| I think it's okay if you make a derivative work from Trickster Online itself- so long as it has been significantly altered.
I'll post the law for you- but be forewarned that if I and the other staff members do not believe your mascot warrants itself to be a "new work" then you will be disqualified from the event (at least with that entry, we'll try to tell you as soon as we can)
Here's the law in the USA:
In the United States, "derivative work" is defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101:
A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
US Copyright Office Circular 14: Derivative Works notes that:
A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable.
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