While doing some research (for a Arthurian BR setting) I noticed that
the laws of inheritance can play a major part in determining who builds
and empire/kingdom and who doesn`t.

In Arthurian times there were a number of cultures inhabiting what is
present day Great Britain. The notion of inheritance, the model used by
BR, is not present in any of those cultures. BR is a gender-sanitized
politically correct modified anglo-saxon-norman model of inheritance.

Pictish society (in what is now Scotland) was matrilinear. The Irish
followed the Celtic law of Tanistry, and the Brythonic Britons divided
their kingdoms among all their sons, legal or bastard. The concept of
handing something down father to son was unique to the germanic
invaders.

In BR there are two important things that are investiture inherited, a
bloodline and a domain. In order to build a good Arthurian setting I`d
have to create specific bloodline rules for each of the human sub-races.
e.g.

Picts: (unfortunately there`s little we can find about the real name of
these people - pict comes from the roman "painted ones" due to their
custom of decorating their bodies with tattoos) These are organized into
7 royal houses, 7 tribes and 7 main provinces. The head of the royal
house would be a woman - she`s the one with the bloodline, this original
bloodline (we`ll call it a true bloodline) can be passed from mother to
daughter by investiture. The children male or female of each matriarch
receive a minor bloodline when born. The royal houses intermarry to keep
the bloodlines of their sons as high as possible. Only sons can be kings
(really they become high-kings, the head of each royal house is also a
king).

Legend has it that each of the royal houses is derived from a god
somewhere back in their history. This fits well with the standard BR
ideology, these houses are derived from their gods (still existent) as
mortal progeny. The houses (and these would be the derivations of the
pictish bloodlines) are :
Fib
Fidach
Foclaid (or Fotla)
Fortrenn
Caitt (or Cat)
Ce
Circenn

Note: Only true bloodlines can breed more blooded characters. i.e. A
great/major/minor bloodline cannot reproduce blooded offspring. The
bloodlines are trapped within seven families in this way. Only true
bloodlines can be invested as inheritances and only to a female.
Generally the strongest male of each house will be king of that house
(and it`s provinces). If you are a blooded male the only way to have
blooded children is to marry into another royal house (marrying the
matriarch or her heir), in which case your children belong to that house
- their family name is that of the mother.

Children`s Bloodlines:
The bloodline derivation of a child is the highest of the two score
generated by the bloodline of their parent(s). The bloodline score of a
child`s derivation is a linearly random value between 1 and the value of
the parent. No child will be born with a bloodline score higher than
their mother (who must be one of the seven matriarchs of course). A
child may by chance be born with his/her father`s derivation.

[Note: except for the "female line" thing, this isn`t much different
from English royalty today, with the gender swapped around, the recently
deceased Princess Margaret - sister to the Queen, had a daughter and a
son. The daughter does not gain a bloodline or title from her mother,
but (luckily or unluckily for her) did gain one from her father (because
he happened to be an Earl).]

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