Suggestions on what to do next(and later)

[SmileyX]

So the situation is thus, in one of my groups current campaigns, we are a group of Evil 'adventurers', although we are trying to be villains rather than dungeon crawlers. The groups consists of a mad Doppelganger seeking to gain power, but not to interested in maintaining it(me), a Dwarven cleric to Asmodeous, who sees the rest of the group as simply a means to more power(and even than hes doubtful of our usefulness), a strange fallen archangel stuck in a human body seeking to find his original power so he can get his revenge on Pelor and his church, and a Drow swashbuckler/rogue type of character, who as far as i can tell is just trying to get it on with the local Queen(DM's character). We're playing 4E D&D and it should be noted that we are a silly group, we're using a custom campaign setting, and the basic low down is it used to be a 'perfect' world that blew up, into multiple planes that 'reflect' different themes of it. The local area has a fairly big city complete with a arcane university, and Castle. Around it are a mixture of plains and hills, giving way to forest to the East(which is a one way portal to the Fey wild), mountains mountains to the west, and a slowly growing desert to the south. To the North is a chasm with a river flowing through it(comes out of the mountains), with a single bridge protected by a keep, past this the hills slowly give way to plains, until theirs a merchant city(it supply's most goods form the outside world to our main city). It should be noted these city's aren't part of a Nation, they act more as mini City States. In our first(and sadly only) session we had to infiltrate the Castle to attend a gala event so the Drow could try to woo the Queen, to that end we infiltrated a Nobles household, and after we disposed of him i took his place(thankfully he was quite crazy so i could just act like an ass). After that we went into the plains and killed the leaders of a few Gnoll tribes to assert our authority over them. So the resources at our disposal are a large mansion like compound, a few small gnoll tribes, our personal henchmen(an assassin we haven't seen yet, a wizard/shopkeeper, a cleric who's more of a liability due to religious persecution, and a purely fluff shadow being bonded to my Doppelganger), we have a few servants, a whole bunch of prisoners(we're not exactly sure where they all came from),a store, and my currents persona's Diplomatic Immunity.

We have plenty of plans, but most of them require us to be a high level, most likely epic.

My current plans are as follow,
-use gnolls to raid merchant caravans coming in and out of the merchant city, so we can start getting a better cash flow, will be sold through the Dwarfs shop
-head into the mountains and somehow turn into the disparate hobgoblins into our own fighting force(really not certain how to, and what immediate purpose we would put them to)
-find and enslave some 'mountain' dwarfs so we can actually build an underground evil lair.
-head into desert to find a fabled ancient temple(some hack and slash why not)
-investigate the river for signs of a massive magical stone

eventual goal: take over city than spread influence outwards

so that's where we are, any ideas for any of us? I would accept standard villain ideas as well, and either for the present, or plans for further in the campaign, i am kinda desperate at this point.
Thanks for reading, and if you contribute .

[Prometheus]

What did the noble do, the one whose house you took? I say enter his business and run it more ruthless and dirty than he had ever done. If he makes wines, sabotage all the other wineries and the poison the tap so that the demand for your safe and luxurious beverage rises. That's your ticket into city influence, but the trick is not to get crushed by nobles who play rough back.

[SmileyX]

Unfortunately he was a Prince from another country, this affords us an allowance every so often, but we can't figure out where he came from due to the fact we like to insert stupid comedy into everything, that and the DM hadn't really thought that far ahead. Although that general concepts a pretty good idea i hadn't thought of, we could start producing some necessary good than begin to sabotage everyone else, if we include mildly addictive drugs as well...... mmmm

[mr.fizzypop]

You could use the underground evil lair idea to get access to minerals in the mountains for trade. The money will get you better weapons and could be used as persuasion to get more henchmen.

This is giving me ideas for my own evil campaign [evil grin]