The License Details

Here we go. I (Alan/Northern Lights Foundry) and Kris (Deeply Dapper/Octopress Publishing) love third party content, open systems and more. I have personally designed and released several, as well as learned a ton and leveraged open or public systems through my time. Adding games, mechanics and ideas back into the ecosystem is important to us, and this license is intended to do that.

That said, we gotta protect ourselves too. We’re small publishers and creators. This license won’t ask for your money, and it’s pretty open, but we really want you to understand that we hope you’ll treat us, our work, and our vision with respect.

This license allows you to create material for Tombpunk and publish it (for free, for money, or for….I dunno, whatever you can get for it, I guess). Pretty much anything goes as long as you follow the rules below.

Text and art from TOMBPUNK and all other Northern Lights Foundry produced TOMBPUNK material may not be reused, translated, reproduced, or republished without express written permission from Northern Lights Foundry.
Text and art from licensed third-party content may not be reused, translated, reproduced, or republished without express written permission from the copyright holder.
You may reference any creatures, locations, setting information, lore, or fictional information from TOMBPUNK freely.
You may reference and restate applicable game rules and mechanics.
Your product cannot use the TOMBPUNK logo, the Northern Lights Foundry logo, or any other logos printed in TOMBPUNK without express permission. See below for the Powered by TOMBPUNK logo you can use though!
Neither your product, marketing, or any related materials can state or imply that it is an official TOMBPUNK product or that it is endorsed or sponsored in any way by Northern Lights Foundry or Octopress Publishing without explicit written permission.
No portion, elements, text, art, or other components of Tombpunk may be used in conjunction with generative AI or NFT related material.

Look. If you use this license, Northern Lights Foundry takes no responsibility for any legal claims or action brought against you. Any legal matters arising from your use of this license will be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of the United States and will be settled by a court of the United States.

Additionally, the following legal and copyright text must be visibly and legibly included in the publication and on websites or storefronts where you offer the product:

Legal Text

“[Product name] is an independent production by [Author or Publisher] and is not affiliated with Northern Lights Foundry, Deeply Dapper, or Octopress Publishing.

[Product Name] is published under the TOMBPUNK Third-Party License.”

Copyright Text

If you adhere to these terms, you may publish free or commercial products using the TOMBPUNK system, and you may declare compatibility with TOMBPUNK without express permission from Northern Lights Foundry or Octopress Publishing.

Compatibility Logos

Should you want to, feel free to use the optional TOMBPUNK compatibility logos in your third-party products:

Some Guidance with Tombpunk Material

TOMBPUNK is a game about systemic economic and political oppression against the common populace of the world it takes place in. TOMBPUNK is designed to explore (through the game’s mechanical economic system) the oppression of fiscal systems, and why that might drive characters to dangerous occupations like dungeon delving. TOMBPUNK is about the game restricting your ability to actually overcome the broken system, forcing you to break the game in order to break the system.

It is not a game about working for on behalf of massive cultural entities (governments, churches, etc.) It uses the medieval feudal milieu deliberately, but it doesn’t have to (for example, we’re working on “STARPUNK” and other genres). You can explore these ideas anywhere. We intend to – starting with STARPUNK. There might be evil gods, but evil gods often don’t impact your day to day life in the worlds of TOMBPUNK. Not like the local greedy lord or the corrupt town council can and do. You might dive into dungeons, but the real enemies often aren’t in there.

But those elements are sort of implicit in the game and through its rules. They aren’t made explicit. Lords don’t have stats to overcome. There are no rules to break the hold of a corrupt political entity. You’re going to have to operate outside the mechanical system of the game’s framework to do so. That’s intentional.

If you want to hold to the spirit of TOMBPUNK, keep the following in mind.

The true enemy is the game, as the rules of the game benefit the oppressive system of the TOMBPUNK world. Players cannot overcome the system that keeps them down by following the rules of the game.
The worst baddies don’t have stats to defeat. They exist as narrative oppression, almost undefeatable.
TOMBPUNK products should not provide a clear pathway to break the game. That’s not the goal. Players have to learn that lesson implicitly.

All that to say: The oppressive feudal tax system herein doesn’t have hit points. You can’t hit it with a sword. You can’t win a fight against a medieval lord and his entire army (not as some grungy adventurers).

The game is about what you do inside that system until you’ve had enough and break the game to get out. That’s encouraged. And when you release TOMBPUNK products, I can only hope you keep the intentional design I tried to leverage at the front of your products. I can’t make you, but hey. I should at least tell you what I tried to do.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that this license takes inspiration from the MÖRK BORG, FRONTIER SCUM, and GAVRIEL QUIROGA‘s open licenses for their wonderful roleplaying game products. Please check them out and give them your money. They deserve it.