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Originally posted by Markustay

Awhile back, someone over on the WotC site had a thread where they updated the Old Empire to 3e, and they did one entire section on the 'Forgotten War' (the Tuigan campaign against Murghom, Mulhorand, and Unther). It was some really great HB stuff. I had saved it all into a pdf, but now thats gone - does anyone else remember or have it?

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Originally posted by Markustay
[brEDIT: Here is something I found about Murghom a while back - I wouldn't use all of it - I tweaked it for my own campaign - but its a great base for someone to work off of. Its not what I was talking about above, but it was very easy to find (and is an interesting take on the place).

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Originally posted by Markustay

EDIT2: Dragon #358 - by our own Brian Cortijo - had some official updates as well.

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Originally posted by Icelander

I'm running a campaign set in 1373 DR and one of the areas of focus is the north of former Unther, around Messemprar. This is, of course, the ultimate goal of the invading Mulhorandi and the center of what outsiders call Free Unther.*

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First question for Candlekeep scribes; from the perspective of a Mulhorandi general, what viable options are there to deal with a supply shortage for the spring offensive?

1a) It's obvious that regaining control of the sea is crucial, but is it worth risking Sultim by surging their defensive fleet from there out to fight in a foreign war, leaving Sultim bare in case of a treacherous Thayan raid?

1b) Does Mulhorand have the magical might to instantly add some dozen warships to their fleet somehow? They are buildig more through regular means, with all their drydocks at capacity, but is there some magical method that ought to be available to them?

1c) Can Mulhorand somehow move warships to the Methmere or are they stuck with converted fishing boats filled with soldiers?

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At the level of technology in the Forgotten Realms in 1373 DR, how practical is an amphibious operation involving almost ten thousand men (what you'd need to take and hold Shussel)?

The Mulhorandi would be hard pressed to scrounge up a naval response of any sort, but they have priests, mages and soldiers in Shussel and could defend landings pretty well. They also have some artillery, but it is built locally of wood and ropes and so has less range than the steel and torsion-spring artillery of the Purple Reign naval vessels. It also lacks the prodigious amounts of smokepowder and alchemist's fire that the PCs have been willing to expend so far.

Maybe ten shallow-draft vessels like light galleys could be beached at one time around Shussel, allowing men from them to land. Purple Reign only has access to half that many, however, unless they abandon Methmere to do this. They could bring chartered dromonds, if any captains could be convinced to bring them into a war zone, but they could only land troops by ferrying them in ship's boats. I wonder how long it would take to ferry 200 men from one dromond...

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One thing that always improves my immersion and adds a touch of human interest is how soldiers come up with new slang that characterises wars. The British have been the Redcoats, the Goddamns, the khakis, Tommies (Atkins) and the Rosbifs in a few of their wars; the Germans have been Huns, Jerries, Boche, Fritzes and more; the Crusaders were Franks or Ferenghi; the French have been Crapauds or Frogs and every war has had plenty of such nicknames, complimentary or not.

I was wondering what the Mulhorandi call Untheri soldiers and vice versa. Ideally, I'd like there to be seperate nicknames for seperate units, at least as far as the common soldiers noticed a difference. Die-hard Gilgeamite fanatics would probably have some other nickname than poorly equipped militia still fighting for what remains of Unther's official armies

I'd like both Untheric, Mulhorandi and Common nicknames, since all would be heard. For Untheric, something similar to Akkadian would probably do the trick and Egyptian-derived terms would be good enough for Mulhorandi.

So, what do scribes think that the opposing forces would call each other?



For a general purpose nickname, translated into Common for the benefit of foreign mercenaries, I was thinking that the Mulhorandi could be 'godslaves'. The Mulhorandi would call their foes a variety of terms, with the Rebels of the Moon being 'moonies', Grey Ghosts being 'greys', noble retinue forces being 'oilies'** and I'm not entirely sure what to call the regular Untheri soldiers.

I'd welcome any and all suggestions.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

With the greenfields being trampled to mud in the official sources (something I think is difficult to manage. The Greenfield region is pretty large. What, did the whole Mulhornadi army match shoulder to shoulder stomping the region the whole way through? I digress lol),

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Originally posted by Power2the1

then in order to feed the soldiers in occupied Unther I'd think that imports from the Eastern Sharr could perhaps be resonably expected, or maybe the produce grown in Mulhorand itself be requesitioned for rationed out somehow? Without hundreds of tons of food a spring offensive would grind to a halt.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

1a) I believe that the Thayans interest in helping the Northern Wizards equates to Thay being in an unofficaial state of war, or somesuch, against Mulhorand and would like nothing more than the see them fail. If the Pharaoh's fleet left harbor, I would certainly try my hand at a heavy incurion into northern Mulhorand were I Szass Tam. This would immediately force the pharaoh to divide his army and force a portion of it back north away from Unther to try and expell the Thayans.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

1b) I would think so. Mulhorand war machine leading up the war is largely intact and iirc facing no notable internal divisons. This means the empire is united and focused. This also means that their priestly power is wholly intact and ready for whatever the pharaoh wishes. However, many of these priests and the magic forces of Mulhorand could be concentrated in occupied Unther, therefore leaving Mulhorand proper with a meager smattering of priestly or wizardly forces to counter a Thayan incursion or, even worse, an invasion with a purpose. Alternatively, the Mulhorandi shipbuilders could already be working at full capacity now that they are at war controlling the seas around them and if there are regular losses to their fleet then the shipbuilders would be prepared to construct more I'd think.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

1c) Great question. If the boats/ships are small enough, I would think this could be possible. Huge war galleys or what have you would be a huge undertaking and sabatage would be prevalent seeing how plenty of forces arrayed in Unther would prefer to keep Mulhorand as far away as possible. Fire ships sent against any dock facilities could be effective against pending Mulhornadi operations in the Methmere.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

If the invasion is planned with secret, it could certainly catch the Mulhorandi garrison off guard, lessening the chances that reinforcements could arrive to throw the Purple Reign invasion forces back into the sea. This situation reminds me of D-Day somewhat, with the Frech resistance cutting off communication lines hampering the Wehrmacht from coordination operations as efficiently as before. I guess a small number of 'commandos' from the Purple Reign of coverntly infiltrate the harbor and cause chaos at the appointed time of a naval invasion of Shussel.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

Say, do you run your game online or have AAR's or blogs? I'd love to read transcripts of your game if so.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

The Mulhorandi are supposedly powerful in magic; do they have magical means to circumvent the victories your PCs have won? If they no longer control the seas and don’t have enough oxen to transport their supplies overland, why don’t they consider constructing a portal directly to the front line? Preventing such a project from succeeding sounds like a good adventure hook for your PCs.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

What about necromantic magic? Skeletons and zombies are easy to create and never tire, perhaps teams of undead could replace the oxen pulling supply wagons?

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1a) With regards to risking Sultim, do the Mulhorandi have any political bargaining power with Thay to ensure the Red Wizards don’t get involved and if Sultim navy goes to war?

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1b) Once again, considering Mulhorand’s magical might, I think it’s a distinct possibility they could replenish their diminished fleet through magical means. One cool idea is that the funerary barges (I don’t know if such things would exist in Mulhorand) of deceased nobles might be disinterred from the tombs in which they rest to help the war effort; with crews of mummies and other undead aboard and ready to serve!

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1c) Again, thanks to arcane means it seems reasonable that warships could be transported to the Methmere (carried upon the ranks of hundreds of trudging, animated skeletons?).

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

I love the nicknames you’ve come up with for the different factions, and I can’t add anything better. Considering the Untheric/Akkadian RL comparisons, the Akkadians were depicted in ancient art as having distinctive curling beards. If Untheric people mirrored this tradition, it strikes me as a good source for a nickname.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

Plus I’d also love to read transcripts of this campaign.

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Once part of the great empire, this country is semi-independent
from Mulhorand, giving food to its parent in times of famine
and cavalry in times of war.

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Originally posted by Power2the1

Icelander, you may have need of this tidbit of info on Murghom:

p. 188 of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

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Once part of the great empire, this country is semi-independent
from Mulhorand, giving food to its parent in times of famine
and cavalry in times of war.

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Perhaps this can help with some of the food/supply situations in you campaign.

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Originally posted by Icelander

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

The Mulhorandi are supposedly powerful in magic; do they have magical means to circumvent the victories your PCs have won? If they no longer control the seas and don’t have enough oxen to transport their supplies overland, why don’t they consider constructing a portal directly to the front line? Preventing such a project from succeeding sounds like a good adventure hook for your PCs.

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That's a good idea.

In my campaigns, I have portals have some associated risks and problems not mentioned in the D&D rules. This is because if they really worked like the rules in Powers of Faerun, shipping would exclusively be through portals and Toril would be considerably wealthier than a modern first world nation on average.

For one thing, the secrets of making them are rare and jealously guarded. For another, most of the modern methods are less effective than the great portal magics of the past, so that the more the portals are used, the more the magic that powers them frays and decays. Constant traffic can quickly cause the portal to come untethered or open it up to strange astral creatures or even cause it to open into another plane entirely. Which is usually the prelude to a terrible planar invasion and potentially, at least if the portal is not quickly closed, a apocalyptic event.

Even so, I expect that there are researchers and scholars of old Imaskar who would be able to build portals. Not all that many, but many enough so that the Pharoah could convince more than one to help him. But it would not be the work of days, more like months.

