The Great Rift
The Great Rift was the traditional home of Faerûn's gold dwarves.
Geography
The center of the Eastern Shaar is cut open as if by a gigantic sword in a curving, southeast-to-northwest canyon, the Great Rift. It plunges to a thousand feet below the level of the surrounding plains at its deepest point, although its floor is still well above sea level. Including the lands around it patrolled by dwarves, the Rift just outstrips Sembia in size. Quarried by dwarves for centuries, enlarged from an impressive natural canyon to its present awesome size in the process, the Rift was once the home of the most powerful kingdom held by Faerunian dwarves in the recent era.
The Great Rift is a world untoitself, an ecosystem distinct from the land above it with its own weather (wetter), animals (more plentiful), and plants (thriving). In some places, the Rift is so wide that a person can stand on the valley floor and not even see the mighty cliffs marking the edges.
The Deepwild
The dwarves use this name to refer to the underdark areas beneath the Shaar and south of the Shaar that they do not control. The Deepwild regions include such varied terrain as the drow city of Llurth Dreir beneath the Shaar, the Wyrmcaves (a dangerous series of dragon lairs linked by tunnels beneath the Shaar), and the Deepfall (a huge underground waterfall).
The Riftlake
The lake at the bottom of the Great Rift is clear, cold, and fresh. The floor of the rift drains to this lake, which is also fed by great, deep springs rumored to hold portals to the Elemental Plane of Water. The Riftlake is the birthplace of the mighty River Shaar, which flows a short distance across the floor of the canyon only to disappear underground in a spray-filled gorge at the north end of the Great Rift. The gold dwarves pride themselves on keeping the waste products of their forges from contaminating the land and water.
Climate
<TBD> Wetter than the Shaar climate
History
Bhaerynden collapsed, forming the Great Rift (-8800 DR)
When the Spellplague hit in 1385 DR, the western half of the Great Rift collapsed into the Underdark, forming an enormous canyon called the Underchasm. What remained of the Great Rift became known as East Rift.
During 1486 DR. a quest of four chosen ultimately restored the canyon to its former earthly land before the Spellplague.
Mythology
Some legends say the Rift was formed when a huge cavern or series of natural caverns was torn apart by the fell sorceries of warring drow. Others claim that the collapse was caused by the divine wrath of dwarven deities, titanic hammerblows that buried drow. Still others say the collapse was caused by alhoon magically summoning too-large dragons to defend themselves in battle against beholders, or by a dragon lairing in the caverns whose entry shaft was discovered by a rival wyrm, leading to a rock-shattering struggle.
Whatever the Rift's origin, it bears no evidence of volcanic activity or raging watercourses, the common causes of such a feature.
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