“Those making dark dungeon music will continue to carry a torch in the underground regardless of how popular it might get,” says Scott Padamonsky, the owner of Chimney Rocks Records. To him, dungeon synth is “getting bigger and expanding into a more fantasy-centric type of sound and scene, which I think is more approachable to the masses… I feel like Great Lakes Dungeon Siege represents both of those scenes, giving homage to the old while embracing the new.”
Padamonsky is referring to the upcoming third edition of the Great Lakes Dungeon Siege festival, taking place October 24 to 25 at Ghost Light in Detroit. With a new venue and an all-star roster featuring headliners Thangorodrim and Malfet, it’s set to uphold the prestige it’s garnered in the small dungeon synth community.
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Within that community, Padamonsky knows what he’s talking about. He attended both prior editions of GLDS as well as two North East Dungeon Sieges, so I reached out to him for his thoughts on the upcoming event. Bryan Mobley boasts the same festival resume as Padamonsky and was heralded by GLDS organizers as “the biggest dungeon synth fan ever.” I needed his insight too. However, neither Padamonsky nor Mobley performed at GLDS, so I also contacted Jake Kohn, who performed last year as Vale Minstrel and will grace the stage this year as Faydark.
As a composer, performer, and nomadic concert goer–Kohn has attended dungeon synth festivals around the United States as if they’re checkpoints on an in-game map–he had plenty to say about dungeon synth’s relevance over the last few years.
“Most people believe it is increasing in popularity across the board, but what I have seen is that the activity around live shows, tours, and festivals has increased quite a lot in recent years, but the age of online hype, quick sell-out of merch and high clicks seems to have slightly dwindled. I’ve noticed a lot of things get fewer views, clicks, and hype online than around the pandemic or early 2020s when posting anything meant almost instant viral reaction or 10k, 20k, 30k+ views. It’s not quite like that anymore, as far as I have seen.”
It’s an interesting development for a genre that didn’t garner a name until two decades after its inception and was largely fertilized on the internet. In-person events now carry it forward. As such, GLDS has assembled a particularly productive line-up. Most of them released a new album this year. A few will be hitting the stage for the first time ever, including Tomb Wizard, Cefaris, and Bergtagen, the dark metal band who released their debut EP, In Forests Eternal, earlier this year.
Distinguishing GLDS is that the sliver separating attendee, vendor, and performer doesn’t exist. For instance, I walked by 2025 festival headliner Fief multiple times at the last iteration without once knowing it was him. He was a dude, like me, at the event. The festival is more akin to folk music, not the genre but the tradition, wherein people were transiently performers and observers, listening to others play as much as they played their own music. No one was elevated onto a pedestal because the ritual itself, the shifting roles everyone occupied, was the main attraction.
“It’s not a huge scene with massive egos, so it’s a great chance to get social and meet like-minded people face to face. You can talk to the musicians; they’re just like you! There is basically no drunken mayhem that I’ve witnessed and it’s a safe space for all,” says Padamonsky.
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It’s in this way that dungeon synth’s tightly knit bonds are evident. Unfamiliar with a performer? The venue is small. You’ll likely bump into them, and if you’ve already done that, may as well watch them on stage. As both Padamonsky and Mobley point out, being on the line-up is proof enough that an act is worth checking out. Kohn adds to that: “It’s a much more organic experience to watch a musical act and sample it that way as opposed to just clicking on (yet another) link somewhere online. It’s a great way to hear many different artists that you might not normally check out.” There’s an inherent trust because the mage on-stage orchestrating alchemy is someone you spoke with 20 minutes ago while waiting for food. The music is obscure at GLDS, but the people are easier to reach.
The amorphous relationship between audience and performers, if there’s even a point in drawing that distinction, especially considering last year’s pre-fest party had a dungeon synth open mic event, dismantles hierarchy. Kohn describes the atmosphere as, “essentially a forum of musical expression. Where artists and fans are interchangeable and freely mingle. A place with no pretention, where the buzz and excitement is equal from the opening acts to the closers. There’s a feeling of gratitude and excitement just to be there!”
