Cultural Use, Attribution, and Research Corrections Policy

Slug: /legal/cultural-research Version: 0.2.0 Status: OWNER APPROVED — 0.2.0 Proposed effective date: [PROPOSED EFFECTIVE DATE] Audience: Affected communities, scholars, practitioners, custodians, players, researchers, and anyone reviewing cultural or historical material used in Echoes of Eidolon.

Plain-language summary

Echoes of Eidolon uses real cultural, historical, linguistic, artistic, architectural, musical, folkloric, and scholarly sources as part of a fictional work. Eidolon Gaming intends to acknowledge and honor those contributions without claiming ownership of cultures or speaking for communities. This policy explains provenance, adaptation, uncertainty, and a substantive correction-review process.

Table of contents

1. Research mission

1. Respect and non-ownership principle

1. Adaptation versus historical fact

1. Sources, citations, and provenance

1. Imperfect and contested sources

1. Attribution

1. Public-domain cultural heritage

1. Corrections are welcomed

1. How to submit a correction or concern

1. Types of concerns reviewed

1. Sacred and restricted-use concerns

1. Substantive review process

1. No automatic removal promise

1. No disclaimer as an excuse

1. Acknowledgement and review timing

1. AI-generated cultural statements

1. Contact classification and routing

1. Related documents

1. What changed / version notes

1. Research mission

Echoes of Eidolon draws on real cultures, histories, traditions, languages, objects, music, architecture, folklore, historical events, and scholarship to build a richer fictional setting. The purpose of research is to learn from and acknowledge source traditions, not to erase their origin or present fictional adaptations as if Eidolon Gaming invented the underlying culture.

2. Respect and non-ownership principle

Use in Echoes of Eidolon does not mean Eidolon Gaming originated, owns, controls, or speaks for a culture, tradition, language, religion, community, or people. Cultural heritage does not become Eidolon property merely because the game depicts, translates, references, combines, or adapts it.

Eidolon-created original expression can still be protected—for example, an original fictional character, original illustration, original arrangement, or original story addition—without converting the underlying cultural source into private ownership.

3. Adaptation versus historical fact

Echoes of Eidolon is fiction. A cultural or historical element can be adapted, combined, altered, or placed in a fictional context. Where a reasonable reader could confuse an Eidolon-created fictional addition with a claim about real history, culture, language, ritual, or practice, the project should distinguish the adaptation from the historical/cultural claim where practical.

Calling a work fictional is not a license to present a known factual or attribution error as harmless when the project is simultaneously presenting the underlying claim as researched fact.

4. Sources, citations, and provenance

Where practical, the project may expose provenance, citations, footnotes, source notes, bibliographic information, or other records showing where a cultural or historical claim came from. The appropriate level of detail can vary by medium and feature.

A citation is evidence of sourcing, not proof that the source is correct. Source records should distinguish primary material, scholarship, translation, secondary summaries, community knowledge, and other source types where that distinction materially affects interpretation.

5. Imperfect and contested sources

Research is performed in good faith, but sources may be incomplete, contested, mistranslated, outdated, unreliable, biased, decontextualized, or wrong. Different communities, scholars, lineages, or practitioners may reasonably disagree about terminology, meaning, ownership, authenticity, sacredness, historical interpretation, or appropriate use.

The existence of disagreement should be documented rather than flattened into false certainty where the disagreement is material to the claim.

6. Attribution

Where a cultural object, story, term, architectural form, musical tradition, historical event, language, or other source is materially identifiable and attribution is practical, the project should credit the relevant source, tradition, scholarship, community, creator, custodian, or provenance record as appropriate to the facts and rights involved.

Attribution should not falsely imply that one source speaks for an entire culture, that a modern community endorses the game, or that Eidolon Gaming has authority over a tradition.

7. Public-domain cultural heritage

Eidolon Gaming does not claim ownership of public-domain cultural heritage merely because it has been researched or adapted into Echoes of Eidolon. If an underlying story, symbol, historical fact, language element, or traditional form is public-domain, that status is not erased by Eidolon's separate rights in its own original expression.

Public-domain status also does not eliminate ethical concerns about attribution, sacred or restricted uses, community context, or misleading presentation.

