New art for dark elves

[theDream]

A while ago, I wanted to make my own era. I started with an underground themed faction and made some sprites for it. Due to lack of time and loss of interest, I stopped. I'm going to upload the stuff I made in case anyone has use for it.

Here's a preview of the units that I made and their planned roles:

Support unit with debuffs on ranged and melee attack.

darkelfpriestess.png (3.12 KiB) Viewed 8452 times

Mage that specializes in countering ranged units (first strike, magical ranged attack).

prodigee.png (2.59 KiB) Viewed 8452 times

High mobility, high damage unit that specializes in preying on the weak (deal more damage based on enemy missing health)

tunnelhunter.png (4.87 KiB) Viewed 8452 times

Hard to kill unit due to resistance and regeneration. Decent ranged and melee attacks. Lackluster mobility. Has diminished scouting range.

youngone.png (4.24 KiB) Viewed 8452 times

[theDream]

These are all the sprites and animations of the units listed above (except beholder because it violates copyright).

WEsnothused.zip

(497.91 KiB) Downloaded 266 times

If anyone wants the unpublished, editable, high resolution files for them, I'll try to upload them.

[8680]

Beholders are considered Dungeons and Dragons “Product Identity” by Wizards of the Coast, and thus may not be used without their consent.

In case anyone wonders about the double-post: a single post cannot have more than five attachments, so multi-posting is permitted when the poster wishes to post more than five attachments.

[theDream]

I removed it from the zip file. Couldn't edit the original post to delete the image.

[artisticdude]

I removed it from the zip file. Couldn't edit the original post to delete the image.

I removed it for you. For future reference, you can delete attachments even in posts you can no longer edit by going to the User Control Panel -> Overview -> Manage Attachments.

[ancestral]

You can create a Beholder-like creature. If the art is original, it’s okay to post, as long as you choose a new name for it.

[doofus-01]

"Beholder" is hardly an original name, can that really be claimed as IP? If it isn't a dead-ringer for whatever the D&D thing is, can there really be an issue? Maybe Wesnoth should reconsider using "Skeleton" as a unit type.

As for the art, maybe I am missing something, but the images do not exactly look like an improvement over the Dark Elves from Extended Era ( see http://units.wesnoth.org/1.6/C/era_exte ... 0.0.0.html ).

[ancestral]

"Beholder" is hardly an original name, can that really be claimed as IP? If it isn't a dead-ringer for whatever the D&D thing is, can there really be an issue? Maybe Wesnoth should reconsider using “Skeleton” as a unit type.

8680 is exactly right here. All of the following items ought to be considered hands-off, as they are identified as Product Identity:

The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, proper names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, the City of Union, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti

What is Product Identity? Section 1(e) says:

“Product Identity” means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;

Note that they’re not claiming “Skeleton,” “Fireball” or “Broadsword” as Product Identity (prior art and overall generality would assuredly defeat their claim). These are items that Wizards feels they can defend in court — most of these things were copyrighted at TSR or Wizards, and own trademarks.

Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted (though they may be patentable, and generally such patents are of systems and sophisticated mechanics). The expression of an idea however, can. The good news is you can draw inspiration from someone’s product. If you can clearly differentiate your creation, then you have a better chance of not infringing on copyrights, trademarks, and Product Identity claims in general. (This can get very sticky, and I don’t pretend to be a lawyer, so please understand this is not legal advice.)

[doofus-01]

Note that they’re not claiming “Skeleton,” “Fireball” or “Broadsword” as Product Identity (prior art and overall generality would assuredly defeat their claim). These are items that Wizards feels they can defend in court — most of these things were copyrighted at TSR or Wizards, and own trademarks.

Those people didn't invent the word "behold" (or its expression in the form of eyeballs). If they can defend it in court, that says bad things about the legal system. "Skeletons" may not be on that list, but someone else could have it covered. It shouldn't be much harder to defend than "beholder".

