Now you are making me realize that an inside Thay campaign and a Dark Sun campaign might not be too different in the sense that these are extremely oppresive societies are ruled by evil demi-god level mages served by secret magical police.
That would tie into the movie villain, and good point about it being the right place for Arcane subclasses. Maybe it's a "all the other arcane factions against Thay" kind of world war of the dead vs the living, with Orcus etc... backing Szas Tham. Zombie Apocalypse in the Realms. I might...
Myth Drannor is a possibility. Just please please don't make the tired old Elminster & friends vs the Zhentarim / Manshoon / Church of Bane themes surface again though.... Greenwood gave us a great setting, but we don't have to re-use his protagonists and antagonists over and over forever amen...
Re: Big Campaign. I kind of think they kind of need to make up some new villain if they do a part of the Realms we have recently seen. The exception would be if they do Thay, in which case they could use Szass Tam, for the movie tie in. Most of the old villains feel underpowered and they had...
While I am used to OSR aesthetic art being weird, on the Candle issue 4 cover, is the Drow holding up the private parts of an Ogre? Seriously, what is that supposed to be ... a very long green mushroom? Perhaps the OSR is trying to balance out decades of chainmail bikinis?
I agree we will see Dark Sun - likely the most player options and new subsystems will be included here.. further developing Ravenloft makes sense as a set of small adventures. Would hope for some big campaign adventure from WoTC , but it kinda would feel too scattered if none of the these...