So, I've been writing a novel that is based in my homebrew world of Stonehelm for about 3 1/2 years. I began it with a D&D twist, and have since changed to more a pathfinder feel. The problem is I've incorporated a number of monsters that are apparently NonOGL that play some pretty important parts in the book. At some point I'd love to get it published, but would perfer not to go with WoTC, and would love to go through Paizo.
So my question is what are the best Pathfinder monster replacements for the following NonOGL WoTC monsters?
Beholder* (death tyrant, etc.)
Carrion Crawler
Displacer Beast
Umber Hulk*
Githyanki*
Githzerai
Slaad (all types)
Mind Flayer*
Kuo-Toa
Yuan-ti (all types)
Suggestions for all would be great, but the one's with the asterisks are the one's I really need help with. If suggestions could include where they can be found (if not in the Bestiary) that would be great.
Thankyou Pathfinder family.
Where do I find Denizen of Leng? It's not in the Bestiary.
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Beholder* (death tyrant, etc.)
Carrion Crawler
Displacer Beast
Umber Hulk*
Githyanki*
Githzerai
Slaad (all types)
Mind Flayer*
Kuo-Toa
Yuan-ti (all types)
For Beholders, I use Oblivion's Eye.
Oblivion’s Eye
CR XX
XP XX
NE Medium Aberration
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +0
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DEFENSE_______________________________________
AC 15, touch 10, flat-footed 15 (+5 natural)
hp 68 (8d8+32)
Fort +6, Ref +2, Will +9
DR 10/magic; partial incorporeality; Immune mind-affecting effects
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OFFENSE________________________________________
Speed fly 20 ft. (perfect)
Melee none
Special Attacks gaze of dissolution, cry from beyond, aura of corruption, lashing tendril, instinctive counterspell
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STATISTICS______________________________________
Str 11, Dex 10, Con 19, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 15
Base Atk +6; CMB +6, CMD 10
Feats Improved Initiative (B), 3
Gear none
______________________________________________
ECOLOGY_______________________________________
Environment any
Organization any
Treasure none
Oblivion’s Eye manifests as a meter and a half diameter grey-white eyeball, with a violet iris mixed with orange patterns reminiscent of an aura of flames radiating out from the jet black pupil.
Gaze of Dissolution: As a standard action, the creature can cause it’s dark pupil to bulge inwards and rupture, unleashing a cold wind that carries tiny black motes of swarming darkness that swarm around like insects, striking a single target within 60 ft. as a disintegrate spell at CL 8. The swarming black motes dance around the subject and then are sucked back into the iris of Oblivion’s Eye. Once it has unleashed this attack, it must wait 1d4 rounds before it can repeat this action.
Cry from Beyond: As a standard action it can pulse unnaturally, its entire surface strumming and vibrating sickeningly, producing a throbbing sound that functions as a shout spell, also at CL 8.
Instinctive Counterspell: As a free action, once per round, it can cast greater dispel magic at CL 8, and it can use this ability to counterspell an incoming hostile effect, even if it has not delayed to take the counterspell action. As it can only perform this action once in a round, multiple spells can overwhelm this instinctive defense. If it counters a spell of less than 3rd level, Oblivion’s Eye can choose to turn the spell back upon its caster, as if Oblivion’s Eye had cast the spell in question, for determining range and effect.
Aura of Corruption: The unnatural aura that surrounds Oblivion’s Eye causes all natural animals to immediately flee, if it approaches within 30 ft. of them, and any creature that remains within its presence at the end of a round takes damage. Those ending their turn within 30 ft. suffer 1d6 damage, those within 20 ft. suffer 1d3 damage and those within 21 to 30 ft. suffer a single point of damage. Even if a living creature leaves the area, the damage recurs thereafter as bleed damage unless treated, as the toxic exposure to Oblivion’s Eye continues to rot the afflicted creature from within. Unliving creatures, and unattended objects, suffer the initial damage, and additional damage for each additional round spent in the presence of the Eye, but do not suffer any form of bleed damage. This damage bypasses any form of energy resistance, damage reduction or object hardness, and Oblivion’s Eye can slowly bore through stone using just this aura, without resorting to its shout or disintegrate spell-like abilities.
