Yeah, go watch Desert Bus! Oh wait.

Desert Bus was in fact over a month ago by the time this video was actually posted.  I don’t think we try to be current-events topical at any other point, and we’re not quite as behind in the future, so hopefully nothing like this happens again (I’m actually not sure why Exetera didn’t cut this part, unless for the “bloopers reel” aspect).

This episode has the big reveal of the spoiler that I alluded to earlier, and as I commented, I am very proud of the fact that we did not give this away at all.  There are clues you can pick up on (such as the other sister always being the one you encounter), but it is a pretty well-devised reveal.

Also, the sound and the video on YouTube are out of sync; the back-and-forth of Therese and Jeanette is actually far better cut in the game.

The game refers to the unified Voreman as “Tourette”.  There are several possibilities for what created her dual personalities.  The first possibility is that she was always crazy – Malkavians are known for Embracing the insane, and so she could have simply been a girl with multiple personalities that some Malkavian took a mad fancy to.

Another possibility is that Jeanette and Therese were in fact twins in life, but one was Embraced while the other not.  The Malkavian Embrace invariably causes some form of insanity, and the twin that was chosen snapped in a way to recreate her sister (given certain things said, Therese is the more likely candidate for having been Embraced).

It’s entirely possible that the “twin sisters” thing was created from whole cloth, as well; both personalities could simply be the product of the Malkavian Embrace.

The most interesting, I think, possibility involves diablerie.  There is that line about how Therese chose this life, then brought Jeanette into it to keep them together, and about how finding Jeanette is the first thing Therese did when she got free.  In this scenario, it’s implied that Jeanette is Therese’s Childe, yet there is obviously only one body in the equation.  It is part of the canon that diablerie sometimes keeps the spirit of the diablerised vampire alive, and thus what could have happened was that Therese Embraced Jeanette, and then at some point (possibly immediately), Jeanette diablerised Therese, causing both psyches to share one body.

Tremere’s torpor is caused by this fact.  He is, actually, fighting a psychic war with Saulot, the Antediluvian he diablerised, that will last eight hundred years.  In all presented scenarios, Saulot wins.  (In many ways, Saulot is the most powerful Antediluvian of all.  Among other things, he was the first vampire to reach Golconda, a state of balance between Beast and vampire, bringing peace to the never-ending struggle that is typical of a vampire’s existence.  He’s alternatively the world’s biggest Machiavellian bastard or the most noble vampire of all.)