Joerg

Perhaps the question is not whether she has to give up the service to Humakt, but whether she can side-line it to just part of her identity, and adopt another one without abandoning Humakt. Look at Londra of Londros, who continues as an associate priest of Orlanth after her Humakti community was taken out of her hands. There may also be an involuntary "no longer Humakti" effect to be gained while heroquesting. King of Dragon Pass had the unfortunate outcome of the Humakt heroquest where the Humakti lost the duel with Orlanth on the "I am not a farmer" stage, turning said quester into a farmer rather than a warrior. Now the Orlanthi farmer is in no way a subdued pacifist. He just lacks the single-minded pursuit of death and warfare.

The Malkioni knew the western Genertelan Hsunchen as Hykimi, and the Bright Empire appears to have used that as the collective term, too. The term Hsunchen appears to be native to the Shan Shan region of eastern Genertela, and possibly replaced the familiar "Hykimi" in the West during their craze for everything Kralorelan. I wonder whether there are dialects for the various sub-groups of beast shapes e.g. among the Rathori or the Pujaleg, or whether the antlered Hsunchen (Pralori, Damali, Uncolings, Alecci) have related languages. The two groups of porcupine Hsunchen (Fronela and Teshnos) are distinct groups with different languages. Even individuals will change their pronunciations over time. Language is highly adaptative, and people unconsciously mirror the pronunciation of their regular contacts. What counteracts such drift is poetry relying on rhymes and rhythm to provide the mnemonics that preserve the tradition. If a linguistic shift collides with such strong mnemonics, the mnemonics may carry the day.

Wyrm's Footnotes 15 p.19 tells about the Marsh encroaching on the southern half of the settlement, but the RQG Adventure Book only repeats the traffic information and doesn't mention any of the detail provided in Wyrm's Footnotes. Should we disregard that information? Otherwise it seems as if the ducks have claimed some of the housing and land abandoned by the humans, if not as permanent settlement then as a place for industry. The concept of an unkempt garden in between abandoned housing makes it sound like a place for seasonal gathering for the ducks. Possibly some form of transhumance, really. 70-80 people remain in the (southern?) village - that is the equivalent of four or five steads. Enough for a single thane maintaining the clan's hospitality to the mercantile traffic on this side of the Creek. The northern village still sits at a healthy distance from the Marsh. It would have housed about 150 - 200 inhabitants in its prouder days, and possibly still does. Where did the people fleeing from the expanding Marsh disappear to? Did they move into Runegate (which could do with such an influx of population after the massive losses inflicted by the Bat)? The expansion of the Marsh would have occurred a few years before the Starbrow rebellion, when Kallai still was king of the Colymar. The expansion of the Upland Marsh appears to sink the affected lands. I suppose that this doesn't work all that well on bedrock, but will affect all of the silty valley bottom. Some niggling about the detail map: The ford should be on a wider stretch of the Creek, unless you have a deity or spirit here that can slow down the flow of the water upon worship. Or rather, imagine two water lines for the Creek, one for normal situations with lots of pebbly river bottom showing, and one for high water situations. Possibly have two or three channels where the river normally flows, and sand banks in between. Take another look at the height lines. I can see that you want to define a rather narrow band that contains the Creek, but your settlements on either side cross two of these lines, putting both on rather steep rises. I would suggest that you use a different line type for intermediate profile lines than for the major lines to give local detail. When I design a ruin field, I usually start with the functional settlement that was there at its heyday - in this case, a twin village crewing the ferry barge, maintaining some tilled fields on the southern bank and using the northern bank for pasture. Probably a thane's household on either side, with tenants (river folk) required to crew the ferry in Storm and Sea Seasons when not pursuing their "fishing" (which includes permanent fish traps, crayfish, hunting river fowl or collecting eggs from their nests, harvesting cress and similar edible water weeds) and some subsistence farming/gardening. You arranged the houses as for a level ground, with two jutting into the river. Given the prospensity for massive thaws in Storm and Sea Season, you should define a typical high water mark and another extreme high water mark. Any building directly adjacent to the water would be on a ledge in the terrain, on a very sturdy foundation of massive masonry, or it would have to be temporary, possibly on stilts to outlast at least a normal high water situation. If that was your intention, running a water mill directly on a major river that may change its water levels by several yards over the course of the seasons usually makes use of boat mills. A dwarf-built mill might be able to change the water wheel position with the water levels, but ordinary human artisanry most likely cannot. Boat sheds have the same problem. You will probably use something like a slip path to drag the boats as high onto the banks as seems prudent rather than provide permanent moorings, unless you have a non-silting side arm of the river without much of a current. Because of the varying water levels, leaving the palisade or earthen rampart open to the river won't provide much protection unless it extends into the current, and in that case it needs to be super sturdy as it will create a choke point when high water comes. Depending on the geology, the Creek is going to eat into the river banks at high water, which makes a rampart directly on the shore line a high maintenance building - possibly a dike. Given the rather generous slope that the height lines suggest, I'd retreat the settled area on both sides a little away and up from the normal banks, with only palisade (an open one with significant spacing between the boles) extending to the shore to provide a partiall sheltered shore area where you stow your boats and other equipment regularly used on the water. I would add a minor stream or similar at least to the southern half of the settlement for water supply. The terrain north of the Creek is not very hilly or broken, and while it may have some places where the bedrock juts out of the surface, I expect most of it to be covered in soil. It would all be forested if not for the dinosaur herds that keep the vegetation down. The inhabitants of Two Sisters likely use the area as pasture, too - plowing and tilling that side of the Creek is only an intricate way to feed the dinosaurs. Which might be something the people do here, providing a sacrificial feeding ground for the hulking beasts as propitiation. Harvesting hay will be the main agricultural use of the land. There ought to be some other resource on the north bank warranting the permanent settlement there - some activity that made the founders extend their permanent settlement into the land adjacent to the dragonewt plains. Or perhaps a former arm of the Creek to the north of that half of the settlement, marking it as separate from the adjacent plains despite having fallen completely dry except at the highest flooding. A source of special clay, possibly some source of metal... or possibly a holy site that warrants a permanent shrine and tenants on that side of the Creek.

