Wizards of the Coast Re-Registers Dark Sun With USPTO

Wizards of the Coast recently filed an application to register Dark Sun in the US, a sign that D&D could be bringing back the campaign setting in the near future. The trademark claim was filed on October 13th, 2025 and is poised to replace a previous trademark that was cancelled by the USPTO in 2024. The trademark, like most involving D&D properties, covers both "downloadable electronic games," "games and playthings," and "entertainment services." Similar active trademarks exist for other D&D campaign settings such as Spelljammer and Forgotten Realms, although neither of those have lapsed in recent years.

We'll note that, as the previous Dark Sun trademark lapsed a year ago, this could be a case of simple paperwork, or it could be the latest sign that a Dark Sun product is eminent. Earlier this year, Wizards released an Unearthed Arcana for the Psion class and several subclasses that all but spelled out a return to the setting, complete with mentions of sorcerer-kings, gladiatorial fights, and preservers and defilers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If they change the setting, they get flak from one side, and if they change nothing, they get flak from the other side. It seems there's no way for them to win here, so why go to all the effort?

Old grogs are not the only sides in this game. Dark Sun has lots of interesting elements that could appeal to newer players who don’t care about the original, including the massively exaggerated whiff of controversy.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The biggest issue I see is that all 2E settings share a single unifying aspect: they broke the rules of 2E to deliver a truly different experience. 5E designers don't want to do that, cf Crawford's maxim of "D&D is D&D".

 

[tetrasodium]

I don’t really know why people think this given that the other setting books released matched the tone and felt like the setting

Easy
Wotc won't even acknowledge yoyo healing and would need to fix it along with a few other similar problems to hit the themes and tone of playing dark sun

 

[Michael Blackett]

Okay so WoTC planning a 2024e take on Athas.

They recently did an Unearthed Arcana which was decent, though I dont think they got the Preserver defined correctly, seeing as it was a druid subclass when previously a Preserver was a mage who took care in the way they cast their arcane spellcasting.

Admittedly the way magic users/wizards handled in earlier additions functioned differently to 5e (particularly in AD&D 2e). Attempting to rework the subclasses to emulate the distinct difference would require some work...

...Dragonborn of Athas would be the Dray, creations of the undead Dregoth, who live under the ruins of Guistenal.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay so WoTC planning a 2024e take on Athas.

They recently did an Unearthed Arcana which was decent, though I dont think they got the Preserver defined correctly, seeing as it was a druid subclass when previously a Preserver was a mage who took care in the way they cast their arcane spellcasting.

Admittedly the way magic users/wizards handled in earlier additions functioned differently to 5e (particularly in AD&D 2e). Attempting to rework the subclasses to emulate the distinct difference would require some work...

...Dragonborn of Athas would be the Dray, creations of the undead Dregoth, who live under the ruins of Guistenal.

There was a recent description from Mearls about the 5e "modular" design intent that pretty much explained how the system avoids referencing class features so they can be swapped out using the Tasha's stuff as an example. A dark sun book could literally give us vancian prep & slot progression potentially even with the ad&d2e style slot recovery. To a degree that would even fit some of darksun's lore around spellcasting.

 

[mamba]

To capture the spirit of DS, they would need to do lot of reworking on that side ( classes, races, feats etc). In 2ed, DS was almost game of it's own, very different than vanilla d&d.

how did 4e do it, did they rework classes and races? No idea, but I doubt it

 

[GrimCo]

The biggest issue I see is that all 2E settings share a single unifying aspect: they broke the rules of 2E to deliver a truly different experience. 5E designers don't want to do that, cf Crawford's maxim of "D&D is D&D".

Yes, that was best thing about 2e settings, they really felt unique and different from each other. DS game was very different than FR one, with unique races, classes, equipment lists etc. In 5e, it's like designers are afraid to remove stuff or make any drastic changes to player options.

@mamba

Honestly? I don't remember any more. But, if we believe chatgpt, they did remove quite a few races, removed classes that used divine power source, add item breakage rules for non metal weapons/armors, modified arcane casters ( preservers were normal casters, defilers got power boost). It was one of the most extensive overhauls of core player options that 4th Edition ever did for a campaign world.

 

[Parmandur]

It's entirely possible what concerns a lot of us online isn't something the majority of D&D players really care about.

This right here explains a lot about WotC design decision making in general.

 

[Parmandur]

how did 4e do it, did they rework classes and races? No idea, but I doubt it

In 4E, Half-Giants were Goliaths and Dray were Dragonborn. So at this point, those decisions are practically vintage.

 

[GreyLord]

Personally, these moves are good things. I would be perfectly happy to have not gotten involved with 2024/25 D&D and stuck with simple 5e. However, things like the FR release and other things (like possible DS) have me still deeply involved and keeping up with the Kardashians.