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.

 

[Kurotowa]

I just want to point out how absolutely right you are, to the point that some setting's rules felt more like a 3pp d20 game than an actual D&D rules expansion.

Pretty much. And you have to admit, if your goal is to create a small group of lifelong fans, the 2e design style worked. Not every time, but often enough there's obvious merit. But we've also seen the TSR era sales data. The "small" in "small group of fans" can't be understated. Which means it was a loser of a business plan.

That's why you see those sort of focused niche products being made by small 3pp teams with limited budgets. If it's modestly successful, it can stay in the black. If it isn't, they don't take down the main line with them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not a Spelljammer enthusiast, but I will note that the third party market has heard everyone's complaints about the 5E version and there are a ton of sailing ship in space books on Kickstarter, including one that looks extremely nice up there now.

 

[Incenjucar]

PS had a great 3P book come out (drama aside) around the time of the official set. I expect DS will have similar results. Folks who are passionate about a thing for decades have some advantages when writing to other folks of similar passions.

 

[Scribe]

I'm not a Spelljammer enthusiast, but I will note that the third party market has heard everyone's complaints about the 5E version and there are a ton of sailing ship in space books on Kickstarter, including one that looks extremely nice up there now.

And one for Shadowdark!

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not a Spelljammer enthusiast, but I will note that the third party market has heard everyone's complaints about the 5E version and there are a ton of sailing ship in space books on Kickstarter, including one that looks extremely nice up there now.

It's a side effect of D&D's long history with homebrewing that lots of people think they have a better (or at least different) way of doing things than the official game does. Which is why do many companies and Kickstarters opt for well worn tropes (horror, magicpunk, sword and sorcery, planetary romance) despite WotC having already covered those.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's a side effect of D&D's long history with homebrewing that lots of people think they have a better (or at least different) way of doing things than the official game does. Which is why do many companies and Kickstarters opt for well worn tropes (horror, magicpunk, sword and sorcery, planetary romance) despite WotC having already covered those.

I think in this case, it's a side effect of Spelljammer fans being largely pissed off by the 5E Spelljammer.

 

[overgeeked]

Even if Lost Mine itself would be a weird fit for Dark Sun, the structure of "small dungeon, hub safe space, quest board/sandbox play, final dungeon" is a good one that is a good model for starting many campaigns.

That's the great thing about playing in a grimdark sandbox, any tiny bit of good the PCs get up to is like a shining beacon in the dark. There were, officially, many small villages of escaped slaves. You could easily start in one of those and have an entire campaign about striking out into the desert and any nearby roads or routes to disrupt the sorcerer-kings and their slavers. It's been a staple of play for decades for a reason.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I don't really care one way or the other about Spelljammer, but I like Ships, and I thought that SJ would improve on the lackluster Ship-to-Ship-Battle rules from Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Unfortunately, if anything, they were made worse.

I also tried to give Light of Xaryxis a fair shake, and I started running it both as a F2F game, and here as a PBP, but both fizzled out as I lost interest in the game and moved on to the next shiny. (Something I don't usually do, but I suppose it can happen).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For people who want better naval rules, here's the 5E version of Pirate Borg's very good naval rules.

 

[overgeeked]

All the surveys about ranked setting popularity are popular myth?

Just in case it wasn't already posted.

D&D Monthly Survey | Dungeons & Dragons

web.archive.org

The popularity of settings in the survey fell into three distinct clusters. Not surprisingly, our most popular settings from prior editions landed at the top of the rankings, with Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms all proving equally popular. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer all shared a similar level of second-tier popularity, followed by a fairly steep drop-off to the rest of the settings. My sense is that Spelljammer has often lagged behind the broad popularity of other settings, falling into love-it-or-hate-it status depending on personal tastes. Greyhawk and Dragonlance hew fairly close to the assumptions we used in creating the fifth edition rulebooks, making them much easier to run with material from past editions. Of the top five settings, four require significant new material to function and the fifth is by far our most popular world.

Emphasis mine.