Rivers don't really make good borders, as they are wont to change course over time, and if you have fisherfolk in your clan, you'd be using all of the (immediate) river valley for your activities. Rivers do form a barrier for overland movement, sure, but a ferry- or ford-site with settled area on both sides of the river connects the land on both sides. I don't think that it is possible to have settled area outside of your tula (although settlements shared with another clan would be another issue), so the river cannot really be the absolute boundary of the clan. The dragonewts certainly don't claim any human settlements for their own unless they rest on draconic power spots, and in that case they would be quite unlikely to allow the establishment of the settlement in the first place.

While the modern pronunciation is near identical, the Old English pronunciation probably was identical to the German "Wicht", which appears to be a general term for a humanoid supranatural entity (in modern German mostly in combination with a qualifier, e.g. "Bösewicht", evil wight - also used for generic villains). The German "Wicht" or "Wichtel" appears in the shape of the household spirit, comparable to the brownie, or the Scandinavian tomte, but that's probably the result of centuries of church suppression of these ancient entities. The combination of genius loci and communal spirit can manifest in other environments, too, like e.g. a ship's cobold. Probably the best way to deal with Gloranthan names, yes.

The word itself appears to be a neologism created for King of Sartar. It seems to have an Old English relative, "wyt" as an alternate spelling of "wit", of which wyter would be the active form (though the pronunciation then would be "witter"), which could be translated as someone who observes, knows, witnesses. But then I wonder whether Greg was into Old English linguistics at that time - his name creations are powerful sounds, but don't have much of a linguistic system, and it may have been the audience that projected Old English or even proto-Indo-European onto the term. I still think that the term is general Theyalan rather than Orlanthi, and it may well have come from the older Earth culture that received the Downland Migration of the Durevings. The ancient Malkioni had their concept of the perfect city, of magic through architecture and society. The cities did have a single ruler, possibly with privileged access to a genius loci, or delegating that access to their first sorcerer. There may have been a city mind or a city meme embodied in that combination of inhabited architecture. The founder (planner) of the place may have been identified with this, making such an entity hard to discern from the wyter of one of Sartar's tribal confederation cities. The other city god concept comes from Solar culture, with the city god also represented by the fiery orb hovering above the temple tower of the city, illuminating the surrounding lands with his glory. We find the "planetary sons" in Dara Happa as a continuation of the turning goddess, and we find Ehilm all over Ralios and Harono in Esrolia. The sacred tree of the elf forests is another shape of this, with the crown of those trees originally the source of light and warmth for their environment - the deaths of Flamal and Ehilm are somewhat interconnected in Ralian pre-history. Tondiji in Fonrit used to be the example of the ultimate city god, who ruled even over the cosmic deities (the local variations of the rune owner deities in the Theyalan/God Learner canon).

