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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 753788" data-attributes="member: 463">Under US copyright law you can't copyright an idea, only the expression of that idea.  You certainly can't copyright a word like 'beholder' either, although you can trademark it.  Nothing in copyright law prevents you creating monsters based off the general idea of the beholder or mind flayer, even if the original versions or the 3rd edition versions are protectable under copyright law - which is debatable.  The actual Monster Manual descriptive text & stat block certainly is copyrightable though, under US & UK law (the stat block probably wouldn't be under eg German author's rights law).  To my knowledge, writing "room contains Mind Flayer - 42 hp", or whatever, in your module doesn't infringe any copyrights (a trademark disclaimer might be wise though - "this product not authorised by WotC" type language), but reproducing the Illithid's MM stat block would.It should be remembered that the SRD and OGL doesn't add to WoTC's pre-existing legal rights or detract from the freedoms of others, it's been well-described as simply a way for WotC to play nice without getting into trouble with their own legal department.Note: I'm only saying what I think the legal situation is.  Lawyers don't necessarily pay any attention to what the law actually says or what a court would most likely decide, when they threaten to sue you for something their employing corporation doesn't like, and defending a civil action can be expensive I think... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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