Lashing Tendril: Behind Oblivion’s Eye, a lashing grey tendril whips around furiously, as if propelling the eye with its frenzied flagellations. Anyone standing in the square directly behind the Eye is struck this tendril, which inflicts 2d6 slashing damage that ignores hardness and damage reduction of all sorts. Oblivion’s Eye never uses this tendril as a deliberate attack, but it automatically strikes any who enter the square directly behind the creatures facing.
Oblivion’s Eye is not made of earthly material, and is treated as being ‘partially incorporeal,’ so that any physical attack has a 20% chance of failing to harm it, including weapon attacks (whether from magical weapons or mundane ones), acid, boulders, the natural weapons of monsters or other physically damaging effects, such as falling hail or the rubble from an avalanche. Energy effects, whether force, fire, electricity or cold, affect the creature normally, although Oblivion’s Eye has Cold Resistance 10 and Electricity Resistance 10.
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Obviously, I picked 'floating man-sized eyeball that does horrible magical things to you' as my base point here. The creature is a singular aspect of an 'Old God' called up for ritual sacrifices, not a race of aberrations, but has the same basic form and function.
If I instead wanted a race that aped the basic personality and nature of the beholders, I could instead have made a humanoid race with innate sorcerous abilities that stored spells in glyphs painted upon their skin. Same powers as a Beholder, more or less, but a radically different form. I could even have differing 'tribes' of these humanoids hate each other with a great passion, perhaps looking identical to outside viewers (unlike the warring racist Beholder factions), and only being remarkable in that they use different glyph-languages, and consider their own personal language to be the true 'words of creation,' and all different magical glyph-tattooed membered of their species to be defilers and corrupters of the pure language primeval or whatever. In this case, they would have similar powers, personalities and societies to Beholders, but look nothing like them, being just tattoed humanoids, to the naked eye.
This sort of thing, IMO, is more interesting than just making a straight conversion of a floating aberration that shoots 10 specific spells at you from its ten eyestalks.
For Umber Hulks, I'd use this visual as inspiration and have them come in sizes from Small to Large, at 2, 4 and 6 HD ranges, to provide for lower tiered challenges. The larger they get, the less they travel on two legs, as they become increasingly stooped over and quadrupedal in form, until they grow to 8 HD and size Huge, and we know them as their adult form, the Bulette. (Reduce Bulette stats to get the smaller 'hulks,' some of which are captured and intentionally stunted in growth / starved to be used as tunneling beasts by Duergar and the like.)
For Mind Flayers, I'd start with the Darkmantle, only replacing the darkness SLA with some Daze and Cause Fear abilities, as well as the ability to splorch down on someone's head like an Executioner's Hood and possess them, drilling tentacles into their nervous system and riding them around like ponies, draining sustenance from them and tapping into their own mental reserves to produce stronger psychic-type effects like stunning blasts and telekinetic attacks (similar to Hand of the Apprentice / Acolyte in potency), until the humanoid host is so depleted of vital energy that it dies and the 'Psimantle' detaches and flies away in search of a new host to drain of psychic energy and life. You end up with the same base, what appears to be a squid-headed humanoid, and keep the psionic nature, but replacing the illithid reproductive cycle with a parasitic relationship with humanoid races (and, to a lesser extent, non humanoids, but since the use of psychic powers drains Int from the host, a 'psimantle' that attaches to a dog is only going to get a few shots (or days of sustenance) before it renders the animal into a persistant vegetative state and has to move on).
I got nothing for the Gith races. I never found them even a little bit interesting, and my subconscious has not come up with a 'workaround' for them. :)
The "Standard" Paizo substitution for the Mind Flayer is the Intellect Devourer. They are a very different monster, but they fit in the same role as a monster (i.e. the totally inhuman monster that controls others and eats them). Aboleth are another relatively simple substitution and usually frighten more of my players than Illithids do. I love aboleth though...(as my avatar might attest).
Take a close look at the intellect devourer and think of just how many ways you can use them that are actually a lot more interesting than Illithids. I know I have been.
Sadly there really isn't much that can substitute for a beholder. Thats a tough one. Displacer beasts are tough too. I loved the Coeurl's statistics from Legacy of Fire, but that isn't even a Paizo IP, they had to get permission to print it that one time. And while a Coeurl might look like a displacer beast, they are much different creatures.
My best suggestion for the displacer beast swap out might be Phase Spider (if the displacement, shifting idea is what is important), I'll try to think of some other options.
