I never really understood Shadowscales. If it's everyone born under the shadow sign, basically one 12th of the Argonian population is working as assassins. That doesn't make sense, from an economic point of view.
This also is one of the details that makes this whole background story of the Shadowscales getting wiped from the face of Tamriel make no sense. I'm guessing in Oblivion they were trying to say that only certain Argonians born under the sign of the Shadow were actually selected to be Shadowscales, but even a selective process would likely result in a decent rise in trainee numbers each year since they would also have to take into consideration that a certain number of currently active Shadowscale assassins might end up KIA, and others might get inducted into the DB. But like I said, they just simply used it for nothing more than just make disposable background characters seem cooler and more important than they really were, and didn't even bother fleshing out the lore at all, leaving just a stub in the lore that actually does sort of conflict itself in Skyrim in-game lore in some ways if you really examine every reference to that order in Skyrim, though it isn't overly noticeable, unless of course you end up fighting plenty of Argonian DB assassins who, according to their dialogue, are apparently Shadowscales (or at the very least they can be implied to be Shadowscales, since they can say they are like the Shadowscales of old).
Also, another thing too is that the Shadowscales were supposed to be trained as assassins from childhood, so how exactly do they get outlived (and in this kind of business, out-bested since getting killed isn't exactly considered successful as an assassin) by a bunch of serial killers and common murderers (nothing against normal members of course, but still) who make up the bulk of the DB? Seriously, doing this kind of just turned the whole concept of the Shadowscales into a big joke if you really think about it. That being said, I wouldn't mind if they did go back and decide to do more with the concept and flesh out the lore surrounding Shadowscales, preferably if it's more than just simply going "oh, here's a new lore book on Shadowscale lore, they may no longer exist in any shape or form and never will again, you can just read about it." Yeah, as if I'd be
that interested in reading lore about a concept that should have been something more than just a bullseye painted into characters' backgrounds to help indicate said characters were going to die at some point in the story.
Of course, much like how in Skyrim they hint at the possibility of having the Morag Tong rebuilding themselves in Morrowind, there are a couple of mild hints that they may decide to have the Shadowscale Order become restored some time after the events of Skyrim,
Spoiler as Argonians do have have the line "Ah, I am now like the Shadowscales of old," and it was mentioned in Cicero's journals (the first volume) that the DB has an interest in eventually rebuilding the Shadowscale training facility in Archon once they have the resources to do so, so it kind of is open to the possibility of them being present in the future considering that the DB and the Argonians still seem to have respect and fondness for them, so who knows what they are going to do with the lore.
Finally, need I say that they really need to flesh out this part of the lore better? I mean, there's barely enough lore on this to fill one paragraph. As a matter of fact, I think there actually could be more lore on the Crimson Scars from just one game than the Shadowscales in two.