Vassals heir with no claims inherits the duchy?

[Plushy]

Hi All
I am trying to take over the Duchy of Tyrol because my vassal there is of the wrong faith and culture, so they have to go.

My last attempt to get the duchy without revoking it which will lead to a larger war is to murder all the heirs, but they keep handing the duchy down to unlanded characters in their family which has NO claims... How does that work? I thought you had to have a claim to inherit land of any kind.

Thanks
Best regards

[Deusmodeus]

Originally posted by Plushy:

but they keep handing the duchy down to unlanded characters in their family

It's passing through the family as intendent.
As long as the close family has an eligible heir, such as an adult male, or adult female if allowed, the title will pass along the dynasty until it defaults to the liege, or passed to another dynasty via marriage.

if you just need to flip the cultures and don't want to revoke, have your steward convert their local capital to your culture. the AI is strongly compelled to match the culture of it's capital

[endymionologist]

What you probably should do is find a moderately insignificant member of the family holding the duchy and marry them to a member of your family in your court. Build or take a Castle in your capital county (or one with identical faith/culture) and grant it to the happy couple. As they are busy having children, get busy exterminating the Duke's family until the insignificant one isn't so insignificant anymore, and so on until the duchy belongs to that person or their children.