Aside from the fact that the War of the Lance has been done to death in novels and adventures, we just got a
3e update to the Chronicles modules a couple years ago done by Cam Banks and others when it was licensed to MWP.
The Chaos War redone would be a fairly interesting setting, since you could reboot the 5A stuff which (while it has its fans, as everything does) was generally not very well received by the wider DL fanbase. However, the Chaos War is an apocalyptic campaign, which is hard to undo if it is done. It works better as a potential future threat. What campaign storyline could match the end of the world in importance?
WotC shared world strategy these days is just to release a Player's Guide, and Campaign Setting and an Adventure Book. I suppose that means one wouldn't have to worry about any post-apocolyptic cleanup... but then what do you do when you want to revive the DL property for 5e?
I think the best time for DL adventuring would be the 2nd Generation anthology. You have 25+ years of distance between the War of the Lance and the current time and the Knights of Nereka(Takhisis) were built up very effectively as a larger threat than the dragonarmies had been a generation before. In this way the setting is like Eberron, which also has a great war behind them but the potential for a greater and more devastating war on the horizon. This time period would also make the original Chronicles novels serve as a good introduction to the setting, while they were largely useless in terms of introducing new players to the Age of Mortals Dragonlance unless they also read at least 10 other books.
Most of all though, the 2nd generation anthology was the last time DL storyline seemed to be moving forward with almost all of the DL fanbase on board. There are fans of certain ideas that came afterward, but nearly every fan has something that they absolutely loathe about the storylines that came afterward.
I do love your idea of giving hints of what might happen in the future rather than a hard direction for the setting, because that would also allow
WotC to salvage the 5th Age and Age of Mortals novels that they have already written, and keep them as canonical parts of the setting. So use the 2nd Generation time period as the time period for the game materials, and then have a paragraph describing the branches on the River of Time that might make up Krynn's future:
The Conquest of the Dark Knights - The Dark Knights lie in wait waiting for the chance to to gather the forces of Darkness together and conquer Krynn in the name of their Dark Queen. Will your characters be able to stop them through commanding legions, or will you have to struggle to overthrow their tyranny as a hidden resistance? Recommended Reading: Dragons of Summer Flame, Palanthas SAGA supplement.
The Ascendancy of the Dragon Overlords - Dragons are already among the mightiest of Krynn's creatures but some lust for even more power. Secret, blasphemous rites exist for amassing power by assembling the skulls of their enemies in giant totems that will give the survivors god-like strength and absolute mastery over the realms they claim. Recommended Reading: Dragons of a New Age.
The Death of Takhisis - The Dark Queen has always been ambitious and overreaching, and has felt the pain of Huma's Lance as a price for that ambition. Will your characters be the ones to end her life once and for all, and which god or goddess will arise to restore the balance? Recommended Reading: Dragons of a Vanished Moon, Amber and Iron.
The Chaos War - The Greygem is Krynn's most powerful artifact, but little do people realize that it is also the key for unleashing the mightiest primordial of the Elemental Chaos, the Father of All and Nothing. Can any heroes face the end of Krynn itself? Recommended Reading: Dragons of Summer Flame.
So there you have the Age of Mortals and the 5th Age acknowledged as a part of DL canon, so you don't annoy the minority fanbase and novel collectors, but you keep the best era for gaming in because it appeals to the widest segment of the fanbase and doesn't require nearly so much backstory to introduce new players. Not to mention the 5th Age designers weren't nearly so respective of setting themes and canon as we might have liked, given you had to basically come back and try to knit it all back together so it made sense. Having the alternate futures allows the novels to be presented as one way the history of Krynn could unfold, while still giving the DL DM's the freedom to introduce some cool world shaking ideas in a manner that is consistent with their own view of the setting.
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