Not necessarily. A cohesive, uniform group will have greater commonalities and probably communal strength than a patchwork city balancing multiple outside interests (like the tribal confederation cities founded by Sartar), let alone hodgepodges of multi-species cohabitation like Old Pavis. Malkioni ancestor reveration is a known and un-disputed fact. They serve as focus for identification of e.g. castes, dynasties, and probably warrior societies, too. That's a weird way of describing the HQ2 era. If you are referring to the de-churching of Malkionism, true, the Guide is the only document we have on the Malkioni since that decision. We now have them re-branded as "men-of-all" and "ascended masters", and thoroughly purged from Rokari orthodoxy. The Xeotam Dialogue suggests the use of divine entities under a sorcerer's supervision, but doesn't mention any community entities. Under HQ1 we learned about the chain of veneration, and RQG still has "worship Invisible God" as a major sorcerous means for accessing community magic. It isn't quite clear whether the sorcerers officiating in these make use of divine entities or whether they have a hands-on approach to the magic transported. If they make use of such entities, one might refer to them as wyters. The draconic chain of veneration of the EWF may have been influenced by Kralorelan practices, too - but to me it looks like the Exarchs make themselves something like "living wyters". But then the speakers of Orlanthland did institute Living Heroes, starting with Hardros Hardslaughter who ended Arkat's Command, directing worship to these individuals (culminating in the draconic energies enabling Isgangdrang and consorts to manifest Great Dragons).

So, the wyter casts enchant for one point, and collects the remaining POW from volunteers. Fine, possibly save 4 POW per five extra recipients for that one point. The rest of the POW is provided by volunteers, and there is no indication that a wyter can multiply those contributions. Note that you are entering the territory of the God Learner sin of mass producing magical items here. This will attract spectres of the past, and possibly Mostali guard mechanisms currently stationed in the Clanking Ruins descending upon your community. The recipients could become marked as gobbler-food, something you don't really wish to witness even on your worst enemies, let alone unleash on yourself. (Trying to puzzle out your use of "PBI" in connection to Glorantha...)

Yes, so basically the wyter can multispell the enchantment. What it cannot do is multiply the effect of the POW contributed to create the enchantments, each single enchantment needs to be paid in full.

I think that wyters, being an Orlanthi phenomenon, were spread far and wide by the Theyalan missionaries, so that you can find them throughout Genertela west of the Wastes and probably outside of Dara Happa proper (although the regimental deities/standards are hard to distinguish from wyters). This also includes Umathela. It isn't clear how much the Malkioni adopted the concept, and if so, for which castes/occasions, so Old Seshnela and Loskalm may be less wytered than other areas. I am inclined to postulate an Earth origin for the concept, which would include much of basal Dara Happa, the Wastes and possibly even Teshnos, too. In that case, Old Seshnela definitely would have known the concept, too, and given the ancient origins of the Malkioni, the Brithini might possibly have the knowledge though not the practice. In Pamaltela, we have the Necklace rather than the wyter for the communal power of the deities.

Magical representation normally is the realm of the rune lords, whereas the priests are more the mediators. I agree that the Champion is not the usual representative for Pavis - mainly because he used to be absent since the Troll Occupation. The job of a priest is to mediate between the deity and the worshipers, but not to become the deity - that's the job description of a rune lord. The domain Pavis is the wyter for is the entire rubble, and by Dorasar's extension probably New Pavis, too. The Real City is the remaining settled part of the largest urban area inside the giant wall, but it wasn't a separate entity in Pavis' lifetime or at his apotheosis. The plural in "priests" speaks against this as the wyter function, though. Yes, it is possible that the city wyter does not communicate with the ruler, but with the Son of Pavis. Pavis is by all means an unusual entity.

I think it depends on whether you belong to the Bright Empire, or whether you are opposed to it. IMO Gbaji is something like the barrier or event horizon between Nysalor and Arkat. If you are allied with/aligned to Nysalor, you will look outward and perceive Gbaji. If you are opposed to Nysalor, looking at him you will perceive Gbaji. The Red Goddess sort of re-awakened Gbaji and/or Nysalor on her quest. After her ascension, the event horizon was the edge of the Silver Shadow, later expanded as the Glowline, and removed from the avatars of the two sides of illumination.

