Anytime I see somebody wearing a plague doctor’s mask in a work of fiction, and that work of fiction is in any way related to birds, I get a tad nervous. I wouldn’t want to have to litigate somebody. The character of my own creation—both figuratively and perhaps literally (or better to say, perhaps, conceptually and possibly physically, as I may have inadvertently created a tulpa)—The Rook, wears a plague doctor’s mask and a black cloak and hood. You can’t copyright a plague doctor’s mask, and there have been other fictional works to make use of some sort of cult whose members wore them. No copyright infringement there. As long as they don’t have a character who is a supernatural master criminal wearing a plague doctor’s mask and calling himself The Rook, no harm, no foul.
Fortunately THE FLOCK has nothing to do with any of that, nor resembling in the slightest my intellectual property. It does sound really snazzy, though. So what *is* it about? “A mysterious cult, calling themselves ‘The Flock’, has set up camp somewhere in Northern Nevada, leaving behind a trail of missing people and bizarre online recruitment videos encouraging the worship of the demon, ‘Moloch’. A trio of true believers embark on a road trip to locate the cult and warn them of the dangers of demonic worship, but hot on their trail is another group: mercenaries hired by the Church and armed to the teeth, with a personal mission of their own…” Alas there’s no official release date yet.