(Tiers) Stalwart 
Author: Merrick Trout Owen
Rune: Air
Settled along the southeastern peninsula of the Tiers, Stalwart lays claim to the tumultuous eastern seas, and the nation has long filled its coffers by tolling the coast. The people of Stalwart are fiercely proud of having never lost a war (other than civil war) on their own soil, despite numerous forays into their neighbors’ lands. Some of its most notable engagements were with the Free Cities and their vast mercenary armies, including the Battle of Nineth’s Gorge of 253 TR, when they attempted to seize territory by destroying an enemy force in an ambush with boiling pitch in the eponymous gorge (prevented by recon and commissioning a shield that protected the troops passing through the gorge single file) and the Battle of Quelling Field of 398, when the mercenary army advancing on Stalwart’s farmlands and nearly winning the day was repulsed by the Dauntless and the wave of patriotic cheer it inspired, sending the mercenary army into retreat. In fact, the only real occasion when Stalwart lost a war was civil war: The separation of Sunder that occurred in 347 TR, ending hostilities between the sides in a treaty that stipulated that Stalwart did not just lose a civil war, but rather, the two amicably parted ways.