DungeonPunk
I was thinking about the term “dungeonpunk” for most of the weekend and was upset to learn that it was already taken. Of course it was taken. We live in the age of the internet. The welding of “punk” on almost anything is a characteristic of aesthetics and hyper specific speculative fiction. Dungeonpunk is a “subgenre of fantasy that applies the gritty, cynical, and “low-life, high-tech” ethos of Cyberpunk to a magical world.” The Dungeons and Dragons setting Eberron, and video games Final Fantasy 6 through 8 are usually used as examples of the term with industrialized magic being a central component but also a healthy dose of cynicism. To be witty, dungeonpunk is characterized as “low-life, high magic” to mimic the original ethos of cyberpunk. This is not what I thought about most of the weekend when kicking dungeonpunk around like a rock or a block of ice. I was thinking more of what if the typical arcane institution took place at dive bars and instead of an academic setting with dusty tomes, people learned magic through seedy connections and cajoling in loud bars. This weekend showed me a world where hedge wizards and rogue mages drank whiskey in the shadows, merchants sold wares through dim light, and there was a noticeable lack of respect for tradition and authority. Maybe what I wanted is an eclectic and welcoming underground scene with shades of magic thrown in for ambience. To be witty, I was thinking more “low-brow, high-fantasy” as the climate of the weekend.
The 2026 Florida Dungeon Fest is the second installment of an idea which also applied to the Texas Dungeon Siege. Though the two places are separated by more than 1000 miles, they are both headed by the same organizer, share lineups, have overlapping personnel, attended by a group of regulars, and operate on the same rule of cool where you could probably get a performing spot if you are passionate enough and your craft is weird as fuck. This was the reason why I wanted to travel down more than 800 miles from DC during a historic ice storm which left everyone in the Northeast quarrying snow out of their driveways. When initially looking at the lineup for this fest, I noticed I did not know perhaps 75% of the artists. This is something which is exciting because it means you get to meet new people who decided to gather in a stripmall outside of Orlando for an entire weekend during unprecedented bullshit weather. This will also bring you in direct paths to new ideas and personalities.
Though this event was a “dungeon festival” and that word applied to the vague notion of dungeon synth, I started to think more of what a dungeon is in terms of RPG setting. A dungeon is just a place for adventure and doesn’t even have to apply to a subterranean portion of a castle. A dungeon could be a cave, overland ruins, abandoned town, or an extra planar destination. The denizens of these dungeons could also be anything that fits the story from traditional high fantasy characters to something more universally wretched. There were no rules for a dungeon because that setting is just a tabula rasa to be filled in with imagination. A dungeon, much like the dungeon festival are flashpoints for strangeness and act as a beacon for people to congregate. Florida, despite its large institutions of theme parks and conservative politics, has a deep history of extreme music which seems to happen despite all odds.
Spending two days at a venue makes you very comfortable with the other people who were also there during that time. I got to know, at least visually, of many people who were in attendance including vendors, artists, staff, and people who bought two day tickets. Over the course of the two days I started to see this festival as a collection of misfits who were just there because it was strange as if we were the embodiment of the high school weird kid table in the lunch room. Its been a long time since high school sitting at the weird kids table and in 2026 I see the same social cliques and personalities just now all hybridized and with less fucks given for traditions. Dungeonpunk, for me, meant you could be a goth, metalhead, artist, hip hop head, theater kid, stoner, video game nerd, or just outsider but were not forced to pick just one rather be endless shades of all of the above. I attribute this to the internet and more of a plural understanding of interests and identity but also to a unique community which exists despite the world wanting things to fit into neat categories.
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Below are writeups of the event with my pictures. I included the available Bandcamps for anyone interested in the music. I started to see these types of festivals as less of a place where you go to see live dungeon synth and more of a meeting point for people who walk an angular path through life. Many 5thanks to Anthony for setting this and inviting me down. Thanks to the people who made it happen. As long as things go right Ill see you all in Kentucky.
