The Virtual Dungeon Crawl (VDC) is the second annual online festival hosted and put together by New Zealand artist / label Arcane Chapel. The VDC also happened in September of this year and nearing two months from this publication date. While it would have been nice to put something out right afterwards, the VDC has become an event that is detached from time and does not have the timeliness as other in person events. This is because you can experience the festival whenever you want to. You could even do it right now. You should. While we have already entered into the timeline where there are multiple dungeon synth festivals around the world the VDC stands as its own digital microcosm of dungeon and dungeon adjacent music.
I wrote about the first event and its seven participants. Part of the reason for this article being two months after the event was tracking down each of the 17 artists. I asked each one of them about their performance with an extremely vague question of “Can you tell me about your VDC performance.” I am sure some were confused at the prompt with questions. “Does he mean the technical aspects or the musical aspects or even my choice of costumes?” “Am I being graded on my response.” I reassured each one that anything was fine and whatever the artist responded with I put in as their blurb whether it was brief or extended. I feel each quote, much like the performances, showcases the artist responding to prompts in their unique way but all with the same sense of confidence. Some performances in this VDC have elaborate costuming and choreography others are still shots in a very visible room under a very visible Demon Slayer poster. More than one person described pain or exhaustion while filming their sets. The spectrum of pageantry is fascinating as they are extensions of the artist who chose to express themselves. All of them reside in a valley of understanding that given its basic rules for entry, all will be accepted as equals in a larger community.
The VDC is unique in sense that doing a virtual performance might be the first step to an eventual in person performance. In some cases, this performance is the only glimpse into their world and for various reasons the artist will be only virtual. Others perhaps are the first step to an eventual in person event. The VDC, much like dungeon synth as a whole, operates under a few rules and beyond that is a showcase for talent that might otherwise be ignored or even missed. One of the more exciting prospects for me is going to a dungeon synth festival with its lineup unknown. There one gets to preview new talent and potentially be around for an inaugural performance. The VDC was perhaps the one festival where I was unaware of the majority of its participants not just in seeing them preform but aware of their existence. Perhaps I will see some of them live one day and perhaps this is the one fleeting glimpse I have into their art. Whatever the case, I thank each artists for taking time to answer my questions and also taking the time to do something as simple as making yourselves known for the rest of the world.
Well basically for Cazataire I set my dawless rig in a similar way than what I do for the studio recordings. In the case of VDC I added my Wavestate and a DIY arpeggiator to my former rig. To shoot it I used my phone camera for the video, and recorded the audio of the set using my Zoom L6. I then added a few effects, logos etc in Canva. I edit almost nothing, only a bit of eq, balance, compression and if there’s some kind of bad noise. But everything you listen to was executed live exactly as it was in the recording
Sporcerer is a new project I started early this year, focusing on a specific character and his adventures within spaceseer’s fictional World of Ilia. I brought my favorite portable synths to the woods of Hobble Creek Canyon near Springville, UT to see if I could jam with a mushroom growing in the forest. I like to learn about the subject being recorded, and fit it conceptually into a scifi narrative as such: “The Sporcerer interviews Ganoderma Conk, a mushroom person attached and feeding off of the bark of a fallen wooden tower”. It was filmed and recorded in Hobble Creek Canyon near Springville, UT on probably the hottest Saturday morning of the year, easily over 102 degrees by noon. Gear used: instruo Pocket Scion, Sonicware Megasynthesis and Evoke, and Casio MT68. Filmed with a Nikon T2i and audio recorded with a shure stereo camera mounted mic and Zoom H6.
I definitely spent some time overthinking how I would come up with my set for the performance. I don’t have the fanciest equipment for recording, but I figured the best thing to do was just channel the old school lofi spirit cause that’s honestly my biggest inspiration and it’s what I love most about dungeon synth. So in the end I just sat down with my keyboard and started playing. I didn’t actually have any songs planned ahead of time, it seemed like just coming up with something live would be really fun and I’m glad that’s how I did it cause I think just playing what came to me organically turned out better that I had even hoped for!
For VDC this year i kept a simple approach. The music is all live improvisation, except for the Pet Shop Boys cover at the end. That one was planned(i thought that song deserved the dungeon synth treatment). Using just the Korg N-5 and Yamaha P-45 for tones, with the backing track coming in near the end. All recorded straight to the computer in FL Studio.
I originally wanted to perform on the first edition last year, But at that time we’ve been renovating, so didn’t make it. So I’m happy it worked out this year! I played four songs. The first was Far Beyond, which is one of my personal favourites out of my currently pretty little discography. After that I did a little improvisation, so you won’t find it on any release. The third and fourth songs will be part of my next release, which I am currently recording. I recorded my performance pretty late at night during this year’s heat wave, which was pretty extreme here, so it was incredibly hot. Then, during editing, which by the way took quite a while, because my editing software didn’t really work anymore and I had to switch to a different one, I added a VHS effect to make it look a little bit more interesting.