Yes, I imagine that a portal in Shussel is a goal for them. The wizards in question could probably teleport there, so that they will not be kept away. It's unlikely that the PCs would even know of the project, not if secrecy is kept.

On the other hand, the Mulhorandi will have to hold Shussel while they do this. Which means that they have to find a preliminary solution to their supply situation.

Teleport circles? Still would take weeks...

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

What about necromantic magic? Skeletons and zombies are easy to create and never tire, perhaps teams of undead could replace the oxen pulling supply wagons?

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I don't think that the priests of Anhur, the god of heroic warfare, or Horus-Re, the sun, order and Mulhorand, would be overjoyed at that. They respect the dead, almost to the point of obsession, and are very hostile to anything that might make them appear to be 'evil' to others. Undead are a Thayan thing and people who disturb the honourable rest of others are beyond the pale, evil necromancers who deserve nothing but death.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1a) With regards to risking Sultim, do the Mulhorandi have any political bargaining power with Thay to ensure the Red Wizards don’t get involved and if Sultim navy goes to war?

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Well, one of the greatest weaknesses of Thay is the fact that no one man can dictate their policies. When it comes to diplomacy, this means that you can't really get enforcable treaties. Even if one Red Wizard or even a Zulkir makes you a promise, that doesn't bind other Red Wizards or other Zulkirs. Even if Tharchion Thessalona Canos promises non-aggression with her fleet on the Alaor, that does not bind Zulkir Aznar Thrul, Tharchion of Bezantur, and his formidable fleet. Even if both of them are quiet, that does not bind Tharchion Milsantos Daramos, the canny old warlord in Thazalhar.

Even so, if Thessalona Canos would promise that her fleet would not move, the Precept of Sultim would probably sally forth with no delay.

The problem is, Tharchion Canos has a lot of reasons to want to raze Sultim and not much reason to refrain if she is given a chance at it. Many people in Thay have good reasons to preserve an appearance of friendly relations with Mulhorand, but Tharchion Canos was thrown off her tharch and almost killed by Anhurite fanatics just a couple of years ago. She knows that they are not friendly and that the way to be safe from them is to make them too weak to threathen her.

I guess they could try a massive bribe.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1b) Once again, considering Mulhorand’s magical might, I think it’s a distinct possibility they could replenish their diminished fleet through magical means. One cool idea is that the funerary barges (I don’t know if such things would exist in Mulhorand) of deceased nobles might be disinterred from the tombs in which they rest to help the war effort; with crews of mummies and other undead aboard and ready to serve!

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Wouldn't it be sacrilegious to thus disturb the rest of nobles? I see this as being something that would revolt most Mulhorandi and while war often forces people into appaling actions, this also quickly turns the populace against wars. I think that respect for the dead is a bit of a sacred cow in Mulhorandi culture, with the Thayans demonised a great deal because they do not show the same respect for the mortal remains of people.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

1c) Again, thanks to arcane means it seems reasonable that warships could be transported to the Methmere (carried upon the ranks of hundreds of trudging, animated skeletons?).

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For reasons alluded above, I'd not expect to see Mulhorandi use undead for labour.

That doesn't mean that they can't do much the same thing with elemental servants or golems, of course. It would be a terrible expensive way to move ships and, at any rate, their closest ones are in Unthalass (where they may not prove enough to defend the city). It's an option, but one which they'd prefer not to have to explore.

Unless, of course, they can add ca ten warships through magical means quickly. Could they? Would it be politically tenable if they could, wasting powerful magic like that on a war of conquest that benefits Anhur's church more than any other?

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

I love the nicknames you’ve come up with for the different factions, and I can’t add anything better. Considering the Untheric/Akkadian RL comparisons, the Akkadians were depicted in ancient art as having distinctive curling beards. If Untheric people mirrored this tradition, it strikes me as a good source for a nickname.

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No canon source has Untheri be all bearded, but no source says it's unknown, either, and Gilgeam had a flowing beard. I have it as a noble affectation that was also somewhat popular among the theocratic priest caste.

I was thinking that the regular Untheri forces could have earned the partly disparaging, partly grudgingly respectful nickname 'die-hards' from their foes. They are fighting for a political regime which is clearly crumbling, with officers that are often politically or religiously appointed, but they've managed to slow the advance so far and those who remain are clearly adept at living through battles where their side loses. I expect that they are tough, veteran troops, made elite by the vicious selection process of the battlefield. They die at the hands of victorious Mulhorandi legions, yes, but they die hard.

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Originally posted by MalariaMoon

Plus I’d also love to read transcripts of this campaign.

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I guess you'll have to scream and shout until my players keep IC journals online.

I might also be persuaded to regularly update the situation, if I'm not too lazy. I do keep notes and records, so it's not impossible.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I can see Mulhorandites following certain deities being named after the animal that is most representative of their deity. For instance Horus-Re worshippers being "hawkheads". Anhurites might be "lions". Thothites might be "cranes".

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Originally posted by Icelander

sleyyvas, I'll have more to say later, but this post will do for now.

First, I'm using GURPS and not D&D, so I try to emulate the world as closely as possible, but don't care about specific rules-exploits that seem out of place in Ed's world. Thus, some spells work like they do in novels or well-written setting supplements, not the way D&D 3.x or 4e has them. In general, if a spell was ret-conned at any point, I chose the version that best fits 'fluff' canon and/or had several versions exist of different rarity and difficulty.

As a consequence, teleporting to a moving ship doesn't work well without a beacon to focus the spell on. The characters in my game can't do this and they will thus rightly complain if enemies can do it without a workaround. The fact that a moving ship isn't in the same place as it was when you scried it makes it very rare to do this without having the ship in view while you cast the spell. And even then, you can only cast something with a short casting time, as you lose view of the ship when you start casting something else than a scrying spell.

Using a ten minute casting time spell like Teleportation Circle, well, it would require you to successfully guess, with millimeter accuracy, the effects of wind, current, steering wheel and rigging, including any possible changes, for the next ten minutes. During which a ship may travel anywhere up to a mile or two.

Even the gentle up and down motion of the waves means that teleporting to a moving ship, even from line-of-sight range, is usually done at a distance of a few inches from the floor. It's better to end up slightly above the target than occupying the same space as it with your toes.

So any use of translocation spells to take ships is risky, right off the bat. That doesn't prevent it, of course, but it does put a damper on things.

There's also the problem that the Mulhorandi and in particular, the ruling regime, are strongly lawful and lean heavily toward good as opposed to evil. Assassins and secret slayers are rarer in Mulhorand than other countries and those who exist are more likely to belong to subversive factions than to the Pharoah and the 'good' priesthoods.

None of this stopped the Mulhorandi from trying to seize the PCs ship during a naval battle by using dimension doors, with royal guards and royal eyes (spies/covert operatives). Having fewer covert operatives than it otherwise might have is different from having none and within line of sight, teleports to ships are much safer.

That didn't work out, though. They lost a lot of their best men to the PCs carrying out a fighting retreat below their own deck and then detonating a cask half-full of smokepowder and hastily filled with lead bullets, a short distance above their own deck.

Wrecked the ship, killed some people below decks and wounded everyone else. Killed some fifty of the best infiltrators and royal guards Mulhorand had**.

You should also keep in mind that by D&D demographics, a nation of 6 million people (Mulhorandi has 5 and change, but can't be bothered to check) will have an average of 32 people who can learn Teleportation Circle. Whether they all did, whether they all serve the Pharoah loyally and so forth, is not guaranteed.

I'm not saying that Mulhorand or any other places is enslaved to D&D demographics in my campaign, but nor do I have them all be so insanely powerful that it's nothing like a normal land. High level people are special and rare, with people hurling the equivalent of 9th level spells around being less than 0.001% of the population. The number of people in Mulhorand who can teleport a group of soldiers with a snap of their fingers is therefore not all that high in any case.

Given the tendency of high-level wizards to have their own agendas, I'd be surprised if more than ten of the wizards who could do this who would be willing to do it in the furtherence of a war that only the church of Anhur supports wholeheartedly.*

The use of scrying to find fleets and then to get detailed information about the men inside the ships is also problematic. Most scrying spells scry identified individuals or items, not a general class of things. They'd have to know some of the crewmen to scry them. Some, at least in my campaign, can scry areas, but with thousands of square miles of ocean to search, that's less useful than it seems.

Great tool to keep someone under surveillance, not a substitute for traditional intelligence work.

Even if they manage to scry someone, mind you, they won't know where he is unless he happens to be plotting his position on a map. Even if he were, the expected margin of error for position of a naval ship is several thousand times more than what can be tolerated for magical transport spells and well above what a Clairvoyance spell boosted in range might require to find the ship.

Even if we accept that finding the fleet would be harder than casting a single spell and they would not always know where one was, we're still faced with more problems after the fleet is found. First of all, most scrying spells would just allow them to look at one particular crewman, essentially useless unless he is an officer or the wizard they are looking for.

Shifting point of view would take another casting, which means that keeping a fleet of six ships under observation well enough to be fairly sure that you know what is happening with each important area on them might take something like 120 wizards, constantly casting new spells***. Needless to say, that's a lot of wizards.

How does a scrying spell determine which of ca 220-240 men is a spellcaster, particularly if using some more exotic spell than just Scrying to view a ship from the outside and can therefore only see ca 12-45 men that are on the deck?

If using Scrying or Greater Scrying, how would someone know from spying on a some sailor or even an officer who among his couple of hundred comrades was a wizard unless he happened to visit him during the few minute window of scrying?

