Join me as I review The Ultimate Helm by Russ T. Howard, live! Share your thoughts on this sixth and final novel in the Cloakmaster Cycle. You can pick up The Ultimate Helm here: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Helm-Spelljammer-Cloakmaster-Cycle/dp/1560766514
About The Ultimate Helm
The exciting climax to the Cloakmaster Cycle. Teldin Moore battles for control of the great ship SpellJammer amid myriad plots and conspiracies. Political intrigue mixes with fantastic elements for an explosive ending to the series.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Paleswelt the 24th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Ultimate Helm by Russ T. Howard. 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.
We begin with the end of the last novel, and the Spelljammer charging Teldin’s ship Julia. The Spelljammer kept asking the question, Are you Worthy? To Teldin, who answered yes, but Julia crashed into the spelljammer nonetheless. Immediately we learn that the coming of the Cloakmaster is foretold in Beholder prophesy aboard the Spelljammer, and that a dark time will be the result. A Dark time that everyone wants to avoid, and thus wants to kill the cloakmaster to prevent it or take ownership of the cloak to control the ship. The Neogi immediately attack Teldin’s surviving crew, but he is joined and protected by the human collective led by CassaRoc the Mighty, a human warrior. They battle the neogi and defeat them, then travel to the centaurs tower for drinks. At this point the Illithids, Neogi and Beholders learn of the Cloakmasters’ presence and intend to destroy him at their earliest opportunity. Teldin runs into Cwelanas from Krynn. She is the elf first mate that Teldin had feelings for from the first novel Beyond the Moons, and it turns out she had feelings for him too. Estriss is also aboard the ship with the Illithids, though he is not trusted by his people, and is still searching for information.
We discover that there is a lich named Romar or The Fool aboard that also wants to kill Teldin, so his enemies are numerous in the city that is on the Spelljammer. Teldin joined the Human collective and connected with many of the other races that inhabit the Spelljammer to form an alliance to stop the evil races from claiming the Ultimate Helm and taking control of the Spelljammer. They form the Alliance of the Cloak. Now Teldin believes he is finally realizing his quest and now needs to defend his position long enough to take command of the Spelljammer and possibly stop the second inhuman war from continuing.
The Beholders and their allies begin attacking the Neogi tower, working on ridding themselves of their rivals before claiming the cloak. The Neogi had a spy in the form of Cwelanas, who was tortured and turned against Teldin when she was kidnapped from Krynn. She entered Teldin’s room to murder him, but was fighting her instincts the whole time and when Teldin discovered it was neogi magic behind it, he had the human wizard remove the magic surrounding Cwelanas. While she was healing The Fool attacked the human tower with his undead horde of rats and some undead neogi. They swarmed the humans, intent on killing Teldin, who narrowly escaped because Gaye, the kender from a few books back, was astral traveling and discovered the master Lich, and attacked him with psionics. She stopped his assault long enough to save Teldin, but was pushed back to her body due to overexertion. She was trained by the fal One Six Nine when she and Teldin first split company.
Gaye is helping Teldin as much as she can, telling him where to go to realize his full potential as Cloakmaster. While the tower was being attacked, Cwelanas was abducted again by the Neogi, and they were working with The Fool, who killed the neogi after they delivered her to him. Teldin, furious, wants to attack the neogi tower, but the Spelljammer is insisting he join it. To do so he needs to find the Adyltum, in the tail of the ship. Simultaneously, the Illithids and allies are attacking the elves, and the Beholders are still killing many neogi. Open war has reached the Spelljammer, and outside ships have arrived and began firing on the Spelljammer.
Teldin goes to the elves for assistance to get to the Adyltum, but finds a secret entrance to the warrens, where the fool dwells, and Cwelanas is being held. He decides to go down into it with his companions. He is beset upon by the undead, but fights through it all until he finds the Fool and Cwelanas. The Fool demands the cloak, and Teldin refuses. Gaye appears and they realize the Fool is an illusion and is somewhere else. Gaya transports them all to the surface of the Spelljammer in the middle of the massive battles. They realize more and more ships have flooded the skies around the Spelljammer, joining in the war. On the surface of the ship, all the people are fighting. Lord Trebek attacks Estriss who ultimately kills the Lord, and turns away the Illithids. Then they all fight the Kasharin, diseased and mummified Beholders. Teldin eventually destroys them as he becomes one with the cloak, and leaves with his party to find the Adytum. They pass through the armory and see miniatures of all ships and races, statues of all former cloakmaster’s, and finally arrive at the adytum, where teldin has to fight the guardian, a giant Spaakil in the form of an illithid. He defeats it and sits on the helm and merges with the Spelljammer. The elf captain that was with them attacks and kills Teldin, then the fool reveals himself and attacks the elf.
