Ratatosk

The Ratatosk are a group of intelligent squirrels who dwell within the branches of Yggdrasil. They tend to be very curious and greatly enjoy spreading gossip and tall tales.

Cursed by the Gods
The Ratatosk and their neighbors the Ravenfolk are two races that claim descent from a pair of friends who lived in the branches of Yggdrasil long ago. The squirrel and the raven were great doers of mischief and enjoyed nothing more than stirring up disagreement where once their was comity, proving to all that theirs was the truest and strongest of friendships. Eventually their trickery wen too far when, entrusted to carry a poem from Magrim, a dwarven god of language and the underworld, to Shelyn, Goddess of Love and Beauty, the friends completely rewrote it, filling the text with rude puns about the various gods' attributes. Needless to say Shelyn was unimpressed and Magrim resolved to punish the scheming friends severely. He declared that neither could be trusted to use their words responsibly and thus they would be curtailed. Ratatosk and his descendants were cursed to speak nothing but lies and gossip, unable to speak truthfully about that which they desired and unable to refrain from revealing that which they had been told in confidence. Upon Hrafnir and his descendants, Magrim laid the stricture that they would never again be able to lie about what someone had said, only free to repeat words exactly as they had heard them. The two friends blamed eachother for their misfortune and to this day the two peoples' feud and the god's curse remain strong.