Friday
No Bandcamp As Of Yet
Heldengeist is from Florida and comes partially from the hardcore act Lethal Injection as well as the tech death act Omnisium. Heldengeist seems to be the fantasy synth extension of those two acts with an embrace of imagination but also a refusal to stay quiet about current events. Perhaps this is why I found it so funny that the set was dedicated to an ongoing DnD campaign but also with a declaration of “Fuck ICE” with cheers emanating from the early evening audience.
I was aware of Ka’Bael before coming down as they have been active in Discords and other forums with their music. The use of the screen in front of the synths felt a little too intrusive though with this set it became a monolithic wall which was more like a tower which rose from the center of the stage. I also became actually aware of how seamless dungeon drone fits into a live setting as the sound which emanated from the stage was akin to a rolling fog which fills moors in classical horror.
Ogna was introduced to me not only as the artist but also the organizer for this year’s Appalachian Dungeon Fest. With a thick southern accent, clothes that looked like they were hand sewn, and a wizard hat that declared “Fuck The Law,” this person felt more like a character out of a anti authoritarian fairytale than someone from this reality. Ogna is described as a wandering synth which feels like it is one of those niche genres but it could really just be a placeholder for anything as this music and the set was more akin to visionary music just being played by people who looked like they wandered out of a storybook.
The Ashen Codex is epic / orchestral synth from NYC. This is music on stage and through albums which whisks the listener away on a journey into dense landscapes whether pristine or ruined. The artist was also playing Dragonquest 11 on the Switch at the artist Airbnb when we were all drinking coffee in the morning. They also mentioned they were a yoga instructor, a fact I found easy to believe with the near perfect posture as a pronounced warrior pose through most of the set. All of these facts contribute to an experience which was transformative with music that despite its minimal setup felt expansive. the linked album above actually just came out yesterday which is another small fact which makes dungeons ynth feel vibrant and alive as artists are constantly creating things.
Vampiric Coffin was one of my favorite sets and it is not that any of the other ones were lacking rather I just really enjoy this sound. To get the full effect, listen to the first and second song on this release and imagine that combined with clips of old vampire films. Raw black with punk and thrash influences can feel repellent to some but this sound is a party if you think of Hell as a tavern and the people you are doing shots with as horrible creatures of the night. This is also a sound which works great with a drum machine and the level of echo turned up all of the way giving the feeling of reading Bram Stoker on LSD.
In the past I have written about Elyvilon and I think I made jokes bout the handsome barbarian who would come in and show everyone up with defined shoulders. I still think that joke is funny. What I did learn this weekend was the artist’s history of being a first generation American with French, Egyptian, and Scandinavian heritage who makes mythopoeic music and is influenced by old world magic. All of this can be reduced to barbarian synth and I feel that term is partially correct as a diasporic outlander who lives in two realms at once. I have seen Elyvilon many times over the years and each set feels like a gradual transformation on a spiritual journey with music being left behind as waystones for others.
Redhorn Gate could be the quintessential dungeon synth act. With a name taken from Tolkien’s legendarium and a stage show being an equal part of the music, this three piece blends music and live visuals into something which feels like performance art or a craft which popular in centuries past. I first became aware of this act as an extension of Wrought Records which sent me tapes wrapped in heavy paper bound with a wax seal as if given by some royal court. This sort of creativity with presentation continued through Redhorn Gate and eventually Mythstone. While ill be talking more about this with Mythstone, Redhorn Gate as an entity is a unique artifact in the dungeon synth community as an act which fully devotes itself to the presentation regardless of the venue.
Saturday
No Bandcamp As Of Yet
“The guy who was at Texas Dungeon Fest was doing fantasy rap with the guy from Sombre Arcane” is a line that sounds like I’m relating a dream to the one person on the earth who would have any context how crazy that sounds. Ye Olde Loremonger is a new act who debuted his set on Saturday night. If anything can be said about the organizer of Florida Dungeon Fest is that you could probably do anything you want given the right amount of enthusiasm and charisma. This is not a sound which has an established audience but during a weekend of experimental music and outsider vibes it was the perfect and most crazy opener for Saturday which still feels like a dream.