I am playing a character whose background story had him learning that style from almost the beginning of his weapon training, due to a chance encounter from before his initiation where he saved a weapon master from walking into an ambush. He trained with that master for a while, considering joining Humakt, before witnessing that master's death at the teeth of a "fellow" Humakti. RuneQuest being RuneQuest, you learn to use one weapon only, too - e.g. when you get hit on one of your arms during training. This manages to confuse me. What is the point of having to learn Dual Wielding if I can have the result from using the RAW, attacking with both weapons regularly, without foregoing any parry?

I disagree (strongly) with the notion that you need to be a weapons master to develop that skill. Your way of taking the Martial Arts rules for dual wield would work if there was something more to the skill that just being allowed to use the RAW for attacking with either hand. Like controlling the opponent's weapon to hinder (or even prevent) his parry as an action for both weapons (allowing just one attack). Basically as a gift, although I think that a 5% skill for a DI is a lousy "reward". Rather than DI, you could rather go on a heroquest to Kargan Tor's court of weapons and participate there. Trainers found, but you have to prove your mettle first. It should be possible to do this via a low level heroquest. I seem to recall a magazine-published write-up of a heroquest to Kargan Tor's court of weapons, and I would build upon that. (IIRC Tales, probably #5, the Humakt issue) To be honest, I dislike the DI option, although you seem to be thinking in "Rune Lords only" terms here. Your proposal with the additional skill needs some clarifications what happens if you and your opponent have skills above 100% in their regular weapon skill used for parrying. Is your proposed "dual wield" skill reduced the same way your attack skill is reduced? On the whole, to me your suggestion reads as "don't use this skill unless you have trained it up to at least the lower of your two weapon skills," or "how to castrate a blade master." Sorry.

Dual wielding can only be started through Divine Intervention? Your Glorantha surely does vary from mine. In my Glorantha, there is an Esrolian fencing style (originally from Rhigos) using two (Bronze Age) rapiers, taught by sword masters of the cult of Humakt, and by some sword sages of Nochet, too (who are the ones producing the research literature on this style). The style was developed for judicial duels rather than for battles, but may find application outside of the dueling courts nonetheless. There are gladiatorial uses for this style, too, but then judicial duels double as a form of entertainment anyway. RQG has no combat styles as separate skills, which is why I use separate skills for right hand and left hand attack.

I would say yes, a city god is the wyter of its city. And usually, the chief priest of the wyter would be the mayor (or, in case of Pavis, the King of the city - the mayor of Pavis really is the mayor of New Pavis). Pavis is a special case, as he also has a cult with a priesthood and on occasion a champion rune lord. I don't think that his cult has any ability to invoke Pavis as one would a tribal wyter, the cult uses some little understood way of theist worship and sorcery in the name of Pavis. The Real City is where Pavis apotheosized and has his physical representation. This is similar to Sartar's brazier in Boldhome. The walled part of the Real City is just the center of survival during the Nomad incursions and the troll occupation - in the lifetime of Pavis this was the administrative center of the city, and the most densely populated part, with other parts given to pasture or gardening. Dorasar did invite Pavis into the newly walled section to the north of the city, and did so by creating the replica temple leaning onto the giants' wall. In the end, what Dorasar did was to extend the walled area of the city by the area of New Pavis. The new temple offers access to the cult without any of the dangers that may emerge from the ruins around the Real City, and has become the main cultic center for all those new immigrants to Pavis. I don't think his direct powers as a wyter have been invoked before 1624, with his city god capacities mainly carried by the cult and the priesthood. IMO it takes a King of Pavis, or at least a champion who exerts rule over the majority of the city, to be able to access the wyter functions. The Arrowsmith kings would have had access to the wyter. With the establishment of the walled refuges, I don't think that Pavis as the wyter of the whole city could be invoked any more. Argrath might succeed if he manages to get the loyalty of Javis Gan and other troll leaders of the Rubble, in addition to those of the human settlements. It is a bit ironic that the first kingship that falls into his hands is of Solar origin... the Arrowsmith dynasty established a horse nomad city rulership rather than the king of an Orlanthi ring.

