Eartheart

Eartheart is the principal settlement for the Gold Dwarves in East Rift and it is still the cultural and spiritual center for its people. Dwarves take on pilgrimages to behold the great holy city and take their trips from other countries and the deeps to reach their goal, it use to house great temples and shrines to all the Dwarven pantheon and dwarf heroes but after the great collapse much was lost.

Leadership
The lords of their old homes relocated here as well the Deep Lords. The old ways of the Deep Lords are still the same as they use intermediaries and masking themselves to undermine the attempts of assassins or drow infiltrators. The Gold Dwarves outnumber every other race in the city and therefor have full control of the city and it's communities.

City expansion
After the fall of Underhome due to the weight of sea and stone the Gold Dwarves fled their broken home to take refuge in this more secure settlement. Other peoples and other dwarf races fled to Eartheart from their old homes and the surface. With the massive influx of people they had to expand the city; a challenge the innovative dwarfs meet. Whenever they found a level surface they built a small community, and if none were found their engineers excavated living spaces from the stone so that the communities could bulge from the chasm walls. In order to connect the city's communities the dwarves created dizzying switchback staircases so narrow that they could only be used in single file. As another way to connect the communities, they have started to specially breed griffons to facilitate travel and carry messages around the city, but the training of such beasts was heavy in the price of money and lives.

Defense
A lot of the higher levels are filled with sunlight and perpetual darkness are fended of in the lower levels with dim watch lanterns and magical lights, all of these are meant to drive of the hideous monsters and drow that crawl up from the dark under world.

Riftedge Towers; Surrounding the perimeter of Eartheart is a curtain wall that are filled with rises known as Riftedge towers. Each tower houses a band of warriors to guard against the assaults from the forces of the Underdark. Because the towers cant watch the entire breach they regularly send out patrols in to the darkness to wipe out any immediate vicinity in hopes removing any new assault before it can reach the walls.

They maintained a standing militia called the Steel Shields, consisting of over 14,000 dwarven fighters. They diligently monitored all movement in and out of the city.