So I've been doing some work thinking about Dragonmech as it relates to a standard DnD world.
My conclusions are interesting me. They run something like...
Steam is fine for everyday, official purposes, but what about more traditional magic? There are myriad ways it could be tapped, and it wouldn't have to be officially done by nations--although they'll probably be interested in the results.
Let's look at magic as a potential power source. Offhand, I can think of these ways they can be used to power mechs and/or steamborgs.
-Lightning Rod. You take a metal bar (I like copper, thematically), and enchant it like you would a Shocking, or Shocking Burst weapon. Now, with some modifiers to Mechcraft checks, you can use it to power mechanical stuff. Oh, and a Lightning Rod can take the place of a spark generator in a steampower array.
-Pure energy. The process is something like this:
1) Identify the part of dragon anatomy that allows them to breath energy.
2) Compare with lunar dragons to attempt to confirm that the moon-lizards have the same set up.
3) Kill lunar dragon of appropriate size.
4) Use a successful high-DC heal check to harvest the organ.
5) Use Heal check, or healing magic, to sustain the organ.
6) Use organ's energy-producing abilities in place of fire for steampowered stuff.
7) Reap profits
Make Mechcraft DC to design mechanical setup that can be directly powered by the energy.
9) Build such a setup.
10) Go around shooting energy like this guy. http://youtube.com/watch?v=w7IbCSzWv24
Big enough to warrant its own section. F'rinstance, you can...
-Forego the coalburning set up by convincing a Fire Elemental to live in your firebox...or you could enslave it.
-Possibly forego the heating of water by means of a Steam Paraelemental to do something
-To wind up your clockwork rig, you come to an accord with a Water or Air Elemental. Both can form whirling currents, so that'll work to your advantage.
-I suppose you could use Lantern Archons to fire Light energy at people.The Nasty Way
What you do is, find a creature with powerful innate magic--like a Magical Beast, Outsider, Dragon, or so on.
Then you make a restraining rig--maybe like a multi-armed crucifix--and nail the creature in question to it, crippling it to make restraining easier, and then you siphon magical energy off of it, ideally keeping it alive enough to be useful while so weak it can't give you trouble.
Congratulations, you now have a more organic version of a Spell Furnace, and your alignment is highly likely to be Evil.
Later on, I'm going to take a crack at writing what borgs *could* be like once the nations realize their potential use.