How does anyone viewing it from the outside know who has orders or plans to contact someone in the event of an attack? Which magical item of the many possessed by officers aboard are enchanted for far-speaking?

How do you even know that a particular ship or group of ships are alone and not accompanied by other ships just outside the limits of your scrying vision?

While the Mulhorandi will have many priests in favour with their gods, the gods do not direcly solve all problems for them. They can't just ask the gods to answer all these questions. What scrying spells will answer all these questions with any degree of reliability?

I think that in order for such a raid to be worthwhile, they have to do some traditional spying in order to know more about the ships, their crews, complements and defences and their expected patrolling areas. And some of their wizards have to learn enough about some important captains or other naval characters to be able to scry them.

Even if they do, though, the only really viable way of taking a ship by means of teleporting in would be to take a teleport beacon aboard or draw a 'reverse' teleport circle there that would serve as the terminus for one made at the other side.

Which requires a social infiltration of a trusted asset as part of the crew or a swimmer insertion covert operation. Both sound like a good idea, if the Mulhorandi can pull it off. And if they can get the requisite support from one of the few mages around who can use that sort of powerful magic.

Somehow, I think the Pharoah will persuade a few. Particularly after having to shell out millions of gold to ransom several thousand battle captives, including his cousin, one of the highest ranking priests of Horus-Re, and Kendera Steeldice, leader of the Gold Swords and a particular friend of his.

*The House of Helcaliant, the Pharoah's own church, is still in favour of it, but near-unanimous majority has become merely a majority with a significant discontented minority. Meanwhile, the church of Thoth is cautiously in favour, but unwilling to assume great risks for a venture which will, if successful, end up benefitting the church of Anhur far more than theirs. Other Mulhorandi churches are mostly neutral, with the church of Set strongly (and clandestinely, as always) opposed.
**Even those who were high-level in D&D terms and therefore had a supernatural resistance to damage were likely to be wounded or stunned by the blast, since GURPS physics are Earth physics. The survivors were also scattered and in no condition to form ranks. That means that survivors were quickly cut down by the PCs who charged from belowdecks to fight on the shattered upper deck while the ship sank.
***And being able to cast only a few per day, so 24-hour-surveillance, i.e. otherwise known as the only reliable way to get information about the daily routine aboard, would require something like twenty times that many.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Firstly, I'd like to answer the idea of scrying out where the ship is and who is a mage, etc... I'm not talking about a task that won't take some time to setup. Nor am I talking about a task that involves some old mage sitting snug in his tower and scrying all day. However, it shouldn't be a task of say longer than maybe a week.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Primarily, my viewpoint would be of the "strike team" for a given ship following said ship. There's lot of spells to block divinations, allow flight for long periods, and make one unseen. They might start following a given ship as it leaves the harbor in enemy territory (because its not like these individuals in the strike team won't be able to infiltrate the enemy harbors in a disguise).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

My belief would be that you have lots of ships that might only be working by themselves, not a vast moving fleet that's always together (as said vast fleet won't be able to quickly respond to people smuggling food in).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

This strike team then follows the ship and scries on individuals or rooms within the ship. Most wizards gear will have books, components, etc... and priests should be recognizable via their holy symbols, etc... They may even invisibly board the ship and search around (again, with divination blockers up). The idea here is essentially that the strike team is following the ship and forming up their strike plan based upon what they find. Heck, they may even infiltrate the crew.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

They may be strongly lawful, but assassination of enemies during war time is not the same as assassination of say a noble for cash. Any army will have "quick strike teams", if you'd prefer to call it that.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to the idea of how many arcane casters there would be throughout mulhorand capable of teleportation circle... all you need is 2 willing to cast said spell say twice in a given night from memory and maybe they prep a scroll of it the day before.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to them not being willing to support the theocracy's goals?????????? That's why Thay got formed. They are servants to the government. Granted, they're probably given a lot of leeway, but if asked "hey, will you take one night and transport some of soldiers so that we aren't losing the war?" they're going to do it.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to the idea of it being impossible to use teleportation to a moving ship, there could be other options as well if that would be your ruling. Your worry comes in that the sailors couldn't get exactly to the deck. That's a viable ruling. However through scrying you should be able to get near the crow's nest (especially if the strike team that just liberated the ship places something there).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Fly is a relatively low level spell, and the Mulhorandi could come up with a couple wands of fly and simply cast it upon the sailors being sent. They end up in the air above the ship and make their way down to the deck. A little more effort (not much in the end game), but if its so hard to make new ships as is being postulated, worth the effort.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

In addition, there may be a small island where more sailors are transported to nearby such that a skeleton crew is built and the captured ships then go to that island and fill up.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

How do they find out the communication plan? I mentioned that the strike team would follow the ship from the harbor. They would of course do some research while the sailors are in harbor (coercion spells, information gathering, greasing palms, etc...).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Turning a shipmate who isn't well defended against mind control should be a viable option, and rewarding them will only sweeten the deal. Said shipmate might also be useful in identifying who the mages & priests are on board his ship. Finally, another option is taking over the role of said shipmate if you can find a new crew member, or even getting hired on as a replacement sailor. Then you can have a spy in their midst.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

All depends on how a given strike team tends to work together.

I think I hit most of your worries, and I can understand why you had problems with some. I'm used to thinking along the lines of following my prey magically, infiltrating my prey, and seizing them unawares. It all comes down to these strike teams.... or as I term Sleyvas, bounty hunters.

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Originally posted by Icelander

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Firstly, I'd like to answer the idea of scrying out where the ship is and who is a mage, etc... I'm not talking about a task that won't take some time to setup. Nor am I talking about a task that involves some old mage sitting snug in his tower and scrying all day. However, it shouldn't be a task of say longer than maybe a week.

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Assuming the use of surveillance and good-old-fashioned human intelligence to support scrying, I agree that it could be done. The estimate of a week to accomplish it seems profoundly optimistic. We're talking about a comprehensive intelligence estimate of a military unit numbering in the hundreds, with an internal security force of thirty men, and with even visual access strictly limited by circumstance and the fact that traffic around it is guarded by armed men employed for their lack of personal trust in people around them.

Barring a terrific stroke of luck like a drunk junior officer getting extraordinarily talkative with a honeypot, it's a job that will take extensive cross-indexing of disparate nuggets of intelligence and will yield an incomplete picture in the end. Enough to plan a raid, perhaps, but with the expectation that there will be known unknowns as well as unknown unknowns encountered along the way.

As the commander of a strike team, I wouldn't want to go in until we'd had several attempts at surveillance in port and then augmented that with extensive scrying afterwards. Say a month, at least. And during that time, it's inevitable that the enemy detected scrying at some point, probably more than once. So they'd at least be aware that they were being scried. But that's better than going in entirely blind, I think.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Primarily, my viewpoint would be of the "strike team" for a given ship following said ship. There's lot of spells to block divinations, allow flight for long periods, and make one unseen. They might start following a given ship as it leaves the harbor in enemy territory (because its not like these individuals in the strike team won't be able to infiltrate the enemy harbors in a disguise).

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There are such spells, yes. But they don't allow people to operate nonstop for days, weeks and months. Where do invisible flying spies rest? How do they eat? What happens in a storm? How do they handle bodily waste?*

You need at least three people for every one job, because they'll work in shifts. Then you need redundancy, to account for accidents and hazards. This translates into almost four times as many people as the number of tasks you want done at once at any one point.

If you want near 100% attention to duty, you'd do best not to have anyone working more than four hours per day, as surveillance is tedious and you lose attention fast. Nevertheless, reality being less than perfect, you'll probably have to work them harder than that and consequently have them at less than their best sometimes.

Finally, you need a safe place to rest those of your team not currently on station.

An invisible ship or a submarine could do this. Until the Mulhorandi have either, they'll be reduced to having one team carrying out traditional espionage in Messemprar and others at home in Mulhorand, scrying for the fleet based on intelligence sent home by them.

*Have an invisible team following a ship for long enough and birds and fishes will start to congregate to the waste dropped invisibly from above. Which alerts the crew of the ship ahead, eventually.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

My belief would be that you have lots of ships that might only be working by themselves, not a vast moving fleet that's always together (as said vast fleet won't be able to quickly respond to people smuggling food in).

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Napoleon is said to have responded to a plan showing an army distributed piecemeal along a border if the officers were trying to stop smuggling.

It doesn't matter to Unther or the PCs if small vessels alight on isolated coasts and land a few casks of food or drink. In order to supply the armies and placate the local populace in northern Unther, Mulhorand has to ship in more than five hundred tons per day. That means 30+ large cargo ships (or more likely, ca 70 of various sizes) making constant trips between well-equipped harbors staffed with plenty of labourers.

It can't be done ad hoc, using improvised harbourages. That means it has to be through Shussel and Red Haven. Which means that there is no need to blockade all the coast. The Purple Reign ships just have to be ready to attack any convoys that try to reach Shussel or Red Haven.

As it happens, they can also elect to guard the sea route from Skuld over to Unther, which allows them to interfere with shipping to Unthalass as well. Then there's the threat of them moving closer to Unthalass, trying to blockade there as well.

In essence, the strategic problem of the Mulhorandi is that they have to keep a constant stream of slow-moving vessels with little maneuevering capability on several easily predictable routes, according to prevailing winds. They can vary their schedule some, to make it less predictable, but the less they take advantage of the winds they need, the more ships they need to move the necessary cargo.

