What do duchies have anything to do with individual nobles wanting to shank each other? I see no relation. If two noble houses are out for blood then it doesn't matter what realm, duchy, or region they're from or in, they're going to try to kill each other if their settings are set to aggressive/murderous toward their enemies ;-) You can bet your ass that if I ran into the one guy who robbed 100,000 dollars from my mother 6 years back in Belo Horizonte, I'd break both of his legs and feed him his severed testicles.
