A Bounty

[Vknight]

Ok for those that read my Animus Campaign Wars Journal they should know what happened but for those that don't. The party headed out into the Swamp lands going to Cerulean City.
Read the Journal and/or Setting topics to understand more about it. You don't need to read to help with this mess.

Now the problem is the party currently has the following bounties on there head.

Ashar: $250,000gold (Its going to be found out it was her in about 8days, starts in Ankh and spreads)
-Killed the supreme leader of Ivories son, by accident but no one knows that

Ide(John): $5,000gold
-Wanted for the deaths of 20+ people

Ora: $1,000gold
-Her father wants her back in Ivory not off exploring and adventuring

Eden: $150gold
-Was seen in association with these individuals and is a member of the 'Hunters'

So yeah bad things. Oh wait forgot they also have a 'stolen' artifact level weapon on them which will be obvious its the real one if they ever use it. Said sword is worth $100,000gold to Ivory.

Worse is how do I work with this. I have some obvious plans for when they hit Cerulean, and also start encountering Bounty Hunters of notable reputation.
But they have already attracted the attention of a group of elven bounty hunters who have figured out the Bounty on Ora.

But what to do whats a reasonable rate for hunters to catch up. Soldiers from Ivory to find and hunt them down. Town Militias looking to make money to feed themselves for years.

I'm currently thinking once they are found out it will spread like wildfire. Being sent by elven runners or those on horse back or griffon etc.
This is all after the 8day countdown
It will reach Ivory in 24days when it takes normally 32to get to it.
It will hit Caesar's ears in 11days
The Legendary Bounty Hunters will at first hear this after 13days and at latest 30
The Thief Lords will hear about it in 4-6days time

Considering the bounty atop there heads what do you think should start coming after them?
I think I roll a d6every day 5+ equals they fight Bounty Hunters. After 2weeks it changes to 4+.
After 4-5weeks 2+
And each of these encounters is in the hard category. With either teams or elite units

My question is this to difficult. Does the challenge rise to quickly should I tone down the initial encounters showing that its Novices etc.?
My party has decent tactics but have yet to fight an intelligent enemy and now of these foes are going to be bought off.

[Gillric]

with a 250,000 bounty on oneof them, anything and everything would be trying to get a piece of that. I would go with a percentage chance to encounter something and make it almost daily with that size bounty. After rolling to see if they do encounter anything, you could also roll for the difficulty/skill level of what they encounter.

You could also use some skill challenges to give them the opportunity to evade pursuit by some of the groups as well.

[Vknight]

So you thinking up the difficulty huh.
Well this will make things fun.

[The New Bruceski]

Yeah, once news gets out Ashar and that sword are going to be like a signal beacon if they do anything to draw attention. The rest probably depend on other bounties in the area and if people know where they'll be; a BH who isn't specifically tracking them down is mainly going to keep up to date on bounties in his area, with a note of any particularly large ones. Ora and Ide may run the risk of happening to be seen by the wrong person (particularly Ora if the elves are networked and haven't identified the rest yet) but Eden's probably small potatoes and thus the best one to be the face for the group until posters start going up around town.

[Vknight]

Eden's a Hunter(Class) and a member of the group even with that little bounty he's still worth capturing just to say you caught a Hunter.

The elves hunting them are just Bounty Hunters that figured out who Ide 'really'* is.

*Ide did not kill those people he is falsely accused
Ashar did kill that boy but did not know who he was at the time at it was defending herself.

Just wanted to clear that up.