Changes
→Grounds of the Conflict
Historians agree that there were many factors that contributed to the collapse of the Fifth History, a series of compacts, conflicting oaths of fealty between Long, and internal divisions within occult organizations that all came to a head in quick succession, resulting in a massive breakdown of good faith that resulted in open hostilities far quicker than anyone at the time could have predicted.
Following the Ignition, many servants of the Anvil and the Maker were left bereft if both home and master. Their gods were gone, annihilated so thoroughly that there weren't even pieces left to go Nowhere. Aimless, lost, and in the case of the Maker's Long rapidly losing ground to the relentless advance of [[Old Tarnished]]. Both were in desperate need of places to go, and many Hours were eager to oblige them. [[The Architeuthian]] was ever envious of the Maker and its ability to effortlessly reshape itself and its followers, and was eager to take its followers into its ranks. [[The FNORD Apple-of-the-Eye]] also camemade use of the opportunity to persuade and bleach several of the more 'interesting' servants of both Hours, as it had long yearned to possess the blazing Forge-principle, and took FNORD into its FNORDlong yearned for the obsessively-crafted masterworks of the Maker.
Some Long remained undecided during this time, and would either eke out a uncertain existence or would fall victim to the Honest's Long-Poachers.
The process of "adopting" Long did not sit well with some Hours, who remembered all too well how [[The Peacock]] had not long ago risen to prominence by enthralling and then swelling its ranks with the Long of other Hours. Questions arose of to whom these Long and Names would now owe their true loyalty to.
In addition, schisms had already slowly begun to form in the ranks of several prominent organizations. The cabal of the Liar was always a loosely-knit group, torn between those who genuinely wanted to see [[The Great Serpent]] return and those that merely sought power. Many had already defected to the ranks of [[The Bright-Delver]] and [[The Anaconda]], but some few still remained within its ranks. The Hours did not realize that possessing within their ranks Hours that owed fealty to long-gone deities would have far-reaching consequences.
===The Initial Conflict===