Hello everybody!

I have been lurking in the forums for a while, but I have decided to register and contribute something to the game. I wrote a fan-made supplement for Eldritch Horror (which I consider to be a great game with a lot of potential), but I have a few questions concerning copyright issues. The supplement’s title is ‘The Children of Jhebbal Sag’, Jhebbal Sag being a dark demigod appearing in an old ‘Conan the Barbarian’ story called ‘Beyond the Black River.’ The question is whether I need to put any text in the file acknowledging the copyright on that story. I have absolutely no idea who owns Conan at the moment (relatives of Robert E. Howard? Does he have relatives at all? Does some movie company own him?), and whether this is an issue at all (whether the name of Jhebbal Sag is copyrighted or not or whether anybody cares at all).

I downloaded the King in Yellow fan-made expansion from BoardGameGeek, and it had a ‘credits’-section, which would be enough for the FFG-references in my supplement, I guess, but what is the procedure when the material contains something from another franchise?

I would really appreciate some help because I have no experience in this aspect of gaming and franchises.

(By the way, is there anybody out there who read this particular Conan-story at all?)

Just to show what the expansion would look like, here is the basic idea, copied directly from the final draft:

General Rules

The basic idea is to collect three special Clue tokens from the board which are placed down as instructed at the beginning of the game. To differentiate these tokens from the other, regular, ones, the players should place them bottom-side up and put them on their investigator sheet the same way. The aim is to get all these Clue tokens at which point one or several investigators need to travel to a fourth location on the map and face the final encounter there (once the investigator(s) meet certain other requirements). The final encounter requires new skill tests, for which the investigator(s) may use the special Clue tokens the usual way (and only the special ones, not the regular Clues collected during the game). Once the investigator(s) finish the final encounter, all that remains is to apply the consequences of the success or failure on the map and the game continues normally, with the original goals to be completed as required by the Great Old One.

Special Clue Tokens

The special Clue tokens can be collected through special Research Encounters. These encounters do not follow the regular 3-part structure (Event 1, make a test, then Event 2 if you succeed or Event 3 if you fail). Instead, there is another layer of events after the first test, which means investigators have to make two tests: the first to see whether they will succeed or not and the second one to see how much they will fail or succeed.

The three-layered encounter card would become 5-layered this way, which would probably make it impractical to make and print, so instead, the investigator who is about to do a special research encounter rolls a die and goes to the page which describes the encounter indicated by the roll. There are 6 encounters altogether, and every encounter can only be attempted once, regardless of whether it was successful at the first try or not.

The expansion was written using the above basic rules, and as soon as I figure out whether I should do something about the ‘Jhebbal Sag’-name, I will upload it somewhere.

Thanks

Meaneye

Most of the Conan property is considered to be in the public domain now, and generally one cannot copyright a name. Since you are using a god from Conan (which has precedent in Lovecraft) and not trying to write an actual account of Conan, then I don't see an issue with copyright or trademark.

Thanks a lot, Wolfgar! I will upload the file to BoardGameGeek as soon as it is ready, and then I will link it here.

FYI, not that it really applies in this situation, but if you're concerned about copyright violation in general, it's not acknowledging the copyright holder that gets you off the hook. It's having prior written consent from the copyright holder.

Both for FFG and for any other source you might be drawing from, it doesn't matter how many times you say "btw I took X from source Y by So-and-so." You might still get hit by a cease & desist if So-and-so sees your work and decides he doesn't like it.

9 times out of 10, fan material like this flies under the radar anyway, but if you really wanted to cover your bases, what you should do is contact the copyright holder and ask them if it's okay to use their material in your project. Before you post it publicly on the internet. In my experience, FFG is usually pretty cool about granting permission too, as long as you're being reasonable about what you're borrowing. For example, I've made a couple contributions for Descent and FFG has always been cool with it as long as I'm not reproducing quest maps or something like that.

Again, not that it applies to this particular project since it sounds like everything you're using is public domain anyway. But for future reference, if you make a homebrew project that's not so clear-cut =)

Also, please note that I am not an actual lawyer, so my understanding of the law is probably not 100% bulletproof. =P

Meaneye,

Steve-O has provided some very sound advice, but my experience with FFG stands in sharp contrast with his and I disagree with the comment "FFG is usually pretty cool about granting permission..." as we had pursued not only FFG's permission, but a Licensing Agreement by which they wou ld have financially benefited from the arrangement. In the end, we parted ways, as they couldn't "make the numbers work" without providing any details nor an opportunity to counter-offer. We parted ways with the tacit understanding that we would not use FFG's name, but we would pursue our venture to create card holders and component trays for the game and the myriad expansions.

I don't have any insight other than to say, try your luck, and hope that your experience is more in-line with Steve-O's than that experienced by my company. The only thing that the relationship has prevented me from doing thus far is play-testing any upcoming expansions.

Cheers,

Joe

The only thing that the relationship has prevented me from doing thus far is play-testing an upcoming Elder Sign expansion .

So there is something new for ES being made?

Most of the Conan property is considered to be in the public domain now, and generally one cannot copyright a name. Since you are using a god from Conan (which has precedent in Lovecraft) and not trying to write an actual account of Conan, then I don't see an issue with copyright or trademark.

Really? I thought you COULD copyright a name. Otherwise why the huge stink in court when someone uses not even a name but a likeness that's close to it? I think if I tried to use the name Ronald McDonald or Spider-Man on some product I'd created that there would be reprecussions. I'd really like to know if I'm wrong about that.

As for Conan I think whoever is doing the Conan MMORPG currently has some of the rights, Disney is probably the owner of them though.

Common courtesy dictates you should try to name your source material.

IANAL. Usually it's not a problem if a) it's not for profit and b) your not bringing the intellectual property into disrepute. Given REH's conan stories are tangentially related to HPL Mythos, I think you're safe on the second front.

Sometimes corporations try it on with small fry. It's almost always a PR disaster when they do; witness what happened when Saul Zaentz tried to close down my local pub!

Unless you're trying to make money off of this, you don't have anything to worry about. Just post it online. It's like fanfiction. Now if you try to sell copies of this then FFG might come at you. Take the XWing miniatures game. The Internet is full of fan made stuff for it. I have a custom card site myself. No one cares as long as I'm not trying to sell them.

Just saying so and so wrote the story and FFG made the source game.

There were problems where people tried making free apps as assistants to the FFG board games and they were shut down with cease and desist orders within a few weeks of going live. I would definitely check with them before doing anything that would reference a FFG product, but if it doesn't have anything to do with FFG then by all means have at it. I like reading some of the fan fiction out there.