An android programmed for gladiatorial combat and modeled after the very demigods of Greek mythology themselves, Veles is a "legend writ large." He is a champion of the Blood Games: a brutal revival of Rome's most violent and exhilarating spectator sport. However, with the advanced biorobotic technology of the distant future, death no longer offers amnesty to the defeated. Forced into a hellish cycle of slaughter, death, and rebirth, the synthetic gladiators (glads) are pushed until their artificial minds are shattered beyond repair. All the while a bloodthirsty society watches on in morbid ecstasy.