What a joke. I wonder how many "infringements" I've committed...

[Dugi]

What a joke. I wonder how many "infringements" I've committed...

Bad Moon Rising is the name of a song from Nirvana. Copyright infringement. Remember that character from Matrix? The Trinity campaign as another piece of copyright infringement. Everything you ever produced is a copyright infringement to some extent.

But, the problem is different.
If somebody creates a unit named Beholder, it is fine IMO. It should naturally have some eyes. If it looks like this, it's fine. But if it also looks like this and has the same abilities as the D&D beholders (petrification, hypnosis, antimagical rays), then it is not fine.
You can make mind-manipulating monsters named mind flayers, but if you make them look like Davy Jones and give them a secondary name illithids, then it's not fine.
There is a barrier between possibly random coincidence and obvious copyright infringement. And I am quite sure that theDream based his units on the Underdark creatures from D&D, that is not very creative and forbidden.

[AI]

What a joke. I wonder how many "infringements" I've committed...

Bad Moon Rising is the name of a song from Nirvana. Copyright infringement. Remember that character from Matrix? The Trinity campaign as another piece of copyright infringement. Everything you ever produced is a copyright infringement to some extent.

In both cases you're referring to names, so copyright is not relevant. Trademarks could be, but both are used in a very different context, so they won't be confused with the 'original' 'product', which is what trademarks are about.

The rest of your post is still valid though.

[doofus-01]

Well, that seems to run counter to ancestral's post...

And, more importantly, Bad Moon Rising is not a song form Nirvana. Nirvana may have recorded a version, but it is from John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

[Wussel]

Hello? Did somebody read what they claim?

There is "Lady of Pain" on the list. Actually it is lady of pain. I am sure the combination of these three words can not be an infringement even in US. Maybe there is a D&D character called by that name. But the name is not like Chun-li or supergirl or whatever.

However, calling flying balls "beholder" I would agree is not acceptable. You might still be able to call them "monster of deep" or so. Why you need flyballs? You could have flysquares or are they protected by startrek?

[ancestral]

Hello? Did somebody read what they claim?

There is "Lady of Pain" on the list. Actually it is lady of pain. I am sure the combination of these three words can not be an infringement even in US. Maybe there is a D&D character called by that name. But the name is not like Chun-li or supergirl or whatever.

However, calling flying balls "beholder" I would agree is not acceptable. You might still be able to call them "monster of deep" or so. Why you need flyballs? You could have flysquares or are they protected by startrek?

To be more exact, this is specifically addressing that it is not Open Game Content. But you should understand that as product identity, they will protect it and its likeness.

Also, you should understand that they’re not claiming product identity simply to the word “beholder.” They’re claiming the name with the monster’s likeness. If you write a book and talk about a beholder creature with lots of eyeballs, you may be infringing against their Product Identity. (Why? They created it at TSR in the Greyhawk setting in 1975. You took it from them.) Instead, if you called it a “Floating Eye” and changed it’s depiction slightly, you’re probably out of the woods.

“Lady of Pain” is the name of the lady. If you make a game and use the name “Lady of Pain” as a proper noun, then anyone better be able to differentiate yours significantly from what Wizards has — there should be no way someone could mistake yours for theirs.

[homunculus]

me surprised,

1. wouldn't the spiteful watcher be suitable or does the creature really need to fly or something? wouldn't it make more sense to use and/or improve the existing unit instead?

2. a commercial game (heroes of might and magic) has used the beholder (using the same name, and having the characteristic tentacles and all) and i (having been a bit fan of homm2 at some point) have never heard that they had problems. or did they acquire a license from d&d? http://heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Beholder
you can search beholder images on google, and there are even more accurate examples of d&d beholder being used elsewhere.
i agree it would be nice if weshoth was less naughty, though.

back to the art worksop, the tunnelhunter and the youngone look promising, but would need some balance tweaks and shading.