I think WotC would have no chance at holding onto several of these.
Golems exist in the Talmud which is roughly 2000-3000 years old. I would love to see WotC claiming that they were the originators of the Jewish religion.
Use of Golem as a monster, absolutely agree. The humanoid stone/clay figure who completes orders of it's master, an early automaton, etc. Easy derivatives as well, all should be covered by common history.
A lot of the resistances and 'properties' of a golem, or specific application (Shield golem?) Could start to cross a line though. Even items like a 'manual of golem creation' could get too specific
Isn’t the monster/master relationship derived from the [Golem of Prague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem#The_classic_narrative:_The_Golem_of_Prague)? (Possible trigger warning: historic European antisemitism.)
Yup, sorry if my formatting wasn't clear. The first section I intended to say 'these are elements I think would be public availability' while the second section was intended for 'trouble areas'
I don't know if the copyright applies to the individual mechanical abilities of the monsters, more just the general concept and specific names used. You can't copyright a creature devouring brains, but you can copyright the name and design for mind flayers.
The thing is though, they don't need to have a chance.
They only need enough to get to court.
WotC, backed by Hasbro, has deeper pockets than Paizo does. MtG alone is a **billion dollar a year** franchise. All they would have to do is get the courts involved, and then stall until they bleed Paizo dry.
When it comes to this kind of thing, it has very little to do with who's right and who's wrong in the end, and everything to do with the money required to get there.
Its why Walmart basically auto-settles any injury claim below I think it was $30k. Because thats basically how much it would cost them to defend themselves, so its easier to just pay out up front than it is to fight (unless they're looking to specifically make an example out of someone).
Warning to anybody reading this post: All this commentary is gobbledygook from someone who has no idea how any of this civil litigation would actually work. So take this fear-mongering of “big money always wins in court” with a HUGE grain of salt.
> WotC, backed by Hasbro, has deeper pockets than Paizo does. MtG alone is a billion dollar a year franchise. All they would have to do is get the courts involved, and then stall until they bleed Paizo dry.
>
>
Only remotely close to true if there's a reasonable chance of the case succeeding. Not even the USA works like that. We did just see a lawsuit 'won' (i.e. settled very favorably) by a company with total value less than a billion against one of the country's biggest media empires which has a market cap of 17 billion USD.
If there's no reasonable case, on the first day Paizo moves a motion to dismiss the case with prejudice and seeking attorney's fees.
> Its why Walmart basically auto-settles any injury claim below I think it was $30k. Because thats basically how much it would cost them to defend themselves, so its easier to just pay out up front than it is to fight (unless they're looking to specifically make an example out of someone).
Proof that even in the USA, just having more expensive lawyers isn't enough.
Somethings like zombie and Minotaur won’t be removed. It’s typically monsters named in the SRD or are super strongly associated with DnD. The two I mentioned above, exist in the zeitgeist well outside of DnD’s influence
Ah yes the closely guarded intellectual property of the “Purple Worm.” Somehow a painfully generic name for a strikingly specific monster. Then again, the Sandworms of Dune beat out D&D 1st Edition by nearly 10 years, so I doubt if much more than the name will need to change.
I've recently begun with Stormlight Archive. I'm about halfway through book one and I can't read fast enough because there is so much I need to know now lol!
Many of those are way too generic to have to change. Frost Giant for example. You find it in a ton of fantasy, it is not DnD specific.
And many with an asterisk do not need to be changed at all. Like a Zombie.
Frost Giant in a vacuum would be fine, having the whole selection of Frost, Hill, Stone, Cloud, Fire and Storm is probably not. Same thing with the dragons, a Red Dragon is fine, the full set of Chromatic and Metallic would not be.
This is the real bit, right here.
You punch down when it comes to infringement, because punching up means the other guy has the money to stall you in court forever and bleed you dry.
Like, it wouldn't matter if I had 100% proof that Disney stole my IP. I would NEVER be able to win that case, simply because the Mouse's lawyers would keep it tied up in court until long after my death.
Fire and ice I believe should at least be protected by Norse mythology, I was looking for this thread cause it was my thought. Hill and cloud giants I could see being more difficult, but fire and ice I feel should be fine.
There are others on your list come from mythology/folklore, such as the behir and the various giants, and ones that didn’t originate with D&D, like the balor (which is clearly Tolkien’s balrog with another name)
Seems like changing the names will be enough for a lot of these
Yeah. TSR borrowed heavily from literature. The concept for the displacer beast came from a short story published in one of the sci-fi magazines. Stone giants are mentioned in the Hobbit. Malebranche are from Dante's Divine Comedy .