And they are already down a massive number, so they don't really have enough left to do the job, even without a blockade. Of course, without a blockade, they could quickly fix that by buying more.

By contrast, the Purple Reign ships have no reason to stay still anywhere. They can merrily cruise around in flotillas, large enough to defeat anything except the main fleet of Mulhorand (now concentrated around Sultim), and cut across the sea routes between Skuld-Shussel, Skuld-Red Haven and Skuld-Unthalass to raid and loot. Every time they capture or sink a ship, the Mulhorandi are less able to supply their overseas territories.

Currently, the Purple Reign ships are in two flotillas. One is fighting a fleet action of Red Haven, against a force that hoped to defend the approach to that harbour from raiders. The other is in harbour and refit at Messemprar, hoping to be ready before the new ships that Mulhorand is fielding are floated.

If the Purple Reign ships win at Red Haven, they'll probably bombard the place and try to make it unfit for offloading in the short term, like they did with Shussel (which is the reason they could afford to ignore it for the next couple of days). What they do then is anyone's guess, but they'll be able to threathen Unthalass and even Rasolind. What they will under no circumstances do is split their force into a bunch of customs vessels, trying to prevent small-scale smuggling.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

This strike team then follows the ship and scries on individuals or rooms within the ship. Most wizards gear will have books, components, etc... and priests should be recognizable via their holy symbols, etc... They may even invisibly board the ship and search around (again, with divination blockers up). The idea here is essentially that the strike team is following the ship and forming up their strike plan based upon what they find. Heck, they may even infiltrate the crew.

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Judging from novels, at least, in the Forgotten Realms, magic exists that can detect any attempts by another mage to hide the emenations of his spells. It comes down to the relative skill and power of the mages involved. Nothing is as clear-cut reliable as the simplistic D&D rules have it, where spells often counter each other regardless of who is casting them and both undetectable hiding spells and irrestitable detecting spells are both common.

Since I'm emulating the Realms without emulating D&D rules precisely, I'm going with the state of affairs as Elminster and others repeatedly says it is. That means that hiding a group of people with magic comes down to contests of skill and power between the spellcaster hiding them and whoever is looking for them.

For a short period of time, it's not that difficult. Just hope that no spellcaster close to you in ability is using his magic to look at that precise moment in time. On the other hand, if we're talking days, it gets much harder. With days, you know that at some point, anyone except the least security-conscious crew will have some form of regular check-up, probably involving a spell or two that sweep the surrounding area with a detection effect or two.

And that means that you have to have confidence in the ability and skill of even your least capable wizard to be so far above the most capable one among the enemy that he'll win such a contest of skill every single time. If they were equal, you'd be found out, on average, the second time he checked, so you must have far superior skill. Something like five levels above would probably do it, in D&D terms. And since an opposing wizard may become curious enough to try a spell or two at basically any time, you can't get away with just your best spellcaster being that good. Everyone who renews the spells at any point, for anyone, has to be that good.

Since that requires you to not only have magical superiority, but actually magical supremacy, it's not a cheap option. You're devoting a disproportionate amount of magical resources to a single scheme. Moreover, it is a risky and time-consuming scheme, one that will, at best, yield pretty much the same reward as capturing the vessel in a more traditional boarding action.

I'm not saying it's impossible for Mulhorand to devote five or more 15th+ level wizards to such a mission. But I think that they'd think of a few other things first and try them. Including beefing up the wizard complements of their cargo ships, which is a far cheaper and more conventional move.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

They may be strongly lawful, but assassination of enemies during war time is not the same as assassination of say a noble for cash. Any army will have "quick strike teams", if you'd prefer to call it that.

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I'm not saying that they wouldn't be willing to do it in a time of war. I am saying that because of cultural and religious factors, covert operations and espionage are stigmatised and thus few people openly engage in them and they are rarely seen as a path to power and riches.

Basically, espionage in Mulhorand is far more likely to be an amateur affair than it is among nations where intelligence gathering and covert action are seen as admirable and/or vitally necessary. The cultural bias in Mulhorand means that fewer people have the skills needed to function as spies or covert operatives and even fewer of these have the mindset and organisation to do it. Those who do are focused exclusively on domestic Mulhorandi issues, since the past three generations have been mostly content to ignore the outside world almost completely.

The Mulhorandi lack institutional expertise at intelligence work. They'll have to create, more or less from scratch, an effective intelligence service. Oh, individual priests may have their spies, some of whom may be exceptionally talented, and there are a few agents working directly for the higher levels of each church, but mostly, intelligence in Mulhorand is a terribly amateurish effort. And those who are any good will certainly not be good at speaking Untheric and passing as native Untheri, they'll be good at spying on rival priests inside Mulhorand.

Their counter-intelligence, as evidenced by the frequent success of the cult of Set, is rubbish. A lot of their bureaucracy and even the ruling nobility is infiltrated with worshippers of Set, which argues for astonishingly poor security. And while it is possible to have fairly decent clandestine operational capability while counter-intelligence is worthless, it is far more common for there to be some correlation between competence in the two fields.

Mulhorandi agents abroad are more likely to be priests and holy champions who openly acknowledge their origins and purpose, daring any foes to react, than they are to be effective secret operatives. That is not to say that no one in Mulhorand has any skill at stealth, but there is a world of difference between a few gifted amateurs and an organisation capable of planning and executing complex missions on foreign soil.

The most capable intriguers and operatives in Mulhorand are those opposed to the Pharoah, it seems. And even those are not specialised in Untheri operations and not all that likely to speak their language.

Even so, Mulhorand has plenty of wealth, power, magic and intelligent people with organisational skills. They have all the materials needed to create a functioning intelligence service. They just lack the culture and the time.

If they are forcibly shown the need for one, they might prioritise intelligence work and create an effective force within a few years. Even without a shock, the new outward focus of the regime could result in an intelligence service growing over the next decades.

But not in a few weeks or even months. What they do now they do with amateur priests playing spymasters.

And in The Alabaster Staff, for example, we see operatives of various Untheri factions, foreigners from Threskel, Chessenta and points further west and all sorts of covert action. But there weren't any effective agents of the Pharoah and aside from a naive Untheri girl who also thought they'd probably have horns and tail, no one seemed to consider them an active player in Messemprar's underworld.

I think that Mulhorand is still far behind in establishing an espionage service and that anything they do have is kept plenty busy at home and in the conquered parts of Unther. While I'm not saying that the players need consider themselves safe from covert assault, they are unlikely to need to fear something of the scale, organisation and necessary professionalism suggested above.

Exchange technology for magic, changing plans as necessary, and I don't think it's practical for any real intelligence service either. People forget that in real operations, things can go wrong and usually do. Anything above a certain level of complexity just fails, particularly if all the planners are doing this for the first time.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to the idea of how many arcane casters there would be throughout mulhorand capable of teleportation circle... all you need is 2 willing to cast said spell say twice in a given night from memory and maybe they prep a scroll of it the day before.

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As noted above, they'd need a caster on both sides and in order to keep one on duty at all times, they'd need six. The scrolls could represent the necessary redundancy.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to them not being willing to support the theocracy's goals?????????? That's why Thay got formed. They are servants to the government. Granted, they're probably given a lot of leeway, but if asked "hey, will you take one night and transport some of soldiers so that we aren't losing the war?" they're going to do it.

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It isn't a simple dictatorial theocracy with one god and everyone serving it, with no one outside the direct control of the bureaucrats. There are several gods and the churches compete for influence. And most people have normal jobs, not government ones, even if they are subject to more oversight and regulation than most Faerunian nations would tolerate.*

Which means that most of the spellcasters in Mulhorand are not required to tell anyone what spells they know or can cast. So that right there eliminates anyone not actively interested in working for one of the churches or in the government bureaucracy. The fact that they can cast 9th level spells, let alone a specific one, is not something they necessarily advertise. The difference between a rich 5th level mage with pretensions and a humble 20th level one is not readily apparent to either the Pharoah or anyone else.

Even spellcasters working in the churches are, by the time they can cast 9th level spells, among the movers and shakers of the political world. No one can simply require them to do something at short notice, certainly not something dangerous, time-consuming and uncomfortable. They have various options of not doing it, beyond anything as crude as saying 'no'. They'll be busy with a vital research project. They'll be in the middle of enchanting a magical item and taking a break like that would ruin the process. They'll be on another plane, engaged in research.

Certainly, wizards from the House of Helcaliant are bound to obey the Pharoah and wizards from the House of Tholaunt regard him as sovereign and would not disobey him directly. On the other hand, wizards are no more immune from politics than high-ranking priests, and the fact is that almost a third of the House of Helcaliant would like the House of Ramathant to suffer a loss of influence and prestige, even if it meant a military set-back of a few years. As for the House of Tholaunt, the majority of them never supported an all-out war, being convinced that Unther would naturally fall into the Mulhorandi sphere of influence anyway.

This means that a good part of the most senior wizards in Mulhorand would be both willing and able to find excuses for not being always on hand for naval strike operations, especially if they could claim that these were unrealistic or too time-consuming and that other alternatives existed. Even those who theoretically want Mulhorand to go on with the war and consider this a good idea might not want to risk their lives by flying close to an enemy ship for days.

As I said, the Pharoah could find a few wizards who could do it. He could not find many enough to do it many times if the first few times fail and if he does instruct some of his most powerful and loyalest mages to do this, he won't have them available for other tasks, like providing security somewhere and/or crafting magical portals.

