On Dragons and Ogres

I've recently begun playing in a quasi-Dragonlance campaign - run under the awesome B/X rules - and it has gotten me thinking about a few things within that setting.  Back in the day, that is late 80-s to early 90's, I devoured Dragonlance stuff.  Read the first two trilogies, had a couple of the modules, and being so long ago, I assumed I had forgotten most of it.  Well, guess what?  As I am playing the game, an amazing amount of the material is coming back to me.  Now, I don't intend to pull too much into Trevail, but these old memories have got the juices flowing, and there are some things to consider.

Remember this lovely "lady"? Takhisis, Goddess of the Evil Dragons.  Five chromatic heads of total bad-assness.  Now, she's not a Dragonlance original, no, but I was reminded about her.  Totally got to be used, in some form anyway.  Which brings us to dragons in general.

I believe that dragons have to be something special, and powerful.  Not just another monster to be slain without too much effort.  They are ancient, one of the first Great Races.  I also don't want them pigeon-holed by their stats in the rules.  Alignments are right out the door, to start.  Any dragon, as with any human, or elf, can be of any alignment - they are individuals of an intelligent race. That gold dragon may be controlling the local thieves guild, or advising the local priest of the Great God of All That Is Good.  You never know.  Same thing goes for the red dragon next village up the road. They come in all colors- chromatic, metallic, jeweled - and you'll have to take your chances with each one.

How about these guys here? They're the Irda - which I don't actually know much about, setting wise.  I do know they are "High Ogres", magical ones.  Are they good? Evil? Not sure, don't care. She doesn't look evil to me, but him? I plan on using these guys as my Ogre-Magi instead of those crazy Japanese ones in AD&D. How that works out I can't say yet, but I'm gonna have some fun with them, I can tell.

What else does Dragonlance have to offer Trevail?  How about intelligent minotaurs?  Not likely, doesn't work for me.  Kender? Gully dwarves? Not a chance. I do like the elven cultures - Silvanesti, Qualinesti, Kagonesti.  Maybe some bits there to work with. Draconians? Possibly.  Towers of High Sorcery?  In some form, yes. Between those and the idea of the White Tower and the Aes Sedai from Jordan's Wheel of Time, I definitely want magic somewhat controlled - at least in parts of the game world.

It seems like it's been a long time since I had any time to think about Trevail and what I want to do here.  Real life does have a tendency to rear it's ugly head, but lately I've been  thinking about it again and making some notes.  I'm pulling things together to start up a PbP game again, and got some inspiration for some things over at retrocyberpunk, too.  Time to actually write some stuff up and not spend so much time reading other peoples ideas.  Ya think?