nearby city by the name of St. John's came that there seemed to be some light shed upon their otherwise bleak situation. Rejuvenated, Jadyn encouraged her mother and siblings to seek out ways of getting to the city, and it would take only but three weeks for them to reach it. It was there that they were able to find some sort of solace, a sense of normality for the first time in what felt like eons. Jeanne and Jacqueline quickly acquired jobs at local shops while Jadyn and Jeremy were enrolled into a local school together. Things finally seemed to be getting better, and it was with this new hope that Jadyn was once again able to dream, to try and reach for what it was she wanted.

Her transition back into school had been a relatively difficult one, but she saw through as well as anyone could, and it helped that she was but one out of thirteen other students in the entire school at the time. She would study as hard as she could every moment of the day for the first month she had re-entered school, and never did she consider looking back at what was but rather enjoyed focusing on what could be. Time would continue to roll on and she was do he best in school, sometimes earning good marks and other times getting less-than-impressive ones, but no matter what she did she knew that she was only going to get one step closer to what she wanted for herself and that was all that mattered to her now that her family didn't really need her anymore. She finally had time to herself and she was going to take as much advantage of it as she could, for what other time would she have? Hadn't she seen enough suffering? Hadn't she done enough for everyone else? Now she needed to focus on herself; now she had a God-given right to be selfish.

Unlike her sisters, however, Jadyn was not a beautiful girl, though she was by no means ugly. She was, in her own words, a homely teenager with very little more going for her than very pointed bone structure and a pair of piercing blue eyes. With platinum blonde hair and dead-pale skin, it was her physical appearance that set her aside from her otherwise dark-haired siblings and mother, and assisted in her reputation around town. At the age of nineteen, Jadyn Samson was widely considered to be the Ice Queen of St. John's due in part to her sharp tongue, her brusque honesty and her very evident lack of concern for others and their problems. She was known for being incredibly selfish, for being a woman whose scathing remarks would earn her the dislike of almost any who came across her. None of this bothered her, however, for they knew nothing of what she had been through and what sort of self-sacrifces she had to make. They were, in her very important opinion, nothing more than little ants and she was one day going to walk all over them.

This prediction would only be half-true, though. It became apparent to her very quickly that a ballerina was not in heavy demand when she finally passed through high school and sought out a place that might help her hone her dancing skills. Lithe and bendy as she was, it didn't seem to be of any use to her and it was with this realisation that she flew into a rage. All of those years of training herself before sacrificing her time to help her little family had been wasted; she had set herself up for disappointment all those years and it was only now that she was having to pay the price of having such foolish desires. But it was still with a heavy heart that she laid to rest her dream and resigned herself to the fact that it was more than just unattainable at this point, and that by the time it would be available to her once more, she would no longer be able to chase after it.

So Jadyn moved on from her wound, her shot-down dream becoming nothing more than a fading, distant memory of which she was doing everything in her power to cast aside. She needed now to worry about what else she planned to do with herself, to decide what it was she was going to do about her future. It was at the age of twenty that she opted to move away from St. John's, if only to set herself apart from her reputation and reorganise herself and her life. She set her sights on London, the capital of the World Government, and after some brief goodbyes to her family, boarded one of the very few ships allowed to travel to and from Canada to England.

London proved to be a bit more challenging than she initially believed. Her foreign accent had quickly landed her unwanted attention, and so it was with indignance that she chose to lock herself away in a hotel room and practise a faux English accent in order to better her standing among the people she was intending to call fellow citizens. She quickly found that she was quite good at mimicking dialects, and took well to a south London way of speech like a fish does to water... or whatever it was dwelling in the seas now. Jadyn made rounds all about London, landing odd-jobs here and there while she worked her way into select social circles and earned herself enough money and the right sort of friends to get herself into the newly opened university. It was there that she would bide her time behind books of all nature, dipping her hands into every available subject if only to have multiple "back-up plans" should the one she shot for fall through.

Two years would pass her by, and by then she had discovered the trick to earning more positive attention from those around her to further herself up the social ladder. In order to succeed, she learned to be friendly, to offer kindness and flattery where and to whom it was best given. She had to smile softly, to act as though she truly gave two shakes about Professor World Government Man's two year old daughter who seemed to do nothing more than drool and slobber all over the place. Needless to say, Jadyn was a master of offering that sort of false interest, that fake compassion and empathy, and her true nature was being oppressed beneath layers upon layers of this faux attitude. It was in this fashion that she had inadvertently turned herself more cold, more inclined to insult and emotionally harm those she knew she would be able to get away with doing to. Who would be foolish enough to think that they could possibly accuse the kind, gentle Jadyn Samson of such behaviour? For those who had seen her true colours, she was known for her serpent tongue, for her ability to say one thing and do another, and yet there was little anyone who knew this could do about it. She had, after all, secured a spot in many important people's hearts with her faux kindness.

