Welcome to 1987! An important year for D&D and TSR in general as it leans heavily into two things, the creation of new universes, which had been so successful with Dragonlance in 1984, and the related expansion of TSR as a publisher of novels. This year we get more Dragonlance novels, more Greyhawk novels (through TSR by Rose Estes and from outside TSR by Gary Gygax) as well as new worlds as Mystara gets more solidly established as the world of BECMI D&D through the publications of Gazetteers, and the official appearance of what would, in the long run, be the most successful of D&D universes: The Forgotten Realms, through modules, campaign guides and novels!

Of course none of this is present right here in the January issue of Dragon, but by the end of 1987 D&D will look a bit different indeed. In this first issue for the year we get the usual mix of articles exploring several aspects of the game form Greenwood’s usual Forgotten Realms tidbits (at this time still only his homebrewed campaign) with By Magic Masked, the Ecology of the Ankheg, guides to shopping, to using the Intelligence stat better in games, also a whole article on weird dogs for the githyanki, the githzerai and the drow. 

The back end of the magazine consists of articles on other games, and the usual columns and comics. All in all a pretty good issue to start off the year!