A recent question by a player made me realize how far we've come... the question was about inheritance traditions in Heorot culture, and how it works. I found this interesting, because the original political premise of the game was based on inheritance, so I knew exactly how it works.
First, there's one rule to remember with Heorot culture: there are no rules. There's no rule of law, there's a tradition of Honor, which essentially amounts to "say what you do, and do what you say." (Okay, it's more complicated than that, but check out older entries on the blog for more). That said, there's three very strongly held traditions of inheritance...
1. The parents' oldest son gets everything (and if there are no sons, then it would pass to the daughters).
2. A woman retains her property, but it is managed by her husband.
3. A woman cannot be an Earl, but may make her husband an Earl as long as they are married.
The first rule is interesting, because if I get remarried after having a son from a previous marriage, that son is entitled to everything from that marriage, but nothing from my current one. That's because my marriage is a partnership... the dowery still belongs to my current wife, and anything we gained together is ours, not mine. Further, if I marry an Earl's daughter, I might be an Earl... but only as long as we remain married.
This can give rise to a number of gray areas, and those areas are very gray and undefined. For example, Castus was King of the Heorots prior to his marriage to Jenevra, Queen of the Aels. Through that marriage, he became King of all people of Lloegyr. His son, Draught, was entitled to his Heorot title, but not the title of all of Lloegyr, as Aelia was undisputably Ala's. Hilarity ensues.
