Not the most extensive issue in terms of D&D content, it does have a couple of really interesting articles. The best of these is Gary Gygax’s The Origins of D&D, where he explains the origins of the game and of TSR, from the Castle & Crusade group in the International Federation of Wargaming to the present, including the creation of Chainmail, the first appearance of Blackmoor and Dave Arneson’s contributions to the game (the ideas of leveling up, experience points and setting games in dungeons were his). 

Before that article, the editorial is quite interesting with the editor, Tim Kask, making it clear that unless otherwise explicitly stated none of the “rules articles” featured in the magazine are actually official rules. The purpose of Dragon is often simply to showcase what players are doing with the game but it’s all on a “take it or leave it” principle. 

We get a new creature, with a cool full page image of The Prowler, as well as the latest instalment of The Gnome Cache, which ends on a cliffhanger and is apparently never coming back. Oh well, guess Gary was too busy to finish it.