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What is kinda cool about the remaster instead of a full edition change, is that all the OGL content will stay totally playable and especially for monsters not interacting much with spells or Law vs Chaos, it will be really easy to just use it all with minimal effort. So there is tons of demons and dragons and magical beasts that we can all still use with ease. It is just not going to show up in new adventures and APs. I wonder if there is going to be several months or maybe a year or two of APs and adventures where the writership mostly stays in house to really push new places and content that won’t feel like something is missing by not including OGL creatures. I predict we get a lot of creatures in LO books and rule books for a while to build up a creature base.
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I think more than anything else, I hope the concepts relating to qlippoth land safely in the remaster in some form or another. I love me these alien demons from beyond reality, even if it's kind of weird that they're a kind of fiend while the same general theme also exists at the centre of the universe as the aberration aliens of the Dark Tapestry. Not having any more lore exploring the role of qlippoth and who they are in the cosmic ecosystem would be a staggering blow for me... but I suppose even should that happen I can take refuge in the excellent lore of what has already been written and run with the OGL 2e statblocks to my homebrew grotto where I shall cackle onto the night and wee hours of the morn.Qlippoths do not come from outside reality. They originated in the Abyss itself before invaders aka Demons started crowding it. And the Abyss is part of reality. Just like the Maelstrom itself BTW.
Ah, yes, I was being a little overindulgent in mixing up published canon with various myths and rumors. When I was giving my players qlippoth lore from some knowledge checks I freely blended a few details.
Namely, I took the idea that James Jacobs once posted about the size of the Abyss being as if the rest of reality were a grain of sand nested inside a peach, and the Abyss is a mile of dirt on every side. Then I played up the fact that qlippoth are thought to come from the furthest reaches of the Abyss, and because the Abyss is so large, it is technically unknowable if demons have truly displaced qlippoth, or if that is only true for the regions that mortals have accessed. Finally, taking stock of the fact rhat qlippoth is translated as 'husk' or 'shell' I added in a theory/detail that qlippoth originate from the 'Outer Shell' of the Abyss, and how it is debated among scholars who believe in the Outer Shell theory whether qlippoth were originally some kind of reality parasite that got caught within the newly forming reality (not the material plane's Outer Gods) or whether they formed naturally inside the outer shell in reaction to the Outside. I make it a point that there is no reliable information what is the difference between the the Abyss (so-called the "Outer Rifts") and whatever extra-cosmic medium exists beyond since there few creatures that have been beyond are not very reliable or safe sources.
After all, while the Maelstrom was said to be one of if not the first plane to come into existence in the nascent metacosmos (Three Fears has the Seal adrift upon it when Pharasma arrives), I believe it is speculated that the Abyss could be even older than the rest of reality and that it merely became known when the first of the outer rifts tore open from the Maelstrom into the Abyss beyond.
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All I gotta say is Rip Oozes, because Gelatinous Cubes, Ochre Jelly, Black Pudding, and Gray Oozes are all OGL and pretty heavily iconic dnd monsters.
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All I gotta say is Rip Oozes, because Gelatinous Cubes, Ochre Jelly, Black Pudding, and Gray Oozes are all OGL and pretty heavily iconic dnd monsters.The flipside of that is that, being oozes, there really isn't much to them. I know that some will have a different mechanic here or there, but one big blob is gonna play real similar to another big blob in most circumstances, so coming up with replacements shouldn't be difficult to do, even if we are losing some fun monsters, like the world's most dangerous pudding.
Wouldn't mind them going with some more whacky and off the wall oozes. Also elemental oozes that aren't 18th level would be nice like the Gunpowder ooze.
Why not replace the Ochre Jelly and Black Pudding with actual Jelly and Pudding, and make them desert based oozes for example? Just really sugary oozes that taste good and will 100% kill you if you try to eat them.
Creative Director
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Why not replace the Ochre Jelly and Black Pudding with actual Jelly and Pudding, and make them desert based oozes for example? Just really sugary oozes that taste good and will 100% kill you if you try to eat them.
While that's a little too goofy for my tastes (like that pun!), I must admit that I am a fan of "The Stuff."
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I admit, I always thought the Gelatinous Cube was pretty silly.
The Ooze that's most "Pathfinder" to me is the Carnivorous Crystal ooze, which I hope gets to stick around.
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I sincerely hope Paizo moves away from “what color is it? I know what it is!” as a philosophy for creature design. I feel like now is the time where that can happen.