I was talking to the artist in the back about her music following her guest spot with Heldengeist for a Summoning cover. I asked her about this type of music and whether or not she plays dungeon shows a lot and how the reception is for her type of music. I also made a joke about how this above picture looks like she is a black metal accountant or human resources representative for Hell.. Nefarious Grime is from Florida and has been operating since the early 2010’s long before dungeon synth had live shows. Something as niche as operatic avant black metal puts you in congregation with all manner of strange things and I feel artists like this are torchbearers for niche music in a land where you have to wander far to find interesting things.
Mons is the work of the designer for Fantasy Audio Magazine. I have known this person for a while and get the chance to see how something like this happens and how it operates. Mons could be considered spiritual drone but works more like visionary synth from a person with cosmic ideas. This particular set was entirely improvised and had the contributions from Spife which was decided hours before the set during a chance jam session at the artist airbnb. While this attitude most certainly fits into the ethos of dungeon synth, the work of Mons is apart of a larger more cosmic genre which really doesn’t have a name rather a spirit of innovation and boundless creativity.
We are now entering into a stretch of music which I call “black metal with a suspicious lack of synth.” Its okay, this was great. If you remember what I wrote about Vampiric Coffin the same can be said about lining up shots in a bar that smells like brimstone. Othalan fashions itself pagan metal on places like Metal Archives but if you were just looking for a party with demons in leather jackets this is the place to be. There might have been no synth in site, and the members might have Black Sabbath arm tattoos like outlaw sailors but if you remember the rules of the dungeon then anything is welcome as long as its cool.
There is a joke somewhere about Pontifex playing the night where the temperatures dropped in Florida to below freezing and somehow they brought a Norwegian winter upon us. This symphonic black / death act not only brought energy and sound which was befitting a larger venue but also they had the speed and professional efficiency setting up and breaking down their gear in full costume. Out of the entire weekend this set was perhaps the most robust sound which was matched by the band’s visual presentation which I called 90s Scandanavian theater.
When I saw Cries of Agony were playing and that I got the chance to see keller synth live I was ecstatic mainly because what I just said doesn’t make sense to most people. The genre of music, a frantic combination of raw black metal and noise synth with roots in a sketchy European music scene, feels like a branch at the very end of a terminally online tree which is better forgotten. Cries of Agony, an extremely non sketchy act from Texas, takes this idea and makes it three dimensional playing entirely from a laptop and a stage sanctified with incense. It was an experience I could see fitting into most spaces within this scene and by the look of the crowd this type of chaotic music resonated emotionally with people or at the very least scared the shit out of them.
I have seen Unsheathed Glory many times, first encountering this artist on a 3pm Sunday slot for the 2024 Great Lakes Dungeon Fest to “headlining” the current Florida dungeon fest. This journey has been accompanied by perhaps one of the most minimal gear setups as well as a sound which is immersive and lush despite the things I just said. Unsheathed Glory was perhaps the most fantasy ambient out of the entire weekend with music that sounds like a fairytale lullaby with a stage wreathed in fog. While I was taking pictures, I heard the crowd yell in excitement at certain songs which have become staples in their artists repertoire a fact that is astounding given such humble roots. This seems fitting for an artist who is eternally excited for everything especially local costume shops that sold medieval weapons.
Mythstone debuted at the 2025 Great Lakes Dungeon Siege and while it seems like just a collaboration between Redhorn Gate and Elyvilon, being at the show showed me what it really was. Mythestone began as a friendship and partnership between the two acts while attending the same festival which eventually yielded two records and a live performance. Mythstone in early 2026 felt more like the works of traveling troubadours than a traditional show. The group is composed of the members of both dungeon synth acts but also includes a production crew which includes performance, acting, merch, live projections, and the logistics which come between those things. The entire cast of Mythstone, at least at the Florida Dungeon Fest, was 8 people with no one seemingly more important than the other and the singular goal of enacting a vision. This group, which situated itself in the far corner of the venue, were always on and optimistic when it came to navigating the show as if it were a quest that needed to be fulfilled.
Various Photos
