APTUS Community License

Version 1.0

1. Scope

Richard Ramage (the Licensor) offers the material expressly identified as covered by this license (the Licensed Material) under the terms below. This license applies only to rights the Licensor owns or has authority to license.

A Covered Publication is a book or supplement by the Licensor that expressly adopts this license. Unless its notice identifies exclusions, its Licensed Material includes its text, illustrations, maps, tables, layout, and other copyrightable contents to the extent controlled by the Licensor. Separately credited third-party material remains subject to its stated terms. This license grants no rights in third-party fonts, software, or other components beyond the rights the Licensor may grant.

Future publications and revisions are covered only when they expressly adopt this license. Publication of a different license later does not withdraw permissions already granted for material released under this version.

2. Permission to use, share, and adapt

Subject to the conditions below, the Licensor grants everyone a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license, for the duration of the applicable rights, to reproduce, distribute, display, perform, translate, adapt, and incorporate the Licensed Material into other works in any medium.

These permissions include:

• Sharing the books and other Licensed Material digitally, including through websites, archives, and file-sharing services.
• Making personal copies, accessible editions, translations, house rules, and revised editions.
• Creating and distributing adventures, settings, characters, creatures, items, reference tools, software, virtual tabletop resources, and other compatible material.
• Using APTUS in paid games, streams, videos, events, and other commercial activities.
• Selling original third-party material in digital or printed form, subject to Section 4.

Digital distribution may be free or paid. No payment to the Licensor and no separate approval are required for uses permitted by this license.

3. Reserved commercial printing rights

This license does not authorize anyone other than the Licensor or a separately authorized party to commercially manufacture or distribute printed editions of Covered Publications.

This reservation includes complete printed copies and printed editions that substantially reproduce a Covered Publication or its copyrightable contents. It also includes translations, abridgments, revised layouts, compilations, and other adaptations that function substantially as editions or replacements of a Covered Publication. Changing its title, format, artwork, wording, or arrangement, or adding supplementary material, does not by itself remove this reservation.

For this section, commercial distribution includes selling printed copies, supplying them as paid subscription or crowdfunding rewards, bundling them with a paid product or service, and making them available through a public print-on-demand sales listing. It also includes free distribution primarily intended to promote a commercial product or service.

The following printing is expressly permitted:

• Printing copies for personal use, a gaming group, a classroom, or a library, and giving copies away for noncommercial purposes.
• Paying a printer or copy shop to make those permitted copies. The printer may charge its normal service fee, including profit, when acting solely to fulfill the customer's permitted printing request.
• Organizing a private group print order and recovering actual printing, binding, shipping, and applicable tax costs without a markup or compensation to the organizer.
• Selling or giving away a lawfully acquired physical copy to the extent allowed by applicable law.

A printing service may fulfill individual permitted requests but may not use this exception to stock, market, or operate its own public sales listing for a Covered Publication.

Separate written permission from the Licensor is required for commercial printing or distribution outside these permissions.

4. Original third-party publications

You may create, publish, and sell your own original APTUS-compatible works, including printed books. You may use the system, terminology, setting elements, and Licensed Material in developing those works.

An original third-party publication offers substantial new creative content or functionality, such as an adventure, setting expansion, creature collection, item collection, or play aid. It may include rules explanations, excerpts, tables, statistics, and illustrations that support that content. The reservation in Section 3 applies when the publication substantially reproduces a Covered Publication and functions substantially as an edition or replacement of it.

The number of shared game mechanics or terms does not by itself make a work a reserved printed edition. This license does not restrict independently written explanations of game procedures or other material that the Licensor has no legal right to restrict.

You retain ownership of your original contributions and may choose their license, price, and distribution channels. You do not have to provide them for free, release editable source files, or license your original contributions under this license.

Any Licensed Material you incorporate remains available under this license. Identify it sufficiently for readers to distinguish it from your original contributions. Your terms must not remove the permissions this license grants for that incorporated material.

5. Attribution and notice

When publicly distributing Licensed Material or adaptations of it:

• Credit Richard Ramage and identify APTUS RPG as the source.
• Retain applicable copyright notices and notices identifying separately licensed material.
• Include this license or a working link to a complete, freely accessible copy of it.
• Identify material changes, such as translation, abridgment, or revised rules. A general description is sufficient; a detailed change log is unnecessary.

Attribution may appear in a credits page, accompanying file, product description, or another reasonable location suited to the medium. It need not appear on a cover.

A suitable credit is:

Includes material from APTUS RPG by Richard Ramage, used under the APTUS Community License 1.0. Changes and additional material are by this publication's credited creators.

Private use does not require a public credit. Attribution must not imply that the Licensor created, reviewed, or endorses your contributions.

6. Compatibility and branding

You may use the name APTUS RPG to identify the source of Licensed Material and to truthfully describe compatibility. For example: "Compatible with APTUS RPG."

Redistributed copies of Covered Publications may retain their original names and branding. Clearly identify unofficial adaptations as modified editions. Original third-party products must identify their own publisher and must not present themselves as official APTUS publications or imply sponsorship or endorsement.

No broader trademark rights are granted. Nothing in this section restricts uses of names or marks already allowed by applicable law.

7. Continuing access to the permissions

Every recipient receives the permissions in this license directly from the Licensor. You may not impose legal terms or technological restrictions that prevent recipients from exercising these permissions in the Licensed Material you distribute. You may apply separate terms to your own contributions as described in Section 4.

You may charge for access or distribution where this license permits it, but recipients retain their rights to copy and share the Licensed Material under this license.

8. Existing legal rights

This license applies only where permission from the Licensor is legally required. It does not restrict fair use, fair dealing, public-domain material, lawful resale, or other exceptions and limitations provided by law.

It does not claim ownership of game ideas, procedures, methods of play, or other elements that applicable law leaves unprotected. No additional rights arise merely because such elements appear in a Covered Publication.

To the extent permitted by law, the Licensor agrees not to assert moral rights or similar rights under the Licensor's control where doing so would prevent an otherwise permitted use. This does not authorize false attribution or implied endorsement.

9. Duration and violations

The permissions granted for Licensed Material already released under this license are irrevocable while you comply with its terms. The Licensor may stop distributing a work or offer other terms for future material without withdrawing these existing permissions.

If you violate this license, your permissions under it terminate automatically. They are reinstated automatically if you correct the violation within 30 days after discovering it. Otherwise, reinstatement requires the Licensor's express agreement. Reinstatement does not eliminate liability for an earlier violation.

Your violation does not terminate the permissions of recipients who independently comply with this license.

10. Disclaimer and interpretation

To the extent permitted by law, Licensed Material is provided as available, without warranties, and the Licensor is not liable for losses arising from its use. This clause does not exclude liability that applicable law does not permit to be excluded.

If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply to the extent legally possible. No additional condition binds the Licensor without express agreement. A failure to enforce a provision does not waive it.

This license is a custom license. It has no affiliation with Creative Commons, Wizards of the Coast, or another licensing organization.