Why DL3 got buggy

I am in the process of reposting some of my Abanasynia work, the Eriador of Dragonlance.

Likely is that the former "EA#20" is the original EA#20. I suspect that Hickman at first intended the lost dwarven city to be in that western area, but moved that city and the Hopeful Vale south as his scope for the project expanded and as his creativity improved. Anyway, he's given us an Agharpost in that original region instead, now #9. And messed up the whole #19, #20, #21 design for his later editors and DMs...

Karen Wynn Fonstad's map of Kharolis in Tales of the Lance, which she likely drew up in 1987 for her Atlas of the Dragonlance World, has Hopeful Vale in the north #20. (It's otherwise perfect for those areas of DL3 in which the party will travel.) And if you have the book The Gates of Thorbardin (1990) or its derivative box Dwarven Kingdoms of Krynn (1993), these label that the Vale of Respite - which I suppose it is, temporarily.

But DL3 players must keep in mind that the REAL vale of respite, the ally-ally auction free vale, is the lake on the southeast. I think.

One point of interest is that DL3 has less land to the east of the Plains of Dergoth - in fact, NO land. It's ocean. Fonstad puts a wide badland there. Fonstad is consistent with that part of the official Ansalon map:

Incidentally: This is another instance of Fonstad getting hammered by inconsistencies in the source material. See also Atlas of Middle-Earth ed. 1991 and based on the Silmarillion. However true to what was currently in print from Tolkien's estate, the Silmarillion itself was based on several manuscripts: successively better organised but successively stopping shorter and shorter of the end of the epic. For the Easterlings' route westward, the last treatment in the Silmarillion is based on that as printed in History of Middle Earth, Christopher J Tolkien: v.9. The Silmarillion, and so Fonstad's map, implied that the Easterlings crossed the Ered Luin. But "The Grey Annals" in HoME v.10 clarified that the Easterlings went around, to their north; avoiding unfriendly Elves and skirting the fringes of Angband. Had Tolkien carried the next edition of Silmarillion up to that year in "history", he would have added that to his account. But Christopher Tolkien edited his father's work without due attention to the Grey Annals, and published the latter in 1993. In 1991, Fonstad did the best that anyone could who lacked direct access to CJT's notes.

Back on topic, I side with Fonstad against DL3 (and its edition). But if you are playing DL3, there may as well be an impassable ocean there. Some maps do put a road and some towns on the east - Hillhome, coastal Salmonfall - but it is unlikely to host a navy fit to carry 800 refugees, especially across open ocean. Ember and his draconians are sure to bake the buns off anybody traipsing their way there. There is no respite to the east of Dergoth. But there may be an end-run...