In a message dated 9/15/00 2:18:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << The copyright notice states that art is copyright 2000 by the respective artists and that the text of the book is Open Gaming Content. After this, there's a line that states "The Yellow Sign is Copyright 1986 Kevin Ross." The Yellow Sign is a cult in the city of Freeport. My guess is that this means the group was created by Ross and he is retaining the rights to them.>> Well, no. This actually takes some explaining. I'm sure many of your are familiar with the work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly through the excellent Call of Cthulhu RPG from Chaosium. Lovecraft was influenced by writers such as Robert W. Chambers and Ambrose Bierce. He took elements of their stories and wove them into his own. Lovecraft also had a cirlce of fellow authors and admirers, including such writers as Robert E. Howard, Augest Derleth, and a young Robert Bloch. All of these guys borrowed from each others work, while adding new material as well. The series of short stories and novels built on Lovecraft's foundation is generally called the Cthulhu Mythos, a term coined by Derleth but never used by Lovecraft. This body of work continues to grow, as it has since the 1920s. When I was considering a d20 adventure, my thoughts turned to this material. The way these authors worked, it was "Open Source" before the term existed (and before people got so worried about rights and IP). I thought it would be a perfect touch to add my contribution to the mythos while exploring the new possibilities of the Open Gaming License. I took several different strands from assorted authors, and then wove them into the new tapestry of Freeport. The serpent people come from Robert E. Howard, the Yellow Sign from Robert W. Chambers, and Yig from Lovecraft. I created the whole history of Freeport, the background for the serpent people, and the particulars of the cult, but you can see the homage to the Lovecraft Circle. The place it gets tricky is the illustration of the Yellow Sign. The idea of the Yellow Sign comes, as I said, from Chambers and it's copyright free. However, in a Call of Cthulhu adventure in the mid-80s, Kevin A. Ross drew the Yellow Sign for the first time. His interpretation of what the Yellow Sign looked liked has become a sort of standard, but he retains the copyright to it. Since I used the Yellow Sign in one illo, I gave Kevin the credit he deserved. <<The Yellow Sign seems to be fairly important in the history of Freeport and in the modules the company is doing, so I'm not sure how you could make full use of the open content without them.>> You can use the text worry free. If you want to use that image of the Yellow Sign, you should credit Kevin. Sorry for the history lesson. :) Chris Pramas ------------- For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
