Just east of the Great Rift and generally north-northwest of Delzimmer lies the Riftwood, a small section of forest that appears lonely and isolated on the open plains of the Eastern Shaar. This woodland is generally round in shape and somewhat less overgrown with creepers, vines, and undergrowth than many of the near-tropical forests in the region. The Riftwood is not on the way to anywhere, nor is it particularly vital to anyone except the gold dwarves of the Great Rift.
The inhabitants of the Deep Realm have dug a large passage up into the heart of the Riftwood and established a small logging community there, shielded from the prying eyes of visitors. The gold dwarves harvest timber from the Riftwood and take it to their homeland below the Shaar for use in various kinds of construction, including scaffolding for new digs, furniture for which stone is unsuitable, and so forth. They are careful to take no more wood than they need from the forest, and to replant sections they have already cleared so as not to exhaust their supply of wood. The gold dwarves maintain a large enough force on or near the surface to keep most natural predators away from the logging operations, but they allow those same beasts (panthers, snakes, giant beetles, and so forth) to remain on the periphery in hopes that they can keep unwanted visitors from entering the forest.