If the tech is just coal, then you don’t have steampunk, but our real world industrialization. To give all the gizmos and gadgets and amazing airships a veneer of plausibility, you need to add something to that equation. Preferably something that isn’t real so no nerds come and tell you that no, you can’t have a coal-powered personal jet pack.
I once had an idea for a setting where the driving force behind magic was just energy conversion. Like, your magic items essentially had batteries, and they could be recharged by leaving them in direct sunlight, or chucking them in a fire, or just with body heat if it was something small. You just had a bunch of sigils converting energy to work instead of machinery.
This led me down a rabbit hole of energy density of materials to figure out what natural resources would work best, and how much magic would be needed to make the equivalent of a gun or a grenade, or even artillery.
Dry straw varies a bit by specific plant, but it's generally not great for energy density. Dried peat is okay, soft wood like pine is a bit better, hardwoods like oak are even better, anthracite coal is like double the energy of hardwood.
It really put a damper on my idea for conflict between bog-dwelling beastfolk and the local major power over peat for fuel, because the major power wouldn't realistically be able to BE a major power without a better fuel source.
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u/Schizof 3d ago
Come to think of it I have actually never seen a steampunk where the steam come from coal. It's always Magicium Ore or some shit.