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[RAM]

I doubt that those three objectives are particularly compatible. Wars are typically started by spying and destroying the sacred symbol of a religion which also happens to be the main dwelling of the settlement.

Spying is generally performed by being innocuous and opportunistic, which will get you into wars if you are caught and will make hard objectives, like tree killing, awkward.

Killing the sacred world-tree will likely start a war and raise everyone's suspicions, particularly about that exotic group that just turned up.

The odds of pulling off all three are... low...

Hrmm, to sway suspicion you would need familiarity, that means getting jobs and staying there for weeks if not months, or at the very least being called away on urgent business that was not brought to your attention by your own group.
If you want to avoid a war then you absolutely must not leave enough information to be identified and then leave on the same night that the tree is assassinated. That is pretty much an automatic war scenario.

Probably the easiest way to gain information is to insinuate yourself in the regular traffic, sign on with traders or something. Ideally the agent will not know about your nefarious plan, given that the scouting party is aware of the plan, that would mean having a third party surreptitiously gather information.

...
Or you could just walk up to them and ask to kill their tree, it really might work...

[Descan]

Personally, my "nefarious plan" is to find out what they need, see if we can provide it, and set up trade agreements for things WE need. Like high-quality filth (does filth have quality?) or metals we don't have. Food and such.

Military is just to see if they're a warmongering society and if we should be prepared to fight them at our mountain.

[RAM]

Which is all fine and good, but doesn't help when we don our formal-wear, darkened glass-wear, musical inclinations, and calmly proclaim that our quest is divine in origin...

[Tomcost]

Well, the plan consists in having a gobbo kill the tree while the priests are watching the other group of gobbos, which will have arrived asking humbly for food and shelter and offering their workforce. I don't think that they would seem very suspicious. Also, the Fellaxe goblin will have to go back to the village alone after killing the tree. Surely, if the priests suspect, they could prevent the gobbos from leaving and make inquiries, but, anyway, they wouldn't have any way to prove that they did something. On the other hand, they can just kill them.

[RAM]

Or torture them until they see the life...

If they get a hundred pilgrims a day then that might work, but if a random group of strangers happen to show up within 24 hours of the tree issuing a mournful howl as all its leaves wither and fall then suspicion will fall on them. It doesn't take much to connect coincidental timing, and it takes even less to blame the strangers, put it together and they would be less suspicious if they just asked to plant the axe in the tree...

[GreatWyrmGold]

"Hi, we want to stick this big axe into your holy tree. Is that okay?"

Also, we don't know what happens when we pierce the bark. It might not die immediately, and probably won't do so visibly (trees don't howl in pain as they die, they sit there and continue to be good habitats for nesting birds until they fall over from rot).

[Tomcost]

Probably, if the tree doesn't explode in green flames, it will be difficult to notice its death. Or maybe the God of Life will tell the priests. We don't know.

[RAM]

"Hi, we want to stick this big axe into your holy tree. Is that okay?"

*only visitors this month* "Greetings, we are travelling sages. We humbly request to see your library." *tree dies*

I think that the former is less suspicious...

[GreatWyrmGold]

"Hi, we want to stick this big axe into your holy tree. Is that okay?"

*only visitors this month* "Greetings, we are travelling sages. We humbly request to see your library." *tree dies*

I think that the former is less suspicious...

Not really. The former is asking something suspicious at the time the tree dies; the latter is not. The former makes it clear that we're to blame; the latter does not. If they prosecuted everyone who kindly chatted with them around the time the tree died, we're screwed no matter what but could easily slip away.

[kaian-a-coel]

*only visitors this month* "Greetings, we are travelling sages. We humbly request to see your library." *tree dies* "By [insert name of the god(dess) here]! Who did that?" "Those visitors maybe?" "Nah, they were all doing nothing suspicious at the time, we have witnesses. Let them go. It's probably just a coincidence."

Complete story.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That relies on the assumption that visitors to this area are rare, and as it happens such suspicion would fall on us whether we asked to stick our axe in the tree or to see books. The difference is that, in the forme case, suspicion would set in immediately, while in the latter it wouldn't set in until the tree died.
You are also assuming that the death of the tree will be immediate and obvious, which (as I noted before) it may well not be.

Therefore, the logical courses of action are to either ask to do something innocuous or to sneak in without talking to them.

[Ashsaber]

If the fellaxe is disposable we can just send a goblin on a suicide attack. The other three will just have to watch the axe go in, jot down some notes, and then go home.

When the lifers come visiting later we can just say some idiot of a goblin stole our treasured artifact (when they eventually make the Fellhawk - Fellaxe connection) and thank them for killing him.

If goblins come out of the filth birthing pit, they're disposable. Losing one for a greater bad won't hurt.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If the fellaxe is disposable we can just send a goblin on a suicide attack. The other three will just have to watch the axe go in, jot down some notes, and then go home.

Yes, the artifact from our deity is disposable. Just like people don't hoard alleged bits of the Cross IRL, if those bits also had great practical and magical value.

When the lifers come visiting later we can just say some idiot of a goblin stole our treasured artifact (when they eventually make the Fellhawk - Fellaxe connection) and thank them for killing him.

I'm not sure they'd be that dense. Or that they wouldn't just destroy the Fellaxe.

If goblins come out of the filth birthing pit, they're disposable. Losing one for a greater bad won't hurt.

Probably true, but we don't know how the Pits work. If we have to refill the pit after each birth, it would at the least be annoying to keep making new goblins.

[RAM]

Humans are produced from other humans, so as long as we maintain a supply of humans, they are disposable too!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Humans are produced from other humans, so as long as we maintain a supply of humans, they are disposable too!

That takes a lot longer, and humans take a while to grow up.
And that's not how humans work in this game.

(And there are places that that attitude is, in fact, taken...but let's not get into that.)