I searched around yesterday and today but didn't find a solution yet. The good thing is that I understand more and more about SQL
There are currently two databases named lif_1 on my computer.
One is located in \Program Files\MariaDB 5.5\data. This is the one that gets created by the dedicated server when you set it up using the steam guide.
The other one is in \Steam\SteamApps\common\Life is Feudal Your Own\daemon\mariadb\data. This is the one created when you use Create a World from the games main menu.
I'm trying to connect to database 2 with HeidiSQL to make a proper database dump which I'd then import into database 1. However, I'm unable to connect database 2 in HeidiSQL as it doesn't show up there. From the contents inside \Life is Feudal Your Own\daemon I suspect LiF launches its own SQL server when creating a game server, but I haven't figured out how to connect to that SQL server and its database yet.
Also, the local server lacks the config_local.cs file, which would contain the connection info...
I also tried to simply copy the contents of lif_1 to the other lif_1 folder. I learned that SQL doesn't work that way... it refused to start up, saying the files were corrupted. My attempts to fix that made it worse and I had to reinstall MariaDB from scratch.