Wrapping up Wicked Grin’s 2025!

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to the first news/blog post on our website! Here we’ll post updates, recaps, and plans for our studio as we move into the future. Ry and I have some irons in the fire that we can’t wait to tell you about but first I want to take some time to reflect.

This year has been a whirlwind. From the launch of this website to our Wicked Worlds Kickstarter campaign it felt like things were moving a mile a minute. In 2025 we launched our website, released Vice & Virtue version 0.2, designed planet modules for Mothership RPG, launched our Wicked Worlds Kickstarter campaign, fulfilled the digital versions of the zines, and hosted GrinCon, an online convention for our backers.

Wicked Worlds

I have always been interested in how celestial bodies like planets and moons are formed. As a kid I would spend hours reading about Jupiter’s moons - Io and Europa - imagining volcanic cities and subsurface ocean hubs. I even have a few work-in-progress book series I’ve written on and off which involve the creation or unique attributes of strange planets, moons, and other celestial bodies. The cool part about this field in astronomy is that the more you learn the more you realize you don’t know!

I also am a sucker for horror sci-fi and some of my favorite films are Alien, Aliens, and The Thing. In fact my love of this genre is what got me into Mothership RPG. So it just made sense to place Wicked Worlds in the Mothership RPG “universe” if you will.

The response to this project has been incredible and we are so happy that people have been playing and enjoying the digital zines. Currently Ry and I are laser focused on getting the physical copies of Wicked Worlds fulfilled. The pledge manager will be closing soon and once it does we will be working on placing our order with the printer!

GrinCon 2025

As a thank you to our backers we wanted to celebrate the digital release of Wicked Worlds by hosting 3 community one shot games via our discord. We called this event “GrinCon” and we had such a good time hanging and playing with everyone who showed up! We also wanted to highlight some art made by our community members that was made after the con.

First up is an incredible illustration of a Poseidon kaiju by @beedle_d_bard’s daughter! The enormous kaiju (likely a Kraken-class) encircles a tiny sub (possibly Nautilus or Peral). The lighting, design, and feel is directly on point with how we imagine these massive beasts moving underneath Poseidon’s ice shell.

Next we have a hand-drawn hex map of Mycos done by the talented Patrick Krok-Horton. In this map Patrick has illustrated the tile icons used in our pre-generated maps for Mycos. But this map is a custom one Patrick has titled “Mr. Bart I presume?” Small details really bring the map to life such as the crashed spaceship in the upper left and the opposing Mother Growth tiles (Agaric and Cordyceps respectively) at the top and bottom. Overall it’s a wonderfully detailed illustration of the Mycos hex map with a unique spin on several icons.

Discord and Wicked Grin’s GOTM

Given how much fun we had during GrinCon we don’t want that to be the end of community games! That’s why starting in late January Wicked Grin will be hosting games via discord on the last Thursday of each month! Note: Due to how discord’s scheduled event application works the games will be on the fourth Thursday of each month. This is usually the last Thursday of each month but for January and a few others there are five Thursdays! Just a little inside baseball there.

Our first game will be on January 22, 2025 at 5pm PST and it will be a game based in Mothership RPG. Join our discord for news and updates!

https://discord.gg/VUVycGkcgM?event=1448764876897128652

Vice & Virtue + Future Projects

This year started with Vice & Virtue but ended with us developing third party modules for Mothership RPG. Despite our work on Wicked Worlds, development on V&V version 0.3 is ongoing. Next year we are going to embark on a new chapter as we bring more projects to life and continue the growth of our studio! We are psyched for this journey and all of you who are taking this ride with us. Stay tuned for more updates :)

- Tom