Which is a great shame. On the other hand, does not, according to the both international and US law all the creations of Lovercraft became public domain, as it is more than 70 years since its death? (I mean actual Lovercraft creations not thing that he borrowed from those who died four or more years after him).
Actually, there are a few for his works that are still under copyright as they have not yet made the 70 year mark since their publication. However, the majority of his work is open. Also you have to be careful as well because the work of latter authors who expanded on the mythos I believe are still under copyright although I am not sure of the specifics about that and I have yet to start readings those.
Actually, there are a few for his works that are still under copyright as they have not yet made the 70 year mark since their publication. However, the majority of his work is open. Also you have to be careful as well because the work of latter authors who expanded on the mythos I believe are still under copyright although I am not sure of the specifics about that and I have yet to start readings those.
Which is a great shame. On the other hand, does not, according to the both international and US law all the creations of Lovercraft became public domain, as it is more than 70 years since its death? (I mean actual Lovercraft creations not thing that he borrowed from those who died four or more years after him).
It is counted from the later date of either death/publication and not from death?
Slaadi are completely forgotten again. {weeps quietly}
Slaadi are in an odd place. They were not declared PI in the 3.5 SRD (beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti), and the Slaad Lords were licensed in the Tome of Horrors, but WotC did declare them PI in Unearthed Arcana.
It is counted from the later date of either death/publication and not from death?
It varies a lot depending on the jurisdiction and when the work was published.
It is counted from the later date of either death/publication and not from death?Actually, there are a few for his works that are still under copyright as they have not yet made the 70 year mark since their publication. However, the majority of his work is open. Also you have to be careful as well because the work of latter authors who expanded on the mythos I believe are still under copyright although I am not sure of the specifics about that and I have yet to start readings those.
Which is a great shame. On the other hand, does not, according to the both international and US law all the creations of Lovercraft became public domain, as it is more than 70 years since its death? (I mean actual Lovercraft creations not thing that he borrowed from those who died four or more years after him).
I believe so, because I have seen a list somewhere before on the net of which were open and which were not and the list was far from complete. However, I am not expert on copyright law and I feel there are very few who understand it because of how messy it is and that is not including international copy right law which often gets ignored by certain countries.
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I am surprised they even got stuff like the owl bearOwlbears are specifically made open content in the 3.5 SRD.
Several monsters aren't, however. Beholders, Mind Flayers, Githyanki/zerai, Displacer Beasts, Umber Hulks, Carrion Crawlers (who would have thought), Kuo Toa are all closed content and property of WotC.
I love all these monsters, and still use them in my home games.
Mighty Thoth has left his mental signature.
One more thing: I hate wotc.
We could have some fun.
Change up the mindflayer to have a squids head. Have them live in the same environment as fish like humanoid with bulbous eyes. Add them to PF product. Then set back and see who comes crashing through the door first, WotC or Lucas Arts.
It's a trap!
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Instead of a humanoid with an octopus head, make it an octopus with a human head, that cuts off people's heads with it's saw-edged tentacles, and then shoves them down into the torso through the wound to control the body (and hide its aberrant nature from other humans), appearing like a normal person (although they wear scarves to hide the ragged wound where their new head joins their stolen body...).
When finally 'killed,' the tentacle-head tears all penangalen-like from the body of the host and attempts to stun or paralyze another humanoid to replace its lost body.
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Instead of a humanoid with an octopus head, make it an octopus with a human head, that cuts off people's heads with it's saw-edged tentacles, and then shoves them down into the torso through the wound to control the body (and hide its aberrant nature from other humans), appearing like a normal person (although they wear scarves to hide the ragged wound where their new head joins their stolen body...).
When finally 'killed,' the tentacle-head tears all penangalen-like from the body of the host and attempts to stun or paralyze another humanoid to replace its lost body.
This I like and it just happens that a nautically themed AP is just around the corner!
Of course the couerl shows up in one of the AP bestiary - the couerl being the inspiration for the Displacer Beast.
This is one of the things that really pisses me off about "Intellectual Property Rights" - back in the 70s when gaming got started, few people cared about IP, and a lot of early creatures were "inspired" (i.e. directly lifted) from fantasy sources. And then later, those stolen ideas were copyrighted.