Wizards of 14th+ or so level are a precious resource and the Pharoah has literally endless tasks for them that would help win the war. He'll never be able to find enough wizards to do them all, so he has to pick and choose. If the churches that employ most of the wizards agree with him, politically and personally, on the choices, he'll find that more wizards are available. That means he can get more wizards to do risk-free and comfortable tasks at home than he can get wizards to do risky and uncomfortable stuff that might even be regarded as dishonourable and can easily be called foolhardy.

*Given that most forms of government in theory and history are small and wield little practical power over their subjects compared to a modern government, an intolerable centrally-administered tyranny by Faerunian standards could be fairly close to a modern democratic state when it comes to the power of government.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to the idea of it being impossible to use teleportation to a moving ship, there could be other options as well if that would be your ruling. Your worry comes in that the sailors couldn't get exactly to the deck. That's a viable ruling. However through scrying you should be able to get near the crow's nest (especially if the strike team that just liberated the ship places something there).

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If you get someone there with a beacon, you could teleport in. The problem is getting someone there with a beacon and defending him for long enough to bring in enough people to defeat the whole crew.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Fly is a relatively low level spell, and the Mulhorandi could come up with a couple wands of fly and simply cast it upon the sailors being sent. They end up in the air above the ship and make their way down to the deck. A little more effort (not much in the end game), but if its so hard to make new ships as is being postulated, worth the effort.

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Note that this could be done from the deck of another ship to make a magic-assisted boarding attempt, eliminating the need for the complex scrying and invisible flying surveillance. And, in fact, it is what the Mulhorandi are currently trying to make work, i.e. putting elite warriors and magic-users on some of their merchant ships and trying to board commerce raiders.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

In addition, there may be a small island where more sailors are transported to nearby such that a skeleton crew is built and the captured ships then go to that island and fill up.

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The Ship of the Gods would be ideal. Of course, the Purple Reign forces have control of it now, but a good first step for a Mulhorandi naval campaign to take control of the sea would be to land a force there with galleys.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

How do they find out the communication plan? I mentioned that the strike team would follow the ship from the harbor. They would of course do some research while the sailors are in harbor (coercion spells, information gathering, greasing palms, etc...).

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The primary warships of the PCs side are two razeed galleons, called frigates. They need to visit port about once every three months and stay there around five days.

No ship used by the PCs so far needs to visit port more than once per month and the new ships with less endurance will still only need to stay in for around three days per month.

Warships on blockade don't tend to stay in port much. Which is a major problem if you want to learn anything at all about them.

Add to that, the port that these ships do visit is Messemprar, a hotbed of intrigue and distrust even among the inhabitants. While there would not be any serious obstacle to sneaking in spies there, operating there would be a terror.

Few among the Mulhorandi speak Untheric well enough to pass as a native. Even fewer, of course, could pass as a native of Messemprar, as opposed to Unthalass or the Greenfields or somewhere else. Any strangers in town with deep pockets and curious faces would be studied by at least five local factions, most of which have been living in a constant stage of cold war espionage for fifteen years now. That's institutional expertise, the kind the Mulhorandi will have to begin developing in this war.

The Mulhorandi have wealth and numbers on their side, they have a damn fine army and they have clerical power like none others in the Realms. Their wizardly numbers and powers are first-rate, even if perhaps not superior to Thay and Halruua.

If they had perfect ability to apply all of their strengths, there wouldn't be a war, just an Inner Sea peacably ruled by the Mulhorandi Empire. They have weaknesses, among which is a neglected navy that still isn't up to the standard they need and another of which is their lack of institutional expertise in intelligence work.

The PCs need to make hay of their weaknesses faster than the Mulhorandi can fix them. If the Mulhorandi suddenly proved able to develop a whole new type of capability in days, when examples from the real world have taken years of painful failure just to get the basic organisation going, even when helped by tutors by allies who already have these skills, well, it would be implausible and unfair. And it would mean that Thay and Mulhorand were inevitably going to clash over supremacy in the Inner Sea and Mulhorand would easily win over divided Thay if we'd given them the capability of using all their force on one target with pin-point precision.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Turning a shipmate who isn't well defended against mind control should be a viable option, and rewarding them will only sweeten the deal. Said shipmate might also be useful in identifying who the mages & priests are on board his ship. Finally, another option is taking over the role of said shipmate if you can find a new crew member, or even getting hired on as a replacement sailor. Then you can have a spy in their midst.

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All good ideas, but they all have a high risk factor. Fail at mind-controlling someone and he may raise a hue and cry in a taven full of Untheri. Unless you're confident of both passing as a native and being able to talk yourself out of a charge of 'malicious cursing' (any uninvited use of magic)*, you're taking a high risk every time you cast a spell in public.

*Punishment in the best case scenario is being enslaved, worst case is the same, but crippled first and then put somewhere slaves really don't want to be. Like Thay.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

All depends on how a given strike team tends to work together.

I think I hit most of your worries, and I can understand why you had problems with some. I'm used to thinking along the lines of following my prey magically, infiltrating my prey, and seizing them unawares. It all comes down to these strike teams.... or as I term Sleyvas, bounty hunters.

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Remember, there are no trained or experienced strike teams. What you have instead is a variety of divine champions, some of whom have many of the necessary abilities and individual skills to make a covert operative, but none of whom have all the necessary skills and none of whom are used to working inside a larger organisation. They aren't used to working together and won't do it well for the first months, maybe even the first years.

When it comes to providing a support network for operatives in foreign locations, establishing contact protocols, collating information from different sources, evaluating the veracity of reports from informants and the million other tasks that intelligence services have to do, you would have gifted amateurs doing them.

At best. You could also land with powerful priests who are good at internal political intrigue but rubbish at the technical skills of organising an intelligence network and supporting teams of direct action specialists being placed in charge.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

We both kind of agree on the part about following them in the port and doing human intelligence gathering. You state that its a little harder than I believe. I state that it shouldn't be so hard to introduce people amongst a large crew, given that this is exactly what happens in real life.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to these spells being used being long lasting, yes they are. There are flight spells & anti-divinatory spells that last for many hours if not days. There are magic items that will help invisibly conceal you. There are invisible force spells that can be used if a sudden weather surge became a problem, or even just a simple rope trick (and note, these spells don't necessarily have to be cast very far above the water). As to waste disposal, I don't personally see that being a problem for a small group on the move who would probably only be releasing waste maybe 2 or 3 times a day.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to watching them around the clock, I wouldn't say that's necessary either. You're not wanting to figure out what each crewman does, etc... you're just looking for the general feel of what the ship is doing on a given day, where its roughly headed, and who are some good targets to start mopping the floor with. When it comes time to clearing out the decks, your dependency is on chaos and lots of area effects being released at once, all from individuals that they can't necessarily see and target (note: just before they do the assault, the strike team will contact and bring in additional force).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Most of the on-deck crew will get greased in no time. You're making it out like its an insurmountable fortress, but its an open deck ship filled with low level sailors and some noteable targets.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If indeed you don't have individual ships patrolling, that does make things harder. However at the same time there is not such a huge vastness of territory between Mulhorand and Unther that I'd actually buy the idea that small time smuggling wouldn't be extremely effective. If it were say ships from Impiltur trying to get to say Cormyr... yes, a blockade like you say should be effective. However, you're doing something that would be somewhat comparable to trying to blockade Louisiana from Mississippi while your main forces are in Alabama.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to them detecting you, in general your going to be following the ship from enough of a distance that you're outside the range of most detections. You'd only get close if there was something of highly intriguing interest, and even then you could possibly employ other methods besides scrying but that allow for long range site (for instance, a spyglass). In general, again, the idea is a small group following a single ship just to get an idea of where they're going, who to hit, etc... so that they can put in a strike on them.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If as you say, you've got a fleet that stays together, then there's an entirely different set of tactics you use there. Again, it would be strike teams, but it'd be done in the form of causing mass chaos on one deck with mass effects... then leave. If they suddenly find themselves with rogue ships underway in their midst, they'll have to ultimately split up to deal with the hit and run tactics. Basically, guerrilla warfare on the high seas using magic. The drawback to this method is that the Mulhorandi won't be able to seize the ships, but the gain is that this method is much simpler to do and requires a lot less intelligence gathering because you're not concerned with making sure that the ship survives or that you take out certain individuals, etc... You just hit the ship and go. Having just a pair of mages that have say a quickened fireball and an icestorm each pop in, release said spells while invisible can basically cover the entirety of a deck in no time (granted, your below decks personnel are still there). Next round they leave (or maybe have a contingent effect that makes them leave after casting). With some proper planning, this can indeed become even more dangerous.

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Originally posted by Icelander

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Originally posted by sleyvas

We both kind of agree on the part about following them in the port and doing human intelligence gathering. You state that its a little harder than I believe. I state that it shouldn't be so hard to introduce people amongst a large crew, given that this is exactly what happens in real life.

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It has happened in real life and is considered an act of such foolhardy courage and a marvel of luck or organisation and ability that these few occasions are endlessly discussed among intelligence professionals.

The argument that because it has happened, it ought to be easy to arrange is the same as saying that because someone has climbed the Mt. Everest, you ought to have no difficulty doing so over the next week.

In actual fact, probably fewer intelligence services have succeeded in having a person impersonate a crewman from another nation, speaking a completely different language, on warship in a time of war and go on a patrol with it than mountaineers have succeeded in climbing Everest. If you were to suggest to someone that they ought to be able to plan and execute it in the space of a week, despite having no infrastructure in place, they'd laugh at you. And rightly.

