NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Golden Bee" data-source="post: 9505309" data-attributes="member: 7041055">THE DEVIL’S CHALICE by Paul W-W Williams”It would be easy. We actually have some reels prints in the plane.”“Please do not attempt  film piracy in front of my lawyer.”Do you ever wonder who poses for the cover of pulp novels? It turns out it's Giovanni Barbosa-Lima, the latest and brawniest adventurer so far!He was in Boston, meeting with his buddy Giula “Lala” Santinella. They met up with three other stalwarts: lawyer Tácito Uriel Velasco, millionaire industrialist Rafe Lancaster, and sneaky butler Aldous Bingen. It was late October, and a spooky story was dominating the headlines: an abandoned ship crashed into Boston Harbor, with the captain dead and lashed to the wheel! The players bartered with a hobo for information, with Rafe breaking a five in front of the man before paying him off. Apparently a hairy man and a giant were-bat had fled the vehicle right before it crashed.As they were headed back to the hotel, they saw a nebbish professor being dragged into a convertible by thugs. And instead of giving chase. the butler and the millionaire had a "no you" for who was going to drive Rafe’s expensive sports car. Luckily, the lawyer had a roadmap, and was able to guide the group to cut off the kidnappers. Rafe pulled up alongside the other car…at which point Giovanni, man of muscle, grabbed the other car and held it in place while Bingen encouraged the man to jump over! The professor did, just in time for the industrialist to swerve and send the ne'er-do-wells into an apple cart. The professor was named Tomic Iordanescu and he was a specialist in Eastern European folklore. He had been waiting for a package from the crashed ship, and his capture couldn't be a coincidence. Without any other clues, the players rowed out to the stranded vessel, eager to get its clues before the villains could.The steamer was already listing when the five arrived, and while they found some evidence (like the fact all five crew members had been drained of blood and had puncture wounds on their necks), the shoddily repaired vessel began to capsize!Rafe used his knowledge of engineering to create a mental map of the boat and relied on Giovanni's sharp senses to navigate him through the darkness. Above deck, Tácito slipped and barely grasped onto the railing, forcing the smaller Bingen to try and pull him up. He did… then lost balance himself, falling to a lower deck and barely clinging on. As an extremely prudent person, he couldn't muster the audacity to yell and alert others to his position. Jade Jaguar Tácito had to scramble down himself. The two were about to fall into the icy harbor when La La appeared beneath them, rowing hard in the rescue boat! The group watched in horror as the SS Dimitri sank beneath the waves.There was other madness in Boston. The sole survivor of the ship had gone mad, and was biting people, convinced he was a vampire. The group beat him up and wrestled him to the ground… And when he promised to behave, Rafe antagonized the man so hard that the "vamp" bit his neck! Not deadly, but certainly painful.After putting the clues together, the players were off to the home of the undead… Romania!Their research led them to a monastery north of Bucharest, but first, Lala decided to stop by a public library… and accidentally but quite stubbornly, tried to start a sideline in international motion picture distribution. It turns out selling films was still hard…even if you have a library card.The players weren't welcomed at the monastery, until the monks got a load of Giovanni. As ascetics, they had never seen someone with muscles upon muscles. They were happy to help as long as they could draw him.Under the "grave" of Vlad Tepes III was a scroll that led to a golden-handled sword which was found in a foggy graveyard*.  Tired of painful horse-and-buggy rides through the countryside, the players elected to land their DC-3 as close as possible to Dracula’s castle, forming a runway out of damp mud and determination. Devika, owner of the jet, did not want to go and traipse around in the muck to get bitten by a “tuxedo-wearing freak”, and elected to stay with the vehicle.It turns out the monster the group was after was Colonel Drakkenheim of Stuttgart. Thanks to the himbo Barbosa, the group was discovered and placed into a death trap. The horrifying machine was designed to suck their blood dry and concentrate their suffering. The Nazi commander would go to Dracula’s throne room and drink the blood out of the devil’s chalice, giving himself immortality!But he hadn’t counted on a male model. Giovanni had muscles in places most people didn't have places and he was able to pop the medical restraints with powerful flexing! The group freed each other with utmost alacrity. As a trade-off, however, all of them got their own blood sprayed on their clothing.The guards were dispatched, and Rafe Lancaster had a few moments to examine the machine. Drakkenheim was going to drink the mixture… But that meant anything that went through the tube would end up in the final mix. The group took a few extra minutes to despoil the tincture.Above, the colonel gloated and gloated about his plan. How he had used a special needle glove to siphon the blood of the sailors, making the ship crash evoke Bram Stoker. The players arrived, and still he monologued, how he had…The villain did… But instead of a glorious vampyr, he was turned into a pulsing blood beast! He screamed in semi-solid fury vowing revenge on everyone around him!This was just what the Jade Jaguar was waiting for. The cursed goblet had turned the Nazi into a supernatural being, the kind especially susceptible to Brujo boxing. Giovanni proved himself a great addition to the group, when he took Dracula’s throne and threw it through the oozing monster! The creature was a furious, lamprey-mouthed beast. It took every ounce of luck the players had to survive until Giovanni came up with a simple solution.The throne room, once a symbol of medieval elegance, looked like the inside of a strawberry milkshake. Our heroes didn't have much time to gloat themselves, as Nazi reinforcements were swarming the castle. Lala shot out the stained glass window, leading a group rappel down the castle walls. After that, they still had a mile’s hike through the Romanian wilderness, when they ran into the last obstacle.[As a Paul W-W Wade adventure there were way too many dungeons and fights, so this part got truncated. To run roughly 4 hours in a fast system, I cut a street fight, a lake fight, a graveyard battle, a battle against skeletons, an automotive gunfight, and two mini dungeons.]The Beast:</blockquote>

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