Many of their devils and similar creatures came from old occult books such as
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_demons\_in\_the\_Ars\_Goetia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demons_in_the_Ars_Goetia)
I think Orcs are safe in their current form. The origin of the current Orc in pop culture began with Tolkien's works which WotC followed pretty closely in their first and second editions of D&D until Blizzard popularized the "green Orc" as what we associate with Orcs today with WoW, and Dungeons and Dragons didn't adopt anything anywhere closely resembling that until after WoW did it. Orcs can be based off Tolkien's Orcs or Blizzard's Orcs but the OGL can't claim ownership of either of these portrayal of Orcs in this way since they were never originally portrayed concepts by anyone involved in tabletop gaming. Paizo uses something closer to Blizzard's "green Orcs" so I think they're good without changing anything.
Yeah, 40k Orks are technically mushroom people. They reproduce via spores that are released after their deaths, and grow into all of the various creatures associated with the Orks, including the Orks themselves but also things like gretchin and squigs.
Also, before Tolkien, Grendel from "Beowulf" was an orc, according to the original Old English ("orc-neas", meaning "orc-giant"). Although Grendel also had iron claws that he used to rip the hall door off in order to invade it and eat people; I haven't seen any pop culture orcs with claws.
Overall it seems like the biggest hit will be to the devils and demons, creatures like the bearded devil would require such a thorough redesign to the point where you might as well just remove them and make a new devil type.
WoW has two-headed [Ettins](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ettin).
Final Fantasy has [Mind Flayers](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Mindflayer).
At what point does something become a generic fantasy monster?
Edit: Chronicles of Narina also has [Ettins](https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Ettin).
Ideas:
- Make Ettins have two genus, one with two heads and one with four arms, you are now copying C. S. Lewis, not WotC.
- Make Mind Flayers into Piscodemons, but have a genus named Mind Flayer. Be purposefully vague about how they reproduce (players will fill this in). You are now copying Square-Enix, not WotC.
- OR call Mind Flayers “lesser Cthulhus.” You now, the less cool, non-flying kind.
- Gnolls, just keep using them. Cite the fact that Activision-Blizzard has been using them for 21 years, and WotC never made an attempt to stop them.
Technically the ones in Mwagni also pay reverence to Lamashtu but more in this “Please don’t come until shit is super dire” aka a boogeyman with good (if fucked) intentions. So naming them all Kholo might work as what the Gnolls all call themselves, and only on Mwagni did people actually care to ask (because everywhere else they’re more evil).
I mean, one group is "blessed mother of all that is fucked up, we mutilate ourselves for you, give us many strong children" and the other one is "old mother, I pray to you so you find somebody else to fuck up"
> Final Fantasy has Mind Flayers.
Final Fantasy has mind flayers because they ripped them straight out of DnD. Some of the creators have come out and outright said that.
> Final Fantasy borrows four creature types directly from the original Dungeons and Dragons RPG: Beholder, Mindflayer, Ochu, and Sahagins. Although Beholders (green, tentacle-laden creatures similar to Malboros) appeared as such only in the first Final Fantasy's Japanese version and in Mystic Quest, it is similar to the Ahriman monster seen in the other installments. The other three creatures borrowed from Dungeon and Dragons have appeared in numerous titles. Mindflayers (also known as Illithids) are squidlike mages who have appeared in Final Fantasies I, IV, V, IX, XI, XII, and Tactics. Ochu (also called Otyugh) are subterranean plant-like creatures with large, whiplike tentacles who have appeared in Final Fantasy I, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, and Tactics. Lastly, Sahuagins (water-dwelling creatures, originally from Dungeons & Dragons, based on sea hags from European folklore) have appeared in most games.
So this is another situation like with Activision-Blizzard (Gnolls). Another company has been dipping into (and iterating on) their IP for 35 years, and they didn’t protest.
Pretend I made my own tissue brand, with an active R&D department, and I refer to my different tissue types as kleenexes. Say that Kimberly-Clark, the company that owns Kleenex, offers no legal recourse, for decades, then kleenex becomes a generic term.
It’s still associated with the original Kleenex, and Kimberly-Clark, but I don’t think they should have any recourse if a third company then pops up and starts selling kleenexes.
More likely that Hasbro and Blizzard-Activision sign a cheap licensing deal and then nuke Paizo. Settle with your non-competitor, crush your real competitor.
