D&D 4E Ioun as part of the 4E core pantheon? What about Jack Vance?

[Blair Goatsblood]

Are the staffers at WOTC unaware that Ioun is a creation of sci-fi/fantasy author Jack Vance?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Are the staffers at WOTC unaware that Ioun is a creation of sci-fi/fantasy author Jack Vance?

I'm not sure, but whoever owns the rights to Vance's stories objects, certainly they would have said something by now? Ioun stones have been magic items for as long as I can remember (although I came in to D&D during 2e).

 

[Glyfair]

Are the staffers at WOTC unaware that Ioun is a creation of sci-fi/fantasy author Jack Vance?

Ioun Stones are (and were apparently used with Vance's permission). As far as I know there is no such person as Ioun in Vance's books.

...but whoever owns the rights to Vance's stories objects...

Jack Vance still owns the rights to his stories, as far as I know.

 

[jdrakeh]

Ioun Stones are (and were apparently used with Vance's permission). As far as I know there is no such person as Ioun in Vance's books.

Correct. There is no personage known as Ioun in Vance fiction.

Jack Vance still owns the rights to his stories, as far as I know.

Also correct.

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

Ioun Stones are (and were apparently used with Vance's permission). As far as I know there is no such person as Ioun in Vance's books.

True, however, with all the effort WOTC is putting into having a "bulletproof" pantheon, you think someone would have had reservations about naming a god after a magic item that is featured in a prominent sci-fi author's work. To me (although I am a huge Dying Earth fan) it's like naming a god Stormbringer or having Yog-Sothoth Stones as a magic item. Although I guess it could be intended as a tribute to the author who is responsible for the previous editions spellcasting mechanics...

 

[wingsandsword]

The only fictitious personage I know of within D&D named Ioun (and being the character that the stones are named for) is Congenio Ioun, who died in -2540 DR (in other words roughly 3900 years before the modern age of the Realms). Within FR he's the one credited with creating the stones (he called them "Congenio's Pebbles" but the name didn't stick), and much as how Mordenkainen's Disjunction et al. were presumed to have been created on Greyhawk and migrated to other worlds via spelljammers and planewalkers, the Ioun Stones migrated out from there..

(Yes, I know that Ioun Stones predate the Forgotten Realms as a D&D world, but within pre-existing D&D canon, that's the only person named Ioun I know of).

 

[Remathilis]

That is, of course, assuming that this Ioun is in reference to the Stones in Vance's novels...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ioun

 

[Green Knight]

Is there anything stopping them from using Cthulhu in the Core Pantheon? If not, then it's a damn shame that they didn't go for it. Cthulhu as the lord of the Far Realm would've been fantastic.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Chtuluh in itself is still copyrighted I think, but not much of the Mythos though...

 

[Baron Opal]

No, I believe that Lovecraft died 75+ years ago.