I accidently lived out a DM power fantasy. /u/Important_Peace_2848 DnD: Roll for Initiative!

So very long story short my players (3 level 7s) found an ancient unstable portal across planes. The used a magic item on it and fractured it more. They were pulled in and thrown to a random plane. As they were pulled in they saw other creatures entering the material plane, specifically a beholder and a ton of modrons (from the far realm and mechanus respectively).

After escaping the 9 hells they began to hunt down the “invaders”. They tracked down a modron that had been sold to a local artificer.

Now this artificer is an NPC that has existed since the start of the campaign, he has been active behind the scenes in large ways, and I’ve just been waiting for them to run across him.

When the party arrives i give the artificer and his shop a lot of detailed description. The party gets along great with him (they are all good aligned) and get great info from him. But decide they need to take it to an expert in automatons. Well the artificer is hesitant to give up the discovery of a life time (although a decent persuasion check or payment would have sufficed). Instead the party instantly threatens this little old man.

I say roll initiative as I roll for all 12 of his automaton guards and him, a CR 8 stat block… before the first party member acts one is half dead. They decide now they want to play nice and purchase it lol.

I never planned on pulling the whole “all shop keepers are level 20 retired adventurers” but it did feel nice to fall into it!

So very long story short my players (3 level 7s) found an ancient unstable portal across planes. The used a magic item on it and fractured it more. They were pulled in and thrown to a random plane. As they were pulled in they saw other creatures entering the material plane, specifically a beholder and a ton of modrons (from the far realm and mechanus respectively).

After escaping the 9 hells they began to hunt down the “invaders”. They tracked down a modron that had been sold to a local artificer.

Now this artificer is an NPC that has existed since the start of the campaign, he has been active behind the scenes in large ways, and I’ve just been waiting for them to run across him.

When the party arrives i give the artificer and his shop a lot of detailed description. The party gets along great with him (they are all good aligned) and get great info from him. But decide they need to take it to an expert in automatons. Well the artificer is hesitant to give up the discovery of a life time (although a decent persuasion check or payment would have sufficed). Instead the party instantly threatens this little old man.

I say roll initiative as I roll for all 12 of his automaton guards and him, a CR 8 stat block… before the first party member acts one is half dead. They decide now they want to play nice and purchase it lol.

I never planned on pulling the whole “all shop keepers are level 20 retired adventurers” but it did feel nice to fall into it!