Consider the Githyanki. They're lifted directly out of George R.R. Martin's first published novel, he never gave permission and was never paid, but now (somehow) they are WOTC intellectual property?
The word "githyanki" was used in Dying of the Light to refer to a psionic race. They weren't actually described.
I've heard rumors about product identity being tied to the exact circumstances of the creation of those particular creatures. But I'm not sure how accurate it was.
Games Workshop does this BS too. Like the Beastmen - back in the early 80s Citadel had the rights to produce miniatures for RuneQuest, and created a bunch of Broo models. Broo are renamed beastmen, lifted more or less directly from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels. When Citadel lost the rights to make RuneQuest models, they released their Broo models anyways, under the name Beastmen - in the process making them exactly like Moorcock's beastmen (right down to the symbols of Chaos they used). Now, thirty+ years later, GW claims Beastmen (and the chaos star! which is an actual religious symbol used by actual religions!) as intellectual property.
It's a bunch of thieves clutching onto stolen property and loudly insisting no one has a right to "steal" their ill-gotten goods.
More or less. But that sort of behavior isn't exactly uncommon.
That said: there are decent stand-ins for most of the product identity monsters from the first Monster Manual (either in official Pathfinder material, or in some of the better third-party 3e/3.5 OGL content). Later material? Not so much.
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This is one of the things that really pisses me off about "Intellectual Property Rights" - back in the 70s when gaming got started, few people cared about IP, and a lot of early creatures were "inspired" (i.e. directly lifted) from fantasy sources. And then later, those stolen ideas were copyrighted.
....
I still recall a very apologetic piece by TSR for daring to name a dwarf in a module as one of The Hobbit dwarfs. Tolkiens estates was menacing to sue them.
The "little" problem is that Tolkien names weren't originals. They were taken for Nordic legends with several century of life.
It s like taking the name Hercules and copyrighting it for fiction use.
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One more thing: I hate wotc.
I love WotC. They created 3rd edition of D&D, which I had countless happy hours playing. They also made almost all the monsters in the Monster Manual open content, and added a swathe more to open content when Necromancer asked if they could incorporating them in the Tome of Horrors.
They have a vast amount of intellectual property; I'm not going to complain if they keep some of it, or even most of it, to themselves. They didn't have to make any of it open.
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One more thing: I hate wotc.I love WotC. They created 3rd edition of D&D, which I had countless happy hours playing. They also made almost all the monsters in the Monster Manual open content, and added a swathe more to open content when Necromancer asked if they could incorporating them in the Tome of Horrors.
They have a vast amount of intellectual property; I'm not going to complain if they keep some of it, or even most of it, to themselves. They didn't have to make any of it open.
This. They didn't have to make anything open content. In fact, they didn't have to do the whole OGL thing at all. Pathfinder wouldn't exist if they hadn't, nor would dozens of other d20 variants or older system retro-clones.
However, they soon realized it was a huge mistake (from a certain point of view) that because of the nature of the OGL could not be undone.
But they made sure nothing like that would happen again in 4E.
Which possibly could be the reason why 3.5e was so huge and 4E is not doing so well.
The word "githyanki" was used in Dying of the Light to refer to a psionic race. They weren't actually described.Of course the couerl shows up in one of the AP bestiary - the couerl being the inspiration for the Displacer Beast.
This is one of the things that really pisses me off about "Intellectual Property Rights" - back in the 70s when gaming got started, few people cared about IP, and a lot of early creatures were "inspired" (i.e. directly lifted) from fantasy sources. And then later, those stolen ideas were copyrighted.
Consider the Githyanki. They're lifted directly out of George R.R. Martin's first published novel, he never gave permission and was never paid, but now (somehow) they are WOTC intellectual property?
George R.R. Martin used that name in at least one other of his SF works, I think that Tuf Voyaging or some short story other than Dying Of The Light. There was also a passage refering either to Githyanki or another race that would suggest them to be brutal psychic dominators, more resembling D&D Ilithids than Githyanki.
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One more thing: I hate wotc.I love WotC. They created 3rd edition of D&D, which I had countless happy hours playing. They also made almost all the monsters in the Monster Manual open content, and added a swathe more to open content when Necromancer asked if they could incorporating them in the Tome of Horrors.
They have a vast amount of intellectual property; I'm not going to complain if they keep some of it, or even most of it, to themselves. They didn't have to make any of it open.
