iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Chris Thursten

Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

New Post: Why I Love AI Next month it'll be twenty years since I went to university, learned to program, and studied AI. I wrote about why I loved it, why I still love it, and why, unfortunately, it no longer exists. www.possibilityspace.org/blog/posts/i...

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Massive congrats to @marshdavies.bsky.social and @rossignol.bsky.social on GOLD TEETH! Which I guess is out now, because I have it. The book's come out beautifully, and I'm a big fan of Marsh's decision to disembowel himself on page 44.

A big red pirate roleplaying hardback called GOLD TEETH. There's a skull and crossbones on it. Its teeth are gold.

An illustration of a grotty little sailor getting disemboweled by a cannon. He looks surprised that this has happened to him, which is honestly out of character for Marsh.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

It’s not the Toho crossover I was expecting, but sure, this tracks.

Godzilla (1954) is joined in his destruction of Tokyo by my cat, Potato (2026)

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Last weekend was pretty great.

Me and my wife (!) Abby in a cloud of confetti, which would subsequently be blown back into the faces of all our friends.

Me and my (wife!) at our wedding meal. A silly man has said something silly; everybody appears to be screaming.

Me being dramatically dipped by my wife (!) during our first dance. Our friends look on, screaming.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I've sent the email and now Book Four is off to my editor. These moments feel so strange. It's like being one of those big dockside gantry cranes watching a boat plop out to sea. Bye, boat! I'll just stand here, then.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

So sad to hear about John Blanche. Hard to say anything that hasn't been said about the impact his art has had on so many of us. For me, writing Warhammer means building out from - and always arcing back toward - images like these and all of the ideas and feelings bound up in them. Rest in peace.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Thought I'd kick off the year by painting a Blood Bowl team, having never done one before. That was January. Now it's basically June. Anyway, here are some Bretonnians.

A collection of painted Bretonnians for Blood Bowl, including one very small frog.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

It’s a shame to see the Black Library Weekly coming to an end, but I’m glad to have had the chance to contribute some book recs to this penultimate edition.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Great weekend of Age of Sigmar at the Big Bristol Brawl. Came away with Best Army, Best Painted, and Best Chaos! Potato for scale.

Three Warhammer event trophies - two that look like skulls with paintbrushes sticking out of them, and a third that looks like a hammer. They are being sniffed by a small golden cat.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

My post-layoff professional hiatus has come to an end and I'm looking to rebuild my contact book. If you're in need of: ✏️ Fiction! Produced entirely by my human brain and hands! 🧙‍♂️ Narrative design, worldbuilding or creative direction! 🎺 Comms, bizdev or marketing support! ...then get in touch!

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The new Black Library app is now available, and my first novel Darkoath is free for the first month! Including the audiobook, if you’d like to hear Jon Rand’s excellent narration.

A screenshot from the new Black Library app showing a range of free titles, including ‘Darkoath’

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Paul Scott Canavan @paulscottcanavan.com · 22/02/2026

SORE GUM'S SECOND EP DROPS MARCH 6TH!!! Here's a little teaser of the three tracks. Gordy Crawford and I worked hard on this and I think it fucking slaps 🙏

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

There's a new Black Library app on the way, and if you link your account in the first month you can get Darkoath for free in ebook and audiobook! That's two of the different kinds of book it is! www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articl...

warhammer-community.com

A new Black Library app is on the way – here’s what you need to know

Collect all your eBooks and audiobooks in one place.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Wrapped up Brotherhood 2026 in Cardiff with two pieces of glass for army painting! First place in the player vote, second place with the judges. Really happy - this is the first time I’ve won the vote at an event. Please do not ask any follow up questions about my win/loss ratio over the weekend.

Two glass trophies from Brotherhood 2026, a team event for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

I’m at Firestorm in Cardiff this weekend for team Age of Sigmar. First proper outing for Abraxia and her various hangers-on since I finished my Slaves to Darkness project at the start of the year.

A collection of Slaves to Darkness Warhammer miniatures arranged on a gaming table.

A close-up of a Chaos Lord miniature and his retinue.

Chaos Warriors clash with Seraphon in a game of Age of Sigmar.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Grombrindal: Ancestor’s Burden is out now in paperback! Some of these stories have previously been available as six magazines, a hardback, an audiobook, an ebook, and a Word document on my computer. This is perhaps the most convenient iteration yet!

A paperback copy of ‘Grombrindal: Ancestor’s Burden’ on a bookstore shelf.

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Cinderfall Gaming @cinderfallgaming.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

In today’s Black Library review we check out Abraxia, Spear of the Everchosen by @cjpt.bsky.social , the first full length story focussing on the everchosen’s herald. youtu.be/A4AEusMVX5g?...

youtu.be

Age of Sigmar Black Library Review: Abraxia Spear of the Everchosen by Chris Thurston

YouTube video by Cinderfall Gaming

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Graham Smith @grahamsmith.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

A new website about PC games, from me, @brendyc.bsky.social and @jonhicks.com. Reader-supported, which means no ads, no guff, and lots of games blogging about delightful things to play. If you liked our work on RPS, we think you'll like @jank.cool.