It isn't that odd. The Greatway dwarves still were part of the God Project at the Sunstop, and they may have contributed these to the unborn deity. Checking the RQ2 Trollpak, the armament of Gbaji is "eyes of darts", "claws of iron fire" and "robes of burning light". In the first person account, Gbaji strikes its fangs into the Black Eater's ears even after his legs have been ripped off, then gets smashed to pulp and swallowed. Nothing of this really contradicts the HotHP account. Whether Nysalor could draw forth metal claws in Wolverine style or whether he wore iron gauntlets isn't detailed in HotHP. The bright robes probably were seen, but not remarked upon.

Somehow that feels wrong - the barefoot guy is supposed to resurrect others. Edit: And while "Help" had a lady in red, she was supposed to be the sacrifice, not the resurrecting woman.

More likely too cold, as even Esrolia will see regular winter weeks. Not to mention the recent fimbulwinter that may have taken its toll with such more delicate orchards. Esrolia is grain land, but will also grow flax (for linen and oilseed), probably some form of rice, a range of vegetables, herbs and plant dyes, fruit and aromatic wood. Citrus fruits possibly are grown in orangeries that are closed in winter and open to the elements in the other seasons. Warm Earth magics might have allowed olive groves prior to the fimbulwinter, but right now those groves need a heck of a lot of magic to get productive again. They just might in time for the great flooding. Nochet's immediate surroundings are mainly marshland and cemetary. (The t after the o in "Nochet" is pronounced, but not spelled.) The closest agriculturally used land outside the city lies on the northern bank of the Lyksos estuary, visible from Orlanth's Hill or the river dyke. IMO that land west of the Plateau has mostly grain and possibly flax fields. It isn't quite clear whether the Antones estates have any votive gardening that might also carry fruit.

Shargash probably is involved - or do you know another deity likely to wield a star club?

I don't see the necessity for that. The hospitality rites are ancient, and probably go back to the Celestial Court - possibly the obscure deities of that, too. Umath granting hospitality to Veskarthan already uses the rite. There is probably a Green Age event for the rite, as there is a passage in the Entekosiad which is about visitors misbehaving, IIRC one of the three errors blamed on the men. By engaging in these hospitality rites, some of the most ancient magics of Glorantha are invoked. Think of that as a This World heroquest granting the performing host the divine ability to see through the intention to ask for hospitality and then break it. Though granting hospitality to a party containing one or more tricksters either sets off these warning signals (and you might have to grant hospitality despite the knowledge that you are letting disorder into your home) or tricksters might lie to themselves to adhere to the demands of hospitality. The Only Old One lost his son this way... Such rites are magical, but while RQG has a number of ritual spells, none of them has been created for this kind of ritual (yet). In practice, you'd probably have to succeed in a custom (culture) roll to perform the rite correctly. No idea whether a rune point or a small magic point expenditure is warranted for this to give magical feedback. There will be guests you know that will bring trouble, despite any vows of hospitality you might exact from them, but you still will have to offer them hospitality or suffer political and probably magical consequences. Tricksters and Storm Bull Berserks alike are more or less certain to obey the rules of hospitality more in the breach. SMU warlocks or openly chaotic Lunars aren't any better. And then there are in-laws...

Given today's news about Uhrwerk Verlag (the company who was about to publish the German RQG) going insolvent, the "applied" bit of the case might have become hypothetical for the time being. This is slightly different, after all the contents we are talking about are proprietary by either the authors or the publishers of those languages, and unless Chaosium put something like an obligation to provide such material to something like an organized play library, there are licensin questions to be solved. So far I am lucky in that I should be able to read any localized product armed with a dictionary, but if it comes to a Spanish or Japanese version of RQG with homebrew material, I'd be relying on translations, too.