It's more that just that. Besides, I am not talking about the year 2000. I've hated what they have become since coming out with 4e.
I also think that many of the really exceptionally good books were released at the very end of 3rd Edition. And then they decided they want to do something else.
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One more thing: I hate wotc.I love WotC. They created 3rd edition of D&D, which I had countless happy hours playing. They also made almost all the monsters in the Monster Manual open content, and added a swathe more to open content when Necromancer asked if they could incorporating them in the Tome of Horrors.
They have a vast amount of intellectual property; I'm not going to complain if they keep some of it, or even most of it, to themselves. They didn't have to make any of it open.
I cant help but feel if they had kept MOST of it to themselves, you might feel differently. I don't know if Paizo would be successful today if they'd had to build a system from scratch along with the monsters to go with it. Pathfinder owes a lot to 3rd edition being mostly open content, rather than the reverse.
As for me, I don't hate anyone, but I've never forgiven WotC for ending third edition and both Dungeon and Dragon magazines within a year of me buying all the books and learning the game. Good on them for 3rd edition in the first place, but the Savage Tide AP was what got me invested in DnD. My first love will always be Paizo. :)
George R.R. Martin used that name in at least one other of his SF works, I think that Tuf Voyaging or some short story other than Dying Of The Light. There was also a passage refering either to Githyanki or another race that would suggest them to be brutal psychic dominators, more resembling D&D Ilithids than Githyanki.
Tuf Voyaging and Dying of the Light were set in the same universe. It was the Hrangans who were the "brutal psychic dominators." The Githyanki, usually called "soul-sucks" by humans, were the Hrangans' little flunkies.
I cant help but feel if they had kept MOST of it to themselves, you might feel differently. I don't know if Paizo would be successful today if they'd had to build a system from scratch along with the monsters to go with it. Pathfinder owes a lot to 3rd edition being mostly open content, rather than the reverse.
More or less. Hell, sitting on the "fluff" material is perfectly understandable.
What gets me is the sheer volume of "crunch" that they also decided to sit on. It seems to me like that kind of defeats what I've been led to believe was the original purpose of the OGL (that is, the ability to "outsource" less profitable ventures such as modules).
As for me, I don't hate anyone, but I've never forgiven WotC for ending third edition and both Dungeon and Dragon magazines within a year of me buying all the books and learning the game. Good on them for 3rd edition in the first place, but the Savage Tide AP was what got me invested in DnD. My first love will always be Paizo. :)
I was also disappointed to see those go.
But I didn't switch to Pathfinder over any particular gripe with WotC: I'm simply not interested in 4th Edition. It wasn't what I thought it would be, and it just didn't appeal.
I also acquired FantasyCraft. But that comes off like it's trying too hard for flexibility at the expense of coherence. And say what you will about archetypes, but Pathfinder doesn't seem to have that problem.
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One more thing: I hate wotc.I love WotC. They created 3rd edition of D&D, which I had countless happy hours playing. They also made almost all the monsters in the Monster Manual open content, and added a swathe more to open content when Necromancer asked if they could incorporating them in the Tome of Horrors.
They have a vast amount of intellectual property; I'm not going to complain if they keep some of it, or even most of it, to themselves. They didn't have to make any of it open.
Yeah, I love WOTC too. Long before D&D 3.5, they kept Talislanta alive, and put out a lot of great stuff. Even Magic:TG was pretty cool for the first couple of years. And we can never forget that WOTC is the company that let Ryan Dancey put out the 3.5 engine under the OGL, and the OGL is the most awesome thing to happen to gaming since polyhedral dice.
The guys who made WOTC into a contender were no different than the peeps at paizo. They were hardcore gamers who did it for the love of gaming, and an important part of the industry and hobby.
If you're going to hate, hate on HASBRO. They're the bad guys. They're the ones who saw D&D as nothing but a property, and didn't give a rat's patooie about gamers or the gaming scene. They're the ones who sucked out WOTC's soul and replaced it with a World of Warcraft AI.
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What gets me is the sheer volume of "crunch" that they also decided to sit on. It seems to me like that kind of defeats what I've been led to believe was the original purpose of the OGL (that is, the ability to "outsource" less profitable ventures such as modules).
This +1.
