Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Dec 08, 2005 0:07:18	I was wondering if anyone knew about the legality of publishing Planescape stories. My guess would be that anyone who wanted to publish an official Planescape book would have to get a licence from WOTC. However, from what I can tell, all the Planescape books were published back in the TSR days. How does it all work. If WOTC wanted more PS books, would they comission a well known fantasy author, or do they take random submissions and decide if they are worthy of licence? Furthermore, exactly how much of PS is copyrighted? One story I am writing features the husk of a dead god discovered in a field on the prime. When the lord asks his mages to explain, they relate the general info that Dead Gods usually end up on the Astral. Is that copyright infringment? What about reference to general PS monsters such as the Slaad or the Archanoloths? PS is a collection of mythologies from around the world. How far does their copyright extend? I know I could mention Thoth freely in any story, but could I mention Thoth's Estate on the Outlands? I know all about the d20 open licence, but does that include campaign settings?
#2 ripvanwormer Dec 08, 2005 1:20:19	The campaign settings are not open content. The Astral Plane is open content, however. See here for a list of what planes are open content and which aren't. If you're not trying to make money and not publishing hardcopies, Wizards is unlikely to care regardless of what you do. They're unlikely to accept an unsolicited submission for a Planescape novel, though - James Alan Gardner tried that, and he's a published, successful writer. Slaadi, arcanaloths, all other yugoloths, the gith races, illithids, beholders, the words "tanar'ri" and "baatezu" and most of the rest of what made Planescape specifically itself are not open content. See the monsters on this page? Those are the ones you can use. You can use bralani and ghaele, but you can't call them eladrins. Those are the only eladrins you can use, unless you make up new ones, and you can't call the new ones "eladrins" either. You can use pit fiends and lemures, but you can't call them baatezu. You can have upper and lower planes, but you can't call them "Mount Celestia" or "Baator" - you can call them Heaven, Hell, Gehenna, Elysium, or Hades, since those are words from mythology that Wizards can't trademark, and Green Ronin did just that when it invented a cosmology for its Book of Fiends and Book of the Righteous. You can mention Thoth, and could probably get away with Thoth's estate, but you can't call the plane the Outlands. And they probably wouldn't be very happy with you if you presented something that was exactly like Planescape with a few changed names, either. You'd have to be more creative than that, which isn't a bad thing. Again, this is all just if you plan on publishing something with the d20 license.
#3 zombiegleemax Dec 08, 2005 2:15:10	I checked the sites you listed, but I am still a bit confused. Are all the planes listed on this site open licence. They went into detail about the inner, and transitive planes, but left out the outer. Does this mean that all of the outer planes are off limits? Can you recommend a site that describes the terms of the open license agreement for berks like me?
#4 kismetrose Dec 08, 2005 4:28:56	Unless I'm mistaken (and I could be; I've had a long week), it says that all of the text on the Hypertext SRD is open content. Which should mean that all of the planes listed here are up for grabs. (Respectfully, of course, through use of the OGL.)
#5 ripvanwormer Dec 08, 2005 10:00:43	They went into detail about the inner, and transitive planes, but left out the outer. Does this mean that all of the outer planes are off limits? Yes, that's what it means. If you want to use outer planes, you have to invent your own; most d20 companies use Hell and the Abyss, for example, with no problems, and Green Ronin uses Heaven, Gehenna, and Elysium, but you can't use names that don't come from real-world mythologies. The Open Game License means you have to put this somewhere in the book, and that you should make some of what you invent also Open Content, and state what is Open and what isn't. In return, you can use any of the classes, planes, spells, monsters, magic items, races, and so forth listed in the SRD. You can't use WotC things that aren't in the SRD. So, for example, the kyton is in there but Sigil is not. This is the official SRD page. It includes FAQs and the d20 Modern SRD.
#6 zombiegleemax Dec 13, 2005 17:49:10	I've recently run into this dilemma myself. I love Planescape, and I think it has so much untapped, unmined potential. It speaks to my heart and soul quite a bit. However, any and all fan fiction is legally unpublishable. I once sent an email to Monte Cook and asked him about the viability of writing something set in the Planescape setting and he said more or less what has been posted above about James Gardner--that WoTC is not likely interested in submissions. However, he did recommend Ken Lipka's site, and that was certainly better than nothing. At the moment, it is probably the best destination for Planescape fanfiction. I have one Planescape fanfic there entitled "The Hive". You can find a better (more updated) version of it here. I've had some serious plans to write another novella set in Sigil as well, and I even considered writing an entire novel consisting of loosely connected short stories, which "The Hive" would be a part of. It would have been some sort of weird cross bewteen "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and "Lord of the Rings". But unless I become a famous, bset-selling author and/or somehow get involved with WoTC, this would be an impossibility. I could just wait until then, however. Or I could try to make changes to my stories and the setting enough that it wouldn't be Planescape. Both are worth considering . . .
#7 zombiegleemax Dec 15, 2005 13:09:25	I think that the best PS fan (fiction included) site on the web is Planewalker.com, personally.