Teldin’s consciousness is unified with the spelljammer and realizes its history and fate. The broken sphere was once called Ouiyan which housed eighteen worlds that existed for millennia. The outermost world was populated by the Sh’taargh, who made war on the other planets. The mages and kings of the world united and created the Spaakil which merged into the first spelljammer and collected all peoples who wanted to leave the war. Upon leaving, the phlogiston entered the gateway left by the spelljammer and exploded on contact with the sun, destroying all life and breaking the sphere. The spelljammer lived and died over the millennia as it moved through the phlogiston and explored new worlds. The current spelljammer is named Creannon and Teldin’s consciousness connects with Gaye.
The Fool attacks the elf officer Stardawn that murdered the cloakmaster, and Cwelanas remembers him clutching his amulet, believing it to be his lich phylactory. The cloakmaster appears as pure energy and as The Fool tosses the dead elf to the floor, they engage in a massive battle of magic and melee. Cwelanas leaps at the Fool, tearing his necklace away and throwing it to the cloakmaster who destroys it and suddenly a rift in reality opens and Lord Mowg, a Tanar’ri, appears and consumes the master lich. He leaves and the cloakmaster tells Cwelanas that she is the next pilot of a new smalljammer that this spelljammer created. She must take their friends to it and flee, as this spelljammer will be destroyed in the second unhuman war raging all around them. They leave reluctantly and the cloakmaster and Gaye battle together as the war continues, slowly destroying the spelljammer as they suffer massive casualties. The inhabitants stop warring with each other and begin defending the spelljammer together.
As Cwelanas arrives in the garden and sees the smalljammer, she is attacked by the neogi wizard B’Laath’a who originally captured and corrupted her against Teldin Moore. They battle with the undead neogi and Cwelanas, with the help of the new helm the cloakmaster gave her, defeat them. But the battle raging outside broke the doors they were to leave out of. The battle continues outside as the Spelljammer is slowly being destroyed. It races to the Broken Sphere and battles its way into it, finally building its energy in a supernova with the dying sun of the Broken Sphere after Cwelanas escaped with her friends in the smalljammer due to a broken wall from the battle. The spelljammer explodes, destroying all involved with the Unhuman War and reignites the sun, sealing the Broken Sphere and rebirthing the now impenetrable sphere.
As Cwelanas watches from the smalljammer, she sees gnome forces finally arrive with Gomja at the lead. He learns of Teldin’s fate and openly weeps for his friend. Estriss sees the rebirth and knows Teldin is alive, and Cwelanas feels Teldin’s song through the phlogiston. Teldin is reborn with the spelljammer in a new reality, to celebrate and protect life. As an ending it is a bit too ‘and they lived happily ever after’ for me, but it was an interesting end. It sort of reminded me how I ended a campaign by having a character turn into a god. It was the biggest ‘mailing it in’ ending I ever had, and led to nothing. Kinda like this series of books. The universe they all live in is still the same and nothing was really accomplished except the rebirth of the broken sphere and the spelljammer into a new reality. Pretty hollow.
This book was much more of a chore for me to read. It spent so much time talking about motivation that not much actually happened. It felt like Hemingway, with a ton of extraneous description of battles and settings. I suppose it’s nice to clearly see what’s happening, but I could have done with less. It also never really said what happened to everyone. Which leads you to want to know, since Teldin took so much effort in saving them. But alas, we will never know.
If you enjoy Spelljammer as a setting you should read this book. If you have invested yourself in reading the preceding five novels, read this book. If you have not read any Spelljammer novels before, I cannot in good consciousness suggest you read them all. There are a few that are good, and a few that are not. If you have time and desire… Well, there are better series out there for you to explore.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Ultimate Helm by Russ T. Howard. What do you think about the final novel in the sextet? Did you have a favorite novel in the collection? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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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).
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