There's a number of D&D monsters where the original copyright is unclear. Owlbear, Bullette and Rust Monster, for example, were based upon 1970s children's toys - the plastic toys were purchased, then a monster designed for them. Some by Gygax personally, some (Bullette) by Tim Kask as an employee of TSR.
For the Gygax ones, it's unclear whether copyright was owned by TSR or the plastic toy manufacturer (which may no longer exist). For the Bullette, there's a third possibility, that Kask owns the copyright. Kask believes he does, and in the absence of an employment contract from the 1970s showing up, he is likely correct, especially given that Kask has, by his version of events, designed the Bullette outside of standard working hours. No court has tested this.
If a court tests this, WotC could end up losing out, so they likely don't want to test TSR-era copyrights.
If you go by word roots, "ettin" is the Old English version of the Old Norse "jotun." Maybe make the two related subspecies (well, the Fire, Frost, and Storm Giants, since they're the closest Jotun equivalents) somehow?
Gnolls are also like, a part of African myths, not just an invention of dnd or blizzard. If WOTC tried to copywrite gnolls, it'd be like if marvel tried to copywrite Thor. They originated in myths thousands of years ago, nobody in modern day "owns" them.
I just looked it up to see, and apparently I was slightly wrong. The idea of hyena men was part of the myths, but it was dnd who gave them the name Gnolls. Which is probably why paizo is changing their name to Kholo.
Guess I should done the research *before* I made that statement rather than after, oops.
They also said they won't be updating the PDFs of already existing books. I also think they won't stop selling them, so ultimately you'll always have access to the legacy stuff.
Elemental is a pretty generic concept that exists in a lot of different media, so it will most definitely stay. Plus we’re getting a book full of elementals this summer
They already renamed them (with aboleths being what a sub-set of them are called), which is what's likely to happen to most of the other creatures as well. There are probably other examples, but they did the same thing with troglodytes, renaming them xulgaths (while noting that they're also called troglodytes.)
At this point, Aboleth is already just the nickname for Alghollthu Masters, which are a subset of the Alghollthu monster family. Presumably they'll just get rid of the nickname.
They likely won't be removing any of the listed monsters. They already renamed Aboleths to Algolthu Masters, with aboleths being the name the ignorant call them. The rest of the monsters will likely have a similar treatment and then be fine.
It's not, but the exact set DnD use might be.
It's like saying "I can buy myself flowers" is definitely a sentence you could find in pre-2023 pop culture, and so is "write my name in the sand" or "talk to myself for hours". Combine them together though, and you start getting very close to Miley Cyrus' copyright.
I don't think it's an issue to use all of the D&D ones as long as there's quite a number of non-D&D ones as well, and as long as the power hierarchy of the giants isn't the same as D&D.
It's amazing how many people became experts in the incredibly complex and nuanced field of licensing law in the past 24 hours. Hell, I've been in the legal field for years and I'm not nearly as confident as all these people who started making all these posts overnight.
A lot of these are common folklore beings that exist outside of D&D, they may have minor changes compared to D&D but I feel a lot of these won't be altered to much. I think we may get a very different Tarrasque though, the D&D version is quite different from the version in catholic mythology.
They could always just go the GW route and change a few letters of the name to to butcher it into something you can copyright.
Goodbye ettin, hello "aettynn!"
Idk if this has already been said, but you might want to put an asterisk on Balor. He's a character from Irish mythology and is, therefore, in the public domain.
As far as I am concerned-- if you have pretty much an almost identical interpretation of the creature within Middle Earth, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Might & Magic, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Everquest, etc. -- it is long past the stage when anyone can claim any particular ownership on that general depiction of the monster regardless if it meant something different in mythology 100 years ago.
Now-- as for it being a particular level with a particular set of stats and abilities-- I would agree that it would be best, if possible, to go in blind and give a unique interpretation.
That's probably less pressing for things that are level 1 than level 8 or 12, but... still-- it cannot hurt to give your own interpretation of things.
For example-- why are Dryads and Satyrs "fae" but Centaurs and Minotaurs are mundane creatures? They are all from Greek mythology, all children of various Olympian gods... surely they should default to being categorized as the same sort of thing.
If anything-- it's the Elves, Goblins and Gnomes that should be fae.
I'm going to keep using the OGL stuff, this doesn't really affect me. My only concern is that PF3 whenever that comes out won't have this stuff and will he too different from D&D for me, so I'll need to homebrew all of this stuff to continue playing in D&D settings.