8. Corrections are welcomed

Corrections and sourcing concerns are welcomed, especially from affected communities, scholars, practitioners, custodians, translators, historians, and people who identify unreliable or inappropriate sourcing. A correction does not need to be hostile or legally framed to receive review. Concrete evidence, alternative sources, community context, and explanation of the concern are useful.

9. How to submit a correction or concern

Use /contact and select Historical/cultural correction or sourcing concern. The internal contact classification for this route is `CULTURAL_RESEARCH`.

Helpful submissions identify the relevant game text, image, asset, term, source record, or feature; explain the concern; and provide supporting sources or context where available. Do not send passwords, payment-card data, access tokens, recovery codes, government IDs, or unrelated sensitive information.

10. Types of concerns reviewed

The correction process includes substantive review of documented concerns involving:

• factual errors;

• attribution errors;

• mistranslation or materially misleading terminology;

• materially unreliable or inappropriate sourcing;

• sacred, ceremonial, restricted, closed, or context-limited use concerns;

• false claims that Eidolon originated or owns cultural material;

• confusion between fictional adaptation and a real-world cultural/historical claim; and

• provenance records that materially misidentify a source or community.

11. Sacred and restricted-use concerns

A report that material may be sacred, ceremonial, restricted, closed, initiatory, funerary, community-controlled, or otherwise inappropriate for general fictional use should receive substantive review rather than being dismissed solely because a copy of the material can be found online or in a publication.

Review can consider provenance, the source's reliability, the nature of the restriction, community guidance, legal rights, historical context, whether the material is being represented as fact, and whether modification, contextualization, attribution, access restriction, or removal is appropriate.

12. Substantive review process

A substantive review should examine the actual claim or use, the source record, relevant alternative sources, the submitter's evidence and relationship to the concern when voluntarily provided, and the difference between Eidolon-created fiction and asserted historical/cultural fact.

Possible outcomes include correcting a factual statement, changing attribution, improving provenance, adding context, changing terminology, revising a fictional adaptation, restricting a use, replacing a source, documenting a contested interpretation, or deciding to retain a creative adaptation with a reasoned basis. The exact outcome depends on the facts.

13. No automatic removal promise

Submitting a correction request does not guarantee that every creative adaptation will be removed. Fiction can transform source material, and reasonable people can disagree about creative treatment. However, that discretion does not eliminate the commitment to substantively review documented factual errors, attribution errors, sacred/restricted-use concerns, or materially unreliable sourcing.

14. No disclaimer as an excuse

This policy is not a disclaimer of responsibility. Statements such as “this is fiction” or “sources may be wrong” do not excuse avoidable misattribution, careless sourcing, or refusal to investigate a well-supported concern. The purpose of acknowledging uncertainty is to improve research quality and responsiveness, not to lower the standard of care.

15. Acknowledgement and review timing

Eidolon Gaming may acknowledge receipt and ask focused follow-up questions. We do not promise a fixed final resolution time because research depth, translation, rights questions, community consultation, provider dependencies, and source availability can vary. The absence of a fixed deadline does not mean a submission may be ignored without substantive review when it raises one of the documented categories above.

16. AI-generated cultural statements

AI-mediated fictional characters can generate incorrect or overconfident cultural/historical claims even when the surrounding project uses researched sources. Reports of generated inaccuracies should include enough context to reproduce or understand the issue when practical. The AI/Automated Interaction Disclosure explains why generated dialogue is not automatically authored canon or database truth.

17. Contact classification and routing

Cultural/historical correction route: /contact → Historical/cultural correction or sourcing concern. Internal classification: `CULTURAL_RESEARCH`.

This route is company-level Contact, not Player Support. Player support messages should be sent from the Support tab, not this webform. Player/account/gameplay issues belong at /account/support.

18. Related documents

See the Terms of Service, Intellectual Property and Fan Content Policy, Privacy Policy, AI/Automated Interaction Disclosure, and Accessibility Statement.

19. What changed / version notes

Version 0.2.0 establishes the owner-approved research mission, non-ownership principle, adaptation/fact distinction, provenance approach, contested-source language, substantive correction categories, sacred/restricted-use review, CULTURAL_RESEARCH routing, and commitment not to use fictional or research disclaimers to avoid responsibility.