Wandering around Torsh

This past Friday, the group did some more wandering around the island continent of Torsh, from Judges Guilds' Portals of Torsh module.  I added it to the campaign in the hopes that it would derail the railroad of the introductory Freeport Trilogy.  I put a random portal about 10 feet in the air in the middle of a city block and put a portal to Torsh specifically in the top of the lighthouse maguffin of the 3rd Freeport module.  By making the lizardmen of Torsh more like the serpent people of Freeport, it made sense to connect the two.

Anyway, in the last game, the group had a showdown with the inhabitants of the lighthouse in the end of the Freeport Trilogy.  Honestly, as a DM, I cannot recommend much from that module.  It's a nose-ring, railroad of an adventure.  Modifying as much of it as possible to 1e, the characters pretty much walked through the "tough" fights with barely a scratch.  Their purpose for being there was to chase after and capture an escaped prisoner.  They went through all the levels and never saw him.  After looting the place, including stealing the jade serpent, they went off to heal up.  One of the group finally wondered why they hadn't seen the guy they were chasing, despite seeing him enter the place.

So, they went back in, went up to the top, and entered Torsh.  For those not familiar with Torsh, it's a continent in an alternate Prime Material plane in which the dinosaurs didn't die out but continued to evolve.  Mammals therefore never evolved.  Add to this, most of the plants and such are poisonous to mammals. Lastly, the place is extremely iron poor.

Once there, they followed the tracks of the escaped wizard to a mud brick town of lizardfolk.  They encountered lizardfolk adventurers, human settlers and got news about their quarry.  Following the lead to hunt this guy down, they invaded a lizardfolk mage's tower, got caught stealing, and found the guy to be way out of their league.  They question him and make plans to escort him back to Freeport.  He gives them a gem to calm their jittery nerves and sends them ahead. 

They make plans to ambush the convict when he arrives.  However, they have a few encounters with dinosaurs, more lizardfolk, and then more of the human settlers.  Plot development ensues in which they learn that the guy had helped the settlers escape to this world but is now trying to get them to Freeport.  He has no qualms about genocide of the serpentfolk variation which nearly killed off all the settlers in their home dimension.  And has been working on a scheme to return them all home and eliminate the serpentfolk. 

The PCs decide to quit working for the medusa and help out the convict.  They destroy the bracelet contact with her and start eliminating the lizardfolk.  And that's where the story ends for now.   Sorry for the lack of exposition, but I'm beat.  It's been a horrible week.  I'll write more about it later.