Call of Cthulhu Characters in Shanghai during the Gaslight Era

This period of history in Shanghai offers plenty of scope for Call of Cthulhu players, especially in campaigns that mix high adventure with horror. Practically any role is available; however the following are the most representative.

Criminal:

“...Gangsters ran the underworld of Shanghai so closely that not a brothel could solicit trade, not an opium smoker could dream in peace, not a shopkeeper could turn an honest profit, without the pang [gangs] collecting tribute...”

-Edgar Snow, 1928

With corruption running high throughout the period it’s hard to say just who were the criminals and who weren’t. Anyone dealing with the opium trade explicitly or otherwise was breaking the law at some level. That being said there was a distinction between those turning a blind eye and those who made no bones about what they were up to. All nationalities are represented in this mix, engaged in a frantic blur of activity that included prostitution, drug smuggling, gun running, gambling and kidnapping amongst much else.

Skills: Bargain; Disguise; Fast Talk; Handgun; Locksmith; Sneak; Spot Hidden; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Customs Agent:

“All the legwork and often most of the brainwork, in foreign business offices was done by Chinese assistants ... Lunch was called tiffin, and it went on for two or three hours ... Life was a round of parties; food and liquor were very cheap even for the best, and credit was unlimited.”

-Edgar Snow, 1928

Many young men came to Shanghai under the patronage of the International Maritime Customs Service (IMCS). They came either though family or business connexions – sons of friends of fathers – or because of their skills in the language, learned at University. Many joined as commercial sailors, seeking work between berths on ocean-going vessels.

Sometimes, the life of a Customs Agent took them into many parts of Shanghai: as a cargo inspector commanding police agents, an Agent was empowered to search and seize under Council-issued warrants; alternatively, the Customs official engaged in routine desk-work, checking manifests and issuing licenses of trade.

Skills: Accounting; Credit Rating; Law; Other Language: Mandarin or Cantonese; Persuade; Read/Write Chinese; two other skills as personal specialties.

Dilletante:

“...Those who prefer gossip to exercise frequent the Bund, a broad quay which extends the whole length of the Settlement, and which is crowded with Chinese porters all the morning and sprinkled with European ladies and gentlemen in the afternoon. The harmony and hospitality of Shanghai make it infinitely the most agreeable place of residence in China."

-Mr. Laurence Oliphant, 1856

A high-born son in disgrace or suffering ennui could fare no better than Shanghai, the city of opportunities! Armed with letters of introduction, the Dilletante had an entree to the glittering high life that had emerged on the Yangtsze delta. Assuming they resisted the endless temptations, they could virtually be assured of returning home as prodigals rolling in cash and connexions.

Skills: Art; Craft; Credit Rating; Other Language; Ride; Shotgun; another two skills as personal specialties.

Doctor of Medicine:

"This must be so unless it can be shown that the washermen and their families are exempt from the diseases of their neighbours, such as various skin diseases, diphtheria, syphilis, small-pox, measles, scarlet-fever, chicken-pox, etc. It is lamentable that clean clothes should be made the vehicle for the spread of disease.”

-Doctor MacLeod, Report to the Municipal Council urging the introduction

of steam laundries into Shanghai, January, 1898

In the sea of moral decay that was Shanghai, doctors were always required. The proliferation of syphilis led to the establishment of several hospitals dedicated to the treatment of the disease: the Municipal Council inaugurated a short-lived program of inspection of prostitutes to certify on a month-to-month basis that individual workers were free of “Canton sores” (this inevitably became a bankable means of promotion amongst the whores and was soon stopped). Doctors and nurses in this era were often attached to the armed forces, missionary-backed hospitals or private firms, some also being privately hired by wealthy taipans as private medicos.

Skills: Biology; Credit Rating; First Aid; Latin; Medicine; Pharmacy; Psychoanalysis; Psychology; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Drifter:

During this period, fortune-hunters abounded, travelling to the gold fields of Australia and America, the diamond mines of South Africa and inevitably arriving in Shanghai at some point or other. As well, refugees seeking safe harbour in Shanghai created an, often vagrant, willing workforce, ready to turn their hands to any occupation.

Skills: Bargain; Fast Talk; Hide; Listen; Natural History; Psychology; Sneak; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Engineer:

“‘Betsey’ [the gun cobbled together from disparate parts by the besieged in Peking] ... had no sights and was too inaccurate for long-range work; but on barricades and emplacements thirty yards or so away it was capable of inflicting heavy damage, which it followed up by a discharge of grapeshot in the form of old nails and bits of scrap-iron ... it was a definite asset and the besieged felt proud of their ingenuity.”