Carrion Crawler...ack...thats kinda tough. Another monster with no clear analogue (like the Beholder..), I'll think on it.
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To an extent, I think the intellect devourer and the neothelid could be used (possibly best in conjunction) as equivalents of the mind flayers, since the intellect devourers and the neothelids were relatives of the mind flayers before they became open content when ironically the mind flayers did not make it to the SRD. Both are in the Pathfinder Bestiary.
Similarly, I think the Eye of the Deep (an aquatic relative of the beholder) got included in one of the adventure paths, though its adaptation to OGL was done by Necromancer Games (they had some kind of special deal with WotC) in the Tome of Horrors (for 3.0).
Nagas could be used for replacements for the Yuan-ti, at least for the Abominations. Medusas could replace the more human looking yuan-ti. both of these are in the Bestiary.
Also, consider advancing monsters and/or adding templates. For the yuanti, you could put the Saurian and/or Psychic templates on human(oids), for example. Both of these templates are from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary (a book of templates for 3.5).
Proteans may be a rough analogue to slaadi in that they are Chaotic Neutral outsiders. There's one in "The Great Beyond" and several others in the Adventure Path #22. I don't have the Adventure Path 22, but the one in the Great Beyond does not have an egg laying ability. But it does have a touch that transforms a creature (as per polymorph any object).
As for the others, what of the other monsters are you trying to capture? General niche/powers (CR, psionics, egg laying, etc)? Similar themes (eg. chaos exemplars for slaadi) How similar do they need to be?
Also, these are not on your list, but might be worth mentioning, there are a few I've seen of Paizo's work that are rougly analogous to other monsters, which may be of use some time down the line.
WotC source ----> Paizo source
Bullywug -----> Boggard (Bestiary)
Flameskull -----> Smokehaunt (Pathfinder 3, the Hook Mountain Massacre)
Half-ogre ----> Ogrekin (Pathfinder 3, the Hook Mountain Massacre)
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An individual over at ENworld created a new beholder from scratch with an eye (pun!) towards making it elementally aligned.
See this thread for details: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/205468-new-look-beholder .html
I commented in the thread a few times asking for his ideas on tweaking his creation down the CR ladder a few steps as well.
The bigger question is what parts of the monsters you are trying to replace?
Ones with those powers?
One with similar roles?
Because You like classic monsters?
Ones that are threats for mid-level pcs?
For example, a mind-flayer is all of the following:
A gooey, creepy, Lovecraftian monster.
A great reoccuring master villian.
A brain sucker.
A bizzare sorcerer.
Plain freakin scary.
A mid-level arcane threat.
And Beholders are:
Ray wielding death machines.
Hard to kill nasties.
An Icon everyone loves to hate.
Smart but better as tomb guardians than master villians.
Cool because they have no legs and lots of eyes.
Pick what you like most and that can help narrow down how
to create what you want to replace better.
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I have been wrestling with the absence of Yuan-Ti for some time. They were one of my FAVORITE monsters.
I was going to replace them with Naga, then one glaring problem popped up when I was reading the Naga description... they don't get along with other Naga. One of the things about Yuan-Ti that was cool was they were a snake-humanoid race that cooperated in order to dominate the surrounding area. This made them quite fearsome for me to play with- like a mad scheming BBEG just below the surface!
I have been looking for that serpent race that works together to manipulate and dominate others, but can't quite find one to fit that niche... any ideas?
I have been wrestling with the absence of Yuan-Ti for some time. They were one of my FAVORITE monsters.
I was going to replace them with Naga, then one glaring problem popped up when I was reading the Naga description... they don't get along with other Naga. One of the things about Yuan-Ti that was cool was they were a snake-humanoid race that cooperated in order to dominate the surrounding area. This made them quite fearsome for me to play with- like a mad scheming BBEG just below the surface!
I have been looking for that serpent race that works together to manipulate and dominate others, but can't quite find one to fit that niche... any ideas?
Did a search of http://www.d20pfsrd.com and came up with the Ophiduans
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/ophid uanThey're originally from here apparently: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/lionsDenPress/v5748btpy7x1m
Seems like they're a bit more social than nagas (with a caste system).
