Hmm, I just tried this: I searched for a smith to get some armor, and the event chain seemed to go off without a hitch, so I assumed I actually received the armor, but I didn't check to be sure.
Next time I load up, I'll check. There's been a succession since then, but EMF overrides the percentage chance to lose artifacts upon succession to a proper heir (as opposed to when you need a random heir, which doesn't happen to player characters very much at all) to 0% instead of vanilla's 5%, so the armor should be there still if the event is working...
Will update.