You can adjust this be selecting the appropriate effector and opening its Position Constraint window, which is easily found under 'Selection' on the right side of the screen. In some cases, you may find it more believable to have a higher Blend Weight on effectors closer to the root then gradually decrease towards the end of the chain.
If any of the roots are rotated, the following chain links will adjust accordingly.
This allows for easy adjustment to fit meshes. Once it's drawn and setup correctly from one angle, adjust the rotation of the roots as needed in another. This chain is what I used for the canopy branches on my model. The original root was the child of the hip bone on the beast, so once he was animated the canopy bounced to his steps.
I used single bone soft constraints for hard items that needed secondary motion like the skulls, jawbones, water bag, horn, etc. Using a single bone soft position constraint for these objects allowed them to pivot at their designated spots (where the root was placed) and to keep their volume. For my model, there were quite a few accessories that were weighted to single or small soft constraint bone chains, and had their roots being children of the hip bone.
After setting up this type of chain a few times, you'll get used to the procedure and will start to understand how and why it works. Keep in my you can even use the basic position constraint to get certain effects you want.
