How can the bad guys follow the PCs over a large distance without detection?

Question

I'm currently running a scenario for my players where the bad guys (who have a different culture, which seems a bit creepy, but also seems nice and friendly) want to follow the PCs home from their isolated continent, in order to spread their creepy (but seemingly nice and friendly) religion to the PC's homeland. Think of them as a Proseletysing Hegemonistic Swarm Object, to use a variation on Iain M Banks terminology, that spreads via religious conversion.

The PCs have a ship, and the bad guys don't... and couldn't follow the PCs ship if they did have one of their own; it's the difference between a bermuda-rigged yacht and a square-rigged cog. The PCs are Lv 15, and have most of the skills and major base character classes covered by themselves or their cohorts, so the bad guys stowing away aboard their ship is unlikely to work... and I'd rather have the players agree to something that the bad guys can use to follow them than just say 'you didn't notice the stowaway'.

The players seem to like hiring new cohorts, and while I'll try getting them to do that to get them to bring a spy with them, because I've deliberately set up the bad guys as being creepy, they may (very reasonably) choose not to allow that.

However, the PCs have offered to take mail from people from their part of the world who had been shipwrecked on the 'creepy-people-continent' back to their part of the world. These shipwrecked people are, of course, converts to creepyism, and will cooperate with the creepy clergy... even if it means certain death (Creepyism offers range-limited semi-reliable free rebirth/reincarnation). They fear only failure, or dying too far from the lands in which their creepy deity is worshipped (i.e. currently the PCs' homeland).

So, my question is: Is there any way that any class(es) of character(s) can use a letter or other small innocuous-seeming object that might be sent through the mail to gain physical access to a land on the other side of the rather large world, that they know almost nothing about?

Answers will preferably minimise the chances of detection by suspicious player-characters, and allow the creepy bad guys to transport themselves to the 'letter' over a distance of approximately 25,000km. Preference will also be given to lower cost and lower minimum caster/character levels in the case that magic or character class special abilities must be used. The creepy bad guys are perfectly willing to work together without clashes of personality, so any combination of character classes may be used, but please try to minimise the sum of the levels of all the required characters, and the number of required characters.

This world is homebrew with homebrew deities, based on most of the core and official expansion 3.5e rulebooks (except Incarnum). While many things from published official game settings exist, I would prefer to avoid features specific to any of the official game worlds.

Answer 1

Intercontinental travel is easy for high level parties.

Ask the party to ship a creature, perhaps a tiny construct in the shape of a letter (made with a permanent Animate Objects spell), having held on to a portion of it (to reduce the save the creature gets against scrying), and use it as the target of a Scrying spell, after the journey is expected to have finished, to become aware of the location it has ended up, and then Greater Teleport to that location.

A 13th level Cleric with the Travel domain could do that on their own¹, or a 13th level Sorc or Wizard working with an 11th level Cleric or Bard.

1. They can't make a permanent animated letter, but can enact the plan with some other creature, such as a caged songbird. Then they need to hope the crew don't run out of supplies and eat the cargo.

Answer 2

If they can convince the players to deliver a creature of some sort, such as a bird in a cage, then they can simply scry the creature and teleport over. In this situation, the players would not even be suspicious and would work to make sure the scrying target made it to the destination safely.

Another option would be to have a character wear an amulet of non-detection and follow the players in secret. A rogue stowaway with an amulet of non-detection whose goal is to never be seen on the ship would be awfully hard to catch.

Answer 3

Getting There

Send a Ring Gate (40,000 gp).

Not cost-effective, but it's very straightforward and doesn't require any high-level characters. Medium or larger bad guys can get through with Benign Transposition and a friendly mouse.

However, even with a lead-lined envelope, the PCs might become suspicious of an 18-inch flat envelope addressed to no one in particular.

Stow Away In An Enveloping Pit (3,600 gp + life support).

This cheaper Portable Hole only works for certain alignments, but that shouldn't be a problem for this faction. Folded up it should fit into a small envelope (it's the size of a handkerchief). You'll still to send someone who doesn't eat or breathe, like a Warforged or Necropolitan, or get a Bottle of Air and a Ring of Sustenance.

Send an Animal, But You're the Animal (varies)

If the PCs can be convinced to bring over a live animal, a Hengeyokai, or Baleful Polymorph + Iron Heart Surge/shapechanger, or even a high-level Druid can remain in animal form for an arbitrary duration.

Detect Thoughts will reveal them, though, and after a few weeks a strangely human animal gets somewhat suspicious.

Polymorph Any Object (8th-level spell)

For journeys shorter than one week, Polymorph your travelers into minuscule bone beads and make some earrings. Tiny, subtle, easy to transport, no cost save the spell slots/scrolls. It can also be Extended to two weeks.

Send a Stalwart Eye + (10,000 gp)

A Tiny birdlike statue out of Arms and Equipment Guide that lets you see through its eyes, any distance. Relatively innocuous, but large and magical.

Alternatively, bind Malphas and have a perfectly normal bird accompany the ship. (In this case the bird isn't a package, it's just kind of hanging out on the ship.)