Another option might be the serpent folk from Green Ronin's various Freeport products (for 3.5)
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To the OP; you may need to accept that in changing your story from a ‘classic D&D’ feel to a Pathfinder feel, you may need to do some major re-writing. I don’t see it (necessarily) as simple a case as ‘substitute monster x for monster y’.
For example, in various areas of Dungeons and Dragons lore, there are established relationships between say Illithid, and Githyanki. Now, as one-off PC fodder in an adventure, or even as an ongoing adventure plot, substituting intellect devourers for mind flayers and maybe Denizens of Leng for githyanki may work well. But those two substitute races don’t have the same history and interaction in Pathfinder as the two original races do in D&D – they won’t necessarily make sense when used together.
Also, I don’t think anyone has mentioned Kuo Toa yet – skum are probably the best substitute.
To the OP; you may need to accept that in changing your story from a ‘classic D&D’ feel to a Pathfinder feel, you may need to do some major re-writing. I don’t see it (necessarily) as simple a case as ‘substitute monster x for monster y’.
Yes, there in is the problem. I have such an indepth and interwoven history for my campaign world (and thus my novel), that just substituting is difficult.
Case in point
1) There is a war from over 200 years ago that involved the underdark races (drow, duergar, derro) being manipulated by neogi who have a bunch of umber hulk minions.
2) One of my greatest and scariest villains is an illithid crime lord who has 3 separate guilds, with one of them as his primary and controlling entity.
3) Also during the war some 200+ years ago, there was a renegade githyanki with 2 legions of warriors who helped destroy a drow city, and inturn were helped by the heroes and freed from their Lich Queen's control. This female githyanki knight later shifted alignments, as did many of her men, and they formed a knighthood that in the current time period is a powerful (although small) force for good in a certain region of my world and heralds a number of descendants from the original founders as its members. This group plays a prominent part in a portion of my book.
Would have been a whole lot easier if WoTC got it's head out its but and didn't NonOGL monsters that have been used for decades by players.
Githianki > Tieflings
Illithid > intelect devourer, lamia (any), medusa, aboleth
carrion crawler > Chuul larvae, or regular chuul if you prefer.
displacer beast > cloakers
Kuo-toa > skum
Neogi > aboleth (note skum created by aboleth), nagas
Not to rain on your parade, but Neogi are closed content as well :)
Of all the $#$%! What about Myconids? Now WoTC is REALLY starting to P*** me off!
Vegepygmies suck! And don't tell me Quicklings are closed content too.
I see no reason to stop using old enemies. You can do work and update them, make sure they fall in line with the monster creation guidelines. I think in the Bestiary it says using 3.5 writeups you can just lower the CR by 1. That works too.
Something being closed content doesn't prevent your use in your home game, it keeps you from publishing adventures with those monsters in it. Are you a publisher?
Vegepygmies suck! And don't tell me Quicklings are closed content too.
Quicklings were one of the monsters to make it into the Tome of Horrors, a book of old TSR D&D monsters that Necromancer Games, with a special deal from WotC, got put into OGL in the early days of D&D 3.0. You probably should check it out (note that the Tome of Horrors versions are not necessarily the same as official 3.X WotC versions of monsters). Generally any of the TSR?Wotc D&D monsters are not in that book or any of the SRDS, it's not open content.
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Of course, if your goal is to publish a work of fiction, there is nothing to stop you creating a race of floating eye creatures and calling them Dire Watchers; a race of hulking, beetle people called Brown Bashers; a race of extra planer, warlike humanoids called Fothherakei (led by the Eternal Witch Princess Yishretmox); and a race of mind bending tentacle horrors called Thought Renders.
Just don’t make them too much like the source material, lest the Hasbro lawyers come knocking at your door...
Not to rain on your parade, but Neogi are closed content as well :)Of all the $#$%! What about Myconids? Now WoTC is REALLY starting to P*** me off!
Just remember that WotC didn't have to create the OGL at all.. They did it because they wanted other publishers to have some opportunity to create stuff for their game; most publishers don't let other publishers use their work for free. So instead of having the absence of some things get you angry, you should be happy they made the majority of the core rules open content in the first place :)
I think I might just have to create my own replacements, so that I can get the right mix of abilities, and orgins. At least not everything from those races is necessary for what I need. I may use a few suggestions for substitutions as well. Thanks guys.
I think I might just have to create my own replacements, so that I can get the right mix of abilities, and orgins. At least not everything from those races is necessary for what I need. I may use a few suggestions for substitutions as well. Thanks guys.
