Join me as I review The Maelstrom’s Eye by Roger E. Moore, live! Share your thoughts on this third novel in Spelljammer’s The Cloakmaster Cycle. You can pick up The Maelstrom’s Eye here: https://smile.amazon.com/Maelstroms-Eye-Spelljammer-Cloakmaster/dp/1560763442/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1WGJ9LEHOU45L&keywords=the+maelstrom%27s+eye&qid=1649103950&sprefix=the+maelstrom%27s+ey%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-1
About The Maelstrom’s Eye
Teldin Moore’s quest for the truth about his mysterious cloak leads him on a search for a fal, a genius slug, but his odyssey traps him between Scro forces and an evil behemoth as he draws ever nearer the secret of the great ship Spelljammer.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Yurthgreen the 15th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Maelstrom’s Eye by Roger E. Moore. I will be spoiling the story, so if you don’t want to know it, stop watching now! I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this YouTube channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
Teldin arrives at the Rock of Bral to meet the Elves of the Imperial Fleet about his cloak. He wanders the rock and meets Gaeadrella Goldring, a female Kender, only to realize she is a Kender. They get along and she seems to be immediately attached to him, and actually helps him find the elves. Upon meeting them, they give him information about the cloak being made by the Star Folk from their poems, though they don’t know exactly who those first star sailing beings were. They used it to pilot the Spelljammer, the first fabled spacefaring ship. Whoever has the cloak, controls the massive city sized ship.
The elves offer information on how to find it by visiting a falmadaraatha called One Six Nine. This being lives thousands of years and can help locate the Spelljammer. They also send him away with a gnome named Dyffedionizer Artifactos Jammermaker, the most knowledgeable person about the Spelljammer. He returns to his ship the Probe only to discover Aelfred hired the kender, supposedly at his request.
At the same time, the novel explores the war between the Tarantulas Fleet and the Imperial Fleet, basically orcs vs elves. The Fleet Admiral of the Tarantulas Fleet, Admiral Halker is invited to meet with the Lich Skarkesh about a proposition and takes his general, Kobas Hamarka Vorr with him. He is immune to magic and poison, and is a half orc-Ogre. We’re introduced to them by an assasination attempt presumably by the Imperial Fleet. They meet the Lich only to discover it’s not actually a lich, but it is undead, choosing to take the form of a lich. Skarkesh discovered the cloak, encased in stone, but he was betrayed and a servant stole the cloak, which ended up in the hands of the Reigar female captain that gave it to Teldin. The lich knows Teldin is on the Roc of Braal, and hired the Tarantula fleet to find him and take the cloak. It seems to me that this lich is actually an undead neogi who was betrayed, but I don’t know for sure yet.
The Probe fills up with the Elven supplies, astonished that they are giving them to them, and with Dyffed and Gaye aboard, they head off to Ironpiece to find One Six Nine, the Fal. En route, they are caught up to and cut off by the Tarantula fleet. They smash a hole in the hull of the Probe, and immediately the Imperial Fleet uncloaks, revealing that they were following Teldin, and attacks the Orc fleet. The Lich’s pyramid spelljammer is also in the battle fray. As the Probe’s helms are destroyed they are dead in the water and Teldin concentrates on the cloak and slows time, he then pilots the Probe down into a lake on Ironpiece as the elves and orcs battle each other in space above. The Probe crashes into the lake and many of the crew die or are lost. Gnomes of Ironpiece move to action defending their skies from the invaders and rescuing the crashed crew. Teldin is surprised by Gomja, who pulls him out of the lake!
It turns out Gomja survived the crash in Mount Nevermind and took a newly crafted Spelljammer to Ironpiece. He has been the Captain-Commander there and is thrilled to see Teldin again. With the Probe destroyed, the two armies fight ends after days, Teldin is told by Dyffed that the Elven leader wants the Spelljammer just as everyone else does. In truth he was told of Teldin by Vallus Leafblower on Toril. The Elves, Orcs, Mindflayers, Neogi and who knows who else wants the cloak to pilot the famed Spelljammer if ever found, and that puts Teldin in the middle of a whole lot of conflict. When healed he heads out to find One Six Nine and get some answers about the Spelljammer, but Gomja has decided to go with him on the spelljammer the Gnomes gave them. A mysterious neogi also enchants someone to be his spy for Teldin as well.
Teldin was trying to bathe after changing into a Gnome and a Scro snuck into the building and attacked Gaye. Teldin came out and killed it. Suddenly an attack from the Scro that the elves tipped the Gnomes off about began in full, causing everyone to fight for their lives. Teldin was grabbed by Gomja and taken to the ship, the Perilous Halibut, and they fled the planet and the Scro. This infuriated the lich as the Scro lost many men and ships in the battle. They fled to wildspace where the lich divined where they were and the Scro came and attacked them again. This time many orcs and gnomes died, and they narrowly escaped as the Scro ship nearly broke apart in the attack. They fled to herdsphere which is a massive sun with people living on the inner edge of the crystal sphere itself. They crashland in an antimagic lake, stranding the gnome ship until it is dragged out of the lake.
