From my way of thinking there are a few things that Ulgu finds fairly easily.
Increase subjectively and take advantage of it: Spells to make things appear more or less valuable, more or less scary, more or less attractive or more or less hidden. By my thinking the spells come in two parts first it confuses your judgement then takes advantage of your confused state to convince you of something. The fact that all of these spells are in the relatively simple set enforces my idea that this is something that comes naturally to Ulgu. Although Ulgu does appear to generally prefer to go for less rather then more when changing subjective opinion about more or less.
Shadow steed seems to be the only relatively simple Ulgu spell that can't come down to subjective opinion.
Spell idea: Manipulation of authority making someone or something seem to have more or less. Unfortunately doesn't really fit with warrior of fog, but I could see some other gray wizard managing it.
Perhaps the way that some of the "subjective value of stuff, like how pretty or valuable a thing is" works is that... after inducing the "confuses your judgment" part, the "takes advantage to convince you of something" is predicated on the casting Wizard's mind. i.e. the subjectivity comes from the Wizard. Value or beauty or ugliness is subjective. The Wizard both provides context to Ulgu, telling Ulgu "target beauty and attractiveness", telling Ulgu "this is what attractiveness is" and then also telling it "and I want you to make it more, or less, attractive."
Ulgu on the other hand does all the heavy lifting of "confuse or make uncertain a given trait or aspect."
So, perhaps what is happening here, is that what Ulgu actually is, is confusion and ambiguity and etc and stuff. It is, effectively, the
spellcaster that takes those fairly agnostic or indifferent traits... and then transforms that into "subjectivity". That is, human beings experience subjectivity, human beings are the ones who gave words to the idea of subjectivity. Subjectivity is how humans
tend to use Ulgu, at times. Applying Ulgu to mess around with subjective things.
... Perhaps it is because 'something that is subjective' is something that exists as an opinion or depends on the perception of people; something that is
debatable. And, as the Wind of Confusion? If something is debatable, then it is easily led to be affected or targeted by Ulgu.
Ulgu. Ambiguity, uncertainty, illusion... appearances.
That is, surface appearances; how things appear to be, from a surface reading or from perceiving them. In every sense of that word. Not just visual appearances. But also, well behavior or, well,
anything that is "skin deep". Another way to say it might be "perception" or how things are perceived to be.
The saying "don't judge a book by their cover" has been affirmed and denied and given twists and all that. We're all familiar with that saying. Ulgu, might be the Wind
of the art of creating book covers. That is, however it is you judge a book by its cover, or don't judge it, or try to course-correct and judge the opposite way... Ulgu is the art of creating covers. Creating surface or outside appearances. Those are the kinds of illusions Ulgu does. (Along with actual illusions.)
That can get pretty scary. Mental illusions and playing with the mind, that is. If you can convince somebody that the password you just gave is valid, well, that's only the least of such things. Playing around with what a person thinks in general, can be very scary.
Shadow steed seems to be the only relatively simple Ulgu spell that can't come down to subjective opinion.
I vaguely gestured in the idea of "Also travel or transportation of some sort? Can't find a good single word for this." when trying to sum up Ulgu.
Ulgu... the legends and myths we have, seem to imply that the Paths of the Old Ones ((a thing that comes up in Giantslayer... well, I think the two Chaos Sorcerers mention it as early as the book they appear in I think, but only as a brief "The Paths of the Old Ones will open soon")) and that whatever-it-was that Ranald might have scampered off to secure, and probably set some of the Hedgewise to guard (in the Empire part of the Old World anyway) might be all related or might be the same thing.
If so, that would imply that Ulgu is somehow associated with travel or teleportation.
Perhaps it relates to quantum entanglement or quantum uncertainty, or space-folding or something.
Maybe like the old shell game trick, with a coin or pea. Ulgu can confuse
where a thing is. And sufficiently large or finely enough controlled applications of Ulgu, can allow for the creation of passageways. Or shortcuts. Or fast travel. I dunno.
I feel like Ulgu might warp or confuse space or location... and then Azyr is applied to then
navigate the uncertainty and tempestuous zone you've created. Azyr, a Wind of probability (like Ulgu is ambiguity and uncertainty). Azyr also probably has some neat boosts or methods for traveling in general too; because once you've created a weird passageway, it's not enough to just have a magical compass, you also probably want to be able to do a few course-corrections here and there, such as by summoning up a few winds to nudge you where you need to be going.
Anyway. I feel like that might be the case, because I think both Ulgu
and Azyr are found on ship-magics? i.e. The Marienburg school of magical navigation is, presumably, heavily Azyr. But there are probably Ulgu-based sailing magics and stuff too. Though at the level that sailing ships operate, Ulgu spellcasters might be better at the... "make anybody trying to track us,
lose track of us" part of things. And also perhaps if there are illusions or mists or confusing stuff to navigate through.
Anyway. Shadowsteed.
Where does the base of that spell come from, as an idea? Maybe from "how you get from Point A to Point B". Maybe it's sort of like an emergent property of Ulgu; that because Ulgu was used to confuse quantum entanglement or provide or create shortcuts through the world... this eventually set
precedent.
((Because that's another thing that the Winds of Magic seemed to be about; precedent as set by thinking beings, as I opined on in my post above. I mean, if you think of the Winds of Magic as just breaking down the primordial-stuff-of-creation that comes from primordial beings like dragons or Fimir or dragon-ogres or sea life or glacial beasts as they die and create mountains -- or maybe as they
live and create more territory? -- into 8 artificial energies, so that you can then
reweave those 8 energies into
a reality as YOU want it to be, rather than reality as naturally created by life... Well, it sort of makes sense. If you view things from the perspective of the Old Ones as, like, wanting to tinker with life artificially... but also being really really big on sustainability and sheer robustness; being well aware that if you decide to take up the axe in order to turn trees into house, you need to make sure that you also plant more trees too. ... Another possible way to view things is that... maybe life or existence is able to be shaped by thinking, or living, beings. Maybe living beings create more of the stuff-of-existence. And maybe the oldest lifeforms on this planet, simply did that for a long time. And more civilized or orderly beings, can do more with the stuff-of-existence; including turning it into a more artificial energy, rather than just a primordial well.))
Anyway. Maybe Shadowsteed uses precedents of "Ulgu was used to create, or
is, the Paths of the Old Ones" or maybe the precedents were "Ulgu used as a method for travel" which, in smaller form, became Shadowsteed. ((And in Battle Magic, turns into Steed of Shadows, a shadowy drake that repositions you on the battlefield. And also, the spellcasting trait of Ulgu is... "you can switch positions". Smoke and Shadows.))
... Perhaps if we try to tie things back to "subjectivity, things that are subjective or more opinionated", you could claim that
location is a subjective thing. From a certain point of view anyway. ... Not sure that quite fully works.
... Actually maybe it
does work, and maybe that's why Ulgu-as-teleporation is
battle magic grade. Because the only way you are possibly getting into "Okay, Ulgu will now start minorly treating reality as being more subjective" is if you throw battle magic grade amounts of it around.
... No, wait, but ethereal-ness and invisibility are also effects on there... ... And below those in complexity, there's actually Burning Shadows at Moderately Complicated. Which
burns things. For that matter, Mockery of Death is also there, and that puts beings into a sort of stasis. Both are pretty darn physically-affecting-the-world type effects. If you have to get up to battle magic levels in order to get "Yeah, okay, you are now contending with reality on what-something-actually-is-in-a-state-of" effects, then those spells are lower power than expected.
For that matter, Skywalk is literally a lesser magic and not an Ulgu-specific magic. Or the other lesser, or petty, magics being pretty physical-world-affecting.
