Deck of many things throne card

[huggin]

My party got a deck of many things which started a discussion about the throne card. What happens when you place on land owned by someone else

Some of the party maintain that the deck gives you ownership of just the keep not the land

Others in the party maintain that its absurd that you don't get ownership of the land

they also claim that since the people see you as a true leader you become their leader and as their leader the people are ok with you getting ownership of the land

I feel that seeing someone as a true leader doesn't nessacary mean they automatically become your leader, you may be a true leader but you are not the rightful or lawful leader

How do other DMs handle this? Does the throne card grant ownership of the land?

[Gug on the Silver Mountain]

I'd say it depends on the needs of the campaign. If ownership disputes would slow the momentum and bore the party, ignore it and assume people see the legitimacy of your claim. If it's the sort of thing that people would enjoy then it makes sense that people would be concerned with the appearance of a fortified castle on their lands, and could be the bases for some interesting encounters.

[Jeven]

I would follow the philosophy of the Classical Treasures Revisited guide in which the Deck of Many Things is portrayed as an artifact with the power to unravel and completely rewrite fate.

So, the new castle and estate would function as if they had always been there and their presence just becomes the new natural order of things. In other words, NPCs would not question the result.

Some of the other cards could, in theory, have much more dramatic effects on the campaign setting. There are some good in examples in that article.

[Dave Justus]

The 'true leader in peoples eyes' is fluff for the mechanical benefit of +6 on diplomacy checks.

It gives you a Castle which you decide where to place (in only an hour, which can be a bit of a bummer in some cases) so it seems pretty clear to me that it is an instant self-build, but that is all it is. If you want to keep your Castle you would have to have ownership of the land, and quite likely permission to build a castle as well (most nations aren't really cool with random people building fortifications in their territory.)

[blahpers]

My goblin dodged that bullet entirely by asking for the castle to appear on the moon. Granted, he happened to be looking at it at the time and couldn't think of anywhere else. So, yeah . . . moon base.

[Sir Belmont the Valiant]

The last time I ran into that card, it was assumed that the magic of the Deck made the character involved the distant cousin/heir or somesuch. There's a lot of ground covered under 'somesuch', if your GM wants to put it there, including the Evil Uncle who wants to eliminate the PC.

Depending on the campaign, you might not ever actually go there...