-Peter Fleming, The Seige at Peking, 1959

Shanghai is a city built on mud (and not just the ‘foreign mud’ of opium). Taipans wanting to build their mansions and warehouses required the expertise of engineers who knew how to deal with the shaky foundations of the Whangpoo shores. During the Taiping Rebellion, engineers were employed by the armies to help defend the 30-mile radius patrol zone with earthworks and roads.

Skills: Chemistry; Electrical Repair; Geology; Library Use; Mechanical Repair; Operate Heavy Machinery; Physics; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Military Officer:

“...Before the volunteers were taken in hand by real soldiers, the Light Horse were clothed in the full-dress uniform of the 17th Lancers, and it used to make a new-comer smile to see one of these gorgeously apparelled warriors jogging along very fiercely on a tiny Chinese moke.”

-‘A Cynic’, North China Daily News, September 2, 1915

Seeking adventure and opportunity many experienced soldiers purchased commissions in the local armies defending Shanghai. Positions abounded in the Ever Victorious Army under Ward and later Gordon, as well as the Ever-Secure Army formed by Roderick Dew or the Franco-Chinese Corps of Kiangsu under commander Tardif de Moidrey. Many foreigners also bought commissions with the Taiping and Imperial Forces.

Skills: Accounting; Bargain; Credit Rating; Law; Navigate; Persuade; Psychology; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Missionary:

“The Chinese house I am occupying is as good as can be obtained, and though the neighbourhood is undesirable one gets accustomed to it. If I feel lonely or timid at night, I recall some sweet promises of Divine protection, turning them into prayer, and invariably find that they compose my mind and keep it in peace. I do not neglect any precaution for safety; but keep a light burning all night and have my swimming belt blown up, so that at a moment’s notice I could take to the water if necessary – the planks forming the bridge between me and the Settlement being removed at dark...”

-James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, 1854

Originally excluded from preaching in China, once the treaty ports were opened the missionaries arrived in their thousands. The Catholics were usually Irish, Italian and Portuguese, initially Jesuits, and were generally more forgiving of their potential converts; Protestants were usually British, German or Scandinavian and tended to take a hard line with their subjects; the Americans fielded a host of Baptist zealots, well-funded by congregations and other societies back home, who tended to rail the loudest against the moral laxity of Shanghai.

Missionaries in China were unique in their ability to be disliked almost universally. The churches they built, with their steeples and other architectural anomalies, destroyed the feng shui of the areas in which they preached; the Chinese believed they bought children and killed them to use their eyes and pieces of their intestines for creating magic. Politically, the Unequal Treaties gave them rights unavailable to most others - Chinese or Foreign - within the whole country, including freedom from prosecution. Given that they often adopted Chinese dress (including the plaited queue) and ate Chinese food, the foreign legatees viewed them with great suspicion. Inevitably, when the Rebellions of the Nineteenth Century hit, the missionaries were the first to feel it...

Skills: Art; Craft; First Aid; Mechanical Repair; Medicine; Natural History; Persuade; one other skill as a personal specialty.

Policeman:

“The fact that the administrative control of the force and its general working has been in the hands of British officers since its inception to the present day has given a deep-rooted character to the force that cannot be altered now without creating complications...”

-Commissioner of Police, F.W. Gerrard, 1933

Policemen in the International Settlement were either Sikh ex-soldiers of the East India Company or foreign recruits; in the French Concession they were mainly Chinese. Each patrolled their zones with a wary eye on their boundaries and the activities of the tong gangsters. While it is fair to say that not all of the policemen in Shanghai at this time were actively corrupt, it’s also true to say that they all knew when to turn a blind eye.

Skills: Dodge; Fast Talk; First Aid; Grapple; Law; Psychology; any two of the following as a personal specialty: Bargain; Drive Automobile; Martial Arts; Ride or Spot Hidden.

Soldier / Sailor:

“In a seaport like Shanghai there is always a floating population of ne’er-do-weels, who are ready for ‘treasons, stratagems, and spoils’ and Ward found little difficulty in filling the gaps made in his ranks by wounds and death.”

-Prof. Robert K. Douglas, 1899

Many soldiers were recruited from overseas to bulk out the defences of the International Settlements. As well, Shanghai, as the sixth largest port in the world at the time, was always overrun by sailors on shore leave. The Taiping Rebellion and other engagements meant that no shortage of opportunities were available to those of a mercenary turn of mind

Skills: Dodge; First Aid; Hide; Listen; Mechanical Repair; Rifle; Sneak; Navigate (in the case of Sailors) or one other personal speciality.