Fog School

The Fog School is a philosophical, cultural, and literary movement which emerged in the latter years of Princess Orithia's reign, and dominated during the hundred-year-rule of the Godking. It was a reaction to the then-prominent ideals of the Hypermythic School, although strictly compartmentalizing the two is a futile exercise.

As a Literary Style
Scholars agree that the Fog style first emerged approximately fifteen years before Madri ascended, at or around the University of the Setting Sun; poets such as Quinces the Younger, who believed that the possibilities of Hypermythic had been all-but-exhausted, began with a period of linguistic experimentation, eschewing the descriptive and detailed language which defined the former school and embracing the potential of ambiguity. This ambiguity, in language, detail, and especially tone, would come to be the defining feature of Fog School poetry. While there are innumerable works which might lay claim to being the first poem of the Fog School, the earliest work which is universally agreed to be a clear example of the movement is by Quinces the Younger ; like most Fog School poetry it is unnamed, but is colloquially referred to as "Quinces's Ankh of Eternity ." As in all Fog School poems, the titular Ankh is never referred to by name within the work, and Moaog the Unbeliever is referred to only as "That Southron peasant," "The First Gods' pawn," and, most controversially, "The damned martyr."

Controversy
Unsurprisingly, because the Fog School philosphy centered upon doubtful analysis and re-interpretation of classic stories, it proved immediately unpopular with the Order of Twelve, whose attempts to ban the style were ultimately futile, and in the short term acted to increase the Fog School's popularity and power even as they confined it to secret readings and hidden diaries.

Cited in

 * Book of the Inmost Ward