Raven c.s. McCracken was born blue on June 6th, 1962, in Los Angeles California at 12:05 and pronounced alive at 1:40AM.  His unwed mother, a victim of endometreosis, had a single chance to have a child... and she took it.  Raven grew up never knowing his biological father.
By the tender age of 5, he was performing alongside his mother in small dinner bars around the city singing for tips.  By 3 he was reading, and by 4 reciting books he had already read; this prompted some testing.  As a result his mother was advised to place him in schools for the “Gifted as his IQ was estimated at 172.  Unfortunately, Raven's mother lacked the funds, and Raven was forced to attend public schools.
At the age of 7 he began training in gymnastics, and boxing through the boys and Girls club.  The boxing was short lived, as Raven spent a good deal of his gymnastics practice sessions walking on his hands, which made him a bit stronger than the kids in his weight class, by the time they found someone who could beat him, the challenger was in a greater weight class.  After one such session, in which the older kid beat Raven; Raven stated: “I don't want to Box anymore.”
To which his mother, ever the strong supporter, announced: “So, they finally find a kid who can beat you, and you want to quit?, No way!”
As a result Raven finished out the sessions and made the best of it.  But his heart was in gymnastics; by his 9th year, Raven was introduced to the teeter-board and the trapeze.
During this period, one of his mother's boyfriends was a hypnotist; from him Raven learned the art as much as a young boy was able.  This later turned out to be of great significance.
Unfortunately, Fate intervened and his mother married another gentleman and moved to, of all places, a town called Port Angeles Washington and Raven was enrolled in school under the name Craig Warren, one of his middle names and the last name of his mother's new husband. No TV, No Radio, and only a set of encyclopedia Britannica to read.  His new step-father was in the coastguard, and stranger than a hen driving a Lamborghini, assigned to the new ice breakers and  roll-over boats in the Columbia river outlet.
Raven read the encyclopedia, and many others, books that had been tucked away in the small library in town; books hidden in the basement. Tombs on religion, magic, the occult, psychology, science, eugenics, genetics, as well as a host of others that opened up his very young mind.  With a budding fancy for slight of hand, and a albeit limited background in hypnosis, he began practicing to be a magician, and like all children who acquired the hobby, for a while he practiced diligently for many years.
At the tender age of 11 Raven returned home from the 5th grade to find his mother's unconscious form on the bed, and the suicide note, blaming him.  Fortunately, he was able to call the proper authorities and his -now estranged step-father- and save her life.  That was the first of several suicide attempts and several failed marriages. Unfortunately Raven's mother  suffered from a hormonal imbalance brought about by a hysterectomy.  The result was a woman with PMS permanently.
In the 6th Grade, Raven was published for the first time, in a small publication for children in his school.  This was his first taste of writing.
In Jr High, he was in the drama group; played the lead in two plays winning both, the best actor award, and the biggest ham award.  The later very deservedly!
It was in the 7th grade, that his mother met and married Walter Rogers.  A man that was to have the most important impact on his young life.  The story is simple: one day aftyer school some bullies were waiting to beat raven up, typical life, Raven called for a ride and Walter responded.  When Walter pulled up to the front of the school, Raven made a dash for the car.  Just as Raven's hand touched the door handle Walter locked the door and rolled down the window, depositing a tire iron in Ravens hand.  He then made one statement: “Kill em.”
Raven chased of the bullies and once let into the car, Walter announced, “I guess I'm going to have to marry your mom, and make a man out of you!”  That night Raven began instruction in the Martial Arts; it seemed that his, soon to be stepfather had a few military secrets to share.  This training, coupled with his gymnastics ability, was to lead to a very interesting life.
One result of the melange of training manifested in what can only be called a delusional state: for a while Raven considered himself a psychic and a witch.
Using his magician skill, and a fair amount of psychology, along with a few physical tricks such as stopping his heart at will, and bending keys with his finger tips, Raven was able to fool some of the the school kids around him into believe that he had psychic powers.  By the time he reached High School, there were some who actually believed that he had theses powers; however, more importantly they were afraid that Raven actually believed that he had these powers.  The charade continued into high school as Raven was denied any other creative outlets.