I think you've made a good decision. This way you can also call some of the creatures your own, which will make it easier for you to publish if that is your goal down the line. Even if the Pathfinder monsters are open license, I would want to avoid mimicking any narrative origins for Pathfinder creatures (as what is open license are the stats, not the history).
Carrion Crawler
This one's easy! How about a variant ankheg that spits a contact version of blue whinnis poison instead of acid?
Displacer Beast
An awakened tiger wearing a collar of displacement? ^_^
Kuo-Toa
Boggards or lizardfolk with the Aquatic subtype? Or maybe Sahuagin?
Some thoughts on Myconids adapted for Golarion.
That's good work, Set. I loved the Myconids. In an old 2E campaign I had a small grove of them, and their leader was very old (about 500 yrs old) and was what would have been the equivalent of the Alchemist from APG. I think I had him at about 50th level, because of his age and experience. Way over the top, but he was interesting. Want to stat him up with the APG Alchemist class sometime.
I think you've made a good decision. This way you can also call some of the creatures your own, which will make it easier for you to publish if that is your goal down the line. Even if the Pathfinder monsters are open license, I would want to avoid mimicking any narrative origins for Pathfinder creatures (as what is open license are the stats, not the history).
Thas a good point. Then they'll be my creatures and I can do with them (history and all) as I want to.
Personally, I say we all just band together and start a suit against WoTC for stealing iconic monsters from the world of role-players. Just wrong, wrong I tell you!
For Yuan-ti- Lamia Matriarch?
-El'risai: Primal Chaos Beasts that reproduce by infecting other life forms; like Slaadi, but with completely random appearances.
Did anyone get Mongoose Publishing's Epic Monsters in a recent Paizo sale? They have 2 of these "El'risai" lords that are 3.5 stats for the 2 Slaad Lords (names changed) of ye olden days: Ygorl, Lord of Entropy and Ssendam, Lord of the Insane. A pity they didn't have pictures, but that might have gotten them in trouble ;-)
Aside from the ease of using 3.5 edition stats for these monsters during a Pathfinder game, modified to reflect Pathfinder rules and newer statistics, are many of these types of monsters really a huge loss? I don't think their absence in a Paizo publication is much of a loss, with perhaps the exception of the beholder.
I imagine the beholder is something of a loss, given its prominence in the history of the game. Other than that, only Githyanki/Githzerai, Sladd, Mind Flayers, and perhaps Kou-Toa and Yaun-ti have relevance, and I SELDOM see these types of monsters in any game I've GM'd or played in. Frankly, the game can readily do without Githyanki/Githzerai and Mind Flayers. Kou Toa & Slaad are the ones I'd vote for in terms of trying to come up with "knock-off" monsters for future publication by Paizo.
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It came to my attention a few weeks ago there is an ogl book on mindflayers available at RPGNow. I've been wondering how it manages to stay available or if WotC knew about it and cared.
Kou Toa & Slaad are the ones I'd vote for in terms of trying to come up with "knock-off" monsters for future publication by Paizo.
Kuo-Toa were a Lovecraft "deep ones" ripoff since their inception, a role now specifically filled by the Pathfinder Skum. Slaadi have been replaced by the (less interesting) Proteans.
I do miss the horror of mind flayers and beholders
I do miss the horror of mind flayers and beholders
This +10...
Those two monsters strike a real chord on me - have both fond and not so fond memories of them... :)
AJC
It came to my attention a few weeks ago there is an ogl book on mindflayers available at RPGNow. I've been wondering how it manages to stay available or if WotC knew about it and cared.
Wotc knows about it. In fact, they allowed it with special permission because the book was already at the printers when Wotc closed off certain monsters. It's not a big deal.
The book, however, is totally awesome and worth having in any GM's game library. :)
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It came to my attention a few weeks ago there is an ogl book on mindflayers available at RPGNow. I've been wondering how it manages to stay available or if WotC knew about it and cared.Wotc knows about it. In fact, they allowed it with special permission because the book was already at the printers when Wotc closed off certain monsters. It's not a big deal.
The book, however, is totally awesome and worth having in any GM's game library. :)
So there is a book, published under the OGL that has mindflayers but WotC somehow still closed off the monster? I guess I would have to assume that the book does not actually have mind flayer statistics in it.
