It is said that when the god Nemo fought the fell god-beast Holistic Detective, Nemo struck off both her hands, then slashed her face open along the mouth with his obsidian blade. Holistic Detective then used her now horribly enlarged mouth to tear Nemo in half, then descended to Hell, taking her rightful place at the head of the demons there. Now, her horrific descendants plague the land, conquering fortresses and towns alike, breeding madly like animals and consuming any who oppose them.
—Overseer Vox Nihili, on the Spawn
Syrupleaf was a Succession Game Let's Play of Dwarf Fortress which existed in the same continuity as the earlier game Headshoots. The main quirk of the game was the addition of a new enemy civilization, the Spawn of Holistic: undead dwarf-things powered by molten magma.
Starting with the murder of a party member by batmen, the game transitioned into brutal sieges, bravery, madness, artwork, madness, masterwork low boots and especially madness.
The whole thing, as well as some side material, can be found here
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The Chronicles of Syrupleaf provides examples of:
- Badass Army: Syrupleaf's militia, thanks to constant hands-on training by way of seemingly endless sieges, ambushes, and assaults. A random patrolling guard encountering a charging frost giant on a massive warhorse and casually punting the horse out from under its rider with one barehanded blow is all in a day's work.
- Bittersweet Ending: Being Dwarf Fortress, there's only one possible way things end. However, despite the complete massacre of the fortress in the end, the entire population of Syrupleaf is welcomed into the dwarven equivalent of Heaven where they find honor among the rest of the great dwarven heroes, and peace from their horrific struggles.
- Black Comedy: Firos is a damn good fighter, but perhaps not the best mother. Loses two children and permanently maims another because she carried them into battle with her. No, we don't mean she had them with her. We mean she literally carried them into battle and beat things to death with them.
- Blood Knight: Firos, who refused to retreat into the gatehouse even against Spawn attacks.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Sirocco, with elements of The Cuckoolander Was Right when he becomes overseer.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's nuts, but he's also extremely skilled in combat.
- Crapsack World: The fort's location is on a blasted, freezing waterless glacier on the south pole, where it is regularly assaulted by enormous, powerful zombies in huge numbers.
- Crapsaccharine World: Said glacier is a "Joyous Wilds" biome, which is considered a good biome.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Literally. The fortress taunts the Spawn by building an enormous tower topped with a giant adamantine sculpture of a hand with middle finger extended, visible for miles around.
- Fluffy Tamer: The fort's usual animal handlers manage to tame a mammoth and at one point a polar bear, but they're far overshadowed by Eiba the moleboy and
her giant moles, who become a rather iconic part of Syrupleaf itself. - Expy: Silentio Boborachi is rather obviously a dwarf version of Albert Wesker. Down to his nickname being "the Weskerdwarf" and working for a shady organisation named...Parasol Corporation.
- Ghost Town: While Syrupleaf experienced a brief golden age, it rapidly turned into one of these late in its life. The vast majority of the fortress had been completely abandoned for years by the time it finally fell.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Daeren, whose sacrifice to hold off the Spawn was so selfless and moving that the gods themselves chose to leave his spirit in the mortal realm in order to safeguard Syrupleaf.
- I Call It "Vera": Sirocco's warhammer, Patsy.
- Last Stand: The dwarves try one of these, complete with Rousing Speech. They're completely slaughtered, and manage to kill only few Spawn in the final battle.
- Madness Mantra: After Jazzimus' breakdown, he constantly babbles about the numbers...
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: Parasol started off as this, when they were introduced during Silento's turn. A dwarven MegaCorp entirely focused on running amoral experiments on everything, who possess technology far beyond the 'verse standard (ranging from the hologram-disguised aircraft that Silento arrives on, to a literal Reset Button). Later on, they're established as being demonic in nature, becoming the overarching antagonists who ultimately control the very existence of Syrupleaf as a recurring experiment...until Daeren's sacrifice banishes their influence entirely and all of their devices and artifacts in the fort are destroyed.
- One-Man Army: Some of Syrupleaf's best champions regularly take on dozens of enemies, Spawn, frost giant and human alike, by themselves and absolutely obliterate them. Tehsid, in particular, had a killcount measured in triple digits (mostly Spawn) and only ever fell in battle because he got too exhausted from killing so many enemies in such a short amount of time. That's right, he literally killed himself to death.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The Spawn. They are shaped like huge deformed dwarves, rent down the middle, from forehead to abdomen, by an enormous toothy maw, and powered by "hearts" of magma.
- Painting the Medium / Through the Eyes of Madness: Vox Nihili, one of Syrupleaf's overseers, enters a fey mood during his time updating, and one updates chronicles this.
- Punched Across the Room: A few of the stronger champions of Syrupleaf can and often do send opponents flying ludicrous distances, including at least one instance where tehsid picked up a Spawn and tossed it over three hundred feet.
- Pointless Doomsday Device: The GLACIERASER was one, intended to melt an entire glacier and annihilate incoming enemies by flooding the area. However, when it came time to use it, it malfunctioned and merely ineffectually fizzled out. Much later on, the GLACIERMAKER, a much smaller scale weapon with the reverse idea, plays a role in the final defence of Syrupleaf.
- Secret Police: Globofglob, during his more dictatorial reign, assembles the New Guard to be this for him.
- Significant Name Overlap: Holistic Detective was an ancient hero-turned-demon god, and the force behind the monsters besieging Syrupleaf. Holistic Detective was also a brave warrior of Syrupleaf, slain in battle against the Spawn, having been named after Holistic before her fall to darkness.
- Starter Villain: Initially, the biggest threats to the fortress are the Batmen, but they are quickly overtaken by the Spawn of Holistic as the Arch-Nemesis of Syrupleaf.
- The Usual Adversaries: The Spawn of Holistic and frost giants seem to be taking turns on invading Syrupleaf. Early on, Sand Raiders and (to a lesser extent) the local batmen also served in this role.
- Upper-Class Twit: In typical Dwarf Fortress fashion, all of the nobles. Most notably Countess Accursed, who constantly keeps demanding items made of green glass (which is always noted to be impossible to make in the glacial climate of Syrupleaf). And who could forget Eiba, formally a tax collector, who after becoming Overseer immediately declares himself to be a "moleboy" and dedicates his life to capturing and taming ferocious giant moles by the score...while always roping somebody else into doing the actual work (read: running away from a charging horde of vicious moles that gruesomely mutilate everything living in their way.)
- Zerg Rush: The operating principle of the "Molenarok" trap. Step one: train every available animal as war animals. Step two: cram them all into a single cage in a strategically fitting location. Step three: release on the enemy when they get close enough.