Just before the crash, Gaye is getting closer to Teldin and Teldin is realizing that he likes her, but is scarred from his last love betrayal and all the friends he has lost. They attempt to drag the spelljammer out of the lake, and are approached by the Rastipedes, an ant-like centaur. Teldin negotiates a friendship and realizes he is massively allergic to them, and sneezes and swells up in hives, struggling to breathe before leaving their company. They are going to help the gnomes drag their ship out of the lake. The lake also subdued the magic in Teldin’s cloak, so the lich cannot track him anymore. This causes some real problems between the lich and its forces and the Scro who it hired, and has lost huge numbers in this hunt for Teldin.
With the Perilous Halibut repaired they continue their journey. Dyffed starts looking for the fal in this massive sphere, and using his Thingfinder, locates it, then Teldin uses it and sees One Six Nine who uses psionic communication to tell him to look behind himself. Teldin sees the Scro in a large force coming toward them. Aelfin demands Teldin take control and use the cloak to outrun them, and doing so, nearly gets them killed, until he speeds them toward the fal. This sphere hosts massive creatures tens of thousands of feet tall, with whole biomes living upon them. They find the one the fal is living on, at the top of a horn and land near a redwood forest. They begin on foot and a giant cyclops comes out of the woods and attacks them, just as a butterfly spelljammer appears. Gomja screams at Teldin to get on it, and Teldin finally confirms his suspicions that Gomja is working with the Elves. Teldin no longer trusts Gomja and when the elves try to get him aboard, he evades them. The cyclops destroys the elven vessel, and the gnomes destroy the cyclops with the remains of the Thingfinder that blew up in Dyffed’s face.
The fal appears and tells Teldin about the cloak being the ultimate helm, meant to pilot the Spelljammer, but it’s not the only device out there with that purpose. Also, the Spelljammer is alive in some way, and from a broken sphere, but nothing more is truly known. (Sidenote: this reminds me of the film Event Horizon.) Fal heals everyone and tells them that they don’t have time, as the enemies are approaching.
General Vor of the Scro discovered the lich Skarkesh was charming some of his men to sabotage him after he acquired the cloak. Rather than accept it, he took his fleet and attacked the undead’s pyramid, discovering it wasn’t a lich but a Neogi undead wizard posing as one. (My suspicion was correct.) Vor killed him but was damaged by acidic ooze and unable to speak. They took the pyramid ship and returned to hunt the elves and teldin.
Gomja was tied up for suspicion of sabotage with the Elves, and when he came to they questioned him, and Sylvie, Aelfred’s girl and the ships helmswoman read his mind with a spell, confirming that he was used by the Elves and had no idea they wanted to hurt Teldin. As they started untying him, the elven fleet appeared in the sky and a skip came down attacking them. Sylvie was killed, Gomja was shot and the Elf commander was about to kill Teldin for the cloak when Gomja threw him at the ship which was knocked out of stasis and crashed, killin the commander. Just then the Scro came out of orbit attacking the elven armada.
The pyramid ship crashed directly into the armada ship, bringing it down on top of Teldin and Gomja, who were saved by Fal. Fal put a psionic image in Vor’s mind that Teldin was lying on the floor, and he lept off his ship, removed Teldin’s cloak, and threw it to his second in command who was actually Usso, his wizardess slave. She fooled everyone and took off before Vor could get aboard, with the intent of finding the Spelljammer herself. Little did she know that after the elves killed Sylvie, Skarkesh’s charm person spell wore off and Aelfred vowed revenge. It was Aelfred who was telling the Scro about their movements, against his will. He sabotaged the pyramid ship, and it plummeted to the ground, killing everyone aboard.
General Vor, now stranded, sees a refreshed Teldin and Gomja approaching him through the smoke and debris. Realizing it was all fake before, he moves to attack. Gomja intercepts him, only to be knocked out. Teldin shape shifts into Vor and they battle, but Vor is too strong and knocks Teldin out, removing his real cloak! Just then Gaye appears with Vor’s harpoon weapon and unloads it in his face. She loves Teldin and will do anything for him. She takes the medallion the Lich had that Vor took off its corpse, which is used to track the Spelljammer, and Teldin’s cloak, leaving both for him. When he wakes, Fal tells him everyone has left and he had better leave too.
The elves were watching with their ship cloaked, but with the armada nearly entirely destroyed, they returned to the Rock of Bral to inform their leader of their losses. Teldin and Gomja leave to look for the Spelljammer, and Gaye stays to learn from Fal.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Maelstrom’s Eye by Roger E. Moore. What do you think about the Spelljammer campaign world? Does the inclusion of Dragonlance races keep you interested in the novel? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
I would like to take a moment and remind you to subscribe to this YouTube channel, ring the bell to get notified about upcoming videos and click the like button. This all goes to help other Dragonlance fans learn about this channel and its content.
This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
Subscribe to the podcast today! Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Pandora | Youtube Music | RSS | More
