Voss suffers from the kind of depression any young man would have after years without a job. Forced to sleep in a closet at his older brother Jeff's place, with his younger brother, the kind and simple Clancy, Voss tries to make sense of the rut where he is trapped. Voss knows he is smart, and deserving of a better life, but things haven't come together for him. Losing himself as his boardgame character, Magmald (a singing warrior-knight of the Bardladin race, who can heal others with song), may feel like his only form of sanity.