Ulon's sub-domains

[E-div_drone]

So I just recently bought, and am reading through, the Ruins of Azlant AP, and in book 3 there is additional background information on the Azlanti Pantheon. As I was looking over the various deities, and cross checking the domains they offer and their abilities, I was struck by the fact that Ulon has the Memory sub-domain. Given the description of him and his goals, along side the portfolios and domains he has, particularly Knowledge and Trickery, it would seem to me that Espionage would be an extremely obvious choice for a sub-domain, while Memory doesn't seem to fit at all.

So, by any random chance, does anyone out there know why he grants the Memory sub-domain rather than Espionage?

[John Compton]

I can hypothesize the likely reason.

I wrote the apocryphal subdomains for Heroes of the Streets, including the Espionage subdomain, published in 2015. Ulon was introduced in Ruins of Azlant, in 2017 or so. This meant that Ulon wasn't around for me to list as recommended deities for the Espionage subdomain in that article. Adding to that, the soft policy in Adventure Path design was to focus primarily on hardcover RPG resources, drawing on Player Companion content only rarely.

Thus, Ulon doesn't list Espionage because 1) the Espionage subdomain might not have beeb on the author's radar while writing his article, and/or 2) referencing a Player Companion for a niche subdomain in an Adventure Path article didn't match the article's needs.

I agree that Espionage would be a great fit for Ulon. Certainly for a home game, I'd think it an excellent substitution, GM approval willing.

[E-div_drone]

Thanks for that, that does explain how that would happen.

[Melkiador]

I remember us requesting something like a collection of the most popular player companion rules for a core book. Advanced weapon training could have been developed even more.

I guess Paizo was afraid there wouldn’t be much money in that though. And maybe they’d have been correct. Ultimate Wilderness did grab and address a number of things from player companions regarding wilderness and pets.