Creative Director
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So... here's the whole complex story behind that mind flayer book.
When WotC put out 3.0, they put out the "beta" of the OGL with it. There was an understanding that they weren't 100% done with the OGL, and there was a sort of gentlemen's agreement about it that once WotC finished the OGL and finalized the SRD that publishers would abide.
The final SRD and OGL more or less got "locked in" with the release of 3.5, and it was at that time that WotC decided to retain the intellectual rights to 11 or so monsters out of the 350 or so that were in the SRD; that included the mind flayer, the slaadi, the githyanki and githzerai, the yuan-ti, the umber hulk, the kuo-toa, the displacer beast, the carrion crawler, and the beholder (there MIGHT be one more in that list I'm just forgetting..). The SRD and the OGL became more or less set in stone at that point and was no longer subject to modification.
But since there were already a LOT of books out there with those dozen or so monsters, including a few that were already at printers, WotC allowed those books to continue to be sold or get printed. The publishers who printed those books just can't ever reprint them without excising the now-no-longer-compliant monsters, which is why when the tome of horrors got revised, there were some adjustments.
That's, at least, how I remember/understand how things went. Long story short: The OGL Mind Flayer book was written before mind flayers were taken out, and before the OGL itself was officially done. Going forward, a book like that would require a special license and permission from WotC before it could be published.
And as much as I miss a lot of those monsters, I prefer to remind myself of two things:
1) WotC didn't have to keep ANY monsters in the OGL. That we can all still use things like ropers and rust monsters and gelatinous cubes and balors and pit fiends and aboleths and so many more monsters free of charge is INCREDIBLY generous.
2) With the exception of the beholder, which is a really weird and unique monster, I think that we CAN get along with monster replacements, either using things like intellect devourers that are very close to the theme of some lost monsters, or making up new monsters based on the same source of inspiration (such as the serpentfolk for the yuan-ti).
That's an interesting list of monsters, all of them are particular favorites of mine. They must have known how cool they are.
Kou Toa & Slaad are the ones I'd vote for in terms of trying to come up with "knock-off" monsters for future publication by Paizo.Kuo-Toa were a Lovecraft "deep ones" ripoff since their inception, a role now specifically filled by the Pathfinder Skum. Slaadi have been replaced by the (less interesting) Proteans.
Regards Kirth, you're two steps ahead of me...
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I think it's worth pointing out that, for a home game, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from using "Pathfinder-ized" (or even straight 3.5 versions) non-OGL monsters. As long as you aren't pulbishing it, no Hasbro lawyers are going to come to your house and demand that you no longer use mindflayers in your Pathfinder campaign.
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Some suggestions, drawn from the AP bestiaries:
Beholder*
Displacer Beast
Githyanki*
Githzerai
Mind Flayer*
Stygiras (AP33) Could make interesting replacements for beholders. They are humanoid, but they are inscrutable, cruel, creepy individuals who have a range of disturbing powers, driven by sight and an affinity for gems. Just add an anti-magic gem and you're good to go (and the rules support more gems).
They are also probably more easily customisable than beholders, you don't need knew sub-species or weird experiments, just a different group of gemstones.They also have "chop off the eyestalk" potential, although in this case it is "steal/sunder the gemstone!"
I would support the suggestion of Denizens of Leng (AP6)for illithids - genuinely creepy and even more inscrutable than mind flayers.
Witchwyrds (AP14) are more interested in trade than conquest but if you tweak that you have a potential gith substitute.
Akatas (AP14) could replace displacer beasts although I think the best replacement might be Hounds of Tindalos (AP4).
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Not to rain on your parade, but Neogi are closed content as well :)Of all the $#$%! What about Myconids? Now WoTC is REALLY starting to P*** me off!
I guess I can play the wet blanket...
I would suggest creating all of your own creatures, all of your own political and racial groups and simply use other people's work for "inspiration". Yes that means completely re-writing. However, which would you prefer? Make subtle changes that most people can recognize as a creature that has a copyright or is protected only to find your life's work tied up on probate for 900 years. OR, spend some time researching and creating something that no one can take from you later.
I have set numerous copyrights for publications and I can assure you that when people try to make minor changes to a protected concept it very rarely works in their favor. from where I sit your choices are start over or send a box of candy to WotC. They like those spicettes I hear.
Raemann