Sample Characters - Shanghai
Sample characters for a Shanghai game - working for Uncle Ho. Game rules here.
Moon Kang-min. Korean anarchist, conman and minor league opium smuggler. Briefly affiliated with the True Friends League. Had to flee Seoul in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on a senior member of the Japanese Diet when his comrades became aware that he’d sold them out to the Shisō Keisatsu for the price of a shipload of cigarettes, which turned out to be riddled with fungus and unsellable. Handsome. Upbeat.
STR 2 - DEX 0 - ACA 0 - TEC 0 - CHA 3 - CNC 2
Specialties - impersonation, the criminal underworld.
Jack Drummond. Sailor and talented amateur boxer. Born in Brisbane. Ran away to sea when he was four years old. Spent his youth cruising the Pacific. Known to his mates as Mangrove Jack. Red hair, cauliflower ears, squashed nose. Will pick a fight with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Bets heavily on himself. People still talk about his legendary duel with Iron Lars, the Lethal Swede, on a Bangkok beach at dawn in 1921.
STR 3 - DEX 2 - ACA 0 - TEC 2 - CHA 0 - CNC 0
Specialties - seamanship, bare-knuckle brawling.
Chen Meiling. Nightclub singer and Communist agent. Works at the International Cabaret and Dancing Hall on Kiangsi Road. Seduces wealthy Englishmen with torch songs and passes their business information to the Bolsheviks. Wants to find her missing sister, who vanished years ago in the chaos of the Civil War and is probably long dead. Expert pickpocket. Factory organiser boyfriend. Not as cynical as she seems.
STR 0 - DEX 2 - ACA 0 - TEC 0 - CHA 3 - CNC 2
Specialties - sleight of hand, politics.
Leviticus Browne. Barrel-chested American missionary. Ribald sense of humour. Determined to thump the Bible into these Godless heathens for their own damn good. Can set a bone as easily as break one. Born in a log cabin by the Columbia River and set out when he was twelve to travel the world for Jesus Christ. Great big bushy beard. Impossible to offend. Always forgets the punchline to the rambling jokes he tells.
STR 3 - DEX 0 - ACA 2 - TEC 0 - CHA 2 - CNC 0
Specialties - religion, public speaking.
Gurdeep Singh. Constable in the Shanghai Municipal Police. Conspiracy-minded. Accused his immediate superior officer of taking bribes from the Green Gang and was placed on unpaid leave. May or may not get his job back. Hot-headed. Rushes into things without thinking and bitterly regrets it later. Son of an Amritsar watchmaker. Parents write to him regularly, wanting to know if he’s ever going to get married.
STR 3 - DEX 2 - ACA 0 - TEC 0 - CHA 0 - CNC 2
Specialties - crowd control, law enforcement.
Natasha Maksimova. Spirit medium and occasional magician’s assistant. Husband was a captain in the Imperial Russian Navy who signed up to fight with Baron Ungern during the Civil War and was clubbed to death by Tatars in an icy field in Outer Mongolia. Still treasures her last cryptic messages from him. Sometimes chats with his ghost. Wants bloody vengeance on the Reds. Occult hobby has slowly become a fixation.
STR 0 - DEX 0 - ACA 3 - TEC 0 - CHA 2 - CNC 2
Specialties - necromancy, the upper class.