After HASBRO bought WOTC and they started deliberately introducing power creep in the non-OGL material to make it impossible to use 3PP adventures, I really soured on WOTC. Especially when it started to become obvious they weren't going to support their own material -- Tome of Incarnum and Tome of Magic would have sold a lot more copies if 3PP support for them had been possible.
A big part of why I jumped on the Pathfinder bandwagon was because of the fact that Paizo can never lock 3PPs out of using splatbook material, which means that I don't have to hope that paizo will keep supporting new classes I like even if they turn out to not be broadly popular.
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I am beyond stunned (what's beyond stunned? paralyzed? unconscious? anywho...) that WotC never came out with a coherent setting based on the Magic the Gathering universe.
I have zero interest in the card game, but the mythology behind the setting was pretty darn cool, and I think it could have made one hell of an evocative setting using the d20 rules.
What gets me is the sheer volume of "crunch" that they also decided to sit on. It seems to me like that kind of defeats what I've been led to believe was the original purpose of the OGL (that is, the ability to "outsource" less profitable ventures such as modules).
There was pretty obviously a strategy change made by Wizards/Hasbro regarding the OGL in 2003 or 2004. All hardbound crunch except Monster Manual II released in the 3e era was released in 3.5-compatible format in the Revised SRD; nothing released in the post-3.5 hardbounds (like the Complete series) was ever added to the Wizards-released SRD.
(Unearthed Arcana, released in February 2004, was never added to the SRD by Wizards, though it was released under the OGL itself.)
I think you're misremembering.
Yep.
(Though I'd call Ghostwalk and OA setting-based hardbacks, and the stuff that didn't make it from Deities and Demigods and Manual of the Planes the "setting fluff" parts of those books. Also, the Revised SRD did wind up including the entirety of the 3.5-updated psionics.)
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The thing that has always surprised me is that WOTC never tried to keep the rights to Drow. Considering their popularity and success in novels, one would think that's one they'd hold onto tight. You could argue that it's another case of mythological creature, but the myth-base has nothing to do with the creation other than name.
The only thing I can think of is that WOTC looked around and saw every LARP group and fantasy game using the concept and decided they did a poor job in protecting the copyright. Mind you, I think they'd win such a claim in today's courts, but I'm not a lawyer.
Still, I'm glad we have them.
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The thing that has always surprised me is that WOTC never tried to keep the rights to Drow. Considering their popularity and success in novels, one would think that's one they'd hold onto tight. You could argue that it's another case of mythological creature, but the myth-base has nothing to do with the creation other than name.
The only thing I can think of is that WOTC looked around and saw every LARP group and fantasy game using the concept and decided they did a poor job in protecting the copyright. Mind you, I think they'd win such a claim in today's courts, but I'm not a lawyer.
Still, I'm glad we have them.
The link to mythology was likely strong enough so that claiming a copyright wouldn't float in a court. Also, there were other instances of "dark elves" in fiction before.
Notice that WotC does hold rights to Llolth and the whole spider-fetish thing, which arguably constitutes a large part of Drow popularity.
Deities & Demigods, I can't speak for, since I never bought that one, but I don't think it's fair to call Thor, Isis, or Hermes "product identity".
Thor, Isis, and Hermes weren't declared "product identity". Their D&D stats, however, are.
I don't think it's fair to call Thor, Isis, or Hermes "product identity".
I'm 100% sure that nobody called them "product identity", sir. Perhaps you should take more care with the words you try to stuff into other peoples' mouths.
These and Beholders are the things I really miss.
I find it odd the people at Paizo don't just make up "squidfolk" or something to replace them.
It's not as if they don't just reuse entire societies like from D&D such as Drow as it is. Granted, Drow aren't owned by WotC, but if the only thing copywritten about Mind Flayers is the name, I don't see why Paizo wouldn't just make an alternative and keep the overall society.
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These and Beholders are the things I really miss.
I find it odd the people at Paizo don't just make up "squidfolk" or something to replace them.
It's not as if they don't just reuse entire societies like from D&D such as Drow as it is. Granted, Drow aren't owned by WotC, but if the only thing copywritten about Mind Flayers is the name, I don't see why Paizo wouldn't just make an alternative and keep the overall society.