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WotC owns the oozes we know, but they don't own the concept of living, semi-sentient slimes that devour everything organic in their path. We could get new oozes the way we're getting new dragons.
Was that Block Ooze OGL!?
Unfortunately, yep!
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If creating a cake is art, then creating a mini is art. Art is automatically protected at creation. "Beak-Bear," to the extent it is copyrightable, belongs to the mini guy.
I do not believe that is correct. The art that is protected by copyright in your scenario is (only) that specific sculpture. "Beak-bear" is uncopyrightable, because it is an idea. So one could not take a cast of the sculpture and start cranking out copies, but one would be entirely free to create one's own sculpture of a conceptually identical creature.
Generally speaking, copyright protects expression, while trademarks protect creations. Think of it this way: copyright stops me from selling copies of The Sorcerer's Stone, while it is trademark protections which prevent me from writing a book about the wizard Harry Potter.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I did survive business law as an undergrad (i.e. back in the before times).
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Raksha are based on Indian folklore. So I think they are safe. So are most types of Outsiders.
But yes it seems like the Abyss existed before the current realty.
I’d like Golems to be based more on their folkloric origins and be automatons giving life by the divine.
I cannot find the Abyss existing before reality in my usual sources of lore.
Can anyone point me where I should be looking ?
Raksha are based on Indian folklore. So I think they are safe. So are most types of Outsiders.
But yes it seems like the Abyss existed before the current realty.
I’d like Golems to be based more on their folkloric origins and be automatons giving life by the divine.
I cannot find the Abyss existing before reality in my usual sources of lore.
Can anyone point me where I should be looking ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(religion)
I wonder how they're going to handle the Abyss going forward. The Pathfinder Abyss doesn't have formal layers like the D&D Abyss, but somehow I don't think that's enough of a difference.
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Raksha are based on Indian folklore. So I think they are safe. So are most types of Outsiders.
But yes it seems like the Abyss existed before the current realty.
I’d like Golems to be based more on their folkloric origins and be automatons giving life by the divine.
I cannot find the Abyss existing before reality in my usual sources of lore.
Can anyone point me where I should be looking ?
With lore from this far back in the setting, there isn't normally an entirely clear answer - to the best of my knowledge, there's not lore saying that the Abyss existed before reality for the Lost Omens setting. The Maelstrom and the Abyss were said to be the first two places in some myths, with the boundary between them being a seal. I'm not quite sure how that is resolved with the best-available information on the start of reality (that I'm aware of) in which Pharasma survived the previous universe, and came through to our new one. Part of the interest I have in this ancient lore is the lack of concrete answers! But I don't think anything says the Abyss is older than reality.
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Raksha are based on Indian folklore. So I think they are safe. So are most types of Outsiders.
But yes it seems like the Abyss existed before the current realty.
I’d like Golems to be based more on their folkloric origins and be automatons giving life by the divine.
I cannot find the Abyss existing before reality in my usual sources of lore.
Can anyone point me where I should be looking ?
Time to see if I can dredge up a source for this. I don't think there's any 'canon' statement of the Abyss' relative age to the cosmos, so like with many things about the early ages of the metacosmos there's a bit of mythology and conjecture and personally adopted headcanons.
Before we start, to define a term: if by 'Abyss existed before reality' we mean the entire outer sphere that makes up the metacosmos, I don't think we can possibly find much evidence for that. Conjecture, maybe, but I'll try not to reach too far.
The best book reference I have immediately at hand would be from the Maelstrom section in Planar Adventures:
While some believe that the Maelstrom was the original (and only) plane of existence, enough evidence exists to suggest that the shell of the Outer Sphere, riddled with the fractures known as the Abyss, existed even before the primal chaos of possibility.
Meanwhile wiki links are pointing me to a passage in the Inner Sea World Guide about the inhabitants of the Abyss:
When the Abyss first opened into the Outer Sphere as a result of strange experiments into the nature of reality at the hands of protean explorers, the qlippoth were already ancient.
(mind you, this somewhat older source attributes the creation of demons to accident, rather than daemon artifice, so grain of salt if you will)
I might have sworn I'd read a reference which stated that the Abyss might have been older than (the rest of) reality when the metacosmos first ruptured and let the realm of cruelty and pain spill in, rather than referring specifically to the denizens of the respective realities.
