D&D General Does The D&D Movie Poster Feature Pathfinder Artwork?

The Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie poster was previewed today. It was created by an artist called Bosslogic, and features an ampersand containing various pieces of D&D monster art. The poster was on display at San Diego Comic Con as part of the official D&D movie promotional event. However, one part of the poster appears to be Pathfinder's depiction of an intellect devourer. Is...

The Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie poster was previewed today. It was created by an artist called Bosslogic, and features an ampersand containing various pieces of D&D monster art. The poster was on display at San Diego Comic Con as part of the official D&D movie promotional event.

However, one part of the poster appears to be Pathfinder's depiction of an intellect devourer. Is this the same art piece?

poster.jpeg


paizo_devourer.png

Paizo's Pathfinder 2 Bestiary (thanks to @Ir'revrykal for the pic)

It certainly looks like the same piece of art.

Now, the intellect devourer is a D&D monster which appeared way back in 1976, and has appeared in every edition of D&D since. Why does Pathfinder have artwork of one? Well, the creature was first released as Open Gaming Content 20 years ago under the Open Gaming License. Since then, other companies have used the monster, or created their own versions of it -- including Paizo in the Pathfinder RPG. The name and the stat blocks (including the Pathfinder version) are free to use.

The art? Not so much. Art commissioned by Paizo to illustrate its Bestiaries is not Open Gaming Content. While art can be OGC (nowhere in the OGL is the actual subject matter defined -- you can make any of your work OGC and available for use by others, from sheet music to 3D spaceship models), companies rarely designate it as so, and Paizo's intellect devourer art is no exception.


However, the 'open gaming license' tangent is a red herring. It's unlikely that Paramount was thinking in terms of open source TTRPG game rules when it made the poster, and this poster is not released using the OGL, so its terms are not relevant to it. More likely, somebody just assumed that that piece of art was created by WotC, not Paizo. The 'OGL' part of this conversation simply explains why Paizo has a version of the creature too, and why Paizo therefore commissioned art for their version.

For comparison, here is the D&D 5E version of the intellect devourer—presumably the piece of art that should have been used.

C21BED96-2003-456D-9664-40E94A3F20D1.jpeg

It's not the first time mistakes like this have happened. Back in 2018 Old Spice released a D&D class called The Gentleman... except that it was actually a Pathfinder class!


When it comes down to it, this is almost certainly just a simple mistake--a contracted artist, not as versed in TTRPGs as many people reading this, simply didn't realise that other companies could or had made their own versions of the creature, and used the one which fitted the space. Nothing to get upset about, and the companies will likely have a quick phone call and the matter will be settled.
 

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darjr

I crit!
So I looked into the legality of it even were it to be a legal matter and it would be covered under fair use as transformative work as a piece of collage art. It has been rearranged and put into a different context creating a new composition beyond the original. There is even a case from 2013, Cariou vs Prince, where it was determined a collage artist did not violate copyright in his art when he used 35 photos from one photographer to create a new piece of artwork. The fact that it is a limited print also is covered under fair use, transformative art. I’m not a lawyer but that was just a general search on collage art in legal precedent including a recent case. This would qualify as a collage piece. It’s unfortunately a grey area and that Paramount and eOne signed off to create a controversy in the small community that would pick up on this, because let’s face it, the public doesn’t give a toss about it and won’t considering this was a SDCC print that showed on a cell phone shot.
Also they gave it away. I wonder if that applies at all?
 

teitan

Legend
Also they gave it away. I wonder if that applies at all?
Probably but I edited my post but here is a screenshot of the ruling and precedents etc I would say Paramount caught it and withdrew it asap on their own before the controversy even stirred up then since they provided him with the reference for the collage then.
 

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So what do we think the tentacles are? Darkmantle?

I'm assuming these assets were given to represent something from the movie.
I looked at darkmantles, as well as grell and greck, and it's not a good match for any of those. Darkmantles are usually depicted with hooked tentacles and more webbing between.

It looks like a common-or-garden giant octopus. There isn't any art for those in the 5e Monster Manual, and it's not from Pathfinder. I wonder if it's from the 3rd edition Monster Manual, it looks familiar, but I can't find my copy?
 

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