The Chromatic Chord

Licence

Plain-Language Summary

The Decachord is free to read, use, and share, and free to build your own work on, including work you sell. Only copies of the material itself are kept back: those may be shared free of charge but not sold, and only the author makes and sells printed or other paid editions of it.

The material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (short form: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), together with the Creators' Permission below, which grants more than that licence does on its own.

This summary is here so readers do not have to start with legal text. The binding terms are the Creative Commons licence and the Creators' Permission.

What This Covers

Unless a document says otherwise, this licence covers everything published as part of The Decachord (together, "the Material"):

  • the books of the series The Chromatic Chord: The Writers' Guide to the Decachord (Foundations, The Medieval Era, A Bestiary of Caeldon, and the books that follow), in every edition: PDF, EPUB, and HTML;

  • the website at https://joetjen.github.io/The-Decachord/, including its Reference;

  • the setting documents, registries, timelines, maps, and artwork in this repository.

What You May Do

  • Read and use it free of charge: for your own stories, games, campaigns, and play.

  • Share it unmodified, free of charge: pass on the PDF and EPUB files, link to the website, print a copy for your own use, or hand a copy to your gaming group, as long as you credit it (see below) and do not charge for it.

  • Make your own works based on it and publish them, including for money, under the Creators' Permission below: novels and short stories, campaigns and adventures, rules and game systems, maps, art, music, and anything else that is your own creation set in or drawing on the world.

What You Must Not Do

  • Sell the Material or copies of it, in any form: printed, bound, or digital, whole or in part, alone or bundled with something else.

  • Make or sell printed editions of the books or of the website’s material. Printed and other paid editions are made only by the author, Jan Oetjen.

  • Share altered versions of the Material (edited, abridged, translated, rearranged, or recompiled copies of the books or the website). Your own works are welcome; altered copies of the Material are not.

  • Present your work as official Decachord canon, or as endorsed by the author, unless the author has agreed to that in writing.

The Creators' Permission

In addition to the rights granted by CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Jan Oetjen grants everyone the following permission.

  1. Own Works. You may create works of your own that are set in, based on, or inspired by the Material ("Own Works"), and reproduce, distribute, publish, perform, and sell them, commercially or not, in any medium.

  2. Using the Material in an Own Work. An Own Work may use the Material’s names, places, peoples, gods, history, and other setting elements, and may include parts of the Material’s text, maps, or tables, where they serve the Own Work.

  3. No replication. An Own Work must not be a replication of the Material. A work is a replication when its content is mainly the Material itself rather than your own creation: for example a copy, reprint, translation, abridgement, summary, rewording, reformatting, or compilation of the books, the website, or substantial parts of them, or anything that could stand in for the books or the website. Such a work is not covered by this permission, whether it is sold or given away.

  4. Credit. Every Own Work that is published or shared must name the books and the website, in a place where its readers or players can find it (a credits page, the imprint, the description, or the end titles), for example:

    Based on The Decachord by Jan Oetjen and the books of The Chromatic Chord: The Writers' Guide to the Decachord, https://joetjen.github.io/The-Decachord/. Used under the Decachord Creators' Permission. This is not official Decachord material.

  5. Your Own Work is yours. You hold the rights in what you created. This permission does not require you to license your Own Work in any particular way, and gives you no rights in the Material beyond those stated here.

  6. No endorsement. Nothing in this permission means the author endorses, approves, or is connected with an Own Work.

Where the Creators' Permission and the Creative Commons licence differ, the Creators' Permission prevails for Own Works; for the Material itself the Creative Commons licence applies.

Credit When Sharing the Material

When you share the Material itself, unmodified and free of charge, keep the author’s name and this licence with it, for example:

The Decachord by Jan Oetjen, https://joetjen.github.io/The-Decachord/, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 with the Decachord Creators' Permission.

Contributions

Additions to the setting can flow back into the official documents. A contribution submitted for inclusion in this repository is treated as permission for Jan Oetjen to include, edit, maintain, publish, and sell it as part of the Material under the terms of this licence. Only material accepted into this repository is official canon.

Formal Licence

For permissions beyond these, such as a licensed edition, a translation, or using the Material in a way not covered here, write to decachord.stoppable990@passmail.net.