Andrew D. Gable said:
No, what I meant was say I convert a bunch of monsters that aren't from Tome of Horrors: say from old Mayfair supplements and such. Could I (hypothetically) publish these, or would I need special permission?
Using the Mayfair supplements example, you would be required to get permission from the people that own the rights to the monsters (and I have no idea who that is) if the monsters are solely their creations and didn't come from mythology/history. For example....
"Common" monsters from mythology... you can use them pretty much as is. Ya just can't use the configuration if Mayfair (or whoever) altered it from its mythological counterpart. For monsters that have a historical counterpart in name only, you might be able to use the name, but not the configuration. For monsters that are clearly the creation of the company (take the beholder for example...that is strictly a TSR/WotC creation), you cannot use that monster at all (you might be able to use the name, but ya gotta change the monster).
For example, using WotC monsters as examples, take the phoenix. In mythology its a giant fiery bird...blah blah blah. This is how WotC described it in D&D so you can use it pretty much as is.
Take Demogorgon. His name is from mythology (which means you can use it). But, his D&D configuration (two-headed tentacled demon) is not. This means that while you could stick Demogorgon in a book and sell it, you cannot use the D&D configuration without permission from WotC. You would have to devise your own version of Demogorgon.
Basically, I'm just wondering if the TOH is a special instance or something in the OGL I wasn't aware you could do.
The Tome is more or less a "special case" in that we (Clark Peterson and I) worked closely with WotC (Clark more than me) to secure permission to do the old monsters as is. So yeah- I suppose it is a special instance. WotC gave us permission (and their blessing
) to do the book as we saw fit.
