Sons of the Singularity, a small publisher of RPGs, ran a Kickstarter last year for a Call of Cthulu sourcebook, successfully raising over $28,097. Called The Sassoon Files, it was finally printed last week, only for the publisher to claim that the Chinese government then stepped in and burned every copy.
Via Boing-Boing, here’s Sons of the Singularity’s Jesse Covner explaining what happened:
If you can’t watch the video, on the book’s Kickstarter page there’s a short statement that reads:
We have suffered an unfortunate and unexpected setback with the off-set print run. On March 20th, the Chinese government ordered the destruction of our books.
Covner says that, according to the manufacturers, a Chinese government official inspected the supernatural-themed RPG books, determined they violated Chinese law—despite being bound for a foreign market—and demanded that every copy be destroyed within 24 hours.
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The Kickstarter will still be going ahead though; the Chinese company was able to refund the deposit, and Sons of the Singularity will be looking elsewhere to get the books printed.
Comments
Ah the CCP, plumbing new depths of baffling stupidity. Good on the company for refunding the deposit.
Tough one. On the one hand, the CCP was correct - it was printed in China, and against various policies. On the other hand, its not destined for the Chinese market, so a decision like this only undermines China's international status as the worlds bulk manufacturer.
For us on the outside, its a baffling decision, but from the inside theres a lot of sense. I just hope its a one off, or plenty of things are going to start getting destroyed before export, and we need to start looking around for a new global manufacturer.
I'm sure there are numerous countries in Africa that would take the GDP.
According to one of the book's writers in a subreddit:
"Some have asked what content the Chinese official found sensitive. The Sassoon Files contains photographic images of Zhou Enlai, Chiang Kai-shek, Empress Dowager Cixi, Big Eared Du, and other historical figures. It contains images of Mythos monsters, including an incarnation of a god which appears to have nipples. It contains images of the flag of the Republic of China; that flag is shown on TV in historical TV show, but it's also the flag of the Republic of China on Taiwan. It has a fake historical poster of PLA soldiers fighting the good fight against Cthulhu. In it's textual content, it includes story-elements of time travel, reincarnation, interactions with Christian cultists (or Christians who think they are Christian but are worshiping something else), possession, alien serial murderers, and world-ending plagues (that originate in China)."
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/b5k0up/chinese_govt_burns_call_of_cthulhu_supplement_the/ejea7j5/
Images of Chiang Kai-Shek alone would have been enough to get the book destroyed. The communists don't like to talk about the guy they defeated.
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