Gav Thorpe is a writer, games developer and creative consultant who lives in Nottingham, England. Gav, who designed his first wargame aged eight using Airfix plastic soldiers, is also a New York Times Bestselling author and winner of the 2017 David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel.
Gav has designed rules for miniatures and board games, written short stories, audio dramas and novels, and assisted in various capacities in the development and writing of tabletop and video games. He has also appeared on numerous discussion panels, and delivered writing workshops at literature and genre events.
He started working for Games Workshop in 1993, where he spent fourteen years working in games development, on White Dwarf magazine and the Key Design Team, so he’s written a lot about the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes.
He took part in almost every aspect of Games Workshop, from assistant game developer, to being in charge of the Warhammer Fantasy game system. He has also collaborated in the development and design of several editions of Warhammer 40,000, and as well as the creation of White Dwarf magazine articles. One of his last roles before leaving Games Workshop was the supervision over all the background of Games Workshop.
In 1997, when Games Workshop launched a new fiction imprint called Black Library, he began his stage as a fiction writer with a short story entitled Birth of a Legend. His influence on the development of the Warhammer 40,000 background continues today with his work for the Black Library.
His most popular works include The Sundering trilogy, the Path of the Eldar, works from the Horus Heresy series including Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban, the audio dramas Raven’s Flight and Honour to the Dead, and the New York times best-selling novella The Lion.
He left Games Workshop in 2007, to concentrate on being a full-time writer. He has produced numerous novels and stories for Black Library.
He is published by Angry Robot books where you can find his epic swords-and-sandals fantasy saga gathered in the omnibus collection entitled Empire of the Blood.
On the other hand, he wrote the script and voice-overs for the Mark of Chaos computer game, and contributed to a number of non-fiction titles including Hobby Games. Furthermore, he has designed, co-developed and consulted on a number of titles both for tabletop play and in the world of video games.
He also delivers workshops at writing events such as the Derby Literature Festival, and regularly appears on panels at conventions such as FantasyCon and EdgeLit.
Gav is one the most important shapers of the Warhammer Universe.