It was during those last two years that she had met a young man by the name of Carl West. He was a fairly attractive sort with the power and prestige that Jadyn craved more than anything of that time. She would strive to gain his attention, did all she could to get her foot into the doorway of his influence. A figurehead among the Black Suits of London, he was among the first to reach a high rank without having been with the World Government since its establishment, and at such a young age of twenty-seven, this made him somewhat famous among those within London. He was among the social elites and Jadyn Samson was going to do whatever it took to earn his favour. And it would appear that her labour would pay off, for before the year was even halfway through he had already developed a fancy for her, perhaps due in part to the many acquaintances he had rattling on about how wonderful and sweet this woman was. Though she was not considered beautiful by most of society's high standards, it was her nature and very prominent features that seemed to attract him to her, and he sought her out for a date nearly every night of the week.

This only marked the first of Jadyn's many successes. Earning herself a spot into Carl West's heart quickly garnered her the attention of his co-workers and eventually his superiors. She was eloquent and personable, able to make conversation easily and disallowing much to make her uncomfortable. It was this unwavering way of straight-talk that made her a prime candidate for being the future Voice of Europe, the mantle of which currently belonged to a rather boring old man. Things never came very quickly, though, and she understood that she would have to bide her time and make her way up from the bottom of the food chain in order to secure herself such a prestigious title. So it was through Carl that Jadyn found herself a job within the World Government in London the very same year she managed to finish university. Everything was going accordingly...

Until, of course, Jadyn experienced a strange bout of sickness one morning. And another morning. And another. There didn't seem to be an end to it for her, and she feared that she had perhaps contracted a disease of some kind, perhaps left over from the radiation of the bombs that dropped in America as they fled? She had never shown any signs before, but she thought it best to be safe, so a doctor's visit and three day's wait later she was informed of a rather unexpected pregnancy -- something she had neither planned nor was prepared for in the least. It was in her state of panic and confusion that she went immediately to Carl and demanded that he marry her, if only to save face with their colleagues. As taken aback by her sudden bossyness as he was, his learning of her condition allowed her to pass it off a merely her hormones making her lash out at him, and so he forgave her and wasted no time in sliding a ring on her finger. Before a baby bump was even remotely visible, the two of them had wed, and were considered by many within their line of work to be the ideal couple. Jadyn gave birth to a daughter some months later, one that the two named Roxana.

Carl and Jadyn continued to pursue the image of the ideal family, with only one half of the couple believing it to be entirely true. Her husband would press her into have two more children, another daughter named Lilah and a son named Morgan, and while Jadyn would comply and happily accept that this was going to help make her the ideal wife most people only dreamed of to the public, it was on the inside that she truly hated everything that was going on. She had never had an interest in having children, and was loath to sharing the attention her husband divided between the four. Always was she to come first. Always was she to have all the attention. But in spite of her dislike for this sort of lifestyle, it hardly meant she didn't actually love her children. Much as she would mask it, Jadyn was a devout mother who, while not putting her children before herself, would do what she could to ensure they had a better life than she had. So it was no surprise that she spoiled them more than what could be considered healthy or even responsible, yet she still maintained authority in their lives. It was Mummy who decided whether or not Roxana got that princess make-up set, whether or not Lilah received the porcelain doll she'd seen in a shop in Paris, whether or not Morgan was going to ever see the likes of one of the first non-mutated puppies made available to the public.

Not terribly deep into their marriage, Carl would discover that his infatuation with Jadyn was beginning to wear down. He loved his children, certainly, but whether he loved his wife or not was another matter entirely. Over the years, he'd learned that she was incredibly manipulative and deceitful, often times using a sweet tongue to mask poisonous words. It wasn't long before he contemplated divorcing her, especially after she dismissed his concerns about their marriage with nothing more than a faux kind smile and a patronising "yes, dear." Late in the evening following Morgan's second birthday, Carl would pack a suitcase big enough to hold nearly half of his wardrobe and leave their household to board a train heading from London to Madrid. Unfortunately for him, the train station he arrived at would be attacked by Raiders in the dead of night and he would be among the dozens of victims they left behind.

Jadyn was used to this, to the despair that was supposed to come with losing a loved one. There were tears, uncontrollable sobs, and a cracked voice for all those paying attention to see. Jadyn maintained the image of a devastated widow, crying to those who would listen about her husband's untimely death and how much sadness it'd brought to their household. She was not against allowing her children to display their own levels of grief, with Morgan and Lilah being unable to understand whether their father was, and Roxana realising that he was not coming back. Sadness. Yet another act for Jadyn to be a part of, though she could not deny a tiny part of her was a little upset at the idea of having lost the only man who gave her the most normal a life she could attain. It didn't take too terribly long for Jadyn to declare she was not going to allow this tragedy to bring her spirits down, and she pursued her career within the World Government to become a Black Suit, among the first of women to enter the academy. With family friends and nannies looking after her children, she needn't worry much for them, and so she was able to use her husband's death as a means of providing a false sense of vengeful determination that others would see as admirable. Two years would it take for her to complete her training, move into the actual field jobs that came with being a Black Suit, and becoming recognised as a Black Suit who was able to both reason and intimidate whatever criminals she happened across. That wasn't to say, of course, she'd yet come across a "full-fledged" Raider, the ones who roamed the outskirts and wastelands, killing all those who they came across in their madness. No, Jadyn had not yet had the experience, and she certainly wasn't complaining.

