Gnoll Archives - Vintage RPG

Music for Dungeons (2023)

Stu Horvath — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 13:30:00 +0000

Perhaps more than Kobold, Gnoll is the Heimat Der Katastrophe project I see folks enthuse over most. This is their second album, Music for Dungeons (originally 2018, LP version 2023). Of the RPG-related dungeonsynth I’ve listened to, Gnoll seems to hew closest to the genre’s black metal roots and mixes in touches of more traditional ambient and cinematic music. I kind of bounced of the first one, Citadel of Evil, but this one gets a lot of play.

It’s basically two long tracks, one per side, and it was written to accompany Dungeoneer’s solo game Dungeons (hence the title), which I am unfortunately unfamiliar with — I believe the Peter Pagano album art draws from the game’s art. However, there is a delightful treat: Dungeons & Caverns, a booklet/module for designing dungeons, by none other than Spaghetti Quester. The generator is really more of a prompt-giver, codifying six dungeon types and offering six variants of each, arranged in nesting tables. The real treat is the collection of example dungeons, fully annotated and in color! Twelve of them! They’re great fun and I would totally use them in a game.

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Gnoll – Flight from the Dark (2021)

Stu Horvath — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 05:00:58 +0000

I was surprised and delighted when I saw that Gnoll had recorded a soundtrack for Flight from the Dark (2021). I was even more surprised to hear how far along Gnoll’s sound has developed — I like dungeonsynth generally, but listening to it for an extended period feels punishing in a way similar to a steady diet of black metal. Even jauntier seeming stuff can feel incongruously oppressive. Which I’m not against! I dunno what precisely is different about this Gnoll album, but it is more listenable than the others I’ve checked out. There’s more space in the mix, more ambiance? The synths feels more intentional, like an 80s film score. And it fits the action of the book pretty good, even if it isn’t quite what I’d imagined.

All the art is from the book, repurposed in Heimat der Katastrophe style. I love seeing it re-contextualized for an audio cassette. You can check it out on the HDK bandcamp, give it a listen! Hard pressed to pick a fave (“Threats Lurk Everywhere,” maybe?), but the title track is pretty representative. The groove almost moves into synthwave territory.

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Gnoll – Music For Dungeons (2018)

Stu Horvath — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Gnoll is the Heimat der Katastrophe project I most often hear folks professing their love for. It is a little less bloopy than Kobold, a little spookier, a little more blackened. This is their second album, Music for Dungeons, which is just two 20-minute tracks full of chanting, airy spaces, menacing drums and plenty of atmosphere. It gets pretty epic towards the end, building to a climax that would work in a surprisingly well made mid-80s cult horror film, I think. Or for the end of your D&D campaign.

It doesn’t seem like a good fit when you think about it – synths as background music for fantasy roleplaying – but when you listen to it, you can hear it working. Something about the 80s nostalgia-ness melding together.

I love Peter Pagano’s art, too, really fits the dark, but slightly cartoony mood.

You can check out Gnoll and the other HDK releases on their Bandcamp page.

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