When I played Oblivion at launch, it crossed my mind that there is an overlooked angle of proprietary magic for those not in the ranks of Magic Guild, a closed club of a few, and an ongoing fight against those questioning their monopoly. To sustain themselves as a business, afford funny dresses and enormous headquarters, they could’ve artifically created a market of cheaply produced soul gems and spellscrolls, and I’m pretty sure there can also be stories of how they outsourced their production to poorest provinces while leveraging Empire’s influence to beat traditional local producers/guilds - a conflict we see in Morrowind with Brotherhood/Thieves vs Morag/Camonna Tong. Necromants somehow appear as a double villain to MG, because, besides necromancy and stuff, their sect also produces their own black soul gems of bigger energy capacity.

That’s fine to have a facelift for Oblivion, but I would’ve prefered if they opened up their flagship franchise to other teams so we could have Oblout: New Skingrad or whatever, with a compelling and grounded story.