Cashing in on a bounty on yourself

[Coidzor]

So, thanks to Sculpt Corpse (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sculpt-corpse/), a person can make a person into a duplicate of a corpse version of themselves. Or really anyone with a bounty on their head.

What methods of verification would one need to foil in order to pass off a body and collect a reward and possibly accolades, possibly through a proxy, assuming that one can keep the real wanted person from being discovered elsewhere, at least for a significant period of time?

I know that Speak with Dead can foil this, but can be foiled by destroying the mouth of the corpse (or destroying the mouth as part of delivering the killing blow) or by having made the corpse into an undead creature. But what could one do to disguise the former undead status of a zombie or the like? What would be a plausible story/wound to make in order to destroy the corpse's mouth as part of killing it to address potential questions or suspicious about that? Just a bad morningstaring?

Raise Dead or Reincarnate could foil it too, unless one had a way to guarantee that the corpse would refuse to be raised by clerics of whatever religion might try to raise the corpse from the dead, if the wanted person had information that they wanted badly enough to try to bring them back in order to get. Are there any counters to this without having made the corpse into an undead creature or doing the suspicious thing of putting assassin's needles or the like in the corpse's heart?

What other counters or barriers are there, and what things can one do to circumvent them or minimize them?

So I'm in a Way of the Wicked Game, and in that game, the PCs are all escapees from Branderscar prison for heinous crimes, such worship of Asmodeus or owning slaves or high treason. There's currently a fairly hefty bounty out for us, but we're using Hats of Disguise to infiltrate the society of the people of the island and kingdom of Talingarde.

We're starting to get to a high enough level to want to start forming our own evil organization(s), though, and having would-be do-gooders or bounty hunters thinking us dead seems to be something that would be beneficial to us.

Additionally, it would be potentially advantageous to manufacture a persona who could socially benefit from having dealt with such nefarious and feared individuals as ourselves, either as a false identity for one of the PCs or as a way to put one of our followers (or maybe an ally if we could find one that we actually trusted) into higher society as a mole or even potentially a public face for a cover or shell organization.

There's a fairly large number of Clerics and Paladins in Talingarde, but Wizards and other arcane casters are significantly rarer.

Suggestions on good, lower-risk ways of increasing fear of a character or creature as a boogeyman and increasing a bounty would also be appreciated.

[Shadowquad]

If higher level spells are into play, you can use Stone to Flesh on statues of yourselves to bypass the aforementioned problems.
Plus, it's reasonable to think that the DC to detect the corpses are false would be based on the Craft (sculpting) check made to realize the statues, which is much easier to pump than the Will DC of a 1st level spell.

[Psyren]

The list of things that could foil this is pretty exhaustive; it all depends on how far your enemies/the authorities are willing to go, and how much magical firepower they have access to. (Fooling the constable of a podunk town is one thing, fooling a major organization like a Pathfinder Lodge or the Hellknights is quite another.) If what you're after though is just a list of potential ways to detect the deception, here are a few that come to mind:

- Are you delivering "your corpse" in person? If so, you need a way to protect yourself from inadvertently giving the game away. Defend against mind-reading, truth magic, illusion-piercing magic, and even skills like Sense Motive and Perception that could lead one to suspect you're acting fishy.

- Does the corpse have its blood? I'd consider embalming/exsanguination/mummification, because even a single drop (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-biography/) can land you in hot water.

- Occult magic takes the paranoia to yet another level. Corpses are objects, which opens them up to things like psychometry and object reading. The corpse's previous, er, occupant may also be irritatingly chatty.

- If they're really determined, they can ask the gods or extraplanar entities about how you "died." Not much you can really do about that except do your best to give them no reason to check.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Every 9th level cleric can just cast Commune and ask "is X actually dead?" "is the corpse Y brought to me actually the corpse of X?".
Now Commune has a non-trivial cost, so it's probably not something they cast on a whim. But if they're suspicious or if your bounty is just high-profile enough they probably will.

The only way i see to get around that is to actually die.
Start growing a Clone of yourself, have somebody deliver your corpse and cash in before it's done, let the heat die down for a few months and then you come back, long after your enemies have "made sure" that you're actually dead. That should also deal with any other methods to verify that your corpse is authentic.

The important thing is keeping your laboratory with the Clone safe while you're gone (2d4 months). Hide it well, have friends, loyal minions or make some Simulacra, and ward the hell out of it.

The drawbacks are the high level requirement, that you need to die, missing a few months of time and if some pesky adventurers stumble on your lab you better have someone who is willing to rez you.

[lbuttitta]

Possibly claim that "your" jaw was broken so that "you" would be unable to cast spells?
For that to work, naturally, you would have to be a spellcaster, which I'm assuming you are, as you're talking about casting sculpt corpse.

[Gildedragon]

Well anyone paying a bounty has reason to suspect others are trying to dupe them... So they get the will save.
If one is being picky: one might substitute the save for an appraise check as if to detect a forgery.
But duping people by modifying corpses so as to collect bounties / fake deaths is something people do do

[ATHATH]

Just have 500 or so peasants all stare at the corpse. At least one of them will likely make their Will Save, and if a significant portion of the crowd (at least 1/20th) thinks that it's a fake, you should pop some divinations to check if the target is actually dead.