"Should we help him?" "No, no... this is really his fight. I don't want to intrude."

Question: Okay, after reading your poem "The Lay of the Squirrel King", I have to ask: what stats does Ratatoskr have, and what can you expect to get if you beat him? Would he gift you with Nemean squirrels, a Relic, or maybe pledge his services to you? (And would he be a Creature or Guide if he did?)

I'm going to go ahead and blame Sophia and her misleading verse for this one. Fortunately (very fortunately) for Goze, he has not yet met Ratatoskr; Sverrir and Yoloxochitl have, and they can attest that he is not a picnic basket full of fun.

Ratatoskr himself is a Typhonian beast; he's the massive primal squirrel that lives in the world-tree Yggdrasil itself, the father of all other squirrels and the fomenter of dissent between the eagle at the tree's crown and the dragon (Nidhoggr) beneath its roots. We don't have him statted out at the moment, but he's likely to be Legend 11 or so and extremely physically quick and tough; when Sverrir and Yoloxochitl accidentally disturbed him on Yggdrasil (and then had to run for their lives), one of his clawed toes was as long as Sverrir's entire body. Imagine the most enormous, impressive Typhonian squirrel in existence, and you'll be thinking of Ratatoskr.

If you did manage to overcome him, which would be a seriously crazy badass feat, it's likely that your best bet would be to ask him to carry messages or relay insults or political overtures for you, since that's his specialty. He also probably knows a wealth of secrets about the inner workings of the world tree and the plans and weaknesses of Nidhoggr and the eagle, which you might be able to persuade him to share with you. He might agree to act as a Guide, but I'd beware a Guide you only got by beating the shit out of him; that sounds like a recipe for him turning on you or selling you out if he thinks he can get away with it. If you were to go so far as to kill him, an impressive cosmic feat indeed, his hide and famous teeth are probably incredibly good materials to be turned into Relics (though, of course, there's always the chance that killing one of the ancient denizens of Yggdrasil might cause some serious damage to the Norse world).

When she wrote that poem, Sophia was demonstrating the dual skills of an artist to both make her subject feel better about humiliating defeat and further ridicule him for it. Poor Goze, Legend 5 at the time with no physical might to speak of, was only wrestling with a Legend 3 Nemean squirrel, which proceeded to kick his ass all over the landscape while his bandmates, too entertained to put a stop to it, looked on. Had Ratatoskr actually decided to get pissed off about Goze's squirrel-murdering and make an appearance, there probably wouldn't have been much of anyone left to write poetry. Given Terminus' enduring Vengeance against squirrels now, though, it seems inevitable that if he ever does meet Ratatoskr, there will be a violent and ill-advised reckoning.

I'm sure that Legend 3 squirrel thinks he's totally hot shit, though.