Sunday, August 25, 2013

Shanghai 1930 errata


Blood on the Snow, the companion book for Robin Laws' game Hillfolk, contains a series pitch called "Shanghai 1930", which is about pretty much what you would expect.

Despite being well done for the most part, whoever wrote it went off the rails in a couple of places and just started making up random stuff.
Here's a little in the way of unofficial errata:




p. 45 (replaces the first 3 paragraphs, up to "The Western interests...")

Western Characters

As part of the humiliating settlement the Western Powers forced on China after

the Opium Wars, Shanghai became a treaty port, where British citizens were permitted to trade with anyone they chose and to rent land. The British were soon joined by the Americans and other foreign nations in gaining similar privileges, and a parcel of land outside the old city of Shanghai became the International Settlement. 

Not a free city, nor a colony, the International Settlement exists in an odd legal limbo wherein every resident (or at least all of those from a country with Most Favored Nation status) is subject only to the laws of his own land. This does not stop the foreign settlers (chiefly the British and Americans) from calling for military aid from home in times of crisis. The International Settlement is the hub of the city and is what most people think of when they think of Shanghai. The Settlement maintains its own police force (the Shanghai Municipal Police) and volunteer armed forces, and is governed by the Shanghai Municipal Council, which is elected by qualified residents (defined mostly by land ownership) and consults with international consuls. 


Chinese law does not apply to any citizen of the following nations: Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United States. These foreign nationals are instead tried by a consular court if they are accused of crimes under their home countries’ legal systems.They can also, of course, get done for breaching the Settlement's own bylaws.



To the south of the International Settlement is the French Concession. Unlike the Settlement, this actually is sovereign French soil, and French law applies to all within its boundaries.





p. 46 (replace whole paragraph on The Bund)

The Bund: The western shore of the Whangpu is built up with European-style granite

skyscrapers. The name of this stretch of the International Settlement comes from the Anglo-Indian word bund, meaning an embankment. It rhymes with “fund”.