A longer issue of the magazine than usual, but this is also because it contains a whole board game and rules for it inside, this issue is really packed with interesting articles. It immediately starts off with The Politics of Hell by Alexander Von Thorn, a pretty long article with (mostly made up) mythology about hell. It references plenty of beings and establishes Asmodeus as the devil now in charge of the 9 hells. This would be long standing D&D mythology. This article could also be evidence number 1 in the crazy “satanic panic” conspiracy theories of the 80s, with all the talk of devils and even grimoires such as the Goetia of the Lesser Key of Solomon which are real world texts. Still, it’s a pretty fun article with stats on major devils and a pretty cool set up for when players visit hell. 

Then we get developers notes for the DMG which has finally been out the last couple of months with little entries by each person who participated in making the guide. Gygax also gives an article going further into alignments (again!) explaining the differences between Evil Law and Chaos (again!). Bazaar of the Bizarre gives us a bunch of new items and we also get a level progression system for DMs, which is interesting. 

The Giants of the Earth column returns with fictional hero stats and we end the article with another iteration of the Dragon’s Bestiary, this time bringing us the Jake Jaquet designed Slinger, not one of the most famous D&D monsters, but hey, it’s a spiky iguana… could be worse. Fun issue!