This closeness humanizes the dungeon synth’s fantastical dressings, the lush album arts remodelled into janky attires and DIY sets. For comparison, Mortiis’ set on the Decibel Tour 2025 boasted large banners with his own prosthetic face, a mountainous backdrop, ornate keyboard accoutrements, and booming, nearly overcompensating, percussion. It was mythical. GLDS, even at its most epic, is quaint. The performers are clearly on budgets and they use that metaknowledge to their advantage, translating the genre’s auditory self-awareness into a visual language.
The most grandiose display of this was, in Padamonsky’s words, “Mythstone, who brought one of the most over-the-top performances of the [GLDS 2025] weekend. Merging the musical talents of Redhorn Gate and Elyvilon with a huge dose of theatrics and puppetry, their set was captivating. I was blown away with how well it came together live on stage and could see them bringing that show to a wider audience in the future.”
By contrast, DragonKeep’s subdued set from the year prior earned praise from Mobley. “Her setup was so minimal, just up there with a keyboard and stool of some sort. I thought about how much guts it must take to do that the whole time.I was watching her fingers bounce across the keys. Off into dreamland.”
Dungeon synth is long removed from its dungeon purgatory, with GLDS performers showing the multitude of directions it can travel. DragonKeep and Mythstone are opposite ends of the spectrum, though there’s a z-axis that diversifies the acts; theme. Kohn says, “I really enjoy the deep creativity of acts like Alder Deep. The Hi-Fi Fantasy of Wraith Knight. The ancient cult of Cernunnos Woods. The atmospheric minimal perfection of Coniferous Myst. The sleek polar melodies of Hoarfrost. Or the whimsy of Fernmage. And of course the Medieval Mastery of Fief.”
Even through this thematic variety, dungeon synth is, for the most part, slow, ponderous, and journeys without conclusions. Seemingly, it’s antithetical to a live show. Yet, everyone I spoke with heralded it for those attributes. Those in attendance are already familiar with dungeon synth’s immersive and individual properties, so to them, the transition is seamless. Mobley states, “I watched Forgotten Lore do a most incredible set with a keyboard and a kick drum. She turned the temp down in that place by like 10 degrees. Icy. Chilling.”
Among the GLDS roster this year, Mobley, Padamonsky, and Kohn each picked a few acts they’d recommend to those who haven’t attended a dungeon synth event before. Their prescriptions included Foglord, Malfet, Hoarfrost, Caitha, Cefaris, and Thangorodrim.
Speaking from experience, Great Lakes Dungeon Siege is an atypical festival. It’s sleepy and without ego. I don’t make or play dungeon synth, yet I felt like I could, if only because I stood at the same equitable level as the rest of the festival by nature of being there. It’s the fantastical appearing in our realm for a brief weekend, new scenery entering our world and speaking its culture back to us. You won’t feel like you’re not in Michigan, but you may feel much closer to art commonly deemed as escapist.
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Statement from organizer Jon Rosenthal:
I don’t think that there is any doubt concerning live dungeon synth anymore. Mortiis constantly tours, and people like Josh Pratt, Shane Hall, and Tirith (plus anyone else who runs a dungeon synth fest or books dungeon synth shows) helped cement the style as a live art form. Fests like Great Lakes Dungeon Siege are more like opportunities to give artists who might not have had one to play live, and for the audience to experience their art and how they express it in a live setting. Live dungeon synth is great because it is that passive, introspective style, as you said, meaning live performances are filled with opportunity for immense creativity. I think about fantasy artists like Mythstone’s epic, puppeteered live performances compared to Fief’s sunglasses-and-chainmailled minimalism, or Erythrite Throne and Coniferous Myst’s plainclothes, corpse painted misery. Great Lakes Dungeon Siege is a combining of these dungeon and fantasy styles and a conduit for their creativities in extra-musical and theatrical ways. We are so excited to see how everyone expresses themselves this year.
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Great Lakes Dungeon Siege takes place October 24-25 at Ghost Light in Detroit, Michigan. Tickets are available here.