Art Based Off of Adventures

Hey everyone!  I was wondering if we are allowed to make art to fit certain adventures? Say if there was a D&D adventure that had different monsters and sprites, could I make art based off of the descriptions and go "art for this adventure" or is that not allowed? Thanks!

I am not a lawyer, but generally you are not allowed to use the name of something in your product or its marketing without permission. This is why you see minis sets for a WotC adventure from Gale Force Nine, Wizkids, or Beadle & Grimm, but no one else on a marketplace says, "Here is this set of minis for [Insert Adventure]." WotC has not given others permission to use the names. That does not stop companies from making compatible products, but they are not explicitly linked to the WotC adventure. For 5e the SRD uses the OGL to give third-party creators the ability to use a subset of the 5e rules in their products (including names of some creatures). Even then, there is a list of names that are Product Identity and not available for use. An art content creator could make an art pack of all the monsters in the SRD as long as they included a copy of the OGL stating that only the names of creatures in their product is OGL content, and the art is product identity. tl;dr If you do not have specific permission to use something in your product (including names), don't do it. 

Brian C. said: I am not a lawyer, but generally you are not allowed to use the name of something in your product or its marketing without permission. This is why you see minis sets for a WotC adventure from Gale Force Nine, Wizkids, or Beadle & Grimm, but no one else on a marketplace says, "Here is this set of minis for [Insert Adventure]." WotC has not given others permission to use the names. That does not stop companies from making compatible products, but they are not explicitly linked to the WotC adventure. For 5e the SRD uses the OGL to give third-party creators the ability to use a subset of the 5e rules in their products (including names of some creatures). Even then, there is a list of names that are Product Identity and not available for use. An art content creator could make an art pack of all the monsters in the SRD as long as they included a copy of the OGL stating that only the names of creatures in their product is OGL content, and the art is product identity. tl;dr If you do not have specific permission to use something in your product (including names), don't do it.  Thank you Brian! I'll just do generic monster sets then. Better safe than sorry :)

For example, I'm making a desert / hellscape / lava racetrack map pack, which was requested by a DM running Descent into Averness, but I'm tentatively just calling it "Rocky Racers" and obviously people who are playing that campaign know what it's useful for, but it could be used by anyone running any game where a racetrack would be useful. I don't have permission to call it "Descent into Averness racetrack". Now, there is one place where this isn't true: the DM's Guild... they have a specific arrangement with Wizards of the Coast. But on Roll20, no, you can't namedrop a specific adventure, even if your pack would obviously be useful for a specific adventure. That doesn't mean you shouldn't theme a pack to suit a specific adventure, you just can't legally use its name as part of your name. Anyway, it's better to make it a bit generic because of the wide variety of games out there. People who are running the adventure will know what it's good for, and people who aren't won't feel they can't use it for their off-brand non DnD Fate Core game with their own monster rules that just happens to use the same monsters as the set you made. By NOT saying 'it's for THIS adventure' anyone will feel like they can use it in any campaign and setting if appropriate. :) So it works out for you better that way... or for me... to just say 'this is a lava racetrack, this is a desert racetrack, this is a rocky terrain track, they all loop around' instead of 'you can only use this if you're playing DoA'.