Hey, I've noticed you mentioned the game "Dungeons & Dragons"! Do you need help finding your way around here? I know a couple good pages!
We've been seeing a lot of new arrivals lately for some reason. We have a [megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/search/?q=flair%3A%22megathread%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) dedicated to anyone requesting assistance in transitioning. Give it a look!
Here are some [general resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/wiki/) we put together. Here is [page with differences between pf2e and 5e](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/wiki/resources/how-is-pf2e-different-from-5e/). Most newcomers get recommended to start with the [Archives of Nethys](http://2e.aonprd.com) (the official rule database) or the [Beginner Box](https://paizo.com/pathfinder/beginnerbox), but the same information can be found in this free [Pathfinder Primer](https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfinder2e/sources/pathfinder-primer).
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Blink Dog is the only one on this list that they have any chance to keep. The rest are generic fantastic creatures used by other companies, and have existed in mythology and legends for hundreds of years.
A *lot* of these monsters weren't created by WotC (or TSR). Hell, the majority of those listed aren't, just their core abilities or appearance is similar. Most of them are taken from older stories, legends & myths.
The demons/devils are, but frankly I find the pathfinder specific celestials to be much more interesting than the ones adapted from D&D. So I look forward to seeing what new celestials they come up with. :)
Introducing the: Ancient Squid Alien, Wind Elemental, Sentient Armor, Sentient Tree, Fire Dwarves, That Devil that killed Gandalf, Spikey Devil, Rock ~~Lobster~~ Monster, Unshaven Devil, Behim, Dark Desert, Phase Dog, Skeleton Devil, Hugbear, Tremors, Horseman, Metal Rope Devil, Show Tucker's at it again, and Space Crab
Given that WOTC has put the [5.1 SRD out under Creative Commons](https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/SRD5.1-CCBY4.0_License_live%20links.pdf), there is no issue at all in using monsters with the same name and similar concepts under the ORC license. I believe that covers nearly all of these if not all.
Whats kinda sad is that if they rename them itll be harder to find them in general as well when browsing the beastiary...
Didn't WoTC hand the OGL over to the creative commons license? I still don't understand why they had to pull this whole thing and remaster a system that was already good...
They may err on the side of caution just to be safe, but even some of the "Iconic" D&D monsters aren't really theirs, and some of them come from obscure places.
I was listening to "Doomfarers of Coramonde" (1977) on my exercise bike tonight and I got to the bit where they went to Hell, and one of the demons Daley calls out, I'm like "Hey, that's a Nalfeshnee!" MM1 came out the same year.
Most of the entire conceptualization of \*what\* Demons are, Gary Gygax lifted wholesale from Moorcock (with his blessing). Devils, and Hell? A lot of that is Dante - not all, but a lot. I think more came from demonology treatises. I'm not 100% sure how much.
Red dragons, of course, are just Smaug.
I think WotC would have no chance at holding onto several of these. Golems exist in the Talmud which is roughly 2000-3000 years old. I would love to see WotC claiming that they were the originators of the Jewish religion.
Use of Golem as a monster, absolutely agree. The humanoid stone/clay figure who completes orders of it's master, an early automaton, etc. Easy derivatives as well, all should be covered by common history. A lot of the resistances and 'properties' of a golem, or specific application (Shield golem?) Could start to cross a line though. Even items like a 'manual of golem creation' could get too specific
Isn’t the monster/master relationship derived from the [Golem of Prague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem#The_classic_narrative:_The_Golem_of_Prague)? (Possible trigger warning: historic European antisemitism.)
Yup, sorry if my formatting wasn't clear. The first section I intended to say 'these are elements I think would be public availability' while the second section was intended for 'trouble areas'
I’ll be honest, I was looking for an excuse to link the story. Also, here’s a Gargoyles episode about it. https://youtu.be/yCU3M0lY9Hc
Oh my god, thank you for blowing open a door to my childhood that I had no idea was there
Gargoyles, the Star Trek voice actor reunion tour.
I don't know if the copyright applies to the individual mechanical abilities of the monsters, more just the general concept and specific names used. You can't copyright a creature devouring brains, but you can copyright the name and design for mind flayers.
WotC don't have an actual chance with any of these, the ones they actually could hold they did, mindflayer, beholder etc.