Unfortunately these methods doesn't bring a living person, so it gets slightly more convoluted to actually get there.

Bloodwalk (15th level)

My favorite method, but perhaps the least practical. A tenth-level Blood Magus who has a sample of someone's blood can bloodwalk to them at any distance. If the PCs have NPC crew, surreptitiously obtaining some blood shouldn't be too hard. Alternatively, a letter that gives a wicked papercut when handled might be handed back, and with it, a PC's blood. While not exactly subtle, bloodwalking to someone can't really be stopped and gives a dramatic way to reveal to the players how the group got to their continent.

Send a Lich's Phylactery (1 lich)

As small as you want, very subtle, and if there's a lich they've already spend the 120,000 gp to make one. It is a huge risk for them, though, and they'll have to be patient to ensure the phylactery is received before destroying themselves.

Getting Back Again

Greater Teleport and Transport Via Plants are very good options, if the new continent has the same type of plants, but two other options are worth noting:

1. The Astral Caravan power is much riskier thank Greater Teleport, but is only a third-level power. It works with secondhand depictions of the location, so Sending or a visual link should make it possible, and pumping Knowledge is pretty easy. It deposits the travelers some distance from the destination but so long as the scout heads inland that could be a good if they don't want the PCs to know they made it to the new continent.
2. Portals (FRCS) can be crafted by anyone with the Craft Wondrous Item feat and a Scroll of Teleport Circle. The cheapest version (1000gp, which is why you only need one scroll— and one day— to make it) works only once every ten days, but it works for several creatures each use. Craft a portal back across the ocean, then another once to the player's continent now that you've visited. The portal to the new land can be twice as often and still only require one scroll because a connecting portal costs half as much. Portals are more like a teleport circle than a gate; there's no "peeking through" and they are by default invisible and one-way.

Answer 4

Send a seed (it's a plant)

If you send a totally mundane plant with the party, then, after a while, they can cast "Transport via Plants" to get to it. This spell doesn't have range limitations, and is also lower level than "Greater Teleport".

Note that a seed is a plant (just in an embryonic stage of life) and it'd be simple to put a seed in a letter and mail it.

Answer 5

Send a Hawk

Using baleful polymorph to turn a follower into a hawk, which gains a racial bonus to spot of +8 (see below). The ersatz-bird can follow the players' ship from a distance that they cannot reasonably be able to spot it, but from which it can spot them (see below). The pseudo-bird needs to keep its mind, so be ready to try several followers. (The others can be recycled, apparently). Also, you should transform and give a successful scout a ring of sustenance a week ahead of time so that they can stay on shift persistently.

Note: the ring must be given after the polymorph, since all items fall off the creature on its transformation.

The rules regarding spotting swimmers and ships (StormWrack 89) say that spotting from a flying position can, on passing a DC 20 Spot check, find a Small Boat at 12 miles out and a Sailing Ship at 25 miles out. Conversley, a swimmer in the water can be spotted at 1 mile from a masthead (the same DC 20) or ½ mile from a deck; though automatically spotting them at half those distances is covered, spotting from farther away is not covered in those added rules. The scout bird can fly very high (soaring-type birds can fly above 15,000 ft, some kites are said to fly above 30,000ft). By regular spot rules, the spot check to see the bird is at a penalty of -1500 or more (-1/10 ft), and skill checks do not automatically succeed or fail on rolls of 20 or 1. Thus it can follow the ship, while remaining hidden.

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If the follower sent can make a portal, as in this answer, then sending a hawk-ish follower of the shapechanger subtype with the scroll and makings in a pouch would allow them to arrive on location, change back, create the portal, returning to the cult location to create the connecting portal (all as described in that answer).

Maximizing things minimally, a 3rd level Sorceror or Wizard (or a 10th/9th level one for him to polymorph himself), who had as high a wisdom as is feasible, and some ranks in spot, would be a great choice. That said, simply staying within 6 miles range of even a small boat would both permit constant following and prevent being discovered, and just flying to the location and back should provide the desired information.

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Since the party uses a flying ship capable of flying 667km/day, speed is paramount for a scout. (Control weather, cast by a druid, lasts 8-96 hours, but 52 hours average is reasonable)

A bone or corpse creature templated (Book of Vile Darkness, 184-5) blink dog, is an undead that retains the living creature's abilities so can dimension door 720 feet/rd as a free action, and only falls half as far as normal while blinking. That's 1.3km/minute, 79km/h, and 1896km/24h (converted from feet), well within the speed requirement.

The undead blink dog simply needs to remain within 12 miles (19 km) of the ship (or 6 miles (9.6 km) if its considered to be the size of a small boat) to be able to see the ship with no spot roll required. As previously mentioned anything beyond 1 mile is not covered under the ship rules, so normal spot rules should to apply.

This requires create undead, and the ability to command 2HD undead, and at this point it's unreasonable that the scout can make a portal, though it can return and report. Thus the scrying on the scout and then greater teleport components of other answers are good solutions to arriving at the players' homeland shortly after they do.