Yep, gotta fire up those rant engines. I find it a little difficult these days, just because there aren't too many things out there for me to vent about. I could just run my mouth to see my words in print…

Enough indecisive talk though. I have a target for the day. Adndmonsters.com. Yes, I've posted up the link, but before you travel there, I suggest waiting and hearing me out. I mean, no need to give him an extra hit on his web counters without knowing the real deal, right?

Let's do a little history. Back before www.ruined.net, back before the rants, I had a fairly simple website on Geocities. I'd point you there now, but I don't like the looks of the site. I was learning good design, which was much more difficult to do than say, coding HTML. I put up a website involved with Planescape, that Dungeons and Dragons game setting that I still run to this day. I tried to have some material up there for surfers, a few towns (called 'burgs in the game jargon) with some interesting features. They were written much in the style of the published material, and I don't think they were too bad.

I didn't get much else done for the game setting other than this section of writing, which was called Travails and Travels at the time. If any of you are curious, you can follow this link to the Planescape section of my site, where I reprinted the writeups. I did allow the material to be referenced on one site, the Mimir. It was the best PS site at the time, and eventually WotC realized this and made it the official Planescape website. Smart move, boys. But Jon Winter, the man in charge, always gave me full credit and had the appropriate links, etc. He's very cool like that.

So I get this email the other day, one sent to my old account from that website. It's from a name I recognize, but nothing that needs printing. The jist of it is, he's telling me about this site, adndmonsters, that's got links up to my material. And apparently the guy is plagairizing the hell out of WotC, using scanned images and all sorts of old material up on his website. As a fellow writer, the kind soul who sent me the email advised that I should dissociate myself from this rogue and asked if I could help out with actions against him. Well..

So I looked. A so-so site design, but it looks like he's got a wealth of material on there. The site apparently focuses on monsters from AD&D, giving descriptions, stats, and drawings where available. Wait. He's using the old printed materials? Of course, AD&D is in it's 3rd edition now, and the older stuff is out of print. But does that mean the copyright has expired? I think not. And from what I could tell, he's got some monsters from other sites included, making himself a useful little storehouse of information. So I delve deeper.

The Planedom section has all sorts of stuff about my favorite setting. It would be wonderful, had I not purchased all of it like a good little fan. You see, when I think something is useful or good material, I like to purchase it if possible. It's my way of saying kudos to the author. But this guy has been working hard to reprint every little piece of information about the game setting. Hell, he has redone the Players Handbook and the Planescape Boxed Set. And now WotC knows how helpful he's being to the general public.

I just noticed a particularly funny section on his page. "Here is where you should start if you are new to Planescape. This section features my take on the whole boxed set." Then you click the link and it goes to places where he has stolen materials abounding, such as the boxed set, an adventure or two, and a netbook. Yeah, that's hit TAKE on the materials, all right.

I dug even deeper into the website, and my suspicions were confirmed. I went to the material on Planes, in particular Pandemonium, and look! There was a nice writeup on Anonymous, a town I designed four years ago. And over on another page was Deeppockets, a burg I designed from the Astral. Well, at least he has some good web writing on the site, eh? And way down at the bottom of the article, we have [copyright mark] Brian Mooney. Isn't that kind of him? No obvious link to the old website on the page. Hell, you'd think I worked for the guy, like some kind of newspaper hack on staff at adndmonsters.com.

Never did I receive a word requesting the right to republish my material. The kind soul who informed of this travesty proved that I can still be reached. Maybe he thought that my site was dead, therefore I was dead. With the state of ye olde Ruined Halls, one might be inclined to believe that. But then he turned around and pilfered from the Mimir, the grande mecca of PS sites. No more beating around the bush - this guy, Patrik, is a thief. He's a rogue, pure and simple, and he's not even a good one at that.

Just because you put my name up saying that I wrote something, that doesn't put you in the free and clear. This isn't your fifth-grade book report where you're first learning how to properly make a bibliography page. I haven't put my words up as a commercial venture. I don't charge people to read my material. But then again, I have to make sure that it's mine. Maybe one day down the road, when the Beast is complete, I may point people in the direction of my website and say, "Hey, look at some of my earlier writings." And how would it look if those people thought, 'oh wait, I already read this on that monsters site.'

Frankly, I don't intend to let that happen.

So, I'm joining forces with the evil overlords themselves, if they have me in their 133t hit squad. I'll get me a nice Hasbro toy sword and a shield made out of failed CCGs, but I'll stand and fight regardless. We'll find this Patrik, we'll take him and draw and quarter him on the web. Won't that be fun?