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Well worth plugging away to get to the end. One of the tougher grid fills. There definitely was a PDM for the 10 + 2 names.
Still a bit unclear about what exactly goes in the central circle. It seems is should just be what is spelled out by the spare letters, which fits the number of little notches, but am I looking for an alternative form of the name?

I don’t think there’s an alternative, gwuk. The number of notches is surely significant, so I think you’ve nailed it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that if you do orient it in clue order, the thick dividing line would be in the natural place for the name.

So you’re saying the exact same letters represented by the misprints, in clue order? That’s what I thought, but I get a different number of words than others have indicated.

I’m losing my mind over the name connection, if anyone has the gentlest of nudges.

Thanks, dodgepot.

Riversk, I think others are wrong. It happens on here. Re the name connection, it’s extremely difficult without giving too much away. Rather than look at the group, look at (or up) the individuals, (the first alphabetically revealed by the rotations would be a helpful one) and then look back at the puzzle and see if anything jumps out.

You might want to look at the clues to 4863, say, and then this one, and see if anything strikes you as unusual

Brilliant. Thank you again. As I suspected, I had it right the first time, but all the more satisfying to understand why. And, while I’m typing, the Scripture’s applicability has occurred to me. Also explains why a particular clueing gimmick was used so frequently. Lovely puzzle.

Glad you sorted it, and sorry if the nudges were oblique, but I know you understood the difficulty there. A terrific puzzle with multiple PDMs, for me

Shot out of bed at 5:30am with a massive PDM. So I have the ten thematic names in the original grid and rotated rings 2-6 to produce the additional 2 thematic names. Solved and parsed all clues other than the pesky 5 & 6, which I am still working on. Also need the final PDM to figure out what (and maybe how) to enter in the centre circle. This puzzle takes me back to the old days where hours were spent in a thematic location elsewhere - i would have found this puzzle impenetrable without the internet.

Just the middle to fill in now. Wasted hours on 5&6 thinking that they were single word definitions.

Surely there are more than two words in the middle? If there aren't I will be flabbergasted as they would (if necessary) align with the radials that lead to them, starting clockwise from the thick line in the centre. And that also aligns with the comment @ 16.