In high school, Raven's acting was halted by an instructor; who happened to be the drama, choir and gymnastics coach, all rolled into one pedophile. As Raven was the only male in the gymnastics class, he was instantly despised and as he was a competent gymnast, actor, and singer, it made things even worse.  As a result, while in high school all of his creative outlets were staunched by one man, who was later ran out of town on a rail, so to speak!  However, as the town did not have a male gymnastics squad, they did have a diving team; to this day, Raven/craig is still in the top twenty, one meter spring board divers in points in the state of Washington.
Another important point to mention was the constant violence Raven endured while in the small town.  Along with his best friend at the time, Raven came to school armed with enough weapons to have a child sent to jail these days.  Nunchacu, throwing stars, knives and wrist rockets among the arsenal.  As raven was somewhat odd, to say the least, he was constantly being bullied.  As he was soon able to defend himself, the challenge soon became to beat him was to earn a reputation.  One such occasion began in class, a young boy struck him on the back of the head, in plain view of the driving instructor, Mr Eldredge.  The teacher was outraged and said: “Are you going to take that?”  Raven waved iut away and said: “After class.”  Once class was dismissed, Raven walked out in front of the office and turned on the older taller boy.  The fight ensued, and as always the inexperienced boy soon found himself bloodied and beaten within a few moments. As expected the teachers arrived and carried the boy to the office apologizing to Raven.  This happened at least once a week: someone would pick a fight and Raven would send them to the office, the nurses, or it would be a long shouting match.
This combat and instant reaction to violence, with violence, would be a focal point for the rest of his life. Raven has seen several knife fights, chased down thieves, defended people on the streets and generally found that trouble knows precisely where he lives.
Earning enough credits to graduate in his Jr year, Raven left school to go to Florida and “Join a rock band.”  He ended up staying a little over a year, at which time he dallied with the band, but never made it into one, he was also introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, this was 1979.
Upon returning to Washington, he found a group, with of all things, an old diving rival as the Guitar player.  The first of many bands Raven was to lead; however, it was the second band that led him to write his first book.
During this time he met, and fell in love with, two wonderful ballet dancers at Cornish.  Out of the goodness of their hearts, they took him in and for a few years he lived with them learning about life, love and above all: responsibility for his actions.
During  Band practice sessions, Raven  found himself creating his first fantasy role-playing game for the members of the second band.  The turn came when a player paid him to make a copy of his hand written manuscript, and made a duplicate; which Raven promptly sold for the money to print more copies, and the game began to grow.
Living on nothing at the time, Raven found himself spending a year  on the streets of Seattle.  Singing at the Pike Place Market, something he still does to this day, he earned enough to feed himself, and with the help of a friend, was able to get off the streets; back into school and eventually land a job in engineering at Boeing; where he worked for over 7 years.
It was the stability of Boeing that enabled him to form his first few small companies to produce his books in earnest. One of the difficulties with designing a universe is that it takes a bit of writing and playtesting; hence the development process continued, through several printings and revisions until 1993 when the latest version of the game was produced along with the supplement.  The World of Synnibarr sold around the word in 13 countries and was the world's first Science Fiction Fantasy Role playing game.
From his association with several comic artists during the endless rewrites, Raven found himself offered the opportunity to learn horsemanship, jousting, armored sword combat, and a host of other activities that played right into the development of his RPG.  All of this was part of a modeling job for DC comics Avatar Series based on TSR books and RPG supplements.  Raven played the part of Kelemvore Lyionsbane in a unique project where they used live actors to draw the comic.
From the development of the comic and the publication of his books, Raven was offered a job as host for a TV show on Channel 13, The show was called Rockhard TV and it was, in essence, a Seattle focused MTV spin off.  With videos, Interviews and news about the music scene in Seattle.  Raven hosted the program for a little over three years.  During his time as host, he used his resources to create a band, write and record some music, and film three videos.
It was not soon after the release of Raven's Supplement to Synnibarr, The Ultimate Adventures Guide, That there was a change in the market: the creation of a card game Magic by Wizards of the Coast.  This proved to be the death of money from books.