Definitely true for Jar-eel (though she was killed by Harrek, and has to push aside quite the queue of people not amused by his actions), and true for heroquesters worth their salt. The "return from death" heroquest is one that should be written up, as it is a common trait of capital H Heroes and many of the more powerful heroquesters. There will be a range of variations, of course, but some may be within the reach of player characters. I do think that the quest should have some mandatory loss or a number of geases involved. For the capital H Heroes, killing these means that you have a window of time to perform something significant without their interfering. (Do expect them to be returned in time for the showdown, though, and better have that backdoor from Death researched yourself.) Preventing resurrection is comparatively easy - taking the head is a good method. It is not proof against heroquesting, but then even the special hells like the one for Sheng and Hofstaring aren't. As long as your choice of special Hell to stuff your enemy in is sufficiently original, your opposition will have a harder time returning their lost Hero. As the Hero Wars proceed, the major heroes become less and less human and more and more meme, to the point that they may return as avatars in different bodies already present at the moment. Argrath Sharpsword has already saddled himself with a meme - that of Arkat the Liberator. He does retain some humanity, yet, but there will definitely be moments when he is the puppet of destiny or the defier or bender of destiny and not really a mortal. I wouldn't say that, but such a character would have to give up quite a bit of free will and yield to railroading and ever more dire "you have left your path" challenges. I wouldn't say it is impossible to enjoy playing such a limited character, although playing his sidekick might be the alternative when destiny calls. Within limits. There are a few major quests in the Argrath Saga - LBQ, Kalikos Quest, and the Tear Down the Moon Utuma. Those can be played as major curses upon the character. The refusal of the quest is the next step after the Call to Action, and that can become an ironic theme in the personal saga of that player character. Fixed decision points: yes. Fixed in time and cast: only somewhat. There will be a bandwidth of variations, and a character may end up taking a role on the opposite side you would have him expected to perform. Your characters might carry the Black Spear into Snake Pipe Hollow, and lose it in (or to) the Maggot. The consequences for the Colymar Tribe would be severe, and there is a great likelihood that it splits and that some of those splinters will be destroyed or absorbed by other tribes.

I am getting a mite irritated about this discussion, as if wyters are the only type of middling deity/larger spirit that is used in temple defenses etc. Wyters have the advantage of being closely tied to the community, and to have a permanent link to the chief priest of the wyter. This makes them both fairly reliable, and it creates a bottle-neck if the chief priest is (or has become) unavailable. When building up a spiritual defense force, you may want other guardian entities than just the wyter. Temple defenses may rely on local cult heroes that may have been somewhat upgraded with gifts or a portion of the local worship energy. I would be quite interested in an energy flow scheme as a God Learner sorcerer with RuneQuest Sight might have been able to observe and provide. Note that the first (and throughout the Imperial Age most important) such energy flow was that of the energies channeled in Malkioni services. These are quite likely the source for the huge step up in sorcerous abilities after the revelation of the Abiding Book, leading to magics like the burning of Vralos. It isn't quite clear whether the Malkioni use something like wyters, or whether they insert sorcerous spells instead. Chain of Veneration worked for the dragon-wannabes like Isgangdrang and Burin, too, and I have speculated whether this was a contribution to the EWF by Delecti. Something like this has been present in published Glorantha since the publication of Nomad Gods, where the Protectresses are a communal spirit of the herds, wielded by an aspect of Eiritha. Units sending their spirits against others is in the first ever publication of Glorantha, White Bear and Red Moon, their identification with wyters came a bit later, with/after the definition of the term wyter (KoS softcover edition, 1992). The Glorantha Sourcebook now confirms those deductions made in the early years of the digest. What is new is the mechanical treatment for RQG. Powergaming and fun with friends are far from being mutually exclusive, and for all his great contributions to narrative roleplaying, Greg Stafford was also deeply rooted in wargaming, calculating the military and magical potential of the various portions of Glorantha. (That's what the population numbers in the Guide are for/come from.) Yes, there is a whole lot of exploration to magical and at times downright weird places to be made in Glorantha. The Outer World of Glorantha is badly under-used in Gloranthan context. There are two epic journeys on the Sky River, and a number of quests into the Underworld along the Sunpath, mainly for the HeroQuest system. But yes, we want RuneQuest to become a vehicle for exploring these magically overpowered aspects of Glorantha, too. Taking community support along on a heroquest is one way to do this. There may be other ways to do so than just taking the wyter and its holding object along - easy to do with the Colymar Black Spear, nigh impossible to do with the Thunder Oak.

Was the exclusive German-created content for RQ3 (Schatten in den Hügeln...) ever made available in English, or is there a chance that it may still be made available? This is the second announcement of original content for a non-English adaptation, after the Swedish plans for Fronela. (And it's putting some pressure on other non-English editions, or at least their support groups... carefully avoiding mirror surfaces while writing this.)