So typically when I write music for The Ashen Codex I take a lot of inspiration from RPG soundtracks, so songs often have lots of layers and many dynamic ranges. Because of this when I play live I will typically play to a backing track and when I can I have a friend play with me to fill out the sound more. Because of the more intimate nature of the VDC, i wanted to approach this performance differently. My set consists of two different songs built up from scratch using a looping pedal. Aside from the main melodies of the song, everything was mostly improved. This is the reason why you’ll often see me playing before triggering the looper. Both songs were filmed at different times of the day at my Yoga studio Dark Lotus Yoga.
First off, I wasn’t even sure I was going to have time to put something together this year. I had a pretty busy summer and, if I’m remembering correctly, Ziri wanted videos submitted around the time I was in the midst of preparing for a pair of gigs. But the day before they were due, I had a basic melody I was toying with and figured I could do something cool with it; so I hauled my rig out to the back garden, below this year’s resplendent bean arch, set up my phone, and after a couple of false starts, got this 16 minute song jammed out. Nearly entirely improvised, I was really pleased with how “Deep Forest Dreaming” turned out! And it was a ton of fun and something I’m pretty proud of. Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve been having a really good time building bigger and bigger songs simply by using my looper pedal live. It’s a really great feeling to get myself into the zone and craft something entirely in the moment. Also, I’d recently picked up a tambourine, and while I’m still getting the hang of it, it’s been a great addition to my improvised jams. I’m super grateful to be a part of what Ziri and the gang have put together again this year. As the “dungeon synth” scene continues to grow (and fracture…) I’m proud to be a part of something that is whole-heartedly anti-fascist. Everyone did such an awesome job and it’s great to see the wide diversity in styles and aesthetics!
I’ve known Ziri for a while now and have followed pretty much everything she’s done. I didn’t have chance to participate last year but thought the idea was really cool, so I jumped at the chance to get in this time around. I wasn’t sure what to play so I improvised a set and let the feeling flow, like I would in my normal creative profess. The result was a sort of suite of all my projects, dark, mystical, chapel organ music, and cozy. Watching the stream and seeing the active, receptive audience engage was very inspiring and gets me really hyped to work on new material.
I started Fen Walker in 2019 and by the time I was ready to take my music to the stage COVID had struck. While those years were awful, Dungeon Synth really carried me through. The streaming festivals were particularly enjoyable and I had a great time creating my own performances for various online events. For the past 3 or 4 years Ive been performing live in different cities and venues, the streaming days seemingly behind me. So when I saw a call for performers for the VDC I jumped at the chance to make another video to stream. It’s really enjoyable to see how people bring their music and creativity to the screen. This year’s event saw a lot of unique videos and great performances.
What wondrous difference one jaunt ’round the cosmic path doth make…In the time since last year’s VDC I feel like I have yet again grown exponentially as an artist. My musical family has expanded to include a hardware synth (Korg Minilogue, which I use both in its own right and as a MIDI controller). I have also found a greater appreciation for just embracing/leaning into my guitarist roots and let my Stratocaster join its mandolin companions as my music continues to jump the bounds of dungeon synth and drift between medieval folk to black metal to jazz and occasionally goth-y tones (the highest compliment I’ve been paid in the last year was someone describing my OctoMando tone as “Darkthrone meets Soda Stereo”). Another recent development is that I have now started playing live offline as well. I don’t know that I’ll ever go on a proper tour or anything with Fenmoss, but my first two shows have been an intoxicating blend of hanging out with cool people, making connections with folks I previously only knew as a label name/profile picture, and running around dressed like a medieval peasant tripped into a hedge on the way home from a black metal show. From the positive feedback alone (both to myself and to performing as a two-piece with a piano-playing friend on live keys) I know more shows will have to be in the cards. Maybe I (or one of many nameless and masked denizens of Fenmoss-town) will see you, dear reader, in your own home swamp one of these days. I’m still lucky enough to know a professional filmmaker eager to have a goofy little passion project once a year, so when Ziri announced the second installment of VDC, I knew I had to be part of it again. What I didn’t expect was just how many people would be involved. Needless to say there was no ante left un-upped, no envelope un-pushed, and I have absolutely no excuse for not getting even more ambitiously swampy next time. What exactly that means is still vague, but half the fun will be in the mere act of coaxing a coherent performance out of the wetland waters of my fantasy brain. Hails to Ziri. Hails to Virtual Dungeon Crawl. Stay strong. Stay safe. Stay swamp synth.
