Now, those of you who read a previous thread know, I desire to rewrite the history of the dragonlance setting so that the changes that have undergone the setting will be as smooth as possible. I will try to incorporate as many ideas, characters, and events running through the Chaos War and 5th Age as I feel enhances the story. However, you can rest assured that there will be very few things that will remain unchanged. This is a continuity reboot in an alternate universe, as you might expect in the comic book world with the "Ultimate" line. This might also be something you might have to expect eventually to happen to dragonlance on an official level as well. After all, serial pulp and comic fiction eventually falls under the weight of its own history, and has to refresh itself to remain viable to new readers.
To give you an example of how I plan to change yet incorporate Chaos War and 5th Age elements, I'll start off by giving you a rundown of the Dragon Overlords as I envision them.
Skie/Khellendros (mature adult blue dragon): Critically wounded after his Dragon Highlord Kitiara uth Matar's strike against Palanthas, he was forced to hide in city in the form of a human. Hearing of her death, he vowed that he would not rest until he had conquered the city in her stead.
With the Blue Dragonarmy exhausted and broken, he turned to subterfuge to acheive this end. Assuming the identity of a merchant named Shen Korras he spent his hoard liberally, establishing a shipping house, having his nobility recognized, and gaining a seat on the senate. When civil war broke out among the Solamnic Knights, Lord Korras was the strongest voice against taking part in the conflict. With popular support among the senate and citizens of Palanthas, he ousted the reigning Lord of Palanthas.
The next step was to use his newfound power to wage a campaign of fear against the citizens of Palanthas. Having forsaken their knightly protectors, the citizens of Palanthas slowly found itself ground under Lord Korras' boot. The Palanthas guard was replaced by thugs loyal to him, the powers of the senate severely curtailed and the courts turned into means of executing his political enemies.
However, Skie found his triumph was incomplete. Without the company of his mistress, the joy and daring of ruling and conquering was replaced with the dull tedium of administration. Convincing himself that her guidance would ensure that Palanthas became the seed which would birth a new empire, he became obsessed with attempting to ressurect her spirit. Secretly he has made pacts with the followers of Chemosh, abducting people off the street to offer in blood sacrifice and sending adventurers off to retrieve forgotten necromantic lore.
Malystryx (epic great wyrm red dragon): Following the destruction of Takhisis and the death of Ariakan in the Chaos War, Malystryx saw her opportunity for power. Promptly she killed and devoured her rider and proclaimed that she was the new master of the Knights of Takhisis, and the Dragon Queen's heir as well.
With the Skull and Thorn knights bereft of power, the Knights were cowed into oaths of obedience by her brute force. The dragons however, refused to serve her. Enraged, she vowed that any dragon who did not serve her would serve her in death. She began to kill every dragon that she could track down and slay, stacking their skulls in a giant totem which she used to enhance her own strength and power to nearly god-like levels.
(Okay, this is taking longer than I thought, so I'll a be a little more to the point)
Sable (Old black dragon) : Basically the same, obsessed with life, death, and bizarre creatures. Flooded the lowland plains to create a new swamp so she could have a fresh ecosystem to start her experiments. She is the only one who terraforms her realm.
Gellidus (Wyrm white dragon) : Gellidus has never struck me as a very good villain simply because he lacked what is all important in a villain, namely a plan for what happens next. So I'll leave him to do what he does best, namely act like a lazy brutish thug, and leave the scheming in Southern Ergoth to the white dragon Shiver.
Beryl (Adult Green Dragon : I figure it is time for a good Qualinesti/Silvanesti war. Therefore, I'm leaving the Silvanesti forest corrupted by Lorac's dream, and inhabited by the Ghoul Queen Sylvana. In Qualinesti, there is a second Kinslayer war going on, with Beryl supporting, manipulating, tormenting the Qualinesti and her estranged mate Cyan Bloodbane supporting, manipulating and tormenting the exiled Silvanesti. Together they use the elven nations to strike at each other like pawns in a chess game. Cyan Bloodbane, due to his immense personal power, could have won the contest between the two dragons already if Beryl had not have seized control of the Tower of Wayreth and its magical might.
There you have it. My vision of the 5 dragon overlords in Krynn 2. The reason for the changes are due to the fact that I disliked:
1) That they came out of nowhere - so I gave them a history, and made them powerful for reasons other than just their sheer size and presence. As normal sized dragons, I didn't have to justify it with "they came from another planet, plane, across the sea" or whatever.
2) That they were all too similar - So I changed it so that Khellendros rules, Sable experiments, Malystryx cannibilizes and uses a skull totem, Gellidus brutalizes, and Beryl masters arcane magic.
3) You could not replace them without redesigning the campaign setting from scratch - Since there isn't one monster of note in a big empty space, you can easily see what will fill the power vaccum when these dragons have been slain by your own PC's.