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Jay “Lorehunter” Kirkman @theblacklibrarian.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

The 2025 @goonhammer.com Book Awards! Who will win Best #BlackLibrary Writer? Nominees are: > @johnfrench.bsky.social > @guyhaley.bsky.social > Robbie MacNiven > @aptshadow.bsky.social > @cjpt.bsky.social VOTE NOW! www.goonhammer.com/the-2025-goo... #Warhammer #BookSky

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Jay “Lorehunter” Kirkman @theblacklibrarian.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

2025 @goonhammer.com Book Awards Who will win Best Age of Sigmar Novel? > Abraxia, Spear of the Everchosen by @cjpt.bsky.social > Starseer's Ruin by @aptshadow.bsky.social > Ushoran, Mortarch of Delusion by @dalelucas.bsky.social VOTE NOW! www.goonhammer.com/the-2025-goo... #Warhammer

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Paul Scott Canavan @paulscottcanavan.com · 06/01/2026

I painted Minilla for my friend Chris. You're welcome, sorry @cjpt.bsky.social

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 08/01/2026

I've been running an indie games studio for 15 years now, and it felt like a good time to boil down what I've learned into 4 pieces of advice: www.pentadact.com/2026-01-08-1... I hope it's of use, not least because goddamn I forgot how long blog posts take to write.

A timeline visually representing the advice from my post, emphasising how dramatically and reliably having more time, with a testable build, converts to your game being better and your studio being safer.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

After maybe 15 months (!) of sporadic effort, I’ve finally finished painting Abraxia and her entourage. I wrote the novel faster.

A painted miniature of Abraxia - an armoured warrior with a burning spear riding a pale, wingless draconic monster.

Three painted Chaos Lord miniatures, including a sorcerer.

A painted Daemon Prince miniature standing over a lava flow.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Happy to have made two contributions to the Black Library in the last year. Thanks to everybody who read Abraxia or Grombrindal - the community response to both was really fun to watch. Unlikely to be much new fiction from me in 2026, as I'm currently working on novel number four. 2027, though...

Hardback copies of 'Grombrindal: Ancestor's Burden' and 'Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen' on a wooden tabletop.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Happy New Year, all. I'm glad to put 2025 behind me, on balance. But this was also the year that I had a game dev stress dream about herding cats so vivid that it led obliquely but inexorably to the adoption of my golden son, Potato. So thanks, 2025. Thanks, game development. Thanks, Potato.

A small golden cat called Potato sits on a tabletop next to a wicker basket and a fruit bowl. He is sitting still because he can see, off-camera, that I have some smoked salmon.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

It’s a dreadful privilege to be so Known. Thank you, friend

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Paul Scott Canavan @paulscottcanavan.com · 18/12/2025

Was very happy to contribute some thoughts to this excellent article 🙏

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Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Hard to think of *any* issue in my life on which the public have been so uniformly opposed to the govt's agenda. The unanimity exceeds any anti-war movement, even. What could the govt even propose that would less popular? Excited to see Starmer try!!

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Just finished More Everything Forever by @adambecker.bsky.social - really thorough and humane joining-of-the-dots between AI, effective altruism, SF, cosmism and plutocracy that arcs, as most things should, toward the inevitable conclusion that Le Guin was right about everything

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Both Grombrindal and Abraxia are up for 2025's Black Library Book of the Year! Delighted if either of them to get your vote. www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articl...

warhammer-community.com

Vote for your favourite Black Library book of 2025

May the best book win.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

For what feels like every possible reason this has been a slow, slow hobby year for me. But I've finished something! Here's my take on the Helsmiths of Hashut Spearhead.

A collection of painted Warhammer Age of Sigmar miniatures from the Helsmiths of Hashut faction.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen is now available for preorder in hardback, ebook and audiobook! Hardback: www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/h... Ebook/Audiobook: www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/ne...

The hardback edition of 'Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen'. A horned warlord rides a barded monster against the backdrop of a burning city.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Very happy to be contributing narrative design and worldbuilding to this new project at Anego Studios! Goblin is a powerful, powerful designer -- perhaps too powerful -- and it is a delight to get to work with them on something new after our long stint together on Hytale. Cool things to come!

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

My own Cities of Sigmar project stalled out a little bit, but they’re still some of my favourites to work on. So much storytelling in each mini, and it’s rewarding to put your own twist on them - converting a Khainite whisperblade, for example, or a Morrda-worshipping war surgeon.

A set of Cities of Sigmar Command Corps miniatures including a number of small conversions.

Cities of Sigmar leader miniatures including Galen and Doralia Ven Denst as well as a Marshall and his Relic Envoy.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

For all the amazing centrepiece models that Age of Sigmar has had over the last ten years (not least Abraxia!) my vote has gone to the Freeguild Cavalier Marshall. It’s such a beautiful sculpt - it sells the world as well as a specific character. 100% Warhammer, but full of little subversions.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Unutterably proud of my boy Paul, and his boy, which is… this…

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

A fair and much appreciated write-up - thanks!