Successfully infiltrating the crew would be the Holy Grail of intelligence coups and would mark either a legendary genius of an independent operator, the sort who arises only once every few centuries in the history of the world, or a thoroughly professional organisation that has ironed out all the beginning difficulties.

OSS could not even dream of doing it in WWII. Only in bad movies did they do anything this complex and difficult. Even SOE, a far more professional and skilled organisation, would have looked for a simpler way to accomplish their goals before trying to impersonate a German navy man during a whole cruise.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to these spells being used being long lasting, yes they are. There are flight spells & anti-divinatory spells that last for many hours if not days. There are magic items that will help invisibly conceal you. There are invisible force spells that can be used if a sudden weather surge became a problem, or even just a simple rope trick (and note, these spells don't necessarily have to be cast very far above the water). As to waste disposal, I don't personally see that being a problem for a small group on the move who would probably only be releasing waste maybe 2 or 3 times a day.

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It isn't a question of the duration of the spells, it's a question of human endurance. People can no more fly, exposed to the elements and winds, all day and night than they can walk, row or ride all day and night.

If you're following ships on a two day sailing expedition, your people need to sleep, rest, eat and make waste. If you have a ship of your own, they can. If you don't, they'll become exhausted, start making mistakes and eventually prove unable to renew the spells in question.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to watching them around the clock, I wouldn't say that's necessary either. You're not wanting to figure out what each crewman does, etc... you're just looking for the general feel of what the ship is doing on a given day, where its roughly headed, and who are some good targets to start mopping the floor with. When it comes time to clearing out the decks, your dependency is on chaos and lots of area effects being released at once, all from individuals that they can't necessarily see and target (note: just before they do the assault, the strike team will contact and bring in additional force).

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Remember that the upper deck on a man of war almost never has a significant proportion of the crew on it at any time and that it is the least likely part of the ship to have officers or mages. You'd get a mixture of ordinary seamen, a few able seamen and a couple of petty officers.

There is a whole deck beneath it, in addition to the hold. On the 'gundeck' and in the two castles is where the crew lives and works, most of the time.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Most of the on-deck crew will get greased in no time. You're making it out like its an insurmountable fortress, but its an open deck ship filled with low level sailors and some noteable targets.

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It has a forecastle and a quarterdeck, both of which are fairly effective cover and come with murder holes and shields to provide protection for fighting men. There are also shields protecting the heavy crossbows on pintles on the deck and in the fighting tops.

It is true that you could wreak havoc on deck with a few area-of-effect spells, yes. But you're quickly start taking fire from marines in good cover and the best shots are issued magical ammo to deal with wizards and monsters.

This doesn't mean that it's not a viable plan to attack from above, with area of effect spells. It does mean that doing so will have to be done with a clear goal in mind and while providing support for the wizards in the form of warriors who could exchange fire with the marines and/or land to take the sword to them. Wizards against a mixed force of wizards, priests and warriors is not a good idea.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If indeed you don't have individual ships patrolling, that does make things harder. However at the same time there is not such a huge vastness of territory between Mulhorand and Unther that I'd actually buy the idea that small time smuggling wouldn't be extremely effective. If it were say ships from Impiltur trying to get to say Cormyr... yes, a blockade like you say should be effective. However, you're doing something that would be somewhat comparable to trying to blockade Louisiana from Mississippi while your main forces are in Alabama.

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Have you ever unloaded a cargo without the use of docks, cranes, winches or indeed anything except a beach, small boats and a few men?

It takes forever. There's a reason smugglers smuggle small, light and valuable cargos, not tons or hundreds of tons. And because it takes forever, there is absolutely no hope of supplying 500 tons per day with any such method.

Surely you see that if each small vessel can smuggle 20 tons, takes a day to load, takes three days to make the trip over the Alamber Sea, and three or four days of grueling labour in absolute secrecy to unload, you'd need a prohibitive number of small vessels?

You would, in fact, need more than 250 of them on constant duty. Which is more than anyone around there can muster.

Also, the only anchorage that the Mulhorandi hold that could serve even for such ad hoc offloading is just north of Shussel. So it's not so much a matter of smuggling, not when the enemy knows exactly where your ships will end up, because they can't land anywhere else.

There are hundreds to thousands of possible anchorages in Lousiana, not to mention a lot of good ports. By contrast, there are two ports and four possible anchorages in northern Unther. Purple Reign has rendered one port temporarily unusable, is blockading the other and has captured three out of four anchorages. That last they are blockading.

Sneaking past the blockade is easy. The problems is that once your reach a rocky shore or a sheer cliff, what are you going to do with your cargo? Sure, a few ships might be able to use magic, but not all 250-300 of them, not all the time.

Without the ports to offload cargo fast and efficiently, you can't move great masses of cargo in a short period of time, the way you need to feed so many people.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to them detecting you, in general your going to be following the ship from enough of a distance that you're outside the range of most detections. You'd only get close if there was something of highly intriguing interest, and even then you could possibly employ other methods besides scrying but that allow for long range site (for instance, a spyglass). In general, again, the idea is a small group following a single ship just to get an idea of where they're going, who to hit, etc... so that they can put in a strike on them.

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If you're outside the range of their detection spells, you're outside the range of your detection spells. Yes, you could use a spyglass, but at that point, what is the massively expensive investment in magic and personnel really worth? They're providing the same service as a single mage ashore using a magically controlled bird of prey that reports back about the movements of the ships he follows. Which, in turn, could be done non-magically if the Mulhorandi had any sailing ships worth the name, but that's a problem that will take them some years to fix.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If as you say, you've got a fleet that stays together, then there's an entirely different set of tactics you use there. Again, it would be strike teams, but it'd be done in the form of causing mass chaos on one deck with mass effects... then leave. If they suddenly find themselves with rogue ships underway in their midst, they'll have to ultimately split up to deal with the hit and run tactics. Basically, guerrilla warfare on the high seas using magic. The drawback to this method is that the Mulhorandi won't be able to seize the ships, but the gain is that this method is much simpler to do and requires a lot less intelligence gathering because you're not concerned with making sure that the ship survives or that you take out certain individuals, etc... You just hit the ship and go. Having just a pair of mages that have say a quickened fireball and an icestorm each pop in, release said spells while invisible can basically cover the entirety of a deck in no time (granted, your below decks personnel are still there). Next round they leave (or maybe have a contingent effect that makes them leave after casting). With some proper planning, this can indeed become even more dangerous.

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What's the goal of that kind of attack?

You're risking two powerful mages, on the theory that the ship's wizard has no magical means of alarm when someone teleports or flies invisibly within a certain distance of his ship. If he does, your wizards are flying into a wizard duel, at best, a prepared repulsion drill by a score of riflemen, crossbowmen and magic-users, at worst.

And the best case scenario is that you'll kill anyone exposed on the deck? Which will not include senior officers, probably not any magic users and might not even include the marines, since they are near cover and/or in the superstructures.

You're risking irreplacable assets for foreign sailors who can be hired in any city on the Wizard Reach or in Chessenta by the hundreds.

And why are you always staging this kind of attack from some imaginary flying base in mid-air? Where are these people resting? What do they do in case of storm? Flying spells aren't powerful enough to keep you aloft in case of furious storms, that's established in Realmslore, and as for Rope Trick, I wouldn't want to go to sleep inside one knowing that if it ended, I'd go into the stormy sea.

A guerilla attack by flying anything ought to be staged from a secure base. If you want to project power, you use a ship to stage the attacks. As Purple Reign does, with precisely this kind of attack. Except that they aim to take the enemy ship or burn it down. Killing some of the crew is not worth the risk of attacking at all.

Magic doesn't suddenly erase everything we know about real world strategy and operations. Spells do what it says they do, changing the rules of physics for the purposes of their effects, but all other natural laws remain in place.

Having magical means of intelligence gathering doesn't free you from having to come up with protocols for handling, analysing and recording your data. And it doesn't allow you to get more work out of each individual than human limits of concentration and physical endurance allow.

A lot of what you propose could be done with much less expense and risk by using merchant ships as bases for teams of covert operatives and intelligence gatherers. They could observe as Purple Reign commerce raiders attacked shipping and either attempt a counterattack if they thought their odds were decent or they could use flight or other magic to escape to a friendly territory, with at least some useful information. Then, the next time, the team could be larger, large enough to resist the Purple Reign ship.

A seemingly unarmed cargo ship that suddenly disgorges a group of powerful clerics, warriors and wizards might not be as fancy as a flying group of these without a ship, but it's a lot more practical and has much the same end result.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As I stated, you seem to believe in the idea that the security of this group is impregnable and that the idea of slipping a crewman in is insane.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I state that these are two countries that have lived side by side for millenia. Their cultures aren't going to be so hugely different that people who have travelled (as most adventurers have) aren't going to be able to pose as members of the other culture.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Infiltrations into large groups are even easier, because people are used to seeing faces that they don't know often enough. Once you get past a size of say 80 people, the organization tends to have little skill in tracking such.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

We see it all the time with security tests to get into buildings and into records rooms. Quite simply the everyday, lowly paid guard doesn't work all that well, and often people can get themselves into sections of a building with noone asking a question just by following behind a person. Throw magical coercion and illusions into the mix, and security becomes a much more ponderous thing to maintain.

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Fellow scribes.