When in May Arcane Chapel announced the 2026 edition of the Virtual Dungeon Crawl, I had just finished recording Barren Caverns of the Upper Limbs while on my third month of hospitalisation. In June I was discharged, and I had the idea of recording a performance for the VDC as a part of my recovery journey. I don’t have experience in recording videos, had no amazing videomaker friend to help, and was basically confined at home for the duration of my recovery. So I dusted an old 2001 camcorder and rearranged three songs from my releases (thank you Lily of the Valley for having me on your label!) for a setup compact enough to almost fit the frame (only one instrument was offscreen). I had Ableton sequencing two synths, while a third one (at the top of the frame) is droning on the root note of the three songs. The performance elements came from me interacting with the drone, one of the synths, and the fancy delay provided by my modular system. The various flavours of noise and the tarot reading that accompanies the performance can be interpreted as a metaphor of my recent health journey (of course, you can also read all sorts of meanings into them). I hope I managed to convey a sense of intimacy, while being also eerie in some aspects. A huge thank you to Arcane Chapel and a shout-out to all the other amazing artists that performed at the 2026 VDC.
This was my first performance as Skuggkonungen. My performance was 98% improvised on the night of recording. Recorded in the middle of the night and greatly inspired by the droning minimalism of acts like Sunn o))). The performance was recorded with: Korg Ms-20 mini, Behringer Odyssey, korg Minilogue and the Casio MT-540. It was recorded in my basement studio
For this First Prince of The Sword set I wanted to take a minimal approach. My primary project (Moonlit Corridors) is far bigger in sound and stage theatrics so it was a nice change of pace to strip it all away. For gear I used my favorite old Casio, a looper pedal I had just bought/barely practiced with and a Fender Rumble bass amp for a bit of warmth on the low end and purposeful clipping on the highs. Everything I played was improvised off of the main melody I play at the beginning of each track. Maybe they will sound the same on the new release, maybe they wont. I think the concept of a Virtual Dungeon Crawl is really important for a growing community like the Dungeon/Fantasy Synth scene. So many artists live in areas where attending or performing at dungeon events is a scarce experience. Events like this get rid of geographical barriers and allows anyone to participate. I loved being a part of this and can’t wait to participate in another in the future.”
This (performance) was a very last minute thing, I think I recorded it 2 weeks before the fest aired. As such I decided to keep it a secret and added it as a bonus performance for day two. The decision to perform as Buried in Desolation out of all my projects was made because I had just released an album and so it was still very fresh in my mind. Also because of it being such short notice (my fault entirely), I wouldn’t have had time to practice any of my dungeon synth material. The performance consists of only two sounds: my Roland S-1 (for the drone) and my midi keyboard which is playing a software synth. I programmed just the drone’s one note and then improvised the rest with the end result being a dungeon noise kind of sound. Not everyone’s cup of tea probably, but I loved making it. And either way, I’m just glad I didn’t sit this one out like I was originally planning to.
So, the songs I played were songs I have previously released but I wanted to make it interesting visually or narratively somehow. At the time, I didn’t have anything to hold my phone into place and my visual editing skills were basically amateur. So I decided to edit it in a way that I could tell a story since the songs are from my own fantasy world. I recorded dialogue between the songs introducing the subject of the tale and added somewhat transparent imagery that was overlaid onto the recorded content of me playing the keyboard.
Carrion Cloak typically is forged through heavy distorted synths and pounding drums but for the VDC I wanted to go back to our fantasy roots and just sit down and play whatever came to me. No practice, no do overs. Just set a tone and play along to the ambience of nightlife here in West Virginia.
I heard that VDC was happening again this year about a month before the submission deadline. I set out with a loose plan to make some jaunty adventuring music loosely based around a concept like “The Quest For the Scarlet Veil” or similar. Shortly after I started working on the music for my submission I was invited to perform a show with only two weeks to prepare. That performance took all my attention, and served as a platform to experiment with some of my VDC ideas. After that show I came back to my VDC sketches in quite a different headspace. I had about a week to put something together and record the performance. For some inexplicable reason I thought “Oh! I should turn myself into a full band for the video!” despite only ever recording one video in my life. I was hit by a burst of creative inspiration, drawing from the Trans Anguish™ I’ve experienced in my life. Things quickly spiraled from jaunty adventuring music to existential agony music. I took a day off work to record everything. That day happened to be the hottest day of the year. I planned on doing 3-5 takes of each part and keeping the take with the best audio & video. Unfortunately I was severely overheated after only one keyboard take. The performance was good enough so I took a short break to cool down and hydrate, then recorded the rest of the instruments one by one. In the video you see the figure to the left of the screen wobble a bit—that was me nearly fainting. I have no idea how I got everything recorded or how it all came together so well with only one take each. The first takes ended up being the performance. I was worried that I ventured too far from the dungeon, and that would cause people to dislike it. The feedback I received during the premiere was surprising and has inspired me to make more music like this in the future. Eternal hails to Ziri for organizing, the other performers for being unique and amazing, and everyone who supported the festival.
The day before I played Night at the Dungeon III and thought I should record my performance complete with decorations in my backyard while it was still fresh, and send it to Ziri for VDC. It was challenging to do as I had hurt my right shoulderblade a bit before and the sun was cooking me. Then a bit of montage and that’s about it.
– Sylfvr