Thanks a lot for the ideas, guys! A lot of them will definitely be used - there really are some great ideas here, especially considering I was pretty scant on the details.
The idea of a minotaur maze is a good one, although it's a fairly small plot of land. A treant in the centre actually works pretty well, too, especially considering how treants in my campaign are pretty cool, and the players seem attached to them.
I also like Danny's idea of a smuggling ring for Seahorse to get involved with - this actually *really* fits the character, as Seahorse was originally a smuggler!
And the idea of the blood mage/apprentice fueling each others' negative traits is a great idea - especially if I can get the wizard involved in some ganglang feuds!
Also, the Zahar/Kirra thing was probably explained poorly by me; Zahar is actually a Player Character, and Kirra is trying to help Zahar find a wife to satisfy Zahar's goal of becoming king. See, Kirra owes Zahar a big favour, because he saved her life.
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Okay, so some more information on the situation at hand. It's pretty complicated, as feywild politics are wont to be. Which is really a lot of fun for both me and the players, who are often bewildered by everything that's going on (a favourite saying of the Drow Queen is "were there only ten of us alive, they would be divided into twelve different factions").
First, in my campaign, elves, eladrin, drow, shadar-kai, and "wood elves" are all the same race. This unnamed race is extremely sensitive to change, such that even changing political allegiance can create a new race. Elves are those that stayed on the material plane. Eladrin are those who believe in one mercantilism and aspects of imperialism, while drow tend to be isolationists (drow in my campaign are no more evil than eladrin). Shadar-Kai (disdainfully called "half-breeds" by most, or "Mixed folk" amongst themselves) are half-eladrin, half-drow who typically have divergent political views and alliances - Eladrin or Drow who waver in their beliefs turn into Half-breeds.
I tend to base half-breeds loosely upon the black civil rights movement in the 1960s, although they learn more towards Malcolm X than Martin Luther King. It's a good shorthand to explain the situation, at least.
Anyways, the PCs have been in the feywild for about a year in real time, going from level 8 to level 17 in the process. The idea is that the Eladrin all follow a king, and the drow all follow a queen, and the king and queen are married in a loveless marriage to jointly rule the feywild. To prevent infighting and assassination, if one dies, the other loses all power, and a new power struggle begins. Well, the Eladrin king was dying, and all hell broke loose.
One of the drow contenders for the throne, our BBEG, is for some reason involved in a poisoning plot - basically, she was involved in poisoning as many drow as possible. This poison turned the drow into vile abberations (driders, scorpion folk, and lovecraftian stuff galore). The PCs have been working at trying to get a cure - in fact, they were doing this for entirely selfish reasons, as Kirra had been infected.
The PCs now have the cure, although the main city is now under the control of warring factions (The eladrin military, ruled by a crazed Eladrin king who is now surprisingly and mysteriously healthy; the uninfected and very angry drow, ruled by a manipulative queen who wants to see her daughter marry an Eladrin and restore order to the feywild; the city-folk, a mix of Eladrin and half-breeds, ruled by an Eladrin who failed in his bid for power and is now seizing control of the city, Boris Yeltsin style; and the rioting Half-breeds, seeing for the first time powerful half-breeds having a say in the world's governance and deciding now is the time to rebel).
Some more info about our group:
1. Hammer is a minotaur fighter (dreadnought PP). He seeks to find the ancient Minotaur homeland, known as Kael Tessera or, more commonly, "The Mazeworks". Basically, a city that was founded by Imperialistic Tieflings, who used the Barbarian minotaurs that already lived in the natural chasms as cheap labour. Like all minotaurs, Hammer has an intense distrust of all forms of organized religion, focusing instead on the primal spirits of his ancestors and rudimentary star worship.
2. Seahorse is a halfling rogue. halflings in my campaign are basically seafaring gypsies, and Seahorse is no different. She used to be a smuggler and pirate of sorts. Seahorse is an incredibly ugly halfling, often being mistaken for a male. She is guarding the city wall from corrupted drow abberations - however, since the source controlling those aberrations has been killed by the PCs, the abberations are no longer attacking in controlled bursts. She is guarding the east gate simply because Tongs, an Eladrin Warlord (and a former PC who became an NPC), is working there. The smuggling plot is fun!
3. Lear is a PC turned NPC turned Villain turned back into a PC (Basically, the player ran him for a bit, decided he hated controllers, and abandoned him. I used the character as a villain, and had him killed in a fight. And then the player read through the new options available to wizards after Arcane Power came out, and reran the PC). So, Lear is a blood mage who has died twice, and is now very afraid of Hell. He is entirely self-serving and evil, but is also possessed by a Paladin (don't ask), who acts as Lear's conscience.
4. Zahar is a city-raised Half-breed bard who wants to become king. He has no idea how he can do that, considering how he's not an Eladrin (and only Eladrin can become kings). However, he is using his political clout to pursue this goal, and the fact that people such as the drow Queen are listening to him has caused many half-breeds to rebel against the social structure in place. Zahar, should he so choose, could probably have about 25% of the total population behind him.
5. Kirra is a drow huntress (daggermaster rogue) who originally had a hatred of all non-drow, due to her typical racial isolationist attitude. She is the cousin of Guineadh - the adopted daughter of the Drow Queen (direct blood relations are prohibited from seizing power in a power vacuum; Guineadh's lack of a blood tie makes her an ideal candidate for the throne).