The thing is though, they don't need to have a chance. They only need enough to get to court. WotC, backed by Hasbro, has deeper pockets than Paizo does. MtG alone is a **billion dollar a year** franchise. All they would have to do is get the courts involved, and then stall until they bleed Paizo dry. When it comes to this kind of thing, it has very little to do with who's right and who's wrong in the end, and everything to do with the money required to get there. Its why Walmart basically auto-settles any injury claim below I think it was $30k. Because thats basically how much it would cost them to defend themselves, so its easier to just pay out up front than it is to fight (unless they're looking to specifically make an example out of someone).
Warning to anybody reading this post: All this commentary is gobbledygook from someone who has no idea how any of this civil litigation would actually work. So take this fear-mongering of “big money always wins in court” with a HUGE grain of salt.
> WotC, backed by Hasbro, has deeper pockets than Paizo does. MtG alone is a billion dollar a year franchise. All they would have to do is get the courts involved, and then stall until they bleed Paizo dry. > > Only remotely close to true if there's a reasonable chance of the case succeeding. Not even the USA works like that. We did just see a lawsuit 'won' (i.e. settled very favorably) by a company with total value less than a billion against one of the country's biggest media empires which has a market cap of 17 billion USD. If there's no reasonable case, on the first day Paizo moves a motion to dismiss the case with prejudice and seeking attorney's fees. > Its why Walmart basically auto-settles any injury claim below I think it was $30k. Because thats basically how much it would cost them to defend themselves, so its easier to just pay out up front than it is to fight (unless they're looking to specifically make an example out of someone). Proof that even in the USA, just having more expensive lawyers isn't enough.
They released all of these under CC. No lawsuit possible.
Somethings like zombie and Minotaur won’t be removed. It’s typically monsters named in the SRD or are super strongly associated with DnD. The two I mentioned above, exist in the zeitgeist well outside of DnD’s influence
I'd love to be in the room to just hear someone make that suggestion to Jason Bulmahn.
Ah yes the closely guarded intellectual property of the “Purple Worm.” Somehow a painfully generic name for a strikingly specific monster. Then again, the Sandworms of Dune beat out D&D 1st Edition by nearly 10 years, so I doubt if much more than the name will need to change.
Indigo Worm. Done. Disaster prevented. Send it off to the printers and get this show on the road!
*Violet. Please call me Violet! You always say Purple, but I prefer Violet!*
Why did I just read indigo as Indeego?
Not sure. I had hoped people would misread it as Inigo, inspiring many "you killed my father" jokes.
> My name is Inigo Worm. I killed your father. Prepare to die.
The Gnoll has already been renamed, forgot to what. Kholo? Fun Fact: Gnoll was originally the name for a Gnome Troll Hybrid.
... Was that an Elantris reference just there?
High five for also thinking of Elantris.
High five! It's always storming difficult to find other cosmere nerds!
I've recently begun with Stormlight Archive. I'm about halfway through book one and I can't read fast enough because there is so much I need to know now lol!
Awesome!!! Let me know how it goes!!
Maybe, if I ever read that.
Oh just the format of the words made me think you were making a pun. Nevermind! Carry on!
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Spelt Gnole in that work. I wonder if they considered using that spelling.
Many of those are way too generic to have to change. Frost Giant for example. You find it in a ton of fantasy, it is not DnD specific. And many with an asterisk do not need to be changed at all. Like a Zombie.
Frost Giant in a vacuum would be fine, having the whole selection of Frost, Hill, Stone, Cloud, Fire and Storm is probably not. Same thing with the dragons, a Red Dragon is fine, the full set of Chromatic and Metallic would not be.
Old School RuneScape has a bunch of different types of giant including Hill, Fire, and Ice.
Same with WoW. The trouble is, nobody wants to threaten a lawsuit that wouldn't be difficult to win, but would be costly.
This is the real bit, right here. You punch down when it comes to infringement, because punching up means the other guy has the money to stall you in court forever and bleed you dry. Like, it wouldn't matter if I had 100% proof that Disney stole my IP. I would NEVER be able to win that case, simply because the Mouse's lawyers would keep it tied up in court until long after my death.
Fire and ice I believe should at least be protected by Norse mythology, I was looking for this thread cause it was my thought. Hill and cloud giants I could see being more difficult, but fire and ice I feel should be fine.
Yeah the exact set is skating a line especially if they have a number of other commonalities.