In any case, it feels like there is a strong argument for the Abyss existing 'first' of the outer planes, before reality would become what we would call reality. Pharasma may have arrived in this reality upon the Seal adrift in an unformed Maelstrom, but when she 'creates' the planes by walking the perimeter, it's the Abyss that she stops at first. Hold up, that's a bit of creative interpretation--beyond her first step is 'something vast hungry and dangerous' which is what causes her to turn. Later the last of the original 8 divinities walks off in this same direction and is never heard from again, either devoured by or becoming Rovagug. On the other hand, James Jacobs comments his opinion that the gnawing thing is either the Abyss or Rovagug.
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TL;DR - There's no hard evidence that the Abyss factually predates reality. Rather, it seems like at the very least the Abyss was old when it first broke into reality, whether you call it a part of reality or something originally from beyond.
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Thank you all for these most captivating tidbits of ancient lore.
So there might have been a time period, however long, between the death of the old reality and the (re)birth / awakening of Pharasma.
I had not considered this. Extremely interesting. That could match with the Alghollthu's belief that they existed before the deities came to be.
I dunno who's willing to do this, but... it would be easier to list all monsters from the OGL, take out all species that are inspired by real-world mythologies... and witness what's going to leave.
For instance, WotC created Giant heritages (hill, stone, frost, fire, cloud and storm), but Paizo created their own as well. It's the same with demons and devils. The imp and succubus are fine, but balor and pit fiend are not.
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If creating a cake is art, then creating a mini is art. Art is automatically protected at creation. "Beak-Bear," to the extent it is copyrightable, belongs to the mini guy.I do not believe that is correct. The art that is protected by copyright in your scenario is (only) that specific sculpture. "Beak-bear" is uncopyrightable, because it is an idea. So one could not take a cast of the sculpture and start cranking out copies, but one would be entirely free to create one's own sculpture of a conceptually identical creature.
Generally speaking, copyright protects expression, while trademarks protect creations. Think of it this way: copyright stops me from selling copies of The Sorcerer's Stone, while it is trademark protections which prevent me from writing a book about the wizard Harry Potter.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I did survive business law as an undergrad (i.e. back in the before times).
I did say "to the extent it is copyrightable." I'm very curious where the line is for any type of bird-bear hybrids, but establishing that the idea predates Gygax is an important part of that.
If you just take away the word “hill” you have pretty much the most common definition of what people think about as giants in folk lore. I doubt taking away the word hill is even necessary but it could just be giant in the same way we have skeleton and zombie. With other types being named.
I'm a bit concerned when it comes to classical devils and demons if I were honest. The devils had name changes but still have text referencing their name under the OGL, such as the Gelugon referring to an "ice devil" in its text. Demons however haven't had their names changed from their dnd counterpart such as the Quasit, Balor, Galbrezu, etc.
Do you think that a simple name change will suffice? Or will a more substantial rework be required for demons?
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I'm kind of confused, is D&D style golems basically ogl? I kinda thought it was mostly generic and widely how they are used in fantasy overall nowadays that I didn't even think of possibility of golems being changed by ogl removal ._.;
Golems, as a concept of stone or clay living animated statues, are widely used in fantasy and I believe are rooted in Jewish lore. However, all the antimagic/elemental possession stuff that makes golems a distinct and interesting enemy in Pathfinder is very much OGL.
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I did say "to the extent it is copyrightable." I'm very curious where the line is for any type of bird-bear hybrids, but establishing that the idea predates Gygax is an important part of that.
I swear sometimes the legal system is so crazy. Oftentimes one cannot really know how something is going to shake out until it is tested in court (and possibly not even then).
I think I remember reading a story that the origin of many of D&D monsters was a bag of cheap, imported plastic toys purchased from the equivalent of the dollar store.
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The concept of ooze monsters is not an OGL only thing. We wouldn't do, say, a gray ooze or an ochre jelly in an ORC book, but could do an ochre ooze or a gray jelly, as long as their rules are different enough as well (different levels, different lore, different special attacks, etc.). There's MUCH more room to do interesting oozes that go well beyond this basic-level switcharoo stuff though, and we've got plenty of them already in 2nd edition as proof: globsters, sewer oozes, slithering pits, amoeba swarms, giant amoebas, slime molds, verdurous oozes, and carnivorous blobs, to just name the ones that are already in print in a 2nd edition hardcover. There's many more beyond that from 1st edition or in non-hardcover 2nd edition books, and an infinite number beyond that that can still be created.
Oozes, as a monster trope, are 100% safe and will be represented in the revised rules. The one notable exception is the gelatinous cube. That one's super identifiable and PURE D&D, beyond even what you see with most monsters.
