So, this is more of a suggestion, since I´m not very good at writing myself, but playing endless hours of oblivion (my favourite of the scrolls games so far) and closing dozens of oblivion gates during a single session gave me an Idea.
So, as a bit of setup for those who haven´t played much of the endgame of oblivion: At high levels, the loot you get from oblivion gates is just ridiculous. Dremora valkynaz, which are the highest rank of dremora, drop daedric armour and weapons, which are ungodly valuable. They also have a decent chance of dropping high level magical jewelery. you find about 15 of these per gate, and that´s not even considering all the xivilai who have ebony or daedric quality weapons, the loot from flesh sacks and pods and numerous valuable ingredients.
I once counted it out and I made roughly 304 000 gold from just one of them(although it should be said that my character had 100 mercantile) but it also took forever. even with maxed out stats, gear and a bunch of spells, it is highly impropable your character will be able to carry all the loot of even a single gate. my estimates for the weigth of the loot found on enemies alone is somewhere in the low ten thousands.
TL;DR: oblivion gates: loot galore, but you need to haul ass to get it sold.
So, this got me thinking. what if you were to establish a network of carriers or even donkey-drawn carriges who would wait outside and wait for the heroes to bring them the loot. they would then hand it over, get back in the gate and get more. while the adventureres are busy fighting, the carriers bring the goods to the next station, where another groop of carriers is waiting to recieve the wares. after giving it to carrier group 2, group one would return to the gate and wait for the adventurers. group 3 would then give them to group 4, return to the exchange spot to wait for group 2 and so on, so forth, depending on how far taway he next marketplace is, with more group for longer distances. this would be to ensure there is always someone to recieve the goods with little delay. this would be drawn out as long as possible, until the dremora decide to close the gate themselves. Hell, you could even sestablish a fortification that ensures the dremora can´t reach the sigil stone, complete with barricades and guards, so the gate stays open as long as they want it to.
the earnings for the loot would be distributed to all the participants, with those working further inside the gate earning more than those at the outskirts or it and the fighters earning a bigger share than the ingredient farmers, who earn more than the carriers. (maybe the carriers could also be paid according to how close to danger they are) this way, the employees would be encouraged to seek out better loot and risk more danger in order to earn more.
Now, there are a lot of problems with this idea, which I´m not sure how to remedy:
firstly, the daedra are supposed to be super dangerous in the lore, and this is represented in the game everytime someone who isn´t the player tries to fight them. So, Following logically, the only place this company could be situated is Black marsh, as that was the only place in the lore that could handle the gates when they popped up. But the argonians that faught were mostly part of the military, so they wouldn´t do any of the things I mentioned above.
moreover, I´m not sure this could be concieved within the elder scrolls universe, as the thought of commercializing the apocalypse seems kinda horrid when this overt, so, this idea might not be lore friendly at all.
In conclusion, I´m grateful for any feedback on this idea as well as any and all suggestions on how to improve it. Furthermore, if you like this idea, you´re welcome to use it in your own works without crediting me or anything like that. but I would like to read any story that utilizes this setup to any degree.
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Hey, friend! I just got around to seeing this and I have no idea how this slipped my radar but this idea is actually genius. I can see this running 1 of 2 ways: highly intense or highly humorous. I'm imagining this Hero downing Daedra with no problem whatsoever and just be like, "here, loot this for me." and handing it to some poor farmer who wants nothing to do with this end of the world. I would love to take a crack at this concept one day, and DEFINITELY credit you for it. If I ever do, I'll let you know!
thank you. My idea was about it being more on the humerous side. Like, the founder proposes this idea to some businessmen and they just go: What in OBLIVION is wrong with you? and then he goes and does it anyway.