Philip Athans was born in 1964 in Rochester, New York, but was raised in Chicago. He is Managing Editor for Wizards of the Coast Book Publishing, and wrote some of the first Forgotten Realms books, as well as many others like Lies of Light in 2006 and Realms of War coming up in 2008. He is well-known for writing the novelizations of the computer games, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.