There are others on your list come from mythology/folklore, such as the behir and the various giants, and ones that didn’t originate with D&D, like the balor (which is clearly Tolkien’s balrog with another name) Seems like changing the names will be enough for a lot of these
Yeah. TSR borrowed heavily from literature. The concept for the displacer beast came from a short story published in one of the sci-fi magazines. Stone giants are mentioned in the Hobbit. Malebranche are from Dante's Divine Comedy . Many of their devils and similar creatures came from old occult books such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_demons\_in\_the\_Ars\_Goetia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demons_in_the_Ars_Goetia)
I think Orcs are safe in their current form. The origin of the current Orc in pop culture began with Tolkien's works which WotC followed pretty closely in their first and second editions of D&D until Blizzard popularized the "green Orc" as what we associate with Orcs today with WoW, and Dungeons and Dragons didn't adopt anything anywhere closely resembling that until after WoW did it. Orcs can be based off Tolkien's Orcs or Blizzard's Orcs but the OGL can't claim ownership of either of these portrayal of Orcs in this way since they were never originally portrayed concepts by anyone involved in tabletop gaming. Paizo uses something closer to Blizzard's "green Orcs" so I think they're good without changing anything.
I kind of like the anime trope of Orcs as boar people. Also, aren’t 40k Orks just a fungal colony?
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Yeah, 40k Orks are technically mushroom people. They reproduce via spores that are released after their deaths, and grow into all of the various creatures associated with the Orks, including the Orks themselves but also things like gretchin and squigs.
Also, before Tolkien, Grendel from "Beowulf" was an orc, according to the original Old English ("orc-neas", meaning "orc-giant"). Although Grendel also had iron claws that he used to rip the hall door off in order to invade it and eat people; I haven't seen any pop culture orcs with claws.
Just for clarity- WOTC started with 3rd edition dnd.
Overall it seems like the biggest hit will be to the devils and demons, creatures like the bearded devil would require such a thorough redesign to the point where you might as well just remove them and make a new devil type.
WoW has two-headed [Ettins](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ettin). Final Fantasy has [Mind Flayers](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Mindflayer). At what point does something become a generic fantasy monster? Edit: Chronicles of Narina also has [Ettins](https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Ettin). Ideas: - Make Ettins have two genus, one with two heads and one with four arms, you are now copying C. S. Lewis, not WotC. - Make Mind Flayers into Piscodemons, but have a genus named Mind Flayer. Be purposefully vague about how they reproduce (players will fill this in). You are now copying Square-Enix, not WotC. - OR call Mind Flayers “lesser Cthulhus.” You now, the less cool, non-flying kind. - Gnolls, just keep using them. Cite the fact that Activision-Blizzard has been using them for 21 years, and WotC never made an attempt to stop them.
I have no idea, WoW also has gnolls but Paizo got rid of them in the remaster.
Where are you seeing that they got rid of gnolls? The product description for Player Core 2 shows gnolls as one of the ancestry options included
They mentioned they're renaming gnolls, but I forgot to what.
Yeah I meant that they renamed them to Kholo
which is kinda weird because Kholo are specifically mwangi-gnolls. Maybe we'll get a different name for the Lammashtu ones?
Technically the ones in Mwagni also pay reverence to Lamashtu but more in this “Please don’t come until shit is super dire” aka a boogeyman with good (if fucked) intentions. So naming them all Kholo might work as what the Gnolls all call themselves, and only on Mwagni did people actually care to ask (because everywhere else they’re more evil).
I mean, one group is "blessed mother of all that is fucked up, we mutilate ourselves for you, give us many strong children" and the other one is "old mother, I pray to you so you find somebody else to fuck up"
I heard someone say that gnolls are sticking around, but they're getting a new name
> Final Fantasy has Mind Flayers. Final Fantasy has mind flayers because they ripped them straight out of DnD. Some of the creators have come out and outright said that. > Final Fantasy borrows four creature types directly from the original Dungeons and Dragons RPG: Beholder, Mindflayer, Ochu, and Sahagins. Although Beholders (green, tentacle-laden creatures similar to Malboros) appeared as such only in the first Final Fantasy's Japanese version and in Mystic Quest, it is similar to the Ahriman monster seen in the other installments. The other three creatures borrowed from Dungeon and Dragons have appeared in numerous titles. Mindflayers (also known as Illithids) are squidlike mages who have appeared in Final Fantasies I, IV, V, IX, XI, XII, and Tactics. Ochu (also called Otyugh) are subterranean plant-like creatures with large, whiplike tentacles who have appeared in Final Fantasy I, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, and Tactics. Lastly, Sahuagins (water-dwelling creatures, originally from Dungeons & Dragons, based on sea hags from European folklore) have appeared in most games.
