Editing Marienburg (section)

== History ==
Like many other major coastal city in the Old World, Marienburg was originally a [[High Elf (Warhammer Fantasy Battle)|High Elven]] colony called '''Sith Rionnasc''' built amongst the swamps of [[Fimir]]. It was also the finest port the High Elves had in the old world.

After the [[War of the Beard]], it was taken over by [[Dwarfs]], but they had to abandon the city after their empire collapsed. According to the novel version, Sith Rionnasc was destroyed by flooding when the Dwarfs catapult a powerful rune enhanced artillery at the city's dam. The Dwarf who ordered this assault was '''King Brynnoth''', the ruler of Barak Var who did it out of retribution for the Elves killing their city's ancient rulelord '''Agrin Fireheart'''(it was caused by Malekith's agent and the greatest reason why the war was started), as well as for High Elves' many assaults on the city of Barak Var.

Roughly a millenia later, it was inhabited again by a tribe of primitive humans called '''Jutons''', who migrated there to escape the enslavement by Teutogens (future [[Middenland|Middenlanders]]). They defeated the Fimir and founded their own realm called '''Jutonsryk'''.

Unlike [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|their slowly rising neighbour]], Jutonsryk was essentially an incredibly primitive and isolationist state that barely even managed to expand beyond the capital. So naturally, in 501 IC it was steamrolled by an Emperor Sigismund II and turned into a thirteen [[Elector Count|Elector County]] named '''Barony of Westerland'''. With most of their borders secured (aside from the western one, which was at the time populated by wild [[Bretonnia|Bretonni]] people), Westerlanders turned to the sea, due to a sudden realisation of their trade importance and a start of "friendly" visits from [[Norsca|Norscan]] raiders.

At first the whole trade was in the hands of nobility, but after several centuries of hedonistic and lazy lifestyle they handed all of their work to commoners. This, eventually, came to bite them in the ass, as trading companies of simple folk became so powerful that they started to crave for power, even requesting to join Baron's advisory council named '''Stadsraad''', which started a major conflict between nobles and merchants. But then unexpectedly, the downfall of Marienburgian monachy was delayed when Baron Matteus van Hoogmans managed to sign a trading agreement with [[Ulthuan]], thus making this city the biggest trade hub in all of the Old World.

It didn't last long, however.

When some Marienburgian pirates found the donut island and razed an Asrai city, Elves decided to strike back. [[Aislinn]] sacked Marienburg, and while he was too inefficient to bring it down, the toll taken on the city (intermixed with [[Great War Against Chaos]]) was enormous. Soon after that Baron Paulus van der Maacht died without a heir, so Emperor-at-the-time [[Magnus the Pious]] had to abolish the monarchy and relegate the power to the Merchant Houses, as he was too afraid of a civil war inside the realm (both Counts of [[Talabecland]] and [[Nordland]] had claims to Marienburg and gathered armies to bring each other down, which would potentially ruin the Empire that was still recovering from a [[Chaos]] incursion).

Thus, the Directorate was born - a parliament consisting of the wealthiest merchants in the city. They suffered heavily from Imperial taxation and other shit, so in a true <s>American</s> Dutch style, the Directorate decided to split from the Empire by bribing Emperor Dieter IV. The fallout of this was insane, with Dieter being deposed and Wilhelm III, the newly elected Emperor, sending armies to Marienburg, which all were defeated. After several unsuccessful attempts, the Emperor recognised the newly independent republic, which is basically Marienburg of today (well, before the [[End Times]]).