Licensing & Sources
A browsable, legally-sourced encyclopedia of everything FTTHelper ships and why. Every row is a single verdict: can we use it, where, and under what license?
Source of truth: docs/legal/content-rights-inventory.md. This page is the public mirror; the repo doc carries the full verdict logic and update log.
Game rules — what we ship in /compendium
The /compendium hub aggregates D&D 5e content that is openly licensed. Stat blocks, items, spells, monsters, and rules text all come from sources we can legally redistribute with attribution.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| WotC SRD 5.1 | CC-BY-4.0 + OGL-1.0a | Free | Monsters, items, spells, rules text — the foundation. |
| WotC SRD 5.2 (2024) | CC-BY-4.0 | Free | Updated 2024 rules text. |
| 5e Core Rules (pre-SRD OGL) | OGL-1.0a | Free | Subset of SRD under the original OGL. |
| Open5e API (open5e.com) | OGL-1.0a | Free | The de facto Compendium source — per-source attribution on every detail page. |
| D&D 5e API (dnd5eapi.co) | OGL-1.0a / CC-BY | Free | Cross-check and supplement Open5e entries. |
| Kobold Press — Tome of Beasts 1/2/3 + 2023 | OGL-1.0a | Free | Monster expansions. |
| Kobold Press — Creature Codex | OGL-1.0a | Free | Monster expansions. |
| Kobold Press — Tome of Heroes | OGL-1.0a | Free | Items, spells. |
| Kobold Press — Deep Magic (5e + Extended) | OGL-1.0a | Free | Spells. |
| Kobold Press — Warlock Archives | OGL-1.0a | Free | Spells. |
| Kobold Press — Compilation | OGL-1.0a | Free | Spells. |
| Kobold Press — Black Flag SRD | ORC + OGL-1.0a | Free | Monsters, dual-licensed. |
| EN Publishing — Level Up A5e (Core + Monstrous Menagerie) | OGL-1.0a | Free | Items, spells, monsters. |
| Mage Hand Press — Vault of Magic | OGL-1.0a | Free | Magic items. |
| Darrington / Green Ronin — Tal’Dorei Reborn | OGL-1.0a | Free | Monsters, items — mechanics only, never the setting prose. |
Monsters — generic stat blocks vs Product Identity
OGL mechanics for monsters (stat block, CR, traits) are licensed. The narrative flavor in published books is often Product Identity. We use Open5e / SRD descriptions and never paste WotC Monster Manual flavor text.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owlbear, Goblin, Orc, Hobgoblin, Bugbear, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Dragon (generic), Troll, Ogre, Skeleton, Zombie, Mummy, Banshee, Wyvern, Manticore, Sphinx (generic), Harpy, Medusa, Minotaur, Vampire (generic), Werewolf (generic), Demon (generic), Devil (generic) | OGL-1.0a | Free | Stat blocks + SRD descriptions from Open5e. |
| Open5e-original monsters | OGL-1.0a | Free | Anything published under Open5e — use as-is. |
| Beholder variants (Death Kiss, Gazer, etc.) | OGL-1.0a (in Kobold ToB, EN A5e) | Care | Allowed only when the source is OGL; track the source per variant. |
| Drow | OGL-1.0a (mechanics) | Care | Stat block only. Never invoke Forgotten Realms, Lolth, or the Underdark-as-FR framing. No Drow NPCs in our seeded Codex. |
| Beholder, Mind Flayer / Illithid, Displacer Beast, Githyanki, Githzerai, Carrion Crawler, Gauth, Kuo-toa, Slaad, Umber Hulk | All-rights (WotC Product Identity) | Never | Hard ban — even via paraphrase. Never seed. Never let users upload art of them. |
World lore & setting prose — what is and isn’t ours
Mechanics are OGL; narrative is not. The prose that brings a setting to life — gazetteers, novelizations, adventure modules — belongs to its publisher. We do not reproduce it.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-world mythology (Norse, Greek, Celtic, etc.) | Public domain | Free | Use freely. Provides flavor for our Loremaster NPCs (Norse-coded, not Norse-pasted). |
| OSR systems (Old-School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, etc.) | OGL / CC | Free | Allowed under the same attribution as 5e. |
| Forgotten Realms (WotC) | All-rights-reserved | Never | Hard ban — no lore, no names, no geography. Even "inspired by" fan content is a slippery slope. |
| Greyhawk, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Wildemount, Strixhaven, Theros, Ravnica (WotC) | All-rights-reserved | Never | Hard ban on the full list of WotC settings. |
| Tal’Dorei (Green Ronin / Darrington) | All-rights (PI separate from OGL mechanics) | Never | Mechanics only — no setting prose, no named NPCs/factions. |
