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.

 

[Chaltab]

Anime? I don’t remember that being particularly big back then. There was certainly stuff ripped off from Doctor Who and WH40K, but I think the reason this stuff didn’t make it in was down to page count and what the authors found interesting.

Bionoids are basically Guyvers and Spirit Warriors are knock offs of an obscure anime called Aura Battler Dunbine.

 

[nevin]

The point of preserving magic was that it didn't defile. Thereby preserving the plan life that already exists instead of killing it. Restoring plant life to athas was usually the domain of the druids. However, preservers did get specific spells that restored plant life as well.

The fact that the defiling sorcerer subclass released in the UA doesn't even kill plants at all, is a swing and a miss.

Not so sure on that. The 4e Dark Sun book had one really good list of 8 characteristics of Athas that make dark sun unique.

1. The world is a desert: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
2. The World is Savage: Not sure WotC will be able to support any of this one. WotC won't even print the word "savage" in a book, let alone add slavery.
3. Metal is scarce: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
4. Arcane magic defiles the world: WotC already has this one wrong.
5. Sorcerer-kings rule the city-states: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
6. The gods are silent: Have yet to see anything on elemental clerics in UA. 4e was able to do it using themes, but I doubt WotC will even try.
7. Fierce monsters roam the world: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
8. Familiar races aren't what you expect: I fully expect goliaths to stand in for half-giants (its still a cop-out), but muls and cannibal halflings will definitely get the axe, and elves being portrayed as nomadic raiders, peddlers, and thieves could even be phased out.

So unless WotC decide to do a complete 180 on points 2, 4, and 8 (and 6 to a smaller degree) then I have serious doubts about any kind of Dark Sun book they release. You'd be better served just opening up the setting on DM's Guild and letting some of the authors there take a crack at it.

4. Is correct. Preservers simply limit the magic they draw so there are no visible or horrific effects but they still draw power from the life around them. In original dark sun most people didn't like Preservers any more than defilers. Probably because any preserver could at any time go to the dark side.

 

[Kurotowa]

Bionoids are basically Guyvers and Spirit Warriors are knock offs of an obscure anime called Aura Battler Dunbine.

Ah, the days when you could make a bunch of thinly veiled anime references and they'd go over the heads of 95% of your players. It was a different world.

 

[mamba]

The point of preserving magic was that it didn't defile. Thereby preserving the plan life that already exists instead of killing it. Restoring plant life to athas was usually the domain of the druids. However, preservers did get specific spells that restored plant life as well.

The fact that the defiling sorcerer subclass released in the UA doesn't even kill plants at all, is a swing and a miss.

they both were misses, the preserver did not actually preserve anything, they basically cast an illusion that lasted for a short while and then everything reset to normal. If I wanted to actually preserve nature, this is the last thing I would do. Literally anything I would try to help the environment would have more impact.

And they obviously both fail by making this subclasses when really any use of magic should defile or preserve. If I can just avoid the whole thing by picking any subclass from the PHB, the approach has failed completely. This appears to be so fundamental that WotC should be aware of it too, guess we will see.

The 4e Dark Sun book had one really good list of 8 characteristics of Athas that make dark sun unique.

1. The world is a desert: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
2. The World is Savage: Not sure WotC will be able to support any of this one. WotC won't even print the word "savage" in a book, let alone add slavery.
3. Metal is scarce: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
4. Arcane magic defiles the world: WotC already has this one wrong.
5. Sorcerer-kings rule the city-states: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
6. The gods are silent: Have yet to see anything on elemental clerics in UA. 4e was able to do it using themes, but I doubt WotC will even try.
7. Fierce monsters roam the world: Easy enough to do with any RPG.
8. Familiar races aren't what you expect: I fully expect goliaths to stand in for half-giants (its still a cop-out), but muls and cannibal halflings will definitely get the axe, and elves being portrayed as nomadic raiders, peddlers, and thieves could even be phased out.

I'll focus on the ones you think WotC cannot achieve

2, They still have slavery in other books, I do not believe they have to remove it from DS, they probably will downplay it though. That and and many of the other items reinforce a savage world.

4, yes, the UA got that wrong on a fundamental level, I withhold judgement until the finished product is out however

6. a refluff gets you most of the way there, good enough to leave it at that instead of coming up with new cleric subclasses

8. no idea about muls, let's just assume you are correct. It does not take cannibal halflings for the races to be different from what you expect, they can be different from what you expect and not be identical to the DS of 2e. That would make them truly different from what you expect

My main concern is your number 4, the rest will be a matter of what they actually do with the fluff, but getting defiling and preserving wrong would be a fundamental problem to me

 

[Paul Farquhar]

cannibal halflings

This is easy, you just tweak the description a little. “Halflings are fierce hunters who will eat anything in order to survive, including other sentient beings”.


Preserving and defiling is always going be difficult, they didn’t work particularly well in the original. Simply describing the environmental effects might be sufficient for some players, whilst others will defile every opportunity unless there are personal mechanical consequences.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think they can have Muls, Cannibal Halflings, and Desert Raiding Elves. They just need to adjust some of the worst elements of slave-breeding from some, if not all Muls, make sure that "Halflings Eat People" is some halflings, during times of food scarcity, and desert raiders being very common, but not all elves do it, and not all of them are elves.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I guess it will be only some pages about the lore, like the articles from Dungeon magazine #110, describing the region of Tyr, the city-states and the sorcerer-kings (let's suppose they are still alive because the events of the novels haven't happened yet).

D&D hasn't been designed for a right power balance with the firearms and advanced technology.

The books will be level PG13, not telling too much about that kind of details. Adult players don't need it to be told in the books.

My opinion is the banning of PC species or classes could be against the current WotC strategy for 5e. What if a player wanted to add diopsids as playable specie?

 

[Staffan]

I think they can have Muls, Cannibal Halflings, and Desert Raiding Elves. They just need to adjust some of the worst elements of slave-breeding from some, if not all Muls, make sure that "Halflings Eat People" is some halflings, during times of food scarcity, and desert raiders being very common, but not all elves do it, and not all of them are elves.

As I recall, the normal state of elven tribes was herding and/or trading. Raiding was something they'd do in lean times or as the opportunity presented itself, but generally not a full-time gig.

They did pick up a whole lot of stereotypical Roma vibes though – as nomads, they were considered dishonest, and "elven markets" was where you'd go to pick up shady goods (which included spell components, as arcane magic was outlawed in the cities).

 

[pukunui]

It's more the matter of scale for Dark Sun. One race enslaving a few hundred people versus a whole portion of the planet relying on mass slavery to run entire cities, or serve as annual sacrifices to a defiler dragon to power world shattering magic.

They may very well tone it down or shove it into the background, but I highly doubt they would erase it entirely.

I was more talking about having elemental and para-elemental domains for clerics.

OK. They did experiment with elemental-themed cleric domains way back at the very beginning of 5e but they never made it through to final development. I keep asking them to revisit those but so far they haven't ... (don't bother searching for them; they were closed playtest only).

 

[TiQuinn]

You'd be better served just opening up the setting on DM's Guild and letting some of the authors there take a crack at it.

And yet, until WotC puts out said Dark Sun book, DM’s Guild can’t use it.