Anyone know who owns Bullywugs?

[Wulf Ratbane]

And in Goodman Game's Points of Light products, I highly suspect that "boglings" are a replacement name for bullywugs.

Goblins --> Boglins

EDIT: Thanks for the XP fellas. I think El Mahdi's "Mind Boglin" comment absolutely deserves its own MM entry.

 

[Aurumvorax]

Wizards protects the copyrighted name and exact likeness, not the rules. You can't copyright rules, only the artistic representation of them. For my retro clone I remade several iconic monsters such as:

Bullywug - Bogwart
Umber Hulk - Tunnel Lurk
Osquip - Mutant Molerat
Jermlaine - Widget (what the British called Gremlins in WWII)
Displacer Beast - Coeurl (the name of the public domain monster the DB is based off)
Carrion Crawler - Corpse Ravager
Mind Flayer - Piscodaemon (Final Fantasy, original based on Dungeons & Dragons, changed their literal Mind Flayer monster to this in later games)

And so on. You can keep the game rules you just can't keep the descriptions or names.

 

[Huw]

Displacer Beast - Coeurl (the name of the public domain monster the DB is based off)

Are the coeurl public domain? Mughi from Dirty Pair is obviously a coeurl - but his species is never given. Or are the coeurl in a copyright grey area, like most of the Cthulhu mythos?

 

[Aurumvorax]

Are the coeurl public domain? Mughi from Dirty Pair is obviously a coeurl - but his species is never given. Or are the coeurl in a copyright grey area, like most of the Cthulhu mythos?

The Black Destroyer was released in 1939 but Vogt died in 2000. Other sources (like Final Fantasy) have been using the name and appearance for years and nothing came of it (although Final Fantasy still uses Mind Flayer and piscodemon interchangeably even in their new games; I doubt Wizards could battle Square even if they wanted to). It's definitely a grey area but whoever owns Vogt's copyrights hasn't said anything about it ever.

One of the retro-clones (Swords and Wizardry I think) simply has a creature called Displacer so even then it's not difficult to change the monsters name and image.

 

[El Mahdi]

Reaper does this with their minis also. Such as calling Ilithids, Bathalian; and Teiflings, Hellborn.

And I don't think changing the image or description is necessary. You can't copy the actual illustrations, but making a new illustration or mini that fit's the same description as the original doesn't seem to be a problem. Not a guarantee, but with the preponderance of companies that do exactly that, I'd doubt it's a legal issue that can effectively be challenged even if it isn't 100% legal.

 

[Aeolius]

Sometimes I take a stroll through the Book of Imaginary Beings for inspiration. [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Imaginary-Beings-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0143039938/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1284827539&sr=8-1"]Amazon Listing[/ame]

 

[mhensley]

Bullywugs are almost certainly based on the frogmen that are in the Karl Edward Wagner novel Bloodstone from 1975.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Bullywugs are almost certainly based on the frogmen that are in the Karl Edward Wagner novel Bloodstone from 1975.

Could be. Or -

 

[Doug McCrae]

Goblins --> Boglins

Reminds me of my superhero PC, Dog Girl. She married into the Norse pantheon and became God Girl.

 

[El Mahdi]

There is no Dog...