A few answers while I take a intermission from
Dead Man's Chest...
My bullet points on the Shadar-Kai served to miss the whole dynamic between them and the raven Queen. They feared death, so made their 'immortality' pact with her. Then they realized nothing is worse than fading to nothingness and becoming one of her shadows, so they actually prefer death through combat. The pain thing is their way of holding back the melancholy of the Shadowfell from consuming them.
The section states it better than I can paraphrase, sorry.
@Morrus: the name's been around since the 3E Fiend Folio.
@Traycor...
City of Brass:
ruled by efreets
per their king, the heat is uncomfortable, not deadly
oldest and largest city in creation
ToEE:
I infer from
Worlds and Monsters that there is only one world per D&D game. It states: "At the center of the universe is the
world." There is no talk of other planets, alternate prime materials, etc. Whatever world you choose--be it PoL, FR, Eberron, etc., is it. I think ToEE is tied to PoL and assumes that it is the only world.
(I realize it's not a solid assumption. As an example, the dragonborn in FR are from another world.)
Planar travel: again I infer that it's for paragon and epic, but we've seen bits that suggest that visits (most likely unintentional) will occur at heroic levels as well.
Orcs: appear to be massive damage beatsticks. Five writeups in the MM: minion, berserker, archer, mystic, and bloodrager. A couple blurbs I couldn't quickly find that imply they will be more 'hulk smash' while hobgoblins are organized.