Hand of the King Variant Rules:

During the challenge phase, a player may initiate 1 of his 3
challenges against his opponent’s Hand of the King, if the
opponent’s Hand of the King is in play. This is announced
when the player declares the challenge. An attacked Hand
of the King automatically counts its STR during challenges
initiated against it (even if it is knelt);

Questions:

1) It appears that the defending Hand of the King is not required to have the appropriate Icon in order to count its STR during the challenge. Is this the correct interpretation?

2) During a challenge against a defending Hand of the King, are claim effects processed normally in addition to the special rules?

3) The text says "1 of his 3 challenges". Am I right in assuming that this does not prevent effects which allow additional challenges, bringing the total number of challenges to 4 or more? Or, is a player strictly limited to 3 challenges in a challenge phase in which he initiated a challenge against an opponent's Hand of the King.

Dr.Cornelius said:

The rules say "automatically," with no reference to the icon, so the Hand's icons do not matter in these challenges. Having the appropriate challenge icon has never dictated a character's ability to count its STR during challenge resolution. No reason to think it suddenly does now.

Dr.Cornelius said:

Well, the rules say:

"If a player wins a challenge against his opponent’s Hand of the King, in addition to the regular claim effects, he also removes 1 Gold Token from his opponent’s Hand of the King, and adds 1 Gold Token to his own."

...so I'm going to go with "yes."

Dr.Cornelius said:

The basic rules of the game limit you to 3 challenges, too. Since the variant rules don't specifically say anything about "players cannot initiate more than 3 challenges in the challenge phase," it seems to be just like the base rules, which don't stop card effects from adding challenges. However, if you use card effects to get more than 3 challenges, you still are not going to be allowed to initiate more than 1 total challenge against the Hand.

How would this work with effects like Intimidate or other effects that cause a character to be unable to "count their strength" in a challenge? Would you be able to remove them from the challenge? For example with a card like Compelled by the Crown?

Let me give you a scenario: I'm using Eddard Stark as my Hand. He is currently in play and standing. My opponent decides to declare an intrigue challenge against him as my Hand. So, what happens?

1. When I go to declare defenders, I cannot declare Eddard - even though he is standing - because he doesn't have the intrigue icon.
2. Therefore, since the rules don't actually say the hand is considered a defender, he never actually became a participating character in the challenge.
3. Since he isn't a participating character, he cannot be removed from the challenge.
4. Since he isn't a defender or a participating character, effects that prevent such characters from counting their STR in the challenge cannot be applied to him as my Hand.
5. But according to the rules, he will count his STR in this challenge for the defending side anyway, despite not technically being a defender or participant.

Hopefully, that illustration shows that when a challenge is declared against the Hand, your Hand is not technically a defending character, despite adding its STR to the defense count. If the Hand is eligible, you could declare him/her as a defender - and then everything else would apply, except that "automatically" will trump and "does not count its STR" effect.