Darkon is a world at war. The plains shake with the sounds of battle. The seas run red with blood. The wind pulses with screams of victory. The soccer fields quake with stilted rallying cries.

Welcome to the world of The Darkon Wargaming Club in Baltimore, USA, a full-contact medieval fantasy wargaming group.

Darkon follows a time of great upheaval. Bannor (Skip Lipman) has insulted leader Keldar (Kenyon Wells) and country Mordom. Believing it to be his destiny to break Mordom’s stranglehold and bring Keldar to trial and justice, Bannor creates an alliance with outlying countries.

Darkon takes us into both the fantasy and real world of the people behind it all. The film never portrays the participants as losers, nerds or overwhelmingly dysfunctional. From the house-husband who wants to be a hero, to the 28-year-old ex-stripper who wants out of her mother’s basement, to the high school aged Starbucks worker who wants the courage to talk to girls’they’re all people, struggling with the search for meaning, with their place in both worlds.

Just like in real life (albeit with more foam weapons and battles) for every possible negative, there is a positive; for every friendship that fractures because of the game, a new one is created; for every scrap of meaningless politics, there’s a real opportunity to express yourself.

As the film reaches its climactic battle between the Alliance and Mordom, you see friendships form and break, alliances struggle, castles stormed, and forests fill with wounded. Bannor finally meets his nemesis, one-on-one.

When it’s all over, everyone goes back into their cars and home to fix their swords and shields. They sew up their armour, pick up their kids, do the washing, and serve coffee, all the while thinking about the next event when, maybe, they’ll finally get to be a hero.