The World of Layonara

The Layonara Community => Ask A Gamemaster => Topic started by: SteveMaurer on September 13, 2010, 03:36:50 PM

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: SteveMaurer on September 13, 2010, 03:36:50 PM

Let me point out that Malar is a God from Forgotten Realms, and in the book, Malar Panthers are supposed to be his divine creation - the main reason they're so tough.



This seems to run afoul of your intent to protect Layonara from WoC copyright issues.   (This is not intended as a personal criticism of anyone, BTW.)

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: Unknown User on September 13, 2010, 03:39:48 PM

Likely Answer?  The Creature Palete



Just like many Drow are still Drow in the Underdark (Deep), the Malar are likely just vanilla monsters taken from NWN.  So they are stuck called Malars.



Also likely:  No one noticed before you did.  Not a huge issue, since Orcs and Mithril could be said to be copy rights of J.R.R. Tolkien but they are all over Fantasy.

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: Acacea on September 13, 2010, 04:06:21 PM

Actually their story was done a very long time ago, and depending on who you ask they may be called by different names. Acacea refers to them as either "blood panthers" or "hounds," the latter of which is short for Brelkin's* Hounds. They are/were crazy druid created mage hunters. No doubt it will be retconned again now that it's been brought up, heh.



The change never crossed to the module, which is pretty illustrative of the reasons why module updates and changes to what everyday players see are in a lot of ways more important than what changes in forums or gets stamped "approved" by admins.



*It was Brelkin, right? I can't remember the name of that crazy gnome in the tower. Help.



Re-edit: Yeah, okay, Brelkin in logs. I wondered if I was hallucinating.

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: Guardian 452 on September 13, 2010, 04:12:07 PM

I know one thing the malars you see in game are anything but NWN craetures. Ours are far more deadly. Back in the day we did have NWN malar panthers. they were a joke and people farmed them to rocket thru tailoring.

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: EdTheKet on September 13, 2010, 04:19:17 PM

   

Quote:

   
   
      
   
   

Originally Posted by Acacea                                           Actually their story was done a very long time ago, and depending on who you ask they may be called by different names. Acacea refers to them as either "blood panthers" or "hounds," the latter of which is short for Brelkin's* Hounds.

Correct.

   

Quote:

   
   
      
   
   

They are/were crazy druid created mage hunters. No doubt it will be retconned again now that it's been brought up, heh.

Nope, they're Brelkin's Hounds, but changing the palette is a pain so we kept it malar in game, just like there's still drow.

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: Unknown User on September 13, 2010, 05:21:47 PM

   

Quote:

   
   
      
   
   

Originally Posted by EdTheKet                                           Nope, they're Brelkin's Hounds, but changing the palette is a pain so we kept it malar in game, just like there's still drow.

Never new that... perhaps it should/should have been mentionned like it was done for the drows and drueagars. At least I never heard them called anything else than Malars before... will try to remember and call them by their true layo name from now on. Not that I see them that often... and usually not for long enough to give them a name anyway, besides "bloody piece of meat on the ground". But if one of my char will need a new bag, he/she'll ask for a Brelkin's Hound bag... and no one will know what he/she wants .

 

 Edit:

 

   

Quote:

   
   
      
   
   

perhaps it should/should have been mentionned...

Oh wait, it just has been done

Title: Why are Malar called Malar?
Post by: Dorganath on September 13, 2010, 05:34:28 PM

Good question!



Pretty much all that's been said above is correct.  



Depending on location, a fair number of our creatures are NWN standard, and so they have D&D/Forgotten Realms naming and descriptions.  Things like Drow, as has been pointed out, Duergar, Svirfneblin and other specifically D&D sorts of creatures exist in many places throughout our modules.  The areas build with these creatures were all done long before we began to separate our lore from that of D&D and Forgotten Realms Besides being a pretty big task to go through, root out all the instances and replace them with creatures that are compliant with our lore, we'd effectively also be adding a lot of redundant creatures into the custom palette.



With the Malar Panthers specifically, while the ones in-game are custom to Layonara, and again initially created before we began to diverge our lore, it would not just be a matter of renaming the creatures but also renaming all the associated CNR, recipes and finished products.  While this is not anywhere near the scope of fixing the Drow/Dark Elf renaming (and similar ones) mentioned above, it has been considered a fairly low priority and not something to which we have saw fit to apply our limited resources.



So yes, Malar and other things are technically D&D/FR lore, but at the same time, we're still using the NWN game engine, and by license, our NWN product is a non-commercial entity (meaning we can't make any money on it), so there isn't really any copyright or trademark concern.



On top of that, as far as any MMO resources or lore are concerned, we've already removed (or more accurately, we've not included) any naming that could be considered a copyright or trademark infringement.