Trademark & Usage Policy¶
The ORC License covers copyright and similar rights. It expressly does not grant trademark rights, so use of the Frontiers name, logo, and branding is governed by this policy instead.
The goal here is narrow. The rules are free to use and always will be. This policy exists only so that a reader can tell at a glance what is official and what is not.
The whole policy in one line
Use the logo to say your work is built on Frontiers. Do not use it to make your work look published by Frontiers.
Streaming, actual play, or video?
Logo use for streams, thumbnails, and channel art is covered more simply in the Streaming & Video Policy. Start there instead.
What You May Do¶
Without asking permission, you may:
- State that your work is Powered by the Frontiers Engine or Compatible with the Frontiers Engine.
- Name Frontiers in attribution notices, credits, and version references.
- Refer to Frontiers in reviews, tutorials, videos, articles, and other commentary.
- Use the mechanical terminology of the engine freely. Terms such as Vigor, Gradient Die, Demand, and Capacity are Licensed Material and are yours to use. None of them is a trademark.
- Use the settings, worlds, locations, and proper nouns of any Starter Set. They are Licensed Material — see the License.
- Build on any Starter Set or Module published on this site, crediting each one separately.
Using the Frontiers Logo¶
Frontiers grants a limited, revocable, royalty-free permission to reproduce the Frontiers logo and wordmark for the sole purpose of crediting Frontiers as the engine your work is built on.
Within that purpose, you do not need to ask. You may:
- Place the logo alongside a compatibility statement, in a credits page, colophon, back-matter license block, or "built with" section.
- Place it in a storefront description, product page sidebar, website footer, or documentation site, where it identifies the engine rather than the product.
- Scale it, and use the light, dark, or print variant, as needed to sit properly in your layout.
Within that purpose, you may not:
- Alter the logo — no recolouring, redrawing, stretching, cropping, adding effects, or combining it with other marks into a new lockup.
- Place it on your front cover, title page, spine, or box art, or anywhere it functions as your product's identifying mark rather than as a credit.
- Make it the largest or most prominent mark on any surface where your own branding also appears.
- Use it in advertising, key art, or thumbnails in a way that leads with Frontiers rather than with your own title.
This permission covers the Frontiers logo and wordmark. It does not cover the Starter Set logos, the animated brand marks, or the site's trade dress, which require written permission for any use, except on stream and in video, where Starter Set logos may be used to identify what you are running. See the Streaming & Video Policy.
Why the logos are handled separately
The Starter Set settings are open, so you can write in them, publish in them, and sell in them. Their logos stay reserved, because a logo is what tells a buyer who published something. Keeping the marks closed is what makes it safe to open everything else.
What Requires Permission¶
Written permission is required to:
- Use the Frontiers logo or wordmark for anything other than crediting Frontiers, as described above.
- Use the Starter Set logos and wordmarks, the animated brand marks, the site icon, or the trade dress of frontiersengine.dev.
- Use Frontiers as the leading element of a product title, in a way that suggests the product is the engine itself.
- Present a work as official, endorsed, or affiliated.
- Present a fork or derivative as the continuation of Frontiers.
Naming Your Work¶
Frontiers does not need to be in your title
Nothing requires the Frontiers name, the logo, or a compatibility statement on your cover or title page. Ashfall is a perfectly good title on its own.
What is asked is only that the credit be easy to find, somewhere a reader or a buyer would come across it without hunting. The model is the way Cypher System books handle it: you can tell at a glance what a book runs on, and the engine never crowds the author's own name.
This section is for people who want to say it on the cover, because it helps them sell, telling players "this runs on an engine you already know" is worth something. If that is you, the rule is simply that a title should make ownership obvious at a glance.
Where the credit goes¶
In the work, this is required. The ORC License asks for the notices "in a reasonable manner based on the medium," which means somewhere a reader would reasonably find them. Any of these is fine:
- A credits page or colophon.
- A license or legal section, front or back matter.
- The back cover, or the first or last page of a PDF.
- An "About" or "Credits" screen, for a tool, app, or VTT module.
Tucking it into an appendix nobody opens, or setting it in type too small to read, is not. The point is that someone holding your product can tell what it runs on.
On a storefront, this is asked for, not required. The ORC License governs your work, not your sales page, so nothing here is a condition on selling. But a line in the product description, Powered by the Frontiers Engine 1.0, is genuinely appreciated, and it tends to help you as much as it helps Frontiers: buyers filter by system, and the ones already fluent in the engine are the ones most likely to take a chance on an unfamiliar title.
| Clear | Unclear |
|---|---|
| Ashfall, a game powered by the Frontiers Engine | Frontiers: Ashfall |
| Deepwater Protocol — Compatible with Frontiers | The Frontiers Sci-Fi Handbook |
| Hollow Coast, built on the Frontiers Engine | Frontiers 2.0 |
Put your name first and the compatibility statement second, and there is no ambiguity to resolve. Or leave it off the cover entirely and put it in the credits and the storefront description instead, that is equally correct, and it is the more common choice rather than a lesser one.
Version References¶
When referencing a specific release, name it in full, for example Frontiers Engine 1.0 or Frontiers Beta 2026-2. Because each release stays published, readers can check exactly which rules your work was built against.
Stability Within a Version¶
Frontiers is versioned deliberately, and a released version does not shift under the people building on it.
Within a version line, no mechanical term will be renamed and no core formula will change. Everything published as 1.x shares the same vocabulary and the same rules as 1.0; everything published as 2.x will share 2.0's. Additions, clarifications, corrections to errors, and new Modules and Starter Sets are all fair game within a line. Anything that would rename a term, alter a core formula, or otherwise break work already built against a released version waits for the next major version.
This matters because the ORC License guarantees the material can never be withdrawn, but says nothing about vocabulary. If you are committing a commercial product to this engine, the guarantee you actually need is that the terms will still mean the same thing when you ship. That is the commitment above.
If Something Goes Wrong¶
If a use falls outside this policy, the first step is an email, not a lawyer. Frontiers would far rather see a cover reworked than a project stopped, and permission for most things is granted on request anyway.
Requesting Permission¶
For anything in this policy requiring permission, or for partnership and official-compatibility inquiries, email contact@jaykepaver.me.
Requests are considered in good faith and are usually granted. This policy exists to protect the distinction between official and community work rather than to discourage anyone from building on the engine.
Not legal advice
This policy describes how Frontiers asks that its name and branding be used. It is not legal advice, and it does not modify the ORC License, which cannot be amended. See the License for copyright terms.