Hello! I am a player who hopes to write a comic series one day based on my main 9 characters. Though I was originally planning to try & propose the comic to Wizards when I finish the whole concept, I thought some more & realized that it may be better to go down the route of original fantasy considering most of my characters are races that obviously fall under fair use:
These include the obvious ones:
•a Human Barbarian
•a *(High) Elf Paladin
•a Fairy Fighter
•a *(Forest) Gnome Wizard
•an Orc Cleric
•a Goblin Sorceress/Druid
•& a Reborn Fighter/Warlock that's just a zombie
*I put parenthesis on the specific subraces of the Elf & Gnome since I'm unsure if those're copyrighted.
There are 2 however that may or may not be copyrighted races:
•a Plasmoid Rogue, though she could be easily done as a generic humanoid slime race & wouldn't compromise her backstory at all.
•& a Firbolg Bard.
The firbolg is in a grey area for me. The name "firbolg" is from Irish mythology about a group of settlers. However I'm, of course, basing her off the very tall, blue, fuzzy firbolgs re-introduced in Volo's Guide to Monsters & I'm unsure if those are copyrighted since Critical Role's world has firbolgs, though they're more bovine-like & they could've more than definitely been given permission by Wizards.
So are firbolgs free game? If not, any alternative free use gentle mini-giant fantasy races I could use for the comic?
High elves date back to at least Tolkien. Since firbolgs are taken from Irish mythology I don't believe they can be copyrighted unless you blatantly lift everything about them from the sourcebooks. Not a copyright lawyer, though, so don't take my word for it.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
FWIW, HeroForge just uses a generic "forestkin" description for their firbolg base form, so it's possible they at least felt it was murky enough they didn't want to risk getting into it with WotC over how far the copyright for VGtM/MotM extends.
Hello! I am a player who hopes to write a comic series one day based on my main 9 characters. Though I was originally planning to try & propose the comic to Wizards when I finish the whole concept, I thought some more & realized that it may be better to go down the route of original fantasy considering most of my characters are races that obviously fall under fair use:
These include the obvious ones:
•a Human Barbarian
•a *(High) Elf Paladin
•a Fairy Fighter
•a *(Forest) Gnome Wizard
•an Orc Cleric
•a Goblin Sorceress/Druid
•& a Reborn Fighter/Warlock that's just a zombie
*I put parenthesis on the specific subraces of the Elf & Gnome since I'm unsure if those're copyrighted.
There are 2 however that may or may not be copyrighted races:
•a Plasmoid Rogue, though she could be easily done as a generic humanoid slime race & wouldn't compromise her backstory at all.
•& a Firbolg Bard.
The firbolg is in a grey area for me. The name "firbolg" is from Irish mythology about a group of settlers. However I'm, of course, basing her off the very tall, blue, fuzzy firbolgs re-introduced in Volo's Guide to Monsters & I'm unsure if those are copyrighted since Critical Role's world has firbolgs, though they're more bovine-like & they could've more than definitely been given permission by Wizards.
So are firbolgs free game? If not, any alternative free use gentle mini-giant fantasy races I could use for the comic?
High elves date back to at least Tolkien. Since firbolgs are taken from Irish mythology I don't believe they can be copyrighted unless you blatantly lift everything about them from the sourcebooks. Not a copyright lawyer, though, so don't take my word for it.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
FWIW, HeroForge just uses a generic "forestkin" description for their firbolg base form, so it's possible they at least felt it was murky enough they didn't want to risk getting into it with WotC over how far the copyright for VGtM/MotM extends.
Because Fir Bolgs are ancient creatures from mythology, I'd imagine the name isn't copyrighted as long as you don't keep them exactly the same.
If you do want to keep it pretty similar to the Fir Bolg's design, Sasquatch or Bigfoot might be a good alternative name.