Inside the city of Roughensburg, many impressions would hit newcomers, on their first visit to the town. The smell would probably be the first, because of the fact that there were actual functioning sewers in it. Many major cities didn't have the funds to add sewers to their towns, despite the fact that they were densely populated by hard-working citizens. Therefore, the smells that dominated the town were those of spices in the town squares, sweat from the laborers at work, and perhaps the most noticeable, the smell of the smoke that came from the industrial part of town.

Almost every major city had lots of blacksmiths and the like, but unlike those towns, Roughensburg had a university. One in which the people could receive an education for free, granted the work they ended up doing was performed in Roughensburg, and that they would pay a substantially higher tax to the nobles of the capital.

Because of this considerable populace of educated craftsmen, the amount of air-pollution from blacksmiths' shops, and the like, was significantly higher than it otherwise would've been. As a matter of fact, smog was visible in the air as soon as one left the richer part of town. But that wasn't a problem to the nobles.

The mentality that working hard got you away from the depressing, smog-filled part of town was enough for the lower-class to enter the university, and thereby feed the circle.