A NEW Question on IP for Demogorgon, Tiamat, etc.

[W E Ray]

Obviously Paizo can't publish content for Demogorgon etc because we all know and love him as the double-mandrill headed, quadro-tentacled demon prince and any new Demogorgon description and development will not feel right. So you can't do it.

Or,....

Can you just not do it "big"?

What if, like Asmodeus in Richard Pett's "The Styes," Demogorgon is just the footnote for a villain or BBEG? .... There's a horrible Oracle that reveres Demogorgon-- an NPC with original development and in an original adventure-- and the text only briefly, generically mentions Demogorgon as a demon lord.

You can't develop him further. The newer gamers won't know.

But we grognards will love it!

[the David]

Well yeah, but Paizo has their very own IP and they can use that AND go into detail. So why would they use someone like Demogorgon?

[Zhangar]

Paizo'd be more likely to do that with Orcus, who they CAN use as we all know and love(?) him due to Frog God Games getting to make him OGL, but are leaving alone because he's so emphasized in WotC/Frog God Games material.

Though a lot of the public domain entities who're most recognizable in their D&D incarnations do get shout-outs. (Tiamat in Apsu and Dahak's entries, Demogorgon in Lords of Chaos, etc.)

They're around, but Paizo doesn't have much incentive to use them past the shout-out.

I.e., having a notable villian/BBEG serve/worship an entity that Paizo can't properly use for legal reasons is a huge waste.

Better uses might be in throw-away decorative items, like a forgotten idol to a chromatic 5 headed hydra.

Edit: Though IP law is such a hornet's nest that even doing that is probably risking too much. After all, the holder of an IP that fails to aggressively defend it risks losing it.

[Saldiven]

You can use the names of Demogorgon and Tiamat to your heart's content. These names pre-date the existence of TSR or any of it's later IP owners by literally millennia. (Demogorgon was derived from the ancient Greek, and Tiamat from ancient Babylon.) Consequently, nobody can really own the IP to those names.

(For example, Games Workshop a few years ago went to court over claims they owned the IP to names like "Storm Trooper, "Space Marine," "Centurion," "Sentinel," etc., and they didn't have a good time with that case. Way too long of an issue to discuss here, but the point was that these names were not original creations and predated the existence of the company, so they couldn't claim to own them.)

You would just probably want to avoid any visual or textual depiction that matches those from Gygax and TSR. Shouldn't be hard, though, since those original D&D descriptions aren't based on those from the original legends.

Now, the original stuff is what the current IP owners do control. Like the visual depictions of D&D's Demogorgon are original, and use of those without permission might be a no-no.

[Gilfalas]

Saldiven wrote:

Now, the original stuff is what the current IP owners do control. Like the visual depictions of D&D's Demogorgon are original, and use of those without permission might be a no-no.

Which makes me wonder if the showmakers of 'Stranger Things' had to pay Hasbro for using Demogorgon referances in their show, since they show a miniature of the classic D&D Demogorgon.

[C. Richard Davies]

Gilfalas wrote:

Which makes me wonder if the showmakers of 'Stranger Things' had to pay Hasbro for using Demogorgon referances in their show, since they show a miniature of the classic D&D Demogorgon.

They probably had to pay to show the miniature, anyway.

[Gulthor]

C. Richard Davies wrote:

Gilfalas wrote:

Which makes me wonder if the showmakers of 'Stranger Things' had to pay Hasbro for using Demogorgon referances in their show, since they show a miniature of the classic D&D Demogorgon.

They probably had to pay to show the miniature, anyway.

Well, unless WotC paid *them* for product placement.

[Tim Emrick]

Saldiven wrote:

You can use the names of Demogorgon and Tiamat to your heart's content. These names pre-date the existence of TSR or any of it's later IP owners by literally millennia. (Demogorgon was derived from the ancient Greek, and Tiamat from ancient Babylon.) Consequently, nobody can really own the IP to those names.

For example, there is a wonderful writeup of Tiamat, based on the original mythology, in GURPS Monsters.

[W E Ray]

I'm just saying, a future "Rival Guide 2" or "Villain Codex 2" could have a cool devotee of Demogorgon, not-too-much detailed Demon Lord -- or a volume in an AP could have a dungeon full of Demogorgon Cultists the PCs have to clear out to find an unrelated lost item of some sort; the item has nothing to do with Demogorgon and neither does the campaign. It's a dungeon filled with random monsters who, as part of their Fluff, worship a Demon Lord called Demogorgon. Or something.

Paizo wouldn't further develop it of course, but it would give us a specific starting point to go further in our own games. Duh, of course we can add it ourselves without published material. In my various homegames I've already used Tiamat, Maglubiyet, Yeenoghu, Graz'zt, Doresain, Mind Flayers, Githyanki, Kopru, Beholders and probably a few others I can't think of off the top of my head. And I'll continue to do so as the campaigns I design require.

But if Paizo can throw in a "small" touch of Demogorgon, and maybe Tiamat, I think many of us would love it!

[captain yesterday]

I'd rather they focus on their own ideas. :-)

[thenovalord]

they could just make there own versions of T and D, using their classical descriptions