Converting and publishing monsters from pathfinder to other systems.

[Threeshades]

I was not sure whom to write to about this topic, or under which adress (since many paizo employees cannot be reach via private message)

I have a question about the legality of converting creatures from the Paizo Bestiaries to different systems and publishing them.

In my case, I made conversions of the qlippoth from Bestiary 2 as well as the Outer Dragons from Bestiary 4 to 5th edition and had the idea of publishing the conversions on the DM's Guild.

I understand that obviously the artworks are not usable and some specific creatures from Pathfinder such as the Sandpoint Devils or Daughters of Urgathoa are protected since they use proper nouns specific to Pathfinder. But for my subjects I couldn't find anything in the OGL or the copyright notice in the beginning of each book. Nevertheless I want to make sure I do not infringe on Paizo's copyright if I do this.

As an additional note, I would like to add that I made minor changes to the naming, calling the converted qlippoth obyrith and the outer dragons cosmic dragons, I also use my own artwork which features strongly altered appearances of the creatures in question.

[Threeshades]

Maybe someone knows where i can direct this question?

[CrystalSeas]

Sounds like contacting customer service would be the best step

[e-mail]

Edited to add

Actually the "licensing" folks are who you need to ask. They'll know what is open for use and what you need special permissions for. And they're the ones you'd work with to get that permission

[e-mail]

[Andre Roy]

the Contact us page might help.

But since you plan to publish it in a different system, your might be getting in iffy territory copyright-wise.

[Threeshades]

Thanks for the help, I will write to them.

[Vic Wertz]

When it comes to the Pathfinder RPG, our intellectual property generally falls into two categories: Open Game Content (generally game mechanics) and Product Identity (generally setting material, trademarks, artwork, and other non-mechanical stuff).

Anything we've declared as Open Game Content in our products is available for use under the Open Game License; anything we've declared as Product Identity is not available under the OGL. In most of our products, you'll find the statements of OGC and PI on the title or credits page at the front of the book. Note that these statements occasionally vary from product to product, so you'll need to check the individual statements in each product you wish to draw from.

If you are a noncommercial user, you may be able to use some of our PI by way of our Community Use Policy, which you can find at http://paizo.com/paizo/about/communityuse. If you are a commercial user, our PI is not available for your use without a specific license.

To use Open Game Content in your own projects, you need to use the OGL, which you can find in any OGL product. The OGL itself tells you how to use it. Please note that the OGL is Wizards of the Coast's license, not Paizo's, and so I can't provide any advice about its suitability for your use. You may wish to consider speaking with an intellectual properties legal specialist.

Note that the OGL specifically restricts you from using "any ... trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product Identity by the owner of the Product Identity", or from "indicat[ing] compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark." So to indicate that your OGL project is compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, follow our free Pathfinder RPG Compatibility License, which you can find at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility. Note that the Compatibility License is only applicable to books, electronic books, and freely available websites. You can still use Open Game Content in a OGL product that's not a book, ebook, or free website, but you can't say it's compatible with the Pathfinder RPG or use trademarks like Pathfinder or Paizo in any way; you may, however, use the non-trademarked term "PFRPG”.

The DM's Guild throws another wrench into the works, though: As I understand it, people submitting to the DM’s Guild are giving Wizards a license to use their contributions, and are therefore allowed to use only 1) their own original content; 2) content owned by Wizards and approved for DM’s Guild Use; and 3) other DM’s Guild content. Which would mean that your DM’s Guild product can’t use OGL content that you don’t own the copyright for (apart from those three sources).