The Selesnya compete with the Boros Legion to be the most traditionally "good guy" guild. In a Tolkien-friendly mixture of love of nature and moral fortitude, the Selesnya seem to be the most ideal guild in the city. On the other hand, your fear of collectivist groupthink or a buzzkilling hatred for hippies might put you in opposition to the Selesnya.
As a guild of humans, elves, and friendly elephant people known as Loxodons, with its emphasis on beautiful green spaces in the city, the Selesnya are likely to come off looking trustworthy and probably serve as a good starting place for most traditionally heroic characters. The beauty of Selesnya territories and the peace and serenity in which their people live is something a party could be convinced to fight for without too much convincing.
The Selesnya are not defenseless - they have their own soldiers and protectors - but given their "everyone is welcome" philosophy, it stands to reason that they could benefit from outsiders helping to defend them in addition to their own warriors. Whether you're just trying to keep the occasional Rakdos arsonist away from their trees or preventing some Izzet experiment from destroying Selesnya groves, there are plenty of reasons that the Conclave might ask adventurers to assist them.
To get up to the campaign level plots around the Selesnya, I think it's important to talk about the weirder aspects of the guild. While to a large extent it's a group of hippies who maintain the city's parks and orchards, the emphasis on selflessness and collectivism extends to a sort of groupthink and, let's call it a mental harmony. The unity of the Selesnya means that if someone were able to influence its leadership, you might have the entire guild operating in a way that serves the villain's purposes.
The Selesnya might be viewed as a kind of "soft target" by those who would wish to upset the balance of the city, and while a frontal assault is unlikely to succeed (they have soldiers and powerful beasts all working together) they are probably not well-equipped to deal with infiltrators and intrigue.
If you want Selesnya villains, I think you're better suited to holding them back until later in a campaign. The Selesnya are outwardly quite benevolent, and frankly, they see themselves as benevolent. But their admirable belief in cooperation goes to an extreme where individual freedom and even thought might not be tolerate by the most zealous among the Selesnya.
An ally who turns out to be the villain would work very well in the Selesnya, and you could easily have a lot of mind-controlled or maybe just well-intentioned but misled zealots who turn on the party when the party tries to prevent whatever grand plot is in the works.
Environment:
The Selesnya Conclave is the White and Green guild, which makes its lands Plains and Forests. As I've said about these lands, they translate quite well to large public squares and city parks. The Selesnya in particular find a nice balance between these, as lush but carefully manicured parks and green spaces might house holy temples that are overrun with beautiful vines. The Selesnya have a number of massive trees that they live in, some of the trees supporting temples and similar structures within their branches. This is some seriously pretty elf stuff, and while it's got an urban feel to it, you'll probably get a bit of a Lothlorien vibe to it.
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