Sons of the Singularity, a small publisher of RPGs, ran a Kickstarter last year for a Call of Cthulu sourcebook, successfully raising over $20,000. 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.

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.