The April issue of Dragon can only mean one thing, a bunch of comedic articles sprinkled throughout the magazine, and that is certainly the case here. Beyond the very cool but serious Clyde Caldwell cover we immediately get a tongue in cheek editorial by Kim Mohan where he states that seeing as no one is ever happy with the magazine they are cutting it back to 32 pages and are starting to cover dragsters as a way to widen the audience of the magazine.

There are, of course, serious articles in the magazine as well and some important ones, as is the case of Gygax’s unveiling of a new sub-class: The Cavalier. In a 6 page article we get a whole new kind of Fighter class. Also new is the “Ecology of…” column, this time with the Ecology of the Piercer, with a fun article explaining how it works and an even better anatomic illustration of the Piercer’s insides. 

Then Ed Greenwood brings us an encyclopedic article on gems and particularly those which can be found in his Forgotten Realms, 9 pages of lists and details about different types of gems. Ed never left any stone unturned in his fleshing out of the Realms, and it’s so great to see this years before it would be an official campaign setting. Humor returns with Roger Moore’s article on sex in AD&D, which is pretty funny, exploring how various monsters reproduce, an article by John Sapienza on the uselessness of level titles and again some humor with the comics that close out the issue.