| Exandria / Critical Role | All-rights | Never | Same as Tal’Dorei. |
| Pathfinder / Golarion (Paizo) | All-rights | Never | Different publisher; even more isolated than WotC settings. |
| DMs Guild / D&D Beyond community content | Varies (often all-rights) | Never | Hard ban — third-party published content, license not broad enough for our use. |
| dandwiki.com | CC-BY-SA (copyleft) | Never | CC-BY-SA is copyleft — derivatives must be shared under the same license. We can’t ship it in a proprietary product. |
| Fandom wikis | All-rights + ToS forbids scraping | Never | Hard ban. |
| Adventure modules (WotC, Paizo) | All-rights | Never | Full adventures are Product Identity. |
Named characters, factions, and deities
The single most common licensing mistake is lifting a named character. Even changing the spelling doesn’t work — it’s the identity that’s protected. We use Open5e-republished versions (with attribution) and our own Loremaster creations.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTTHelper “The Loremaster” curator NPCs | Proprietary (R21 Digital) | Free | All seed-npcs*.mjs outputs — our IP. |
| Open5e-republished named NPCs (where license applies) | OGL-1.0a | Free | Use Open5e’s published versions; never invent a name that "feels like" one of these. |
| Drizzt Do’Urden, Mordenkainen, Tasha, Strahd, Elminster, Volo, Minsc (WotC) | All-rights (Product Identity) | Never | Hard ban — explicit PI list in LICENSE.md §2.1. |
| Forgotten Realms deities (Mystra, Bane, Bhaal, Shar, etc.) | All-rights (Product Identity) | Never | Use generic "god of magic" / "god of murder" wording, not deity names. |
| Pathfinder iconics (Valeros, Seelah, etc.) | All-rights | Never | Hard ban. |
| Critical Role PCs (Vox Machina, Mighty Nein, Bell’s Hells) | All-rights | Never | Hard ban — even fan-art-style use is risky. |
Art & illustration
Compendium art is per-entry OGL/CC, with attribution on every detail page. NPC Codex portraits are original works we own. User-generated art stays with the user, with a display license to us.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compendium art bundled in Open5e / 5e-API | OGL-1.0a / CC-BY (per entry) | Free | Per-entry attribution on every detail page. |
| NPC Codex portraits (fal.ai-generated, "The Loremaster" account) | Proprietary (R21 Digital) | Free | We own the generations. fal premium or Cloudflare flux-schnell free fallback. |
| game-icons.net | CC-BY 3.0 | Free | UI icons. "Icons by game-icons.net under CC BY 3.0." |
| Lucide / Heroicons / Phosphor | MIT / MIT / MIT | Free | Open-source UI icons — no attribution required (appreciated). |
| Stock photo libraries (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay) | Per-stock (mostly CC0) | Care | Marketing visuals only — never for in-game content. |
| User-generated art | Per ToS grant (default: user’s, with our display license) | Pending | Display OK today. ToS training-rights clause required before Igarus LoRA training can use it. |
| WotC book art (PHB, MM illustrations) | All-rights | Never | Hard ban — even fan recreations are a risk. |
| D&D Beyond / community art | All-rights (typically) | Never | Hard ban. |
| A LoRA trained on scraped D&D art | n/a (illegal in our pipeline) | Never | Hard ban — redistribution surface is too broad (Stability AI / Midjourgen lawsuit precedent). Distillation-from-own-art is the path. |
System mechanics & homebrew
SRD / OGL dice, classes, spells, and conditions are licensed. Our own homebrew is R21 IP. Pathfinder 2e mechanics are not on our roadmap.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| SRD 5.1 / 5.2 mechanics | CC-BY-4.0 / OGL-1.0a | Free | All dice, classes, spells, conditions. |
| OGL-1.0a mechanics | OGL-1.0a | Free | Same as above. |
| Homebrew rules (FTTHelper’s own) | Proprietary (R21 Digital) | Free | Any custom systems we build — our IP. |
| Pathfinder 2e mechanics | All-rights (Paizo’s ORC) | Never | Different system; only OK if we add Paizo’s ORC and respect its terms (not on roadmap). |
AI-generated content (our pipeline)
The image generators we use must be commercially licensed, and any art that comes out of them must be clearly disclosed as AI-generated. No LoRA trained on scraped copyrighted material — only on our own output and our own user content (with ToS grant).
