The Raven Forge Journey

Photo - Sam and Tom in 2022 at their new HQ in Crosshills near Skipton

Raven Forge is a small company from the UK, based in rainy Skipton in the Yorkshire Dales, that was founded and is run by two brothers, Sam and Tom Ive.

Sam and Tom grew up on fantasy, sci-fi and computer games, with a deep love of everything from Bladerunner, to Lord of the Rings, Terry Pratchett, Fifth Element, and everything in between.

Before Raven Forge, Sam worked for the NHS, working with people with mental health issues, and Tom worked for North Yorkshire Council, maintaining the stunning old buildings and walks of the Yorkshire Dales. In their spare time, they owned and operated a historical sword-fighting club called Tree of Shields. It was this passion for historical swords and armour that led the brothers to start what is now Raven Forge. 

- Photo Tom and Sam and the Tree of Shields Historical Sword fighting group.

The company started very small and humble, with a cupboard of axes in Toms living room and online sales portal. Tom did this alone for only 3 months, till he and his brother joined forces, knowing that together they might be able to make enough brass to be able to leave the NHS and the council, and still collect their kids at 3pm after school. Little did they know what was coming. 

Photo - Old Raven Forge, The cupboard of axes - Old Ways Wares. 

A year after the company started and 3 days after the brother secured their first bricks and mortar shop, disaster struck, COVID 19 Lockdown. The shop quickly turned into an office, Raven Forge, which started as a niche history shop, become something so much more. Every Friday night from 7pm till sometimes four in the morning, the guys would live stream from the office. Drinking socialising, running quizzes and a ridiculous section called "Dear Raven Forge" where they played agony aunt to the whole community. 

This started at just 5-10 people, and quickly become close to 10,000. Raven forge was the pub that everyone virtually went to hang out on a Friday when we could not go anywhere, and this, amongst a few other key events, is what solidified Raven Forge and the crew, as a huge part of people’s lives at this tough time.

Photo - Friday night livestream 1am on a Saturday

Oh and I won’t go on about it, but they tried to buy their kids old primary school to turn in to a castle, housing a Viking community centre and activity hub, but the council we're not receptive, despite hundreds of thousands raised in support.

Photo - Newspaper cutting from the castle incident...

Raven Forge has always been well known for getting in trouble, and in 2022 we got in the most trouble. I will let tom explain it in his own words

"I'll paint the scene like my good friend James:

It was Christmas eve! The stockings were hung, and Raven Forge were under thousands of trees around the world. We had that year, taken on supply of a lot of "unofficial" props from movies and TV shows, and it has caught a lot of people’s eyes. We had our busiest Christmas to date and we were...delighted.

January came round and we had the most successful Christmas we had ever, que a letter landing on the door with a big imposing, WB embossed at the top.

Thats right, we got bollocked for having an unofficial longclaw. Lucky, it was just that, a bollocking with a threat of legal action if we did not remove them from our shop immediately. We were, legally sound, but that didn’t stop us shitting a literal brick and running for the hills. The swords were removed from the website and the local scrap yard got a very surprising delivery indeed. Tough times.

From that moment on, we took a sad thing and mad it extraordinary. We decided that we would not only never stock an unofficial sword again, but we were going to become a licenced, official collectors dream. The dream of the Raven Forge Legend Collection was born, and we got to work. Long, hard work. 

It took us almost a year to land our first licence partner, and from that point many more followed. At the time of writing this, we are about to release our first Sword in the Collection Altair's sword form Assassins Creed and we're ecstatic. We also have a meeting with Warner Brothers, later this month, if anything, itll be a laugh."

Photo - Tom and Ben at BLE London, where we had meetings with Warhammer, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Paramount and The wombles (don’t ask about that last one, if you can have a drink with Uncle Bulgaria, you do).

Fast forward a few years to today and there are 12 of us. We work together, drink together, holiday together and honestly, the environment at work is next level. Raven Forge is a bastion for nerds, a stronghold of weirdness and a proud neuro-spicy environment. 

The Ive Brothers