Guild alliances - The Army of Darkness (Ogres) guild is located in the North Shore Area, north of the Outpost there. They do not however protect any of the npcs in the area.
There are not a lot of npcs there to kill so the area is not popular for grinding.
There is however one very tough npc the Orc Captain that is very popular for his equipment. He is also rather unique that he stands on a ledge that forces his attackers to fight him one at a time so you pretty much have to be able to solo him. Although archers can maybe help?

The Orc captain fights you unarmed and has a damaging special attack, guilds with defensive specials do well against his unarmed attacks.

NPCs have some Gems. The orcs in the caves have black onyxes and the elves in the outpost also have a few gems.

Uber equipment - The Midnight Black Platemail covers multiple areas and offers really fantastic protection, this is sometimes found on the Orc Captain.
Uber equipment - The Great Black Skull helmet the Orc Captain sometimes has, one of the very best helms around.
Good equipment - The Thick Rugged Platemail the Orc Captain can have instead, great grinding comabt exp gear
Good equipment - The Orc Captains bone spiked shield is good.
Good equipment - The Orc Captain has a number of weapons that he doesn't actually use but you can get when you kill him. The Blackened Mithril Scimitar has a special versus undead? Is non dulling to I think, which would make it a great weapon.
Unique Equipment - The biggest elf in the Outpost uses the Thin Green Saber, when it hits the enemy it can add to their fatigue levels it is also unique that when it does this it restores your fatigue levels. So people who use haste giving items will sometimes switch to using this sword to help recover fatigue.

Free water - There are places where u can drink water for free, useful for watering your horse etc

Hidden Areas - The hidden areas are mostly related to the Torque quest. The entrance to the outpost and ogres area is via a non obvious exit, but just head east from the ferry landing point on the North Shore to get there.
If you have high swim skill (Ogres, Minotaur Layman etc) you do not have to wait for the ferry and can instead <swim lake>
There is a vortex in the Ogre Guild area that anyone can use to teleport you to a random area. I have had it take me to Gont, Krynn etc but also a Dark area so have a lamp if you feel adventurous

Emerald was closed for many years, and the previous version was home to some really big quests. One of which had a katana as a permanent reward.
The weapons the Orc Captain has are throw backs to those earlier times.
There used to be a weapon called the raven beaked warhammer there you could use to smash your enemies armours. So was great for pvp.
For a while Emerald was re opened as a tiny area and there was a really big elf there then that had a very nice polearm.
When the current Emerald opened and the Orc Captain was introduced he was then removed again for a while. Until the wizards worked out how to stop Calians moving behind each other at the Orc Captain and all being able to fight him together. lol

General Tips - Emerald