After the exceedingly long month of November 1983, where we had 6 books (four HeartQuests and two Endless Quests), four animated show episodes and the usual publications and modules, we come to the considerably shorter month of December which we start off with this issue of Dragon sporting a famous Clyde Caldwell cover. The cover shows us a sorceress but in tones of red and green so we don’t forget that we are in December and the holidays are here.

Although the cover is really the highlight in this issue, there is still plenty of good stuff on the inside of the magazine, starting out with the Psychology of the Doppelganger article, and the usual articles covering the minutiae of D&D with subject like what the volume of gold coinage is. We already knew all about the weight, but now we get to find out how many coins are in a coffer as well as how different materials have different volumes and so on. “Fun” stuff. 

Mike Beeman brings us a general interest article with tips on DMing, and Ed Greenwood gives us another d100 list of trinkets and treasures to spice up your adventure, some really good stuff here! The mini module is Barnacus: City in Peril for levels 1-5 and Len Lakofka brings us a bunch of alternative combat charts, thanks Len! As usual we finish with our usual comics pages with What’s New by Phil Foglio, Wormy by Dave Trampier and SnarfQuest by Larry Elmore.