So to sum up WotC's latest fuckup concerning their new giant themed book
Back during the creator's summit, WotC said this about LLM images
Now more recently, WotC was caught using blatantly LLM images for their new book, along with some category 10 classical Gygax racism and genocide endorsement
As outraged fans investigated, similarities were noticed between earlier concept art, which WAS done by real artists, and the LLM images
Now April Prime was only credited as a concept artist in the book (and not credited at all in that post), so what happened?
Enter Ilya Shkipin: an NFT shill, LLM enthusiast and overall waste of flesh. Ilya took credit for these LLM images, which as you've probably guessed now, were concept art that he stole from concept artists like April, ran through his plagiarism bots and claimed was his own work.
Now, you would think that WotC would admit their error and drop Ilya for this blatant theft of art and credit
WotC not only refused to name or punish Ilya, but they're continuing to work with him and simply having him redo the LLM images he turned in for future printings of the book.
Sounds horrible enough? Here's the bonus round: CATEGORY 10 CLASSIC GYGAX RACISM AND GENOCIDE ENDORSEMENT
Yes, that is a group of people being referred to as an "infestation" to be exterminated. And you have to make sure you ethically put them all to the sword, lest they rise as an icy mummy called a Frostmourn. If the name Frostmourn sounds familiar, that's because it's one letter off from the World of Warcraft sword: Frostmourne. A difference small enough for ActiBlizzard, one of the few game companies worse than WotC at this point, to turn angry copyright lawyers loose in their direction.
And that about sums the whole clusterfuck up. Remember to drop 5e and pick up a ttrpg that doesn't suck, such as Pathfinder, Savage Worlds or Fate: Core
