Taking imperial land from normal countries while inside the empire

[DoubleA]

TK-gone-Prussia has the junk around Riga (except Riga). They're excommed right now and they broke all their alliances, so naturally, I'm stabbing them with my giant Hansa army. Also France.

Anyway, if I take anything near Riga (which is all imperial), what happens with regards to unlawful territory? I don't think anyone inside the empire actually has cores on it.

 

[camppa]

Free cores for you for all imperial provinces you return to the empire.

 

[Pewt]

If you take imperial land from a non-imperial member you get free cores, which is pretty cool. To answer the more general question about unlawful territory, returning unlawful territory works based on the previous owner rather than based on who has cores on it. For example, if Bavaria annexes a province in the HRE and lacks a core on it and then if you take it from them and, when prompted, return it to the emperor rather than keeping it, if they choose to return it rather than keeping it it'll go back to Bavaria even though Bavaria had it unlawfully. They won't even get a core when it's returned, so every once in a while there can be funny situations where AIs are sending unlawful land to each other.