Who is going to publish D20 Call of Cthulhu material?

[clockworkjoe]

I just got the D20 CoC main book and I was wondering: What companies are going to publish material for it and more specifically, are any of those companies willing to publish free lance material like adventures and so forth?

I want to write stuff for CoC, but I don't want to devote a lot of time to material that no one will even think about publishing. Writing is great and all, but I'm one of those vain bastards who actually wants to get something published

 

[Henrix]

Chaosium, certainly.

I don't really think anyone else is allowed to, as they own the rights to the setting.
Possibly companies like Pagan Publishing, who have been doing CoC stuff for years on some sort of licence.

 

[UniversalMonster]

Anyone can release OGL-d20 horror stuff though, and the Cthulhu mythos is now entirely open-source.

Chaosium is officially the only publisher of source material for d20 Call of Cthulhu.

d20 material that just happens to be compatible with Call of Cthulhu and includes the Cthulhu mythos is up for anyone with the vision.

 

[The Traveler]

the Cthulhu mythos is now entirely open-source.

Er, no. Arkham House still holds the rights to the Cthulhu Mythos.

 

[Darkness]

Moved to d20 Systems Games.

 

[trancejeremy]

I'm pretty sure Pagan Publishing is going to.


As to who owns the rights, well, Chaosium owns the rights to Call of Cthulhu, and presumably the mechanics. So you can't use the name or any of the rules in it.

OTOH, who owns the rights to the Cthulhu mythos is trickier.

Dozens of different authors, including Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Karl Edward Wagner, and lots of others have written mythos stories. They own the rights to the stuff they wrote/invented.

I believe Arkham House owns the rights to stuff August Derleth wrote. And they claim to have the rights to HPL's stuff as well, but this is disputed.

See

http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/copyrights.htm

So, it's probably best to get a lawyer to advise you.

OTOH, I believe the works of Robert Chambers are now copyright expired. So you can write about Hastur, the King in Yellow, and the Yellow Sign pretty safely (as did the Green Ronin people in their Freeport modules, though the design of the Yellow sign they used is copyright someone in 1986, so you'd have to get permission or make up your own).

 

[teitan]

Anyone can release OGL-d20 horror stuff though, and the Cthulhu mythos is now entirely open-source.

Actually, yes and no. The Mythos is public domain, but the D20 versions of the creatures are not, nor are the sanity rules. These are owned by CHaosium and WOTC. These rules are not OGL. All that is OGL is what is in the SRD and the gentlepersons agreement on the DMG and Monster Manual and a few of the materials from other publishers, like an average of 5% if they follow the OGL.


There is a myth that everything WOTC publishes is OGL and that just isn't so.

Arkham House does not own the rights to HPL's works though as they claimed to when in fact HPL was owned by one of his relatives who gave Arkham house permission to reprint the Mythos tales and claim copyright on them. The fact of the matter is that because they failed to re-enforce their copyrights they went PD. Pretty much anything from before 1920 is Pulic DOmain. You have to enforce those copyrights.

Jason

 

[saduff]

Well anyone could publish horror source book with a various themes (zombies vampires and demons aren't copyrighted by anyone). Just don't include the stats or rules from d20 system or any other system.

 

[Ranger REG]

You mean like one of those fantasy encyclopedias? Sure. I think Time-Life have been selling those for some time. I'm sure I saw some of them in my local library.