d20 Publishing and the Public Domain

[The Traveler]

Recently, on this board, I read a long and drawn out discussion of how WotC should make a book about Dis in the Nine Hells.

Here's the thing, though, the Nine Hells, so long as you don't call them Baator, is fair game for d20 publishing. Dis, specificially, is public domain because it's from the popular portrayal of the nine circles of hell, as is Dispater. So are most of the figures from the Nine Hells (excepting a couple of the Lords of the Nine).

Take a look at Chris Pramas' take on the Lords of the Nine in the book Legions of Hell. This is an example of how you can neatly trim out the copyrighted material on the plane and still publish (admittedly non-canon, but still compatible) supplements about them.

Know what? Abyssal Lords like Demogorgon are fair game too. So are a bunch of other topics from D&D canon that are based off of myth that is in the public domain. Ryan Dancey even explained on the OGL mailing list how someone could detail a hellish plane and call it Gehenna, or Acheron.

So really, in some of the ideas that people are so desperate for WotC to do, it's possible to have just your average d20 publisher do them.

Do your homework. Not all of WotC's ideas are copyrighted and restricted.

 

[Lady Dragon]

Your absolutely right as Chris Pramas at Green Ronin and Necromancer games with there heavy use of Orcus and Fast Forward games and there encyclopedia of Demons and Devils prove.

However I think what the big deal with Planscape and the WoTC IP is that close isn't always close enough.I am hoping that soon WoTC with release Manual of the Planes to the open game lisnese at least in part and that with solve a lot of the problems.

 

[The Traveler]

Ah, but with Dis, it wouldn't even have to be "close enough"!

The city, and even its ruler have detailed portrayals in the public domain. A d20 citybook on it already has a lot of material it can draw from that is fair game.