Sometimes I've seen it brought up that Magnagora has this industry theme, yet never seems to actually build anything. I am working on a short story/play set mostly in Magnagora and was considering this. A thought occured to me: does Magnagora need to be building anything? Couldn't the smoke stacks just have the single purpose of producing smoke? In doing so maybe it keeps their environment tainted?

I'm wondering what other people think of this idea and the whole industry theme in general, or if anyone knows what those smoke stacks are doing.

The smoke stacks generate smoke that comes from turning in enough brains ( a jar ) to the Necromentate, everyone on prime sees the message (or something like this) "The clouds over Magnagora erupt in colour as smoke pours out and into the sky above" or something that sounds better then that. So in a sense, it already does what you think they do.

People who have turned in jars and haven't finished the Epic Quest, you see something like this:

She is a member of the Legion of Luciphage.
She is a member of the Knives of Nifilhema.
She is a member of the Armies of Ashtorath.
She is a member of the Bastion of Baalphegar.
She is a member of the Keepers of Gorgulu.

My outsider's two-cents.

For a fictional endeavour in-character wise, I don't see why you can't give the smoke stacks more RP meaning than is mechanically enforced. Of course, it's a different matter if some NPC makes it very clear that "The smokestacks are for X purpose and X purpose only, no industry in Magna!" but I don't think that's so. You could always rationalize that Magnagora has a network of pipes running across the sewers that draw waste smoke from trades like forging and belches them all out from the smokestacks. You could say the necromantate taints the smoke so it serves as a secondary shield or something. Or whatever lights your fancy. The messages from the beggar-spike quest can easily be taken as implying the place they are led to as an organ-processing factory, etc. The potential for industry rp is certainly there.

I've always envisaged Mag as steampunkish, the Nihilists as Cabalistic, ur'Guard as the bouncers outside the Cacophony clubs with Geomancer dancers and the Ninjakari as, well, ninjas. The kind of industrial revolution metropolis from the 1940s that middle-east tyrants would create. Dirty, unscrupulous, efficient, ruthless. Of course, the actual RP differs a bit, with the elitist Houses thing going on etc, but the existence of beggars and "serfs" could point to less savory industries and worker-class environments too.

I'm pretty sure some of the room descriptions mention factories. I might be misremembering though.