Story Idea: Thoughts and opinions wanted

I have an idea and I want some thoughts on it. It's been in my head for about two minutes, but it seems pretty cool. Opinions, anyone?

I'm not sure of the name of the places yet, but it's based off of Renessaince Italy (blame ACII) in that each race in the country has a main city-state, and the relationships between the city-states vary. There are four races. The humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the magi. The dwarves reside in the mountain area, the elves in the forests, and the humans live in the hills.

The humans are the most politically brutal, attacking the other two races most often and constantly battling for most of the countryside. Their city is the second-richest, after the dwarves, and they have a strict, militaristic, monotheistic religion that cries dominance over the mostly atheist dwarves and the polytheistic elves. They mainly fight with the elves. Their city is mostly made of stone, and is probably one of the more technologically advanced. Their classes comprise of bankers and nobility as the upper class, merchants, artists, and shopkeepers making up the middle class, and farmers and peasants making up the lower class. These classes are not very strict, nor are they difficult to overcome. Inventing, particularly the inventions of weapons, is highly valued.

The dwarves are neutral in the conflict between the humans and elves. They trade with both, and are easily the wealthiest of the races. They mine mostly, and trade out gems and precious ores, including the incredibly strong metal called Light Matter, which can only be forged by the greatest of blacksmiths (usually dwarven ones) to create armor and weapons that are incredibly light and strong. Dwarves have an extremely rigid caste system, with fighters and nobility at the top, merchants and miners below them, farmers below them, and the homeless, criminals, and those descended from criminals at the bottom. It's near impossible to raise in up the social ladder. They have no religion, but scholars and artists are looked upon highly, and dwarves are far above humans and elves in the way of technology and science. Their homes are also made of stone, though their architecture is far different from the humans, being more sober and dark.

Elves are the poorest and most primitive of the races. Their city is merged completely with the forest, and is actually a bunch of tree houses connected by ropes that elves can run across easily. Their religion is polytheistic, consisting of gods devoted to craft, hunting, travel, the elements, and certain animals sacred to the elves. Their relationship with humans is a bitter one, due to both races being devoted to their religions, and the humans religion being distinctly uppity in their outlook on outside religion. Thus, their war is mostly a religious one, though the humans wishing to take their forests also has a great deal to do with it. In elvish culture, everyone's place is decided by their actions, though everyone is equal in the eyes of the gods, as each job has equal worth. Hunters, farmers, craftsmen, storytellers, and spiritual leaders are all looked on equally.

The Magi are a subjugated race, their city-state destroyed and their people turned into slaves by the humans and, to a lesser extent, the dwarves. Physically, they're indistinguishable from humans, besides the vivid color of their eyes (electric blue, lime or emerald green, bright purple and gold). Their city-state is now a ruin, the buildings reduced to charred rubble. The race worshipped the magic they controlled, and when they were in power, they were the most advanced race. The war against them was the only time all of the other three came together with a common goal. Their city was once the most beautiful of all the cities, but now they live in the slums of the dwarven and human city-states as servants. Their magics are usually used for healing, though the population of the slums are watched carefully for Magi of particular power. Those children are taken from their families and trained by the Church and the previously trained Magi to fight for that particular city-state. This is a practice mainly done by the humans, though the dwarves are not above it.

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The story is this.

The human Church has several artifacts used by the Magi before they were defeated. The artifacts are stolen, and the city-states reluctantly convene to discuss the problem. The dwarven city is attacked by the artifact called the Hand of the Plague, a magical, extremely contagious plague that no medicine can cure and no magic can stop. Only the destruction of the Hand can make healing mages able to negate the plague. The elves and the humans agree to send people to help, and if the city is saved, the dwarves agree to send their own people to help.

The main character is a magi who was found by a human noble and raised away from the slums. After it's discovered that the noble raised him and hid him from the Church, the Church has the noble and his real sons hung for "treason", assuming that he was keeping the child to attempt to overthrow the nobility. The mother and daughter are spared, and help the mage flee the city. He runs into the group heading for the dwarven city, and the elves convince the humans to let him come to the city and help. And that's that.

The magi is a guy. One human is a knight of the Church, but is probably the most open-minded, having been forced into his knighthood. The other human is the daughter of a noble, and is very devout and a bit arrogant. The elves are both hunters of the city-state, and elves, as a rule, disagree with the current treatment of magi, having only joined with the dwarves and humans in their attack against the Magi, so their considerably nicer to the main character. The dwarven character is the princess of the dwarven city, and I'm not quite clear on her personality yet.

Thoughts? Opinions? Ideas for names?