I'm adding the new enemies for the robberies... I have several design of "evil floating eye". The one above looks a bit similar to the AD&D Beholder, which I know it's copyrighted. I am unsure though if it's TOO SIMILAR, or would be OK?
I have two other variants without the "tentacles", so it won't be a problem anyway, but was wondering
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:27 am
by OneTrueBaldo
If you ever heard of the Spelljammer campaign setting, you know there are MANY races/variants of beholders, but if I remember correctly ALL of them come equipped with a fanged mouth.
I dare to say your mouthless floating orb is safe, especially if you add wings and a nonmagical attack mode (crashing headlong against pesky thieves sounds fine).
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:13 am
by jack1974
Yes that's what I'm hoping for, no mouth It's more a floating eye than a monster with a giant eye. For now I'll keep it, even if I have to remove it later won't be a big deal anyway (it's just an enemy variant of the other two).
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:18 am
by Alex81
Beholders are interesting creatures for certain.
Though one of my favourite depictions ,or encounters, were this one from Baldur's Gate 2
A pretty clever beholder (d'uh ...it's a floating brain?) , but still -very- clear on not letting you see what is in the chest it's guarding, obviously a contract it takes very seriously.
As for your question? I think it's fine honestly. It's not the first time we've seen floating eye monsters in other settings ,yet what might raise some questions here, are the eyestalks. To be honest I think this one enemy will easily float under the radar (pun intended).
It certainly -looks- quite beholder-ish, and I'm no expert on rights and stuff
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:51 am
by P_Tigras
D&D was hardly the first publisher to create a floating eye monster. Jack, as long as you don't call it a Beholder you'll be fine.
BTW, D&D blatantly ripped off Tolkien's hobbits and ents and renamed them halflings and treants to get around his copyrights.
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:12 pm
by jack1974
OK good. I think it was safe too, but you never know, so I thought to ask around first
Re: beholder? or it's fine?
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:48 pm
by Jaeger
You should be okay. Other video game devs have made similar monsters without serious repercussions.
Some Final Fantasy games, Dragon's Crown, Dragon's Dogma, and Castlevania are a couple of games that featured some form of a floating eye monster. None of the them face serious repercussions.
