The Free City of Marienburg

“Ah but you see my friend, the business of Marienburg is business”
The Free City of Marienburg, or simply Marienburg is a large coastal city and trading hub. The city claims itself trade capital of the world and is without question one of the largest trading ports on any continent. Commerce is king in Marienburg and as such is ruled by an elected group of officials called Directors that always come from the greatest of the Merchant families and guilds in the city.

The People and Trade
"It isn't hard to find one's way around Marienburg, provided one is part fish of course!” – Lukas Brehm, Barkeep of the Giggling Mackerel

Visitors to Marienburg can often be overwhelmed by the scale and design of the metropolis; though smaller in size than the great Valyntir City, Marienburg is still one of the largest and most developed human cities in the world. Consisting of islands linked by bridges to each other and cut apart by canals and man made land; navigation of the city by foot can be a daunting and exhausting task. This can be remedied by using canals and boats to move from district to district if a traveler has enough coin of course.

Alternatively, the more dangerous route of travel is through the city's literal underworld. Marienburg is an old city that since it's establishment long ago has slowly but surely sunken into the sea. Being the stubborn lot that they are rather than migrate or found a new city more inland the Marienburger's have always done what they saw to be the easiest, and perhaps more importantly the cheapest option, simply again and again build their buildings higher or build a new bridge atop the previous sinking one. This has created a semi-flooded and often fish or rat infested network and catacombs of tunnels, basements and subbasements under the city. Many of the poorest citizens of Marienburg live down in these catacombs while other businesses use them for storage; although the most common use for these tunnels is smuggling.

=== "Velvet and timber, ships and liquor, even someone's life or a blade and its wielder to take one - they say everything can be bought and sold in Marienburg. But, there's one thing you can't buy here, not for all the tea and spice in the world: open land. "      – Teun Floris, a street vendor of                                 Marienburg === Street vendor shacks, stalls and businesses line the crowded streets of the city while gambling halls and inns rest at every corner in Marienburg. People of all races and all countries can be found working, trading and living in the city.

Politics
“A wise or smart man could take the time to calculate the shear amount of wealth that enters Marienburg, but any fool can see how little wealth leaves it”'' –[x]

The politics of Marienburg is a complicated system of interlocking cogs made up by the leading merchants and guilds of the city that all pledge their limited loyalty to the city’s elected directorate. Every election season there are harsh cries of bribery and voting fraud but time and time again the people in power change but the same few merchant families and guilds seem to retain control of the city. There have been many times that Marienburg has been accused of attempting to sabotage or bribe other governments and attempt to sway emissaries and lords to the directorate’s will but these accusations have never come to war in the city’s history so far.

Military
While Marienburg has no true standing military the many merchant families and guilds have their own private forces and the Directorate retains a well armed guard for the entire city. In times of war, The Free City has always used its vast coffers of coin to recruit mercenary armies and fleets to defend itself.