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I read the guidelines and I don't seem to be violating anything there.
I'm making a pretty involved adventure based on some very old writing of mine, and I've been snagging fantasy images off of Deviantart and so on. Would this be considered unscrupulous in the Pathfinder community or is this considered fair use? Please forgive my ignorance on this.
I would of course credit the artists in the adventure's PDF. I just noticed that the Paizo guidelines allow me to use artwork from the fiction section, so if I'm doing something bad here I can start over with the images you provide. Any acceptable free resources you guys know about for this would also be great. I'm not into using photographs, it just doesn't look good.
Here's an example:
Yeah, just "snagging fantasy images" is a pretty big no-no when creating content. A quick look on deviantART's copyright policy will show that you are infringing on an artist's copyright if you use their creations without permission. It doesn't matter if you credit them in the PDF. It's still pretty cut and dry copyright infringement. So if you found a really cool piece of art that you'd like to use, try reaching out to the artist, especially if it's someone on deviantART or a similar community. Explain the situation, what you're creating, that you are making it available for free, and ask them permission to use the art while explaining that the artwork would be credited back to them, maybe even with a link to their DA pages.
As far as free resources go, I don't know of any good ones myself, but if you search things like "public domain" or "creative commons" with things like "fantasy art" in Google, you may start finding the kind of stuff you're looking for. Stuff you can legally "snag" without needing to ask permission. Just know that a lot of this art will likely not be as shiny and new as a lot of the good stuff you'll find on deviantART or other stuff from current professional artists.
But yeah, as far as Paizo guidelines, you seem to be doing fine based on your samples. It's just the artists that you're technically violating right now. Good luck with your project.
I figured as much. Wishful thinking, really.
I'm removing the few "snagged" images and replacing them with legal stuff.
Rights acquisition seems like a waste of time when I could be making things, but then why should I assume that the world's art is there for me to have fun with for free.
Now it's legal! Wish Paizo had some location and scenery assets available... I will look around.
The textured backgrounds on the templates make it a bit of a pain to import the Paizo graphics, but it's not too bad.
I've been poking around there as well.
There seems to be only one adventure path made by fans, the "compilation."