Paizo doesn't reuse Drow society, because Pathfinder Drow don't have a spider deity, spider houses, spider weapons, spider porn and another CG deity which represents all the Drizzt's out there.
Why? Because that stuff is copyrighted. The only things that aren't copyrighted about the drow is that they are elf offshots who live underground and are eeevil.
On the other hand, the entire Mind Flayer fluff is property of WotC. In any case, Intellect Devourers are the designated replacements in the "psionic brain eater" category.
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These and Beholders are the things I really miss.
I find it odd the people at Paizo don't just make up "squidfolk" or something to replace them.
Going from what a number of them have said, Paizo feels that doing so would be bad form, and I have to agree.
The OGL is incredibly generous as it is, amazingly so, and Paizo have taken full advantage of it within the spirit of the license. That and PF is reasonably compatible anyway, and there are countless fan conversions for things like mindflayers anyway.
Now Illumians and Zoveri...a bit harder to find updates and fan support for those. :(
They were used in Big Trouble in Little China which suggests prior art wrt any WotC claim.
When did 1986 precede 1975?
So it's simple.
Paizo needs to open up a branch in Japan and produce D&D content for Pathfinder there and we Americans can purchase the PDFs.
Problem solved.
So it's simple.
Paizo needs to open up a branch in Japan and produce D&D content for Pathfinder there and we Americans can purchase the PDFs.
Problem solved.
I nace of that move we could get more tentacles than just some mindflayers ;o)))
WOTC created Paizo and eventually spun it off as a separate division, presumably at some point Paizo's owners bought it off of WOTC or have it as some form of separation deal.
I like both companies a lot so dont have any particular axe to grind, I'm just curious for any Paizo trivia. This above comment isnt what happened is it?
(I know Lisa was a big part of WoTC 'in the beginning' but I thought that Paizo was always a separate entity).
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These and Beholders are the things I really miss.
I find it odd the people at Paizo don't just make up "squidfolk" or something to replace them.
It's not as if they don't just reuse entire societies like from D&D such as Drow as it is. Granted, Drow aren't owned by WotC, but if the only thing copywritten about Mind Flayers is the name, I don't see why Paizo wouldn't just make an alternative and keep the overall society.
They have integrity (and respect). Finding a loophole to use someone else's IP is still stealing, even if it's legal.
They have integrity (and respect). Finding a loophole to use someone else's IP is still stealing, even if it's legal.
*shrug*
It's not like anyone who's currently at WotC created any of that stuff anyway.
As has been mentioned in the thread, Mind Flayers are pretty much ripped off from Lovecraft in the first place.
I'll always remember Mind Flayers and Beholders as "the things Final Fantasy 1 had to rename in America due to copyrights."
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cant we just change the name to brain eaters? or ellithids, cant we make a copy of them with out using them?Google the topics "copyright law" and "derivative works". You might find the results educational.
I happen to know a little bit about copyright law and derivative works.
It's perfectly legal to take something that is protected by copyright, in this case Mind Flayers, and use it yourself. The derivative work just has to be diffident enough from the original. The could use Mind flayers and any of the other WOTC enemies, as long as they didn't use:
1) Any of the WOTC art
2) Any of the WOTC descriptions
3)ANY FLAVOR AT ALL from WOTC
So if they made them look different, made them described different, and gave them a different name, and a completely different origin and backstory, and probably reproductive cycle and what not they could use them.
(see Expy and Captain Ersatz. Warning: TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life. I'm aware it's not a legal paper before you go there. It's just a fun site.)
But by the time you've changed everything about them but their stats,what's the point?
And my understanding is that Paizo doesn't want to do this, since they are still on good terms with WOTC and that would probably sour the relationship.
I am surprised they even got stuff like the owl bearOwlbears are specifically made open content in the 3.5 SRD.
Several monsters aren't, however. Beholders, Mind Flayers, Githyanki/zerai, Displacer Beasts, Umber Hulks, Carrion Crawlers (who would have thought), Kuo Toa are all closed content and property of WotC.
I never did hear why WotC choose to make some open content and others not. Take the rust monster for example, that is definitely something that Gygax and the gang invented back in the day. Yet it's open content. The beholder was another original creation, so I understand keeping it closed content.
While mind flayers, obviously inspired by Lovecraft, are closed content. Okay, maybe I can see keeping them closed because they are so iconic, but carrion crawlers?