But as always, she wanted more. She didn't want to be just a Black Suit, just another amongst the plethora of ties. Jadyn wanted to rise above her co-workers, to make herself up to be something more, something better than those she stood by. She wanted to be raised upon a pedastal and given all the respect in the world from both co-workers and superiors alike, and she was going to make damn sure it happened. And so this determination would turn into a new goal, fuelled by the fires of her selfish desires that would turn into a full-out plan for achieval. It was during her pursuit that she received news of her own mother falling ill and, seeing an opportunity, decided to pack her belongings and children and return to St. John's, to show those who doubted her just what she had accomplished. But did her mother's illness concern her? Perhaps, perhaps not. No one would ever know what discussions they shared behind the door leading into Jane's bedroom, only what effect her death had upon her daughter. After several long, exhausting months in St. John's, between work and sitting at Jane's side nearly everyday, the older woman finally passed away, leaving whatever was left of her belongings to her three remaining children, who would divide it evenly between themselves so as to avoid long court battles.

St. John's is where the West family would remain for only one more year following Jane's death, Jadyn successfully proving to her former classmates and acquaintances that she had indeed accomplished more than most of them could say for themselves. While juggling her home life and work, Jadyn pushed through whatever obstacles were in store for her, and it was this that proved her worth to her superiors. Before long, she was racing up the ranks within the Black Suits, and with the years that added onto her age came the authority and respect she wanted so badly as she moved up. It was when she was at the peak of her career that she decided to return to Europe, again packing up her small brood and traveling overseas to take up the mantle of the World Government's Voice. But when she arrived, she was met with some rather unexpected news.

It seemed as though in her absence her superiors in Europe had decided to look elsewhere, to find someone younger, attractive, and much more appealing to the public. As personable as Jadyn was, she was neither drop-dead gorgeous or young enough anymore to relate to the younger generation that made up the vast majority of the population. Try as she might, she could not disuade them from this decision, and they instead turned to one Kilian Troger, a young German man who was nothing more than an intern within a World Government office in Berlin. It was he that was raised up to the highest point of attention and praise, not Jadyn. Embittered and left with more than just a little bit of disappointment, Jadyn would harbour a deep resentment for the German boy for years to come, but she would turn her attention to whatever other means of power she could acquire. Years would pass, her prestige would grow with her children and she would quickly become a leading member of a division wtihin the Black Suits that would carry out covert operations without the public and even most of the World Government leaders' knowledge. Her desire for attention began to wane as she got older, her desire for power becoming more unsatiable by the minute. Jadyn has only one goal now, and that is to ensure that she, and only she, becomes nothing less than the most important figure on the World Government's chessboard.

Social

→ relationships

family

• Jason Samson — Father, deceased.
• Jane Samson — Mother, deceased.
• Jeanne Samson — Older Sister, deceased.
• Jacqueline Vaughan — Older Sister, alive and living in London.
• Jeremy Samson — Younger Brother, alive and living in St. John's.
• Jared Samson — Younger Brother, deceased.

---

• Carl West — Husband, deceased.
• Roxana West — Daughter, 19. Jadyn has a rather difficult relationship with her eldest daughter, due in part to Roxana's desire to partake in activities that her mother would not see approvingly. From attending parties and wearing clothes that barely cover her body, to the fact that Roxana doesn't seem inclined to follow in her mother's footsteps, Jadyn nevertheless keeps her authority over the younger.
• Lilah West — Daughter, 18. The younger girl seems to be ready to please her mother in any way she can, studying hard to bring Jadyn back good grades and approving remarks from her professors. This girl is everything that Jadyn wants in a daughter, and she appears inclined to spoil this one more than she does Roxana -- and she doesn't hide it.
• Morgan West — Son, 17. Describing his relationship with his mother in one word would be simple: strained. Without a father figure in his life, Morgan has had a difficult time through his adolesence, and his mother's unwillingness to help him out with personal issues have left him more than just bothered by the older woman. The two of them do not fight or make a show of the tenseness between them, but it's very clear to anyone who enters their presence that they do not see eye-to-eye on most issues.

friends

Miscellaneous

→ random facts

Optional, but fun!

→ in-game events

Significant occurrences in your character's time in Bitter Season