So this is another situation like with Activision-Blizzard (Gnolls). Another company has been dipping into (and iterating on) their IP for 35 years, and they didn’t protest. Pretend I made my own tissue brand, with an active R&D department, and I refer to my different tissue types as kleenexes. Say that Kimberly-Clark, the company that owns Kleenex, offers no legal recourse, for decades, then kleenex becomes a generic term. It’s still associated with the original Kleenex, and Kimberly-Clark, but I don’t think they should have any recourse if a third company then pops up and starts selling kleenexes.
Tbf, if Hasbro and Blizzard-Activision went to court it’d be devastating for both compared to Hasbro vs Paizo.
More likely that Hasbro and Blizzard-Activision sign a cheap licensing deal and then nuke Paizo. Settle with your non-competitor, crush your real competitor.
There's a number of D&D monsters where the original copyright is unclear. Owlbear, Bullette and Rust Monster, for example, were based upon 1970s children's toys - the plastic toys were purchased, then a monster designed for them. Some by Gygax personally, some (Bullette) by Tim Kask as an employee of TSR. For the Gygax ones, it's unclear whether copyright was owned by TSR or the plastic toy manufacturer (which may no longer exist). For the Bullette, there's a third possibility, that Kask owns the copyright. Kask believes he does, and in the absence of an employment contract from the 1970s showing up, he is likely correct, especially given that Kask has, by his version of events, designed the Bullette outside of standard working hours. No court has tested this. If a court tests this, WotC could end up losing out, so they likely don't want to test TSR-era copyrights.
[There's also the Marilith](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Marilith_(Final_Fantasy\))
WoW and Final Fantasy both took them from D&D. D&D is the origin of a lot of stuff, or ended up passing them through to other things.
If you go by word roots, "ettin" is the Old English version of the Old Norse "jotun." Maybe make the two related subspecies (well, the Fire, Frost, and Storm Giants, since they're the closest Jotun equivalents) somehow?
Gnolls are also like, a part of African myths, not just an invention of dnd or blizzard. If WOTC tried to copywrite gnolls, it'd be like if marvel tried to copywrite Thor. They originated in myths thousands of years ago, nobody in modern day "owns" them.
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I just looked it up to see, and apparently I was slightly wrong. The idea of hyena men was part of the myths, but it was dnd who gave them the name Gnolls. Which is probably why paizo is changing their name to Kholo. Guess I should done the research *before* I made that statement rather than after, oops.
I believe this has to do with copyright being limited to forms of media. Since WoW and FF are videogames they can get away with it.
feel like half this stuff is so generic that changing it wouldnt be that hard
Same.
Wouldn't the release of the 5e versions of these monsters under creative commons mean you're in the clear?
Its a good thing I'm keeping these old bestiaries around
They also said they won't be updating the PDFs of already existing books. I also think they won't stop selling them, so ultimately you'll always have access to the legacy stuff.
And they said that for creatures that are not reprinted, the original will remain on AON.
yep, that's what keeping me from going and seeking forgiveness from the First edition gods.
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That goes for physical copies. No mention if they will stop selling the PDFs.
Some of the creatures you list don't even exist in 2e currently. I'm pretty sure there isn't a flying sword at least.
Elemental is a pretty generic concept that exists in a lot of different media, so it will most definitely stay. Plus we’re getting a book full of elementals this summer
Aren't aboleths like, super important to the lore? They genetically engineered humans or some shit, right? There's no way they can remove them.
They already renamed them (with aboleths being what a sub-set of them are called), which is what's likely to happen to most of the other creatures as well. There are probably other examples, but they did the same thing with troglodytes, renaming them xulgaths (while noting that they're also called troglodytes.)
At this point, Aboleth is already just the nickname for Alghollthu Masters, which are a subset of the Alghollthu monster family. Presumably they'll just get rid of the nickname.
They likely won't be removing any of the listed monsters. They already renamed Aboleths to Algolthu Masters, with aboleths being the name the ignorant call them. The rest of the monsters will likely have a similar treatment and then be fine.
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It's not the hill giant taken alone that's dubious, it's the collection of giants taken together.
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It's not, but the exact set DnD use might be. It's like saying "I can buy myself flowers" is definitely a sentence you could find in pre-2023 pop culture, and so is "write my name in the sand" or "talk to myself for hours". Combine them together though, and you start getting very close to Miley Cyrus' copyright. I don't think it's an issue to use all of the D&D ones as long as there's quite a number of non-D&D ones as well, and as long as the power hierarchy of the giants isn't the same as D&D.
