Last Line of Defense, Return to the Heavens, et al.

Last Line of Defense Event Until the game ends, increase the strength of each of your provinces by 2 and, after each time an Attacker destroys one of your provinces during battle resolution, he draws 2 cards.

Strengthening Protection Strategy 5G 2F This card has -1 Gold Cost for each Artisan Personality you control. Limited: You build stronger defenses. Permanently give each of your provinces +2 strength.

Return to the Heavens Event Gain two provinces, which permanently do not hold Dynasty cards, to the left of your leftmost province. Then, destroy the province this Event resolved from.

Do cards such as Last Line of Defense and Strengthening Protection modify each of your provinces individually, or do they produce a continuous effect associated with any provinces you might have? The difference comes into play when you gain a province you did not have previously, such as with Return to the Heavens (or Yoritomo's Guidance).

Let's say my base province strength is 7. Last Line of Defense and one copy of Strengthening Protection both resolve. My base province strength is still 7, but all of my current provinces are province strength 11. Return to the Heavens resolves, destroying one province but giving me two new ones. Is their province strength 7 or 11?

Strategic Keep Holding 6G Bow this card: Produce 4 Gold. Your provinces have +1 strength.

Is the answer different for continuously-applied traits modifying province strength, such as the trait on Strategic Keep (or Fortifications).

http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Card_types#Stronghold: "When a province is created, either at the beginning of the game or in the course of the game, it has the base Province Strength of its player’s Stronghold."

Unless a card specifically says it alters base province strength, bonuses will apply only to existing provinces, not new ones.

Following up on this response, I am confused about how this interacts with the rules on effects.

From the Comprehensive Rules on ongoing effects: "Ongoing effects that affect all things of a certain kind (such as, “Battle: Your Samurai have +1F”) or that meet a condition (such as, "Battle: Your opposed Personalities have +1F") change the game state. They affect all things in play of that kind throughout their duration, even ones not in play or not meeting the condition at the time the effect took place. Example: “Until the end of the game, your Samurai have +1F” gives + 1F to your Samurai brought into play on future turns. In contrast, “Your Samurai now in play have +1F until the end of the game” affects only Samurai currently in play." (italics in original, emphasis mine)

Do Last Line of Defense and Strengthening Protection produce ongoing effects? If so, why do they not apply to newly-created provinces, which are analogous to the "Samurai brought into play on future turns" in the example. Neither specifies nor seems to imply "now in play".

From the Comprehensive Rules on continuous effects: "Continuous effects are those found in non-triggered traits, as well as modifier effects that are not triggered (such as stat modifiers on Items or tokens). Example: “Your Samurai have +1F.” Continuous effects from cards upon other cards normally begin when both cards have entered play." (italics in original)

Similarly, Fortifications and Strategic Keep have traits that appear to be continuous effects. When a new province is created, why does an instance of the continuous effect produced by each of these holdings not begin on that province?

I do not believe that any of this is incompatible with the rule on Stronghold quoted in the original reply. "When a province is created, either at the beginning of the game or in the course of the game, it has the base Province Strength of its player’s Stronghold." That is true. As I understand the sequence of events, the province is created. The rules on Stronghold/province interaction determine its base Province Strength: 7, in the example I initially manufactured. The province is then in play, and continuous and ongoing effects that apply to it are processed. Again to my example, that would raise the current province strength of the new province to 11, but its base strength would of course remain 7. If the initial ruling is correct, where did I go wrong in this process?

Will kick to the Rules Junta.

So I saw this and thought I'll add my two cents.

The reason the indicated cards don't affect provinces created after their resolution is because their card text uses "each" instead of the "all" wording necessary to apply to provinces created later. Per the rule quoted by the original poster. "Each of your X" is a different type of ongoing effect from "all of your X".

Could be totally wrong there but, each =/= all seems to be the most straight forward answer to me.

I'm not finding a clear distinction in the rules between "each" and "all". I'm very reluctant to suggest a distinction, because it would affect so many cards.

One -- I think last -- followup on this:

Just to confirm, am I correct that both Last Line of Defense and Strengthening Protection produce ongoing effects of this nature?

Both specify durations, so are ongoing (http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Effects#Ongoing_effects).