Despite appearances, this is not intended to be solely a private conversation. I would welcome input from not only sleyvas, but any other scribe, whether that pertained to the questions raised in the initial post or any of the subsequent conversation.

Please, anything you have to add, observation, off-beat ideas, analysis or simply an opinion on some statement made in the scroll, feel free to participate. The more discussion, the more I am stimulated to think out loud (well, while typing), so even if I find no ideas I can directly use, I'll benefit nonetheless. Of course, being a lazy man at heart, I do hope I get things I can directly use.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to why I'm always speaking of flying assaults on the deck, the idea is to clear the deck of those who are running the ship and who have clear line of sight to do anything, while still concealing themselves magically and moving.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Also, massive damage to things like the mast and or sails can effectively cripple a ship. You can't fight what you can't see. Generally the enemy doesn't have detections up at all times, and therefore these guerrilla types of assaults would be more effective than say putting these mages on a ship that will be seen from far away and allowing prep time for the mages on the assaulted ship.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

The strike team will have placed layers of wards upon themselves to protect themselves, and they more than likely will handle their assault in a very short time. Meanwhile, the ship mage's will be spending the first few rounds just trying to find out what the heck is going on, much less raising proper defenses or assaults. If its a lone ship, then they will have select targets that they'll go after once the main deck is in chaos.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If the ship is crippled and the enemy wants to stay belowdeck, then going under the water and starting to make your assaults there is going to draw them out, or using something similar to ghostform to simply bypass the physical defenses and go after select targets.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

If its a ship amongst the fleet, the idea is to get the ship out of control and its crew afraid to step foot on the deck, such that it may wreak havoc on its neighbors.... short, deadly assaults performed randomly to break the enemy sailors down.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

You don't have to break the back of the powerful members of a fleet... you just have to make it such that the everyday sailor no longer wants to hire on with them.

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Originally posted by Icelander

Please don't quote the entire post to which you're responding. It adds no new information and it makes it harder to read your posts. The fact that your response is directly below the post to which you're responding ought to make it clear to what it refers. Only use the quote function to respond to specific parts of a post, thusly:

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As I stated, you seem to believe in the idea that the security of this group is impregnable and that the idea of slipping a crewman in is insane.

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Actually, I regarded the idea of slipping in a spy as a crewman in a week as insane. Complex, multifaceted operations requiring cooperation between networks in different countries, let alone countries where you don't have networks yet, aren't carried out on that sort of timeframe. Operations like that are more usually done on a timeframe measured in years than weeks.

The security is far from impregnable. The problem is, from the perspective of the Mulhorandi, that without any knowledge of the security protocols, it might as well be. You don't get many volunteers to go on what might be suicide missions without any knowledge of whether they have a chance, what the challenges are and how they ought to go about meeting them. The kind of people who have no regard for their own skin are usually not effective infiltrators, because the skill set needed to pass as a foreigner of a different culture and religion is somewhat incompatible with ignorant fanaticism.

In order to plan any sort of infiltration, you need more information than the Mulhorandi currently have. Gathering that information requires the Purple Reign ships to put into harbour and the cultivation of a local network in port, just as a first step. That means anywhere from one to three months. Then they need to get their information back to Mulhorand, someone needs to compare it to information they gained by scrying and readjust the scrying schedule in light of the human intelligence gained so far. Depending on luck, individual ability and the organisational features of the system that emerges, this could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years.

Once they have an adequate picture of their target, then they can plan that sort of infiltration. And it is indeed something I envision them doing. I just don't think it's realistic to expect it to happen without preparation.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I state that these are two countries that have lived side by side for millenia. Their cultures aren't going to be so hugely different that people who have travelled (as most adventurers have) aren't going to be able to pose as members of the other culture.

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I've travelled over most of Europe, but I couldn't effectively fake being Danish, German, English or Spanish. And that's nations where I speak the language, the religion is mostly the same as here and the culture, due to mass communication and shared history, is far closer than any two cultures in historic times.

The fact is, it is incredibly difficult to successfully impersonate a person from another culture. Speaking a language is not the same as speaking it flawlessly and with a local accent. Only a few linguistic geniuses and/or people who have spent significant parts of their lives in another culture manage to learn foreign languages well enough to pass as a native. My English is better than the average native's in terms of vocabulary and grammar, but yet I could not pass for a native of any state of the US nor a county of the UK. My accent is always taken for a foreigner's, as it indeed is.

Adventurers who have travelled over a foreign country might speak the language, but they speak it like foreigners, not locals. Only people who have an ear for accents and have spent years there have a chance to learn it well enough to pass as native. And even if the language is known well enough, there are a thousand other things that mark a person as being of one culture rather than another. Mannerisms, colloquilisms, habits, diet and a host of shibboleths.

It is illustrative to consider the long lists of things that might trip up an Allied agent in Europe during WWII, of whom much has been written. Nevertheless, it was a fact that when SOE and OSS were sending men behind German lines in France and elsewhere, they had little confidence in the ability of most agents to successfully pass as locals in an extended conversation, regardless of training. Indeed, the only ones who tried had usually lived in France for years before the war. As for a plan that would have required them to live in close company with enemy soldiers for weeks, well, it just wouldn't have been considered, as the risks would have been certain to oughtweigh the potential benefits.

And, as noted, due to the different religions, the cultures of Unther and Mulhorand appear to have much less in common than any two European cultures. Both are convinced of their superiority and both have spent the past centuries in a haze of isolationism that made any contact between them extremely limited.

A more appropriate comparison than that between England and France might be India and the British. It is true that Kavanaugh did impersonate an Indian, but he did it for one night, never spoke with anyone for long and the event was still considered an act of such surpassing courage and consummate ability that he was awarded the Victorian Cross, his country's highest medal for gallantry.

The Mulhorandi need a person who can pass as Untheri for every second of every day, not just in one conversation. That means someone who has lived all their lives or as near as in Unther, but is nevertheless loyal to Mulhorand. This is rare, to say the least. The person also needs a cool courage, quick wits and the ability to live under extreme stress for months while showing no signs of it at all to men who share every single detail of his life. In order to pass on his information before he's next ashore, he'd also need magical ability.

The fact that he also needs to be able to lie under magical detection is an unfortunate fact, one that the Mulhorandi will hopefully (for them) discover before they risk such a paragon of virtue and ability. Also that he may not be carrying anything magical on him, because that will trigger a detection field around the ship and cause him to be subjected to closer scrutiny and confiscation of any items for which he cannot account (and that cannot be determined to be harmless with magical examination). Obviously, any ongoing magical effect on a new crewman would quikcly land him in a cell while mages examined him.

Three mages and a few apprentices, in addition to thirty Marines, cannot by any means keep perfect security on a ship of just over two hundred men. But they can certainly make it impossible to infiltrate on a whim and force anyone attempting it to actually expend the time and energy to plan such an operation.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Infiltrations into large groups are even easier, because people are used to seeing faces that they don't know often enough. Once you get past a size of say 80 people, the organization tends to have little skill in tracking such.

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When people belong to close-knit bands that spend hours per day together, it's not all that hard for them to remember the names and faces of more than eighty people. The limit is closer to 500.

When you think back to your graduating class or any other group of people that you saw every day and numbered in the hundreds, you'll find that you probably, at one point at least, knew everyone there by sight. If you've ever served on a trawler, ship of war or other vessel that cruises for months, you'll find that you know every single one of your two hundred plus fellow crewmen, not only by sight, but by name and history. This goes especially for the fellow members of his mess, his immediate petty officers and the junior officer responsible for his division.

Put a new guy into a company of soldiers in our world and everyone notices that there's a new guy. Why shouldn't they? These people are sharing tight living spaces and in each other's constant company. They'd need to be idiots not to notice each other. And on a sailing ship, the living spaces are tighter than anything a modern military would allow.

I repeat that it's far from impossible to sneak a spy in as a crewman of one of the Purple Reign ships. However, to do that requires the crewman to pass muster as Untheri, be hired in the normal course of events, pass through basic training and indoctrination and then be assigned there by an officer. He can't just sneak aboard and have everyone assume that he's authorised to be there, because that's not how military units work.

And the process above requires knowledge of the Purple Reign recruitment methods, of their requirements for new crewmen, of their security protocols and so forth. It requires, in short, much more preparation than the week you assume would be enough to plan and execute such a mission. You couldn't even begin to tell what you needed to carry it out until you had been surveilling the ships for a month (time enough for them to stop in port once, if you're lucky). And then you'd need to create a fictional identity for the infiltrator, people who knew him and so forth. And he'd have to be perfect in his role as Untheri, because he'd have to fool hundreds of people who actually were Untheri.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

We see it all the time with security tests to get into buildings and into records rooms. Quite simply the everyday, lowly paid guard doesn't work all that well, and often people can get themselves into sections of a building with noone asking a question just by following behind a person. Throw magical coercion and illusions into the mix, and security becomes a much more ponderous thing to maintain.

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Warships don't have bored civilian rent-a-cops. They have Marines, who are certainly subject to human weaknesses, but are selected and trained not to let that affect their duties.

Not explicitly for security reasons, but having salubrious effects on it, is the fact that crewmen are not allowed to leave the ship except by formal leave of their officers, that only a part of the crew is absent at a time, and that they are expected back at a particular time. And the gangway is always guarded by Marines while in port, more to prevent curious passerby from boarding than anything else.