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Jay “Lorehunter” Kirkman @theblacklibrarian.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

There is a story, even in failure. @cjpt.bsky.social finding richness in the small details here. -from Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen #Warhammer #AgeOfSigmar #BookSky #BlackLibrary

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

This is such a lovely response, and the first I’ve seen since the limited edition came out. Thanks so much, really means a lot!

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

As someone who has spent a fair bit of time with both Age of Sigmar’s duardin and its take on Chaos, I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen of the Helsmiths so far. I had no foreknowledge of them when I was writing Ancestor’s Burden, but tried to keep the door open for Hashut and Valaya all the same.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

The limited edition of Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen is out today! Cover art by Valera Lutfullina, treatment by the Black Library team. Words about awful people making each other worse by me.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

The limited edition of my latest novel for Black Library - Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen - is now available for preorder! www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/a...

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Black Library do such lovely work with these limited edition hardcovers and it’s really exciting to see my first in the wild. Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen is up for preorder next Saturday!

A limited edition copy of the novel ‘Abraxia: Spear of the Everchosen’ by Chris Thursten. A stylised relief depicts a horned woman in armour flanked by a burning spear and her war-beast.

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Paul Scott Canavan @paulscottcanavan.com · 22/07/2025

A little Pale Tides writing, as a treat 🖤

$Text that reads: Beneath the pale moon’s glow, fractured memories of the earth awaken. They stir in deep forests and black lochs. In ruined forts atop frigid peaks. In labyrinthine cities that scream in the language of industry. Monsters. Manifestations of Nature - Her glory, and Her wrath. Echoes of a time when the world knew balance. When spirits, beasts, and humankind lived side by side. Not always in peace, but in understanding. Then came that great forgetfulness called Enlightenment. And with it, the unravelling of the Old Ways. The rise of the machine, of fire and steel. And the birth of its Church. They poisoned minds with fear and the promise of their Miracle. They shattered balance and awoke things that should have been left to dream. They burned the witches. Thus, are we called. We are Hexen. War witches. This is the calling for which we were exiled, while the world rotted away. This is the midnight summons of Her final war. Under a pale moon, our exile ends. Under a pale moon, we return.$

Text that reads:

In the heart of the old forest stands a solitary figure. Her hair frames broad shoulders as it cascades down her back, crowfeather black, burnished silver in the fading sunlight. She is tense as she peers into the gloom. Her fingers drift instinctively to the wand of crooked ash that hangs at her hip. Yet it is her eyes that hold the truest danger: they are smouldering coals, low remnants of an inferno that threatens to reignite at any moment.

As she searches the trees for signs of movement there is a whisper in the air around her. It is the sound of dry leaves crushed beneath a killer's stalking boot; it is the sound of ancient parchment turned to reveal something forbidden, forgotten. It is all of these things and none. It is danger.

A moment later, she is joined by another. Lithe and graceful, their bare chest is a shifting tapestry of inked sigils. Rings bedeck their fingers, and their long, well-worn coat trails in the leaves, pockets overstuffed with herbs and stubs of chalk and bone. They smile, and their shoulders ease, taking on a measure of their friend's watchful burden, perhaps, but wearing it differently.

The third member of their coven arrives – or perhaps he has always been here. He unfolds from the shadows with a motion like curling smoke, draws back his hood, and silently gestures into the distance. The blood witch lets his familiar speak for him. She is a coiled shape, languid and deadly, hanging about his neck. She hisses. She sees what they cannot.
And.
It.
Is.
Moving.
In the space of a thought the witch draws his dagger, already slick with fresh blood. Fingers find the hilt of a wand, and grasp a fistful of herbs and bird's bones –
And the fading sun loses itself beyond the horizon.
And the moon begins to rise.
And the forest explodes with life.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Happy 10th birthday, Age of Sigmar! Silver Tower and First Edition got me back into Warhammer after a decade-long hiatus. I'm grateful for everything the hobby has given me since then, and it's still surreal to think that I've had the opportunity to leave my own mark on the setting. More to come!

Cover art for Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Following the cancellation of Hytale, I'm now looking for work after seven years at Hypixel Studios. Please reach out if you'd like to talk game design, worldbuilding, or creative direction. Or books, obviously. I also write books.

Concept art for Hytale featuring masked warriors trekking through deep snow.

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

DARKOATH is out in paperback today! It’s the perfect size to be carried in a small bag, a large pocket, or perhaps among the mass of skulls and bloody trophies with which you gird yourself.

A paperback copy of ‘Darkoath’ by Chris Thursten

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Chris Thursten @cjpt.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

I’m spending the weekend at Birmingham CommandFest helping my pal @abigbat.bsky.social run a little shop where he signs things and I attempt to shift prints of that one Furby horse he painted for some reason. It’s a living!

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