Best way to store and reference ScriptableObjects at runtime?

The game I'm developing is a procedurally-generated RPG with items placed at random. As such, item data from ScriptableObjects can't just be linked at runtime; there has to be some sort of list accessible to the game from which an item can get its information during its construction. Additionally, these items are not GameObjects -- they're represented by nothing more than an instance of the Item class with an ItemData variable (the SO) -- so Prefabs can't help.

The best thing I can think to do is create a singleton MonoBehaviour in the scene, have it load an AssetBundle containing all my SOs, and then ask that singleton for an SO from its AssetBundle every time I want to construct a new item. This is a solution I can live with, but I have qualms with it:

• I'd rather not have any more GameObjects or components of GameController than I need to.

• I can't enumerate or alias the SOs. Ideally, I'd like to be able to just write

Item potHealth = new Item(ItemData.ITEM_POTION_HEALTH)

or something around those lines, and let a system attached to the engine rather than the scene handle the rest. Instead, I would have to do something like this:

Item potHealth = new Item(AssetBundleManager.instance.itemAssetBundle.LoadAsset<ItemData>("Assets/ItemData/Potions/PotionHealth.asset"));

at which point the readability becomes virtually non-existent. If I wanted fast access from the singleton, I would have to fill it with ItemData variables, allocating more memory, and making the code itself into a mess of Dictionary initializers, and at that point I could just link the SOs in the editor anyway.

Resources.Load() has all the same problems and is also worse for performance according to my impressions about common convention, so that's not an option.

Is there any better way of going about this? Thanks in advance.