Cont. later. (being chivvied to shower to make dinner)

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Originally posted by Icelander

Thinking about it, I've come to believe that the best chances for the Mulhorandi to get an agent aboard one of the valuable ships in the Purple Reign fleet doesn't actually lie in having one of their own Royal Eyes (messengers, scouts and spies of the Pharoah's Royal Guard) assume a disguise as a native Untheri.

Once they have assembled enough information to be able to plan any kind of operation, they'll learn that a Chessentan agent would be able to hire on in one of the coastal cities there with much less scrutiny than anyone hired in Messemprar or Thay. So they could hire a native Chessentan spy for an obscene sum of money and hope he was loyal enough to carry out their wishes.

If they do well on their initial information-gathering phase, they'll also learn that taking any kind of teleport beacon or magical communication device aboard is extremely risky, as normal sailors are neither expected nor encouraged to carry magical items. The only way he could manage that would be for him to earn enough trust to become an officer and then pretend to come into possession of a magical item carefully crafted to be Identified as something useful and normal for a sailor to own, but actually also a way for him to keep in contact with his Mulhorandi masters, as well as a potential teleport beacon.

Or he could be hired on as a wizard, which would truly be an intelligence coup. So far, the Purple Reign wizards have been hired through two friendly mage guilds far away from the theatre of the war and the recommendations of certain Red Wizards in the Guild of Foreign Trade. None of those hired so far has any love for Mulhorand, considering them exotic religious fanatics with a superiority complex (the Westerners) or viewing them as the biggest danger to their native cities and way of life (the Wizard Reach ones recommended by Thayans).

But with a constant demand for new wizards to assign to the captured ships bought into Purple Reign service, the PCs are certain to hire some wizards in Chessenta soon. Oh, they'll no doubt demand that someone serving with them and/or some of the Northern Wizards of Messemprar vouch for any potential recruits and they'll subject them to the usual battery of lie-detection and mind-reading spells, but it's at least theoretically possible that a sufficiently well-planned operation could anticipate and circumvent all those safeguards.

Anything that can be detected with spells can be hidden with spells and the Mulhorandi have more and better wizards. Granted, sublety and intrigue is not something usually practised by the upper echelon of Mulhorandi society, but even a small percentage of their mages is still a lot of good mages. They'll be able to make the requisite items, once they have enough information to know what kind of items are required.

My most important objection had to do with how quickly you assumed that such operations could be planned and the cavalier way you assumed that passing for a different nationality was no big deal. These are difficult and complex things to accomplish and the fact that they are possible doesn't mean that they are easy.

Another method that would be practical is to make use of the Purple Reign policies toward slaves, both Untheri and Mulhorandi. They free all slaves that they capture and do not hold them as ransom as they do with Mulhorandi soldiers. Instead, they offer them a place among their own men, if they desire.

Granted, so far such people have only been offered places on captured galleys, which may not be high-value targets as Purple Reign has no use for them as ships of war. They are planning to make use of them as landing craft and supply ships to support infantry operations. Even so, it may well be possible for a diligent ex-slave who learns quickly and shows courage and ability to earn promotions and be considered for transfer to a fighting ship.

The Mulhorandi could make use of an Untheri slave who hates his former masters, is intelligent and learns quickly and is willing to undertake such a dangerous mission. Alternatively, they could disguise a trained intelligence officer from Mulhorand as a Mulhorandi slave. That way, it doesn't matter that he doesn't speak any other language and has no idea about Untheric culture. All he has to do is pretend to be disaffected with Mulhorand and against slavery as a concept.

Of course, the fact that galley rowers don't have any applicable skills for sailing full-rigged ships means that getting a transfer would be difficult. Even so, if the selected man is intelligent, courageous and diligent enough, he may be granted the opportunity to enlist as a sailor on one of the Western-style sailing ships. Of course, the Wizard Reach built xebecs (almost a cross between sailing ships and galleys) would be a natural place for such a seaman.

But infiltrating such an agent into the fleet would always be a long-term operation, not a matter of weeks. It can never be done fast enough to affect their strategy over the next few days nor, indeed, the rest of Tarsakh in 1373 DR.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I would expect any mercenary naval group in the inner sea to have personnel who aren't necessarily from the country they're patrolling. This makes posing as someone familiar with Untheri culture easier.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I would expect that any time they make port that a given ship would be looking to replace sailors.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

With magical coercion, it shouldn't be hard to be hired.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I would expect any training would be done on ship, because I'm expecting things to occur less like modern day training and more like what happened in medieval times.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I would also expect that any time they make port, there will be a portion of the crew who may be looking to move onto another ship. The crew who are leaving on a more permanent basis will be carrying their belongings as they leave the ship. Those leaving would be targets for information.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to magical detection means when boarding the ship, this is the reason for non-detection. I'd imagine that if you're casting detect magic on anyone that comes and goes from the ship that you're not casting it from memory, but rather using a device that allows it to be cast at will (but thereby at a relatively low caster level). When you cast non-detection on yourself, the DC is 15 + caster level. Therefore, the chance of the detection actually working in this instance would be minimal with a relatively high level caster (say 12th lvl and up).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to people noticing him as a new person, I fully expect they would. As to them learning his whole life history... I fully expect they wouldn't. What I've seen of life is that a new person shows up at a job. Everyone asks who they are. They're given a basic answer like "new guy/girl, they work for <insert person or dept>" and then not much else happens, unless its a hot chick. But, if he was introduced as a new hire, and he performs his basic duties and keeps his eyes open, he should be able to pass. If he performs some trivial act to endear him to his fellows ("hey, I got a bunch of day-old cookies when I was in port, want some?"), it makes him easier to accept.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

It should be noted, his main goal here would be to find out some basic stuff like "who on board are the ship mages and where do they stay", "who on board are the ship chaplains and where do they stay", and "where do they go to initiate communications to other ships in the fleet".

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Originally posted by sleyvas

They may plant simple/common things which can be used as scrying foci where these people spend large amounts of time. They may also have setup signals that can be used with any team members that may be following the ship (maybe if its safe to scry / transport into a person's quarters they'll wear their bandanna, etc...).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

It should also be noted that this kind if infiltration would be to use when dealing with single ships (or even ship pairs), but not with fleets of ships. The tactic to use against fleets of ships would be to discourage the crew.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Also, just another thing to throw out there, one thing I've used in the past when spying is using a simulacrum of myself to perform basic duties while I'm off invisibly "scouting". In theory, such a means could be used to have it be seen that you were on deck swabbing with a mop, meanwhile you're exploring invisibly, etc.... This would be harder to do with a moving ship, since you can't just send the simulacrum into a rope trick while in the privy, since the ship will move away from the extra-dimensional space. However, with some thought, I'm sure some methods can be developed. For instance, a spell that allows one to not have to breathe (I know these existed in 2nd edition, not sure if they were redeveloped for 3rd) combined with a portable hole.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

I do hope you understand, I'm just playing devil's advocate with you. I've found myself convinced on many an occasion that something I've developed made for an impregnable defense (you should have seen the plans I wrote up for how the Thayans protected knowledge of their circle spell back in 2nd edition, back when it was a simple 1st lvl spell and not a class ability).

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Originally posted by sleyvas

However, the one thing I've learned in life is that a lot of times, its the simpler methods that can actually get people past very complex defenses. Process and procedure are wonderful tools, but everything falls before the human factor.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Remember, a teleport beacon doesn't need to be magical. It just needs to be distinctive enough that someone could scry for said object. A simple brooch with initials carved on the back can be a teleport beacon in this type of instance. A bracelet that has an inscription, a sword with a specific hilt, a certain scratched coin, a bandanna with a certain design, etc.... these are all things that can serve as scrying foci.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to infiltration times, again, I just go back to the fact that the infiltration team that might go aboard a ship isn't seeking the decoder ring used to decipher encrypted messages. He's just there to pick targets, and maybe let the "off-ship" people know when its relatively safe to explore the cabins of prime targets. They're the ones who will find the "decoder ring", detect whatever magic items might be important to know about, plant magical traps/barricades just before an assault, etc... In a pinch, The person on ship could also give a heads up if the ones searching need to leave via whispering wind.

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Originally posted by Icelander

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Remember, a teleport beacon doesn't need to be magical. It just needs to be distinctive enough that someone could scry for said object. A simple brooch with initials carved on the back can be a teleport beacon in this type of instance. A bracelet that has an inscription, a sword with a specific hilt, a certain scratched coin, a bandanna with a certain design, etc.... these are all things that can serve as scrying foci.

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When I said 'teleport beacon', I meant an item enchanted to allow focus on it from afar and to teleport directly to it. That's pretty much the only way to make it safe to teleport on to a moving target.

What you describe is useful, yes, but it's a scrying focus, not an actual teleport beacon of the sort that I meant.

The difference lies in the fact that with a scrying focus, someone still has to scry the ship and become familiar with the area around the focus before teleportation is possible. And even then, he can't cast his teleport spell while maintaining scrying, which means that he'll have to teleport to a different place he was scrying, since in the time it took him to cast the spell, the ship will have moved.

Teleport Circle, with a ten minute casting time, just wouldn't work at all. In ten minutes, the ship would be miles away. A normal Teleport would be a suicidal risk. A Teleport Without Error/Greater Teleport would work, assuming that the wizard knew the precise speed and heading of the ship, as well as the prevailing weather and the behaviour of the waves, when he shut off his scrying and started his teleport casting, and succeeded at a couple of skill checks for the mathematical calculation for the precise position of that part of the ship a few seconds later.

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