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I feel Owlbears are safe if you change them up enough because WoW has their own flavor Owlbear but they are pretty distinct from DnD Owlbears with the only similarity being having the traits of an owl and a bearI did say "to the extent it is copyrightable." I'm very curious where the line is for any type of bird-bear hybrids, but establishing that the idea predates Gygax is an important part of that.If creating a cake is art, then creating a mini is art. Art is automatically protected at creation. "Beak-Bear," to the extent it is copyrightable, belongs to the mini guy.I do not believe that is correct. The art that is protected by copyright in your scenario is (only) that specific sculpture. "Beak-bear" is uncopyrightable, because it is an idea. So one could not take a cast of the sculpture and start cranking out copies, but one would be entirely free to create one's own sculpture of a conceptually identical creature.
Generally speaking, copyright protects expression, while trademarks protect creations. Think of it this way: copyright stops me from selling copies of The Sorcerer's Stone, while it is trademark protections which prevent me from writing a book about the wizard Harry Potter.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I did survive business law as an undergrad (i.e. back in the before times).
Hasbro is maybe a $2 billion dollars a year company. Blizzard is so much bigger they can do what they want.
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I feel Owlbears are safe if you change them up enough because WoW has their own flavor Owlbear but they are pretty distinct from DnD Owlbears with the only similarity being having the traits of an owl and a bearI did say "to the extent it is copyrightable." I'm very curious where the line is for any type of bird-bear hybrids, but establishing that the idea predates Gygax is an important part of that.If creating a cake is art, then creating a mini is art. Art is automatically protected at creation. "Beak-Bear," to the extent it is copyrightable, belongs to the mini guy.I do not believe that is correct. The art that is protected by copyright in your scenario is (only) that specific sculpture. "Beak-bear" is uncopyrightable, because it is an idea. So one could not take a cast of the sculpture and start cranking out copies, but one would be entirely free to create one's own sculpture of a conceptually identical creature.
Generally speaking, copyright protects expression, while trademarks protect creations. Think of it this way: copyright stops me from selling copies of The Sorcerer's Stone, while it is trademark protections which prevent me from writing a book about the wizard Harry Potter.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I did survive business law as an undergrad (i.e. back in the before times).
Owlbear is a very recognizable and popular part of the recent DnD movie, which was itself pretty popular. No way WotC/Hasbro will let someone else make money from this popularity if they can avoid it.
Better safe than sorry.
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Are not Balors basically the Balrogs from Lord of the Rings with the last letter changed?And that's double the reason they can't use those.
Tolkien estate don't play around.
The video game wing of LOTR has been explicit that since this is the last decade of The Hobbit's copyright, they need to "exploit*" the property as much as possible. Expect five more games of Gollum's quality.
*Yes, they used this word.
I've always been partial to Gelatinous Tubes over cubes anyway.
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I've always been partial to Gelatinous Tubes over cubes anyway.
There's really no reason an amorphous thing should have 90 degree angles anyway. If you wanted a "caustic automated dungeon cleaning ooze" you'd really want it to be low-slung like a Roomba, so it's not dissolving the frescoes and torch sconces too.
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Well, you personally are not obligated to respect anybody's copyrights in your game. Feel free to run your next Pathfinder Campaign with literal Disney Princesses if you want.
Paizo, as an entity that sells things for money is working under different rules.
But any monster where there are already 2e stats for it is easy to keep using on into the future.
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Well, you personally are not obligated to respect anybody's copyrights in your game. Feel free to run your next Pathfinder Campaign with literal Disney Princesses if you want.
Paizo, as an entity that sells things for money is working under different rules.
But any monster where there are already 2e stats for it is easy to keep using on into the future.
This is the confusion that seems most difficult to dismiss. Intellectual Property Law is really confusing and nuanced and no one should think they need to learn it or even really understand how it generally works to have fun playing a game. But a bunch of people with a little bit of knowledge getting each other worked up over the question marks that might really only be resolved either in court, or if both parties have good enough intentions/desires to avoid court that they just never make it an issue...well, that is easily leads to doom and gloom. I think my new response to players trying to tell Paizo what material that they can or can't put in their games, especially when it is that player suggesting what to do, is just going to be "well, if you really believe in this idea, write the material up yourself and try to put it out there." If you put it on homebrew forums and you offer it for free, people might really get into it and no one is really going to be able to sue you over it. Having been in a situation where other people's words almost got me into a lot of legal trouble, I would advise everyone be careful about trying to get someone else to take risks you yourself are not willing to take.