The second issue of Dragon is more a literary magazine than really a D&D magazine, over half the space is taken up with the three short stories that are ongoing, one of them by Gardner Fox, a famous author in his own right, Shadow of a Demon, is simply a Conan story by a different name, fun but without the brilliance of Robert E. Howard. A barbarian, Niall, has to save a girl from an evil magic user in a pretty boiler plate Sword and Sorcery tale. Why is this here? Well the flavor is similar to D&D and I imagine it’s just the coup of having a Gardner Fox story for their magazine. If you don’t know Gardner Fox, he is most famous for having invented the DC comics multiverse and being the co-creator of Barbara Gordon, The Flash,  Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Zatanna and the original Sandman, as well as coming up with the concept of the Justice Society of America, later Justice League. 

The other two fiction entries come from the previous issue, the conclusion of Search for the Forbidden Chamber, the D&D parody story by Jake Jaquet, which really outlived its welcome after the first couple of paragraphs, and the continuation of The Gnome Cache, by far the more relevant and interesting of the three stories for D&D fans, written by Gygax and being set in the Greyhawk world. 

Outside the literature stuff you get some nifty game mechanics and rules stuff, a whole article on how to setup Monk advancement battles, an article on how to make good Dungeons for your game, a new monster in the Remorhaz and a whole new class for the Magic User, The Alchemist, who can make and cure poison, as well as all kinds of potions and stuff. There’s also a short column on an alternative way to determine weapon damage… but it isn’t very convincing.