Thanks guys; this helps me out a lot. The inclusion of some of the proper names and all similarities therein was more of a convenience than a necessity. I don't plan on copying straight from D&D, it's just a potent inspiration for my own material. The main thing I wanted was the right to use certain creatures (like drow, for instance), but I of course know now to make their home notably different from the Underdark. I still like the forced to go underground motif, though. Since I'm writing a work of fiction that takes place on my own world (I'm sure I read the OGL covers books, too) and not composing a game (not yet, anyway), this is pretty painless.
And a-ha!
"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, character names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."
Obviously I won't be using the Faerun stuff, but my eye is fixed on the names of the planes. Do you think there is any particular reason why they write them out like "Heroic Domains of Ysgard" instead of just Ysgard? My guess is because Ysgard is used in a public domain. They can't copyright actual mythology, only their versions of it, I suppose. Thought the mention of the tanar'ri and baatezu kind of hurts me. Maybe I can use plain old "demons" and "devils". I wonder if those include all the monsters included in the tanar'ri and company categories.
And a-ha!
"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, character names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."
Obviously I won't be using the Faerun stuff, but my eye is fixed on the names of the planes. Do you think there is any particular reason why they write them out like "Heroic Domains of Ysgard" instead of just Ysgard? My guess is because Ysgard is used in a public domain. They can't copyright actual mythology, only their versions of it, I suppose. Thought the mention of the tanar'ri and baatezu kind of hurts me. Maybe I can use plain old "demons" and "devils". I wonder if those include all the monsters included in the tanar'ri and company categories.
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