Making a Fan Story Based off of an Adventure Path

[KoolKobold]

Hello. I am trying to spread my art skills into different fields, and one I want to tackle is writing. One thing I'd love to do is make a story based off of a Pathfinder Adventure Path-but not entirely like what you're thinking. Rather than have the "PCs" be iconic characters, they would instead be completely original PCs-so, in a sense, I guess you could say it has a bit of fanfiction in it (despite the hate for fanfictions there ARE good ones out there). However, if, say, I would use Rise of the Runelords as the basis for the story, major NPCs-especially villains like Nualia, the Kreegs, and Kazurog-would have to still be in the story for Pathfinder fans to figure out just what Adventure Path the story is basing off of, and certain events would still be needed to go in order (for instance, after the heroes defeat the ghast Aldern Foxglove, they would decide to head towards Magnimar after sending a message to Mayor Deverin).

But my absolute biggest question of all is-

Can such a thing be made purely as the product of entertainment? What I mean is, if I were to make such a thing (and give proper rights of said characters to Paizo) WITHOUT making a profit out of it, would it be allowed?

(P.S. Not sure where to post such a thing, so I posted it in the Off-Topic Discussions just to be on the safe side)

[Garrett Guillotte]

My knee-jerk response is that it might be OK based on the Community Use Policy:

CUP FAQ wrote:

In general, this means you may create and publish original works using those things (trademarks, proper names, locations and characters from products listed in Section 1 of the Community Use Approved Product List, which includes RotRL) in a variety of ways. You can write original fiction or adventures using them, you can create original artwork illustrating them, you can write up entries in a wiki about them, and more. (You may not, however, simply republish significant sections of descriptive text from our products—you need to craft new text.)

This is the same policy that covers Wayfinder and Pathfinder Chronicler, both of which publish fan fiction and material that refer to or expand upon the official campaign setting.

There is, of course, a catch.

KoolKobold wrote:

... certain events would still be needed to go in order (for instance, after the heroes defeat the ghast Aldern Foxglove, they would decide to head towards Magnimar after sending a message to Mayor Deverin).

The CUP notably does not allow you to refer to "dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents" from the covered products unless the references are in the context of "campaign journals and play-by-post or play-by-email games" (last two bullet points).

I'm not a lawyer, but "certain events ... in order" would seem to fall under "plots, storylines ... and incidents", which means writing and publishing fiction that simply retells the story of RotRL is not kosher. However, since the CUP doesn't define what a "campaign journal" is, I think you could do what you describe with your original characters if and only if it's clear that you're documenting a play-through of the campaign.

tl;dr: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