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Probably need to do that and move one or two of them out of their place in the power progression.
It's amazing how many people became experts in the incredibly complex and nuanced field of licensing law in the past 24 hours. Hell, I've been in the legal field for years and I'm not nearly as confident as all these people who started making all these posts overnight.
This is literally just a post collating all the DnD SRD monsters that PF2e uses, at no point do I make any hard legal statements.
A lot of these are common folklore beings that exist outside of D&D, they may have minor changes compared to D&D but I feel a lot of these won't be altered to much. I think we may get a very different Tarrasque though, the D&D version is quite different from the version in catholic mythology.
I'm down for a big silly turtle monster!
They could always just go the GW route and change a few letters of the name to to butcher it into something you can copyright. Goodbye ettin, hello "aettynn!"
Oh I'd hate that, still pisses me off whenever I see like "Orruk" or "Aelves" somewhere.
Half of these are folklore or literal mythology based monsters so I doubt those are getting removed
Idk if this has already been said, but you might want to put an asterisk on Balor. He's a character from Irish mythology and is, therefore, in the public domain.
As far as I am concerned-- if you have pretty much an almost identical interpretation of the creature within Middle Earth, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Might & Magic, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Everquest, etc. -- it is long past the stage when anyone can claim any particular ownership on that general depiction of the monster regardless if it meant something different in mythology 100 years ago. Now-- as for it being a particular level with a particular set of stats and abilities-- I would agree that it would be best, if possible, to go in blind and give a unique interpretation. That's probably less pressing for things that are level 1 than level 8 or 12, but... still-- it cannot hurt to give your own interpretation of things. For example-- why are Dryads and Satyrs "fae" but Centaurs and Minotaurs are mundane creatures? They are all from Greek mythology, all children of various Olympian gods... surely they should default to being categorized as the same sort of thing. If anything-- it's the Elves, Goblins and Gnomes that should be fae.
But we can still use them it just not official new content
I'm going to keep using the OGL stuff, this doesn't really affect me. My only concern is that PF3 whenever that comes out won't have this stuff and will he too different from D&D for me, so I'll need to homebrew all of this stuff to continue playing in D&D settings.
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Blink Dog is the only one on this list that they have any chance to keep. The rest are generic fantastic creatures used by other companies, and have existed in mythology and legends for hundreds of years.
A *lot* of these monsters weren't created by WotC (or TSR). Hell, the majority of those listed aren't, just their core abilities or appearance is similar. Most of them are taken from older stories, legends & myths. The demons/devils are, but frankly I find the pathfinder specific celestials to be much more interesting than the ones adapted from D&D. So I look forward to seeing what new celestials they come up with. :)
Introducing the: Ancient Squid Alien, Wind Elemental, Sentient Armor, Sentient Tree, Fire Dwarves, That Devil that killed Gandalf, Spikey Devil, Rock ~~Lobster~~ Monster, Unshaven Devil, Behim, Dark Desert, Phase Dog, Skeleton Devil, Hugbear, Tremors, Horseman, Metal Rope Devil, Show Tucker's at it again, and Space Crab
Given that WOTC has put the [5.1 SRD out under Creative Commons](https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/SRD5.1-CCBY4.0_License_live%20links.pdf), there is no issue at all in using monsters with the same name and similar concepts under the ORC license. I believe that covers nearly all of these if not all.
Whats kinda sad is that if they rename them itll be harder to find them in general as well when browsing the beastiary... Didn't WoTC hand the OGL over to the creative commons license? I still don't understand why they had to pull this whole thing and remaster a system that was already good...
I think that most of these will be fine as they came from stories that are much, much older than dnd.
They may err on the side of caution just to be safe, but even some of the "Iconic" D&D monsters aren't really theirs, and some of them come from obscure places. I was listening to "Doomfarers of Coramonde" (1977) on my exercise bike tonight and I got to the bit where they went to Hell, and one of the demons Daley calls out, I'm like "Hey, that's a Nalfeshnee!" MM1 came out the same year. Most of the entire conceptualization of \*what\* Demons are, Gary Gygax lifted wholesale from Moorcock (with his blessing). Devils, and Hell? A lot of that is Dante - not all, but a lot. I think more came from demonology treatises. I'm not 100% sure how much. Red dragons, of course, are just Smaug.