I can't remember anything besides that. One thing to note, though, is that Al-Rassan shares a world with the Sarantine Mosaic and (IIRC) Last Light of the Sun. It is chronologically the latest of the three. In all three stories, there's a very clear through-line that magic is vanishing from the world as humanity achieves greater mastery over its environment. The faerie world (for lack of a better term) is still strong in Last Light, though fading. In the Sarantine Mosaic, it's almost gone, surviving only in Ludan's forest*. By the time the world advances to the setting of Al-Rassan, there are only the merest shadows of magic left. So there's some background magic in the sense that the setting used to be more magical than it is in Al-Rassan, but in that specific novel, I don't think there's anything you didn't already point out. (* -- I can't remember whether Last Light comes before or after the Sarantine Mosaic time-wise, but I think it's safe to say that the Sarantine Empire is a good deal further along the civilization continuum.)