The story goes: Raven was the first published of games in the Seattle area at the time, Wizards came along and started up a company and almost went out of business.  In fact, Raven and the president of Wizards shared a table at a convention selling their products.  Some time after, Wizards announced that they were releasing this new card game.  They offered Raven and his team seats at a reduced rate on a flight to Gencon, then owned by TSR the creators of Dungeons and Dragons, in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  This was in 1994.  The first day at the convention the wizards booth had a line around it, by th end of the con it was the BIG thing.  The following year, the fans knocked down displays to get to the Wizards booth, and all they bought was MAGIC.  Unfortunately, the other vendors around Raven knew of his association with Wizards and they demanded that he go to Peter Adkison and complain.
Raven did so, and Peter said: “Raven, you tell everybody, that I only brought one truck of product; I could have brought ten!”  Raven agreed, and in a show of good business Peter allowed Raven to ship his booth and remaining books back on one of his trucks.  That convention Raven's sales, along with everybody else's were down by 75%.
The collapse of his sales, forced Raven to find employment at his publishers store, Wonderworld Books; where he met his wife Renee.
During this time, Raven went to the gambling commission and cleared MAGIC for gambling and porfessional use.  From that he created the world's first Professional Magic Tournament: Vavictus. His reasoning, if you can't beat them join'em. In a strange coincidence not a single Magic Player from Wizards of the Coast made an appearance aside from the artists and other guests.  And lo an behold within a few months, the first professional Magic Tournament was held on ESPN. Thwarted once more!
From Wonderworld Books, Raven found a job designing computer games for Synergistic software, a subsidiary of Sierra On-line; unfortunately, Sierra chopped up the small development company, bought out the owner, and let the fantasy game division go...Sigh.
From Sierra, Raven worked at Microsoft, for a couple of contracts, until he had the idea to pursue another game development project that would cost him his family.
From 1992-2001, Renee stood by Raven, throughout all of his attempts, artistic eccentricities, as well as overwhelming narcissism brought about by being a perpetual referee for thousands of Role players. In 1999, they decided to have a child after 8 years of marriage, Raven took a job at Microsoft for a while, but once more fell into the lure of creating a game. Against his wife wishes, Raven invested all of his time and capital, into the project.  Within a few months, Renee announced that she wished to move to California to live in the sunshine.  Raven agreed to move, but, would remain up here to finish the game and publish it.  After a few trips down to California it became clear, Renee wanted more than sunshine she wanted a divorce.   Unfortunately for Raven, she was in another state, she kept all of his belongings, his daughter and has remained uncommunicative since that point.  It was not long afterwards that Raven's latest company producing CRYPT, closed from lack of sales.  Selling nearly 10 thousand copies worldwide.  And once again the failure was a direct result of Peter Adkison and Wizards of the Coast.
Wizards, acquired TSR, the creators of Dungeons and Dragons.  When Peter sold out Wizards to Hasbro, Peter made arrangements to purchase one of the the largest gaming convention in the USA: Gencon.  This was done as Peter himself is  not able to design a game product, he purchased a convention where people play game products.  It was such an amazing coincidence that our table was sold to another publisher our first year.  The year that we spent the most on travel, promotions, as well as a large staff of girls, and demo players.  It was also an amazing coincidence that we were not allowed to play our game in the open gaming area.  But we did!
From the collapse of his latest game effort, and the loss of his family, Raven found himself spending the past of his capital and opening a restaurant with one of his game company partners, and his two friends. The location Okanogan Washington on HWY 97 to Canada.  The name of the fiasco, the Sun Valley. The place is remote, impoverished and populated by individuals who shun cities and anyone from the coast, or Coasties.
The restaurant served a wide range of foods from fettuccine to taco salads.  There was a bar, no smoking! A cafe section and a fine dinning section.   My partner and I cooked, and we went without pay for months at a time.  After a year of watching our other partners, servers, take home tips every night, Raven decided to call it quits and return to Seattle to start over.
From self published author of one of the most difficult types of works, to television, computer game design, comic modeling, to producer and publisher, Raven is still striving to make an impact on the world around us in a positive manner.  He has been quoted as saying: “Winners lose more than losers, cause winner keep trying.”
Raven can be found at the Pike Place Market on Sunny days, with his dog Bodacea, singing with his old friends and doing backhandsprings.
Currently, Raven, has finished several novels and is working on building up the resources to start some other Intellectual Property project.