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| fal.ai generations (FLUX 1.1 pro, FLUX.2 pro) | Per fal.ai ToS (paid tier: output rights transferred) | Free | Premium art, "Summon Studio" outputs. |
| Cloudflare Workers AI (FLUX.1-schnell, SDXL-lightning) | Per CF ToS (paid accounts: permissive) | Free | Free-tier art, "Igarus" default rung. |
| Google Gemini (image gen) | Per Google ToS | Care | Pending Carlos’s review of Google’s commercial-use terms for image gen. |
| xAI Grok Imagine | Per xAI ToS | Care | Paid rung only after ToS review. |
| OpenAI GPT Image 1.5 / 2 | Per OpenAI ToS (usage policy requires disclosure) | Care | Must surface "AI-generated" disclosure on the art card. |
User-generated content
Users own what they create. R21 keeps a non-exclusive display license. Training rights (for Igarus LoRA, RAG grounding) require an explicit ToS grant that we are still in the process of formalizing.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| User art (uploaded or generated via Summon) | User owns; display license to R21 | Free | Display is fine. ToS training-rights clause required before Igarus training can use it. |
| User-created worlds / NPCs / lore | User owns; display + improvement license | Free | Display OK. ToS gate before using to ground RAG. |
| User prompts (final_prompt) | User owns; use license to R21 | Free | Display in their own profile OK. ToS gate before using as LoRA training captions. |
| User names / handles | User owns; we display in public | Free | Standard. |
| User email / payment data | User owns; we don’t display, don’t share | Free | Privacy policy covers. |
| User derivations of a public Loremaster NPC | User owns the derivation; base NPC stays Loremaster’s | Free | Standard "derivative work" framing. |
On the fence — what’s pending review
Things we haven’t decided on yet. The default is not to ship until the verdict moves to ✅ free.
| Source | License | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tavily / web search for NPC lore lookup | Per Tavily ToS | Care | OK for internal research; never for re-publishing — synthesize, don’t paste. |
| Notion / Drive / ClickUp internal docs as prompt seed | Internal — proprietary | Free | Fine for prompt engineering; never visible to users. |
| Homebrew content uploaded by users | Per ToS | Pending | Same ToS gate as user art. |
| Critical Role fan-art of the Vox Machina cast | All-rights | Never | Hard ban — same as Tal’Dorei lore. |
| Custom D&D-themed emojis / reactions | Proprietary if we make them; varies if we use a pack | Care | Custom = fine; existing pack = check license. |
Product Identity hard-ban list
For quick reference. The default for any of these is Never — even paraphrases, even transformations. The full list with rationale lives in the Content Rights Inventory.
Creatures
- · Beholder
- · Mind Flayer / Illithid
- · Displacer Beast
- · Githyanki
- · Githzerai
- · Carrion Crawler
- · Gauth
- · Kuo-toa
- · Slaad
- · Umber Hulk
Named characters
- · Drizzt Do’Urden
- · Mordenkainen
- · Tasha
- · Strahd
- · Elminster
- · Volo
- · Minsc
Settings
- · Forgotten Realms
- · Greyhawk
- · Eberron
- · Ravenloft
- · Dragonlance
- · Dark Sun
- · Tal’Dorei
- · Wildemount
- · Strixhaven
- · Theros
- · Ravnica
- · Golarion
The 4-question gate
Before adding any new source, walk this gate. The default if the answer is “I don’t know” is Never.
- Is the source in the OGL / CC-BY / ORC / public-domain family? → Free with attribution.
- Is the source on the Product Identity exclusion list? → Never.
- Is the content user-generated, and do we want to train on it? → Pending ToS training-rights clause.
- Is the content from a scraping-against-ToS source(D&D Beyond, Fandom, scraped D&D-art portfolios)? → Never.
Cross-references
- Compendium hub — the live data (items, monsters, spells).
- Licenses and Attribution — the public attribution page (publisher list, OGL 1.0a text, CC-BY-4.0 text).
- Content Rights Inventory — the full doc, with verdict logic, the 4-question gate, and update log.
- NPC Codex — our original Loremaster NPCs (all SRD races, no setting-locked names).