Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981 • Collecting General

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Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981
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ZardokhasSpoken
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Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 9:02 pm

I was reading Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds when I stumbled across the entry for Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore. He writes: 'Scenario that includes cardstock map pieces and illustrations of each encounter.' 004-716.1/999-81 Two booklets, cardboard maps. Softside Publications, 1981.

The only google info I could find was for a computer programming magazine printed by Softside Publications. Anyone here have any info on this? Some pics would be awesome! Thanks in advance!

stratochamp
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Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:24 pm

There are about 50 items in Heroic Worlds (of an FRP, Science Fantasy, Pirate, Universal or Call of Cthuhlu heading) I don't own, but alas that is one of them so I am unable to help you at this time.

Shrink is not a condition

Prufrock
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Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:40 am

stratochamp wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:There are about 50 items in Heroic Worlds (of an FRP, Science Fantasy, Pirate, Universal or Call of Cthuhlu heading) I don't own, but alas that is one of them so I am unable to help you at this time.

My God Bill, say it isn't so!!!! 8O

tool
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Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 7:17 pm

ZardokhasSpoken wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:I was reading Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds when I stumbled across the entry for Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore. He writes: 'Scenario that includes cardstock map pieces and illustrations of each encounter.' 004-716.1/999-81 Two booklets, cardboard maps. Softside Publications, 1981.

The only google info I could find was for a computer programming magazine printed by Softside Publications. Anyone here have any info on this? Some pics would be awesome! Thanks in advance!

I assume you saw that archive.org has the text of an issue of the magazine which includes an ad for the module (archive.org/stream/softside-magazine-35 ... 1_djvu.txt):

A New Generation of Role Playing Adventures

With all new monsters and treasures never before encountered, The Quest
for the Arm of St. Elsinore is the premiere module in the World of Beysycx
series of role playing adventures.

The World of Beysycx series was created for use with the popular Advanced
Dungeons & Dragons (tm) gaming system, and is designed as the ultimate in
DM playing aids. Each module comes with graphic cardboard map pieces and
two fully illustrated booklets detailing the scenario and showing every monster
id every treasure.

There's a list of personnel in the issue which might help in tracking down more information, although some of the names appear to have been OCRed incorrectly.

ZardokhasSpoken
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Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:35 pm

Yes, Tool, I did see that from archive.org. Makes me wonder if Lawrence Schick mentioned it based on the ad or whether he had or saw a physical copy.

stratochamp
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Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:47 pm

Your point is an excellent one. When I met with Lawrence (at a GenCon if memory serves) before he published his book, we spoke for about four hours. I had my lists of items owned with me (and I had lots of arcane things) and he never asked me to "show" him anything (so as to prove it existed). He was trying to include everything that had been reasonably distributed, but of course he included lots of things with small print runs as well. And he did include some things that were never published (like Sacrifices to the Orc Lord). So it is entirely possible that he saw an advert for a product that did not yet exist and included it. Personally I think he did an admirable job.

I was nonetheless crushed when he didn't give me a mention in his acknowledgements. To make matters worse, I had told him I was trying to get one of everything published in English in the history of FRP's and he mentions on page 35, limit yourself!

But he made it up to me in 2014 at NTRPG Con by signing my copy of Heroic Worlds and inscribing a nice message.

Shrink is not a condition

Lord Dynel
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 7:44 am

I'm not as prolific a collector as most of the esteemed fellows who frequent the Acaeum, but I love coming here and reading threads about the obscure products that have been released over the years. This is one such product. Ironically, I read about this module in my copy of Heroic Worlds not long ago, and was curious about it. After doing a little bit of research, I also came up empty-handed.

The only thing I did find was an ad in Space Gamer #41, July 1981. Doesn't help solve this mystery, but I figured I'd post it nonetheless.

EDIT: Dragon #51 (same month, same year) had that same ad.

According to this fellow (and I'm not sure if he frequents this site or not...maybe can validate his statement?) this never was released.

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rredmond
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:18 pm

Interesting that The World of Beysycx has a price, and in the SoftSide Magazine (see Volume 4 issues 10 and 11):

SoftSide Atari magazine scans, pdf

It's on their order form. Was that released and the premier module (Elsinore) note?
--Ron--

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Lord Dynel
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 2:34 pm

rredmond wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:Interesting that The World of Beysycx has a price, and in the SoftSide Magazine (see Volume 4 issues 10 and 11):

SoftSide Atari magazine scans, pdf

It's on their order form. Was that released and the premier module (Elsinore) note?
--Ron--

Interesting find, sir. That makes me think that it actually was released and was an actual, physical thing.

It makes me wonder...has anyone ever attempted to contact Roger Robitaille, the publisher of SoftSide about this item? It seems as though SoftSide might have had a hand in the product. Maybe someone on the staff (or maybe Roger was approached by someone he know) had created it and SoftSide acted as distributor or something like that. That would probably be the best bet on finding out additional information. <shrug>

rjbouchard
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Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2026 5:44 am

Randomly stumbled on this page.

I worked at SoftSide for Roger Robitaille, starting at a 14 year old high school freshman (I'm the "Rich Bouchard" in the "Programming Staff" credits). I remember playtesting this module, I don't specifically remember the author but it was a friend of Roger's. I vividly remember us getting into a situation we couldn't recover from and my character getting a well-deserved punishment for swearing allegiance to the 'dark' forces.

This was a long-time ago, but I'm fairly certain we never actually produced this.

rjbouchard
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Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2026 5:57 am

rredmond wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:Interesting that The World of Beysycx has a price, and in the SoftSide Magazine (see Volume 4 issues 10 and 11):

SoftSide Atari magazine scans, pdf

It's on their order form. Was that released and the premier module (Elsinore) note?
--Ron--

Not that anyone cares so many decades later, but if you look at the graphic on the top of some of these pages (for example, Vol 4 Issue 10), which shows a line profile of someone typing on a computer, that's my profile as a 15/16 year old typing on a TRS-80 that someone photographed at SoftSide where I worked and turned into this logo.

rredmond
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Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2026 10:44 am

Great information, thanks for sharing Rich!
--Ron--

OSRIC Fanzine fundraiser for Kramer! Please BUY HERE! Thank you.
All PbP all the time: The Unseen Servant | Welcome
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dbartman
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Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2026 11:17 am

rjbouchard wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:Randomly stumbled on this page.

I worked at SoftSide for Roger Robitaille, starting at a 14 year old high school freshman (I'm the "Rich Bouchard" in the "Programming Staff" credits). I remember playtesting this module, I don't specifically remember the author but it was a friend of Roger's. I vividly remember us getting into a situation we couldn't recover from and my character getting a well-deserved punishment for swearing allegiance to the 'dark' forces.

This was a long-time ago, but I'm fairly certain we never actually produced this.

rjbouchard wrote in Quest for the Arm of St. Elsinore 1981:
Not that anyone cares so many decades later, but if you look at the graphic on the top of some of these pages (for example, Vol 4 Issue 10), which shows a line profile of someone typing on a computer, that's my profile as a 15/16 year old typing on a TRS-80 that someone photographed at SoftSide where I worked and turned into this logo.

Thanks for sharing your recollection. That information helps in finally closing the door on the status of a lost publication. Having a first-hand account from someone who actually play-tested the module is incredible, even if the news is that it likely never saw a formal release.

That's an interesting fact on the line art. Nice to know how classic art, however simple, is inspired or originates.

beasterbrook
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2026 7:48 pm

Thanks for sharing!

I'm sure there are still several people in this group that are interested in old info like this!

Another one to take off the list

Brette:)

Being healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

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