Sword of truth

[Hai-Etlik]

Considering how polarized opinion is about those books, perhaps something less controversial would be a better choice. Or allow for any published fantasy world.

Either way, there is the problem that it could potential step on toes regarding copyright though (IANAL so I don't know how much of a problem this would be for sure.)

[ennob]

Considering how polarized opinion is about those books, perhaps something less controversial would be a better choice. Or allow for any published fantasy world.

Either way, there is the problem that it could potential step on toes regarding copyright though (IANAL so I don't know how much of a problem this would be for sure.)

As long as we don't directly copy anything I think we should be OK. The creation of a map that doesn't exist in the books (or anywhere else) could at most be considered fan art, and it certainly seems to be "fair use".

We could also go for any published fantasy world but IMO it's somehow nicer if the maps have a common theme. Of course, as Jaxilon points out, people who didn't read any of the books will not find the challenge that easy. They will either have a bit of reading to do or they can just submit their latest village. The world is big enough that almost anything goes.

[Midgardsormr]

As long as we don't directly copy anything I think we should be OK. The creation of a map that doesn't exist in the books (or anywhere else) could at most be considered fan art, and it certainly seems to be "fair use".

For what it's worth, Goodkind has expressly disallowed fan fiction. Any fan art that uses the names of characters and/or locations within his world are covered (probably) by copyright law. The law in most jurisdictions is rather hazy on that point, since copyright really isn't designed to cover the use of singular words like names. In any case, Goodkind disapproves of fan fiction set within his world, so I should think that artists should also tread lightly, and the Guild should not sponsor a challenge that contradicts an author's wishes (even indirectly).

http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/Terry_Goodkind
Unfortunately, The Taint, which is the original source of this information, is now offline, and the Wayback Machine does not store forum databases. So there is no way at present to truly verify Goodkind's policy short of contacting him and asking.

edit:

I'm pretty sure that I've read 17 books. Maybe they've split them in a few more parts in the german version?

Goodkind's books tend to be rather long. Robert Jordan's novels were split into multiple volumes when released in Germany for that reason (and the German versions had much better cover art, by the way), so it would not be at all surprising if Goodkind's were treated the same way.

[ennob]

For what it's worth, Goodkind has expressly disallowed fan fiction. Any fan art that uses the names of characters and/or locations within his world are covered (probably) by copyright law. The law in most jurisdictions is rather hazy on that point, since copyright really isn't designed to cover the use of singular words like names. In any case, Goodkind disapproves of fan fiction set within his world, so I should think that artists should also tread lightly, and the Guild should not sponsor a challenge that contradicts an author's wishes (even indirectly).

Ah OK. I guess that settles it. What a shame, it's such a cool world.

In light of that, I think mearrin69's suggestion about a "pick your literary inspiration" mapping challenge is a good substitute. Although it suffers from the same problem as this challenge in that it's hard to judge the contributions for outsiders. At least how well they adhere to the original source material.