Does anyone really know why they picked what they did?
Heh, I found the inspiration for the Rust Monster and Bullette at a grocery store when I was just getting in to D&D. In a little bag of plastic monsters there they were..obviously Mr. Gygax had found the same cheapo plastic figures a decade earlier and used them.
Thanks, I'm going to have to use those TV Tropes next time I run Paranoia....I had fun with my Zombiepocalypse at Gam3rCon a few weeks ago!! 28 Sleepcycles Later.
They have integrity (and respect). Finding a loophole to use someone else's IP is still stealing, even if it's legal.*shrug*
It's not like anyone who's currently at WotC created any of that stuff anyway.
It doesnt matter - WoTC own it. Paizo could use someone else's ideas but I suspect it's much more fulfilling creatively to make your own horrible creatures than spend hours in a meeting trying to work out if your Ollothods are 'different enough'.
As has been mentioned in the thread, Mind Flayers are pretty much ripped off from Lovecraft in the first place.
People often say this, but there's a huge amount of Mind Flayer lore and things people associate with them which came purely from Gygax's brain amongst others (I believe James Jacobs also contributed a lot to their backstory in the 3.5 aberration sourcebook).
They're not just humanoids with tentacles on their face which eat brains.
I'll always remember Mind Flayers and Beholders as "the things Final Fantasy 1 had to rename in America due to copyrights."
I never really liked beholders (they always struck me as a bunch of random abilities cobbled together), but mind flayers are one of my all time favorite monsters. Golarion is rife with them and their intricate, alien plots as far as I'm concerned.
Mind Flayers are so Lovecraftian is hurts, You could easily just make mini Cthulhus with massive mind powers and have them be perfect stand-ins, instead of tall a rail thin, they have a little round belly and vestigial wings...bam, no where near WotC content now...Though Cthulhu is published under Chaosium's licensing, it's easier to get permissions from them.
The Mythos started as a shared idea, Lovecraft and Howard were great friends and Conan had a feel of the Mythos in it (and it's said that early drafts were explicit in their use of Cthulhu). So when Conan meets a horror man was not meant to see...well just picture one of Lovecraft's many lovely entities.
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As much as I love Beholders and Mind Flayers, that they are so iconic has led to overuse. I was really starting to get tired of Mind Flayer plots and the odd Beholder guarding some hallway. There was little shock or surprise among my players when they encountered a squid-faced fellow or a bloated eye-sphere. The lack of such creatures in Pathfinder has given much-neglected creatures, like the Aboleth, to really shine!
And by shine, I mean terrorize the nightmares of players anew.
On a side note, I find it strange and interesting that the Pathfinder world contains neoillithids, yet no illithids proper! But it all makes twisted sense if you've read anything about illithid reproductive cycle (possibly from James Jacobs in a little book called Lords of Madness, or maybe going further back to The Illithid).
Light spoilers for the reproductive taboos of mind flayers: In mind flayer communities, there are giant brains (Elder Brains, even), in massive pools of brain juice. Swimming around in this brain juice, are baby illithids, evil little tadpole creatures. When it's time to create another illithid, a humanoid is submerged in the pool, and one of these tadpoles swims into its ear, then devours the brain (slowly, while the creature is super-aware of everything). After replacing the brain with its own genetic mass, it converts the rest of the creature as well. And you've got yourself an illithid!
But sometimes, things go wrong. Adventurers (or Drow, or who-knows-what) destroy a mind flayer city, leaving a pool of illithid tadpoles festering alone in a pool of brain juice. And with no brains to eat, they turn on each other, devouring their siblings until only a single massive neoillithid remains. The mere topic of such a abomination is considered taboo among a race of creatures who are typically into dominating all life and eating it's brains.
So I've always thought that the neoillithid is the true, "natural" form of the illithid race, one created without the supplementation of a humanoid race. Long ago, the illithids who arrived on Golirion failed (or never bothered) to develop their species in this manner. Maybe they liked the shear power of the neoillithid form, maybe they forgot how to create an elder brain, or maybe the Aboleths were sick of playing second fiddle in so many universes.
Whatever the case, illithids were content to remain neoillithids, and to wait even deeper in the dark than their Wizard breathren, with plans far more wicked and alien...
Oh man, what were we talking about?