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

[Tewligan]

I was thinking that Lovecraft's material is public domain, isn't it? I thought that was why his stuff is available from so many publishers.

 

[SWBaxter]

I was thinking that Lovecraft's material is public domain, isn't it? I thought that was why his stuff is available from so many publishers.

As I understand it, everything he wrote before 1923 is in the public domain. After that, things are a little murky; apparently, everything published during his lifetime is now in the public domain in the European Union. Whether it's public domain in the US depends on whether the copyright holders filed for an extension in the late 1950s, AFAIK nobody's found such a filing but of course IANAL. If they did make the filing, then it doesn't hit the public domain until 2025 or so.

Specific to RPGs, Chaosium holds trademarks on several of Lovecraft's phrases for use in RPGs. I suspect it's this latter bit of IP that prevents WOTC from specifically saying "Cthulhu lives in the Far Realms."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What would Jack Vance's domains be, though?

 

[rkanodia]

What would Jack Vance's domains be, though?

Badwrongfun and Grognardism, obviously

 

[EditorBFG]

Badwrongfun and Grognardism, obviously

While I am amused, we can't really blame Jack Vance for the D&D magic system. He did what many fantasy authors do and made up a novel way for magic to work in the universe of his stories, and it is not his fault Gary Gygax and his successors wrapped so much of D&D around it (and clung to it so tightly for so long).

It is true, though, that the real pantheon of primordial D&D creator gods would include Jack Vance, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, and maybe Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft.

That'd be a weird fantasy world creation myth: "And on the third day, Tolkien created the races; On the fourth day, Vance created magic; On the fifth day, Moorcock created alignment..."

 

[WayneLigon]

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

I'm quite sure they do know about it.

Specific to RPGs, Chaosium holds trademarks on several of Lovecraft's phrases for use in RPGs.

They hold the license from Arkham House to do an RPG based on the works. They at first allowed TSR to use the Cthulhu Mythos stuff, but when it came time for the second printing the Blumes decided they didn't want to include what was basically free advertising for the competition, so it was cut. As far as writing a story using Mythos elements, that's wide open. Every major and minor horror writer I'm aware of has at least one Mythos story; some, like Ramsey Campbell or in a lesser case Charles Stross, base their careers on it.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

I think a certain King did even one, in the past...

 

[WayneLigon]

I think a certain King did even one, in the past...

King has at least two full-on Mythos stories I know of, 'Grandma' and .. one other I can't remember. Plus, The Stand and several other works have passing mentions of Mythos names (gods, books, entities, etc).

Neil Gaiman has a couple,

http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf
http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool Stuff/Short Stories/I Cthulhu

 

[Oldtimer]

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

If you use the current copyright term of lifetime + 70 years, you'd be right. He died almost 71 years ago.

So his works are public domain in most places in the world. Of course, the US, being late into the Berne Convention, used their own copyright terms in those days, which make it rather complicated to figure out there (i.e. while I can happily use anything HPL ever wrote, WotC might want to be more careful).

 

[Plane Sailing]

Is there anything stopping them from using Cthulhu in the Core Pantheon?

Isn't Cthulhu just a high priest though :