They're unlikely to do that, for the same reasons they didn't just create a bunch of brand new domains for Ravenloft.
The safe bet is them repeating a 4e and setting it right after Kalek's death. [...]
This is a curious thing that happens in setting discussion threads, so I'd like to draw a distinction. Two types of claims are being made here (again, as is common in many setting discussion threads):
- This is what would be good for the setting / this is what I personally want from the setting. To some extent these are distinct claims, but in practice they are the same, since everyone--myself included--mixes them together.
- This is what WotC (or other company) is likely to do, for business reasons (incl. cultural, practical, political, etc.).
Claims of the first type are often addressed with claims of the second type, i.e. a thing that poster A claims would be good for the setting (or personally prefers) is said to be unlikely by poster B for business reasons.
And that's fair enough.
To clarify my own claims, the OP stated:
I have 100% talked myself into the idea that what I want from future Dark Sun publications is a book about the eastern shore of the Sea of Silt—new cites, new sorcerer kings, new borrowed cultures, and a status quo that is not in any way hidebound to the lore of the Tyr Region. Its timeline could start from Kalak’s death, the end of the Prism Pentad, well before, well after, or be completely different—each gaming group would decide for themselves and any new lore would be timeline agnostic.
And the post quoted by
@Faolyn stated:
rather than getting a homunculus of the 1991 set--sans problematic bits--I'd prefer they start with fresh canvas.
I'm making claims of the first type or, at least, that's what I intended to be doing. Those are statements of personal preference, and of what I think would be good for the setting. I'd like to see content that is more than a repetition of the 4e materials, and would like to see the implementation of creative ideas that are more compelling than ones I could have implemented myself or borrowed from other fans.
I am interested in hearing what you all think of my ideas, as I obsessively presented them in the OP, as well as what your own novel Dark Sun headcannon might be.
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But to engage bluntly with the second type of claim: I think you are both 100% correct about the future of Dark Sun publications.
If WotC revisits Dark Sun in 5e--and they may well not, given the setting's contentious content, and the hostility with which their psionic UAs were received--they will almost certainly recreate the Tyr region and pre-Pentad status quo, as they did in 4e.
And--since I am a cynical and mirthless person--I believe that, after they do so (if they do so) there will be no other Dark Sun publications for 5e. And, very likely, no other Dark Sun publications for a few editions hence--leaving the setting frozen for, probably, another decade or more.
That seems like an unhappy prospect to me and, as I'd mentioned upthread, I'm somewhat puzzled by the degree that it appeals to so many other fans of the setting.
But to each their own; WotC will do whatever WotC does.