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Looking at the article some more, I think I have a better understanding now:

In 2010, Gearbox buys some subset of the Duke Nukem IP from 3DR.  There seems to be a disagreement over who got what from this:

• Gearbox believes they got full game rights, while 3DR kept full tv/movie rights.
• 3DR believes they kept all rights to the old games, and Gearbox got all rights to new stuff.

In 2013, 3DR -- believing they still own the rights to Duke3D -- contracts TerminX for HttK.

In 2014, Gearbox sues 3DR.  They settle out of court.  We don't know the terms of the settlement, but 3DR's letter to TerminX suggests that Gearbox got ALL rights -- new and old -- to Duke Nukem.

So now there are two interpretations of whether 3DR's contract with TerminX has any validity:

• From 3DR's perspective, they owned the rights to Duke3D when they contracted TerminX, but then gave them away in the settlement, transferring their contract to Gearbox in the process.  In this interpretation, TerminX has every right to continue his work, and Gearbox has no right to retroactively change the terms of the contract they inheritted.
• From Gearbox's perspective, 3DR did not own the rights to Duke3D when 3DR contracted TerminX, and the settlement merely re-affirmed Gearbox's prior rights to Duke3D.  In this interpretation, in order for TerminX to continue his work he needs to agree to a new contract with Gearbox.

So it re-opens the original question of who had which rights before the settlement.  Either way it still sounds like Gearbox is jerking TerminX around.

I also wouldn't be to sure that eduke32 is totally safe. Gearbox owns Duke Nukem in full including Duke 3D and they have money and lawyers and ways to get what they want. Plus the new Duke 3D Gearbox is working on is going to make old con and map files not work with it. There will be a new con and map file layout that will cancel out existing mods and only work for new.

The source code to Duke3Dv1.5 was released under the GPL.  Gearbox can choose not to release future versions under the GPL, but I'm not sure you can just retroactively revoke it from code that's already been released under it.  It doesn't seem like it would make any sense, but I don't think it's ever been tested in court before.

Ken Silverman still seems to own the copyright to the Build engine itself, so at least that part's definitely safe.

EDuke32 is safe.  It uses open source code, and includes no copyrighted game data.  Gearbox's problem is with a version of the game that's going to be sold (complete with the copyrighted game data).  3D Realms hired TerminX to produce this version of the game.

The part that's bullshit is that Gearbox is going after TerminX himself (an independent contractor who's caught in the crossfire), instead of going after 3D Realms (the people actually allegedly infringing on their copyright).  Gearbox is bullying TerminX (who did nothing wrong) to try to avoid a lawsuit with 3D Realms.

If you're modifying my mod, you can just go into defs\damageInfo.txt and change the pump-action shotgun damage values.

If you're doing it from scratch, you'll have to go into fx\shotgun.kfx and change the damage type in all the onImpact blocks to new types with the damage you want.  Valid damage types to choose from are defined in defs\damageInfo.txt.  If there aren't any existing damage types with the values you want, you'll have to create new ones in damageInfo.txt.

Blood impact effects are spawned by projectiles in OnImpact.  You could either modify the existing blood kfx files, or change the projectiles to spawn a brand new effect (useful if you want different weapons to have different effects, or if you don't want excessive effects blocking the player's screen when Turok gets hit himself).

I'm not sure where death blood is spawned.  It might be hard-coded, or it might be attached to the animations somehow.  Some might even be spawned in the enemy scripts; I'd have to check.  Gibs definitely are.  You can script new death effects in OnDeath() (you'll see the shockwave weapon effects being triggered from there in scripts\enemy\enemy.txt).

Knife blood is spawned in scripts\player.txt, in KnifeParticles().

Effects can have multiple particles defined within them (e.g., a blood puff, some particles that fly out, the splatter on the wall).  And as Duke alluded to, effects can spawn further effects in onTick, onImpact, onExpire, onWaterTick, onWaterImpact, and onWaterExpire.

There're tons of kfx properties to mess with.  I really need to start working on a comprehensive list.  For now, you'll just have to look through the kfx files to see what's available.  The kfx reference in the assorted notes in my guide should help with a few of the more cryptic properties.

Bah!  I'll play the shit out of this if the level design is actually good.

Granted, that's a pretty big "if."