davywavy | [Cam-related] Something of an Anti-Climax

It started at the ICC, I suppose. With a mixture of luck, bravado, and brass neck, my Setite, Karl de Cruyce, managed to steal some of the ashes of Arikel, the Toreador Antediluvian from under the very noses of her distraught clan. This led me to the question of what to do with them. I had several ideas – auction them? Taunt the Toreador? Snort them through a rolled up £20 note? Distribute a limited edition memorial plate dedicated to one of the more popular antediluvians, complete with collectors-item Genuine Antediluvian Ash®? The possibilities were many, all of them likely leading to K de C’s comical and messy death at the hands of a bunch of outraged Torries..
Further thought led me to what I thought was the most flamboyantly suicidal move of all. I would go to Egypt and try to wake Set. If there’s one way to guarantee a good death story, I figured, it’s being at ground zero when a thirsty Elder God pops out of the ground. If I succeeded, I reckoned, I’d have a story I could tell in the bar at GenCon for years.
Not being by nature selfish with my plot, I asked some chums; and so it was that Iscariot, Marcus Rayne, Jacob Black, and K deC headed off to Egypt, carrying the ashes of Ravnos (another story) and Arikel, lots of blood, and wearing shirts with loose collars. Some of the characters coming out of nigh-retirement, old differences put aside, like weary gunslingers in The Wild Bunch coming out for one last chance at glory, death, and maybe even redemption. None of us expected our characters to come back. In fact we bickered like excited schoolgirls over who would have the honour of being first to get eaten.
After summoning up a hell of a storm to get Set’s attention, we met a man made of scorpions who told us that Set would return to us on December 21st so we’d better make ready*. And ready we were. Anticipation was high. Our necks freshly scrubbed, a huge vat of blood infused with the ashes of two dead antediluvians, and 50 torpored vampires in a neat line, we waited for Set.
And then he arrived.

(To paraphrase)
“Hello Karl.”
“Oh, Hello, Set”
“I want you to go and work for another player character who you’ve never met and lives 7000 miles away from you.”
“Err…is that it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not a bit hungry?”
“Oh, I ate all those bodies whilst you weren’t looking.”
“Oh. OK.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, thanks for coming. Nice to see you.”
“Yes. Bye, Karl.”
“Bye, Set”

I don’t want, at this stage, for this to turn into any sort of criticism of the ST chain and those involved in helping us set this up. Dave Thompson and Alex (AMST Metaplot) did exemplary jobs; trying to get players from around the world to interact, trying to expand plot, and trying to give everyone something.
However, I have to confess to a feeling of anti-climax. What we were expecting was an immortal Demon of Shadow, driven beyond human comprehension and sanity by thousands of years of unrelenting lust for blood. What we got was Basil Exposition, and where’s the feeling of achievement in that?
Like the Wild Bunch expecting a glorious last stand and instead discovering that the Mexican banditos only fancied a cup of tea and biscuit, our characters were left alone in the desert, muttering “…is that it?”

There’s a couple of things for me to learn here. First, when I get my hands on plot I should just follow my instincts and do funny stuff with it. Second, the job of the ST chain in an international society is to support everyone and not just me, so I shouldn’t be surprised when things I do get turned into something inclusive. Thirdly, the next time I try to disrupt international metaplot, I should leave telling the ST chain until it is far, far too late for them to do anything to stop me.
After all, my Ventrue has a far bigger plot bomb waiting in the wings than just some scummy ashes, and I’m damned if he isn’t going to go out, as it were, with a bang.

^{*Someone beat us to the punch in waking him and (so long as it was a PC rather than the plot juggernaut) fair do’s to them, I say.}