She’s here to eat nuts and kick buts, an attitude that helped her canonically beat some of Marvel’s biggest villains.
Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that turns unbeatable popular culture icons into bushy-tailed Essence20 Player Characters.
I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting. And I’m a huge Squirrel Girl fan.
I’ve been playing Marvel Rivals since I got a Steam Deck for Christmas, and it’s an understatement to say I main Squirrel Girl. I got the game because I could play as Tippy Toe’s best friend. When my daughters watch me play, they tell me to try the game’s 34 other characters. To that I say “Why?”
And, ends up, January 21st was Squirrel Appreciation Day. So even though I released an Essential Builds last week, we’re back again!
Who Is Squirrel Girl?
By day Doreen Green studies Computer Science at Empire State University.However, when evil’s afoot, she unfurls her tail, dons her ear tufts headband, and springs into action with the help of the millions of tree rodents at her command as The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!
Squirrel Girl is Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko’s last contribution to the Marvel Universe.The iconic artist was requested by co-creator William Murray when the originally planned artist backed out.
Debuting during the edgy 90s, Squirrel Girl was a throwback to the more optimistic heroes of the 60s. So much so, rumours spread that Squirrel Girl’s first appearance, published in Marvel Super-Heroes Winter Special, was written in the 60s and only published 30 years later. Her plucky positivity remained a trademark of the character, as much as her prehensile tail, ability to communicate with squirrels (sciurokinesis, if we’re getting technical), and heightened agility.
Infamously, Squirrel Girl defeated Dr Doom in her first appearance, overwhelming him with a swarm of squirrels that caused him to crash his ship. Overcoming Marvel’s A-list villains became a (totally canonical) running gag, where stories would often join Squirrel Girl after defeating the likes of Thanos and MODOK off-panel. This earned her the Unbeatable nickname.
Building Essence20 Squirrel Girl
Squirrel Girl may have beat up the Marvel universe, however, during her influential run written by Ryan North and illustrated first by Erica Henderson then Derek Charm, most of her victories come from her ability to diffuse a situation. That calls for another My Little Pony Role!
That isn’t to say Squirrel Girl never gets physical. Since the MLP Role Perks emphasize non-combat solutions, we’re going to need to find ways to emphasize the “kick butts” half of her catchphrase.
Most importantly, Squirrel Girl needs her squirrels! Not just her best buddy Tippy Toe (R.I.P. Monkey Joe), but the stampede of squirrels she summons when she needs an extra hundred sets of hands.
Role
Spirit of Kindness (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
We’re giving Squirrel Girl the same Role we gave Barbie, and yet you’ll see how different these two builds will be.
One of the ways I simplified MLP Roles (other than Magic) was by minimizing the branching options built in. No Focus to pick, no Power Weapon or Zord to build, WYSIWYG. However, Spirit of Kindness has one choice you make at level 1 that impacts the rest of the Role: Your Empathy Skill.
Empathy is a General Perk you get at 1st level that lets you pick one Skill from a thematically appropriate list. You use this Skill with the majority of the Role’s original Perks, for tasks like healing (Cure Them With Kindness), communication (Counselor) and diplomacy (Tender, Forgiving). Eventually succeeding with your Empathy Skill inspires your allies (Supportive Friend).
We’re obviously going the Fluttershy route and picking Animal Handling as our Empathy Skill. Thematically, this reads like some of Squirrel Girl’s greatest moments, from her days as Dani Cage’s nanny to her many applications of squirrel-based tactics and wisdom from the North/Henderson title. Synergistically, this is going to be surprisingly effective in combat, especially because our pet Tippy Toe benefits in multiple ways from our high Handle Animal score.
Setting And Faction
G.I. JOE, Slaughter’s Marauders Faction (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack)
I didn’t just pick the G.I. JOE setting because Squirrel Girl’s Great Lakes Avengers costume looks like a furry version of Scarlett’s. I picked it for the Faction.
This is our build’s biggest stretch, but not as big as you might think. Slaughter’s Marauders is Sgt Slaughter’s jungle strike force, a mix of misfits he sees as assets where others might focus on their flaws. Squirrel Girl is canonically an often overlooked hero who happens to excel in woodlands.
While we can assume that Squirrel Girl would pique Slaughter’s interest were they to meet, enough so that he’d invite her to the Slaughterhouse to run the Marauder Marathon obstacle source (which Mark Rober gave us every reason to believe she would ace), we’re going to play it safe and take the Once A Marauder Influence to gain access to the Faction.
The Slaughter’s Marauders Faction gives us a General Perk, bonuses to Toughness and Willpower, Infiltration Skill Tests, and on attacks against Surprised targets. It suits Squirrel Girl much more than I expected.
Origin
Test Subject (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)
I wanted to take Curious from the Power Rangers Core Rulebook to reflect Squirrel Girl’s approach to most super villains, in which she asks questions first and kicks butt later. Unfortunately, there was no way around it: Squirrel Girl needs a Climb Movement, and the easiest way to get one at 1st level is with the Crawler Limited Articulation. So even though Squirrel Girl is(n’t) a mutant, I opted yet again for Test Subject. It would have been nice to get a natural weapon to represent her long incisors, knuckle spike, and finger claws. However, we can cheat and use wielded weapons to represent her natural weapons. Faking a Climb Movement is harder.
Influences
1st Fighter (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game: Knights of Canterlot)
2nd: Networker (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)
3rd: Once A Marauder (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt. Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack)
It might be cult of the new bias, but I wanted another Knights Of Canterlot Influence. Fighter might seem like an odd choice, but the largely defensive Perk, which lets us use Free actions to Defend, perfectly lines up with how squirrels fight. They use a combination of incredible reaction time and swift tail movements to avoid enemy attacks. This may sound gamey, but they literally use this trick to get venomous predators to use up their stored poison. I chose Fighter as our first Influence because the Hang-Up punishes using Social Skills in combat, a huge part of this build.
The load bearing Influence of this build is Networker. It gets us a Contact (with only two Perks and Alliance Points, due to the Hang-Up). While we get to build this Contact with our GM, we have an excellent starting point: Friendly Animals from the My Little Pony Core Rulebook. The Lend A Claw Contact Perk gives us an Edge on a Skill Test outside of combat. In combat, Tooth And Nail does damage to multiple targets. It’s Marvel Rivals Squirrel Girl’s Squirrel Stampede ultimate attack.
Finally, we have Once A Marauder, necessary to access the faction we want. Sadly, the Hang-Up also penalizes Social Skills, but less punishingly than Fighter’s Hang-Up. We suffer a penalty when “dealing with figures whom society believes should have authority over you.” I do not remember if I wrote that or if that happened in editing but that phrasing amuses me. And it fits Squirrel Girl, who often gets chastised for daring to address superiors like they’re equals!
For the record, I’ve added a note in design documents for projects I lead to avoid Hang-Ups that penalize Social Skill Tests. It’s low hanging fruit, and we have too many as is. It makes it unfairly challenging to build a sociable character and also benefit from multiple Influences.
Essence Scores and Skills
Of our Role and Origin give us free reign to assign our Skill Points however we see fit, giving us the most freedom an Essence20 character can benefit from in this regard.
Speed 6
Speed is both our highest Skill at 1st level and our Role’s Diamond Skill. While Animal Handling is our most important Skill, because of Empathy, it’s the only Social Skill we need. We also get a lot of benefits from Perks for our Social Skill, so we need to lean into Speed because we’re not getting many benefits in Combat otherwise. I put 3 Ranks into Finesse, 2 into Acrobatics, and 1 into Infiltration.
Social 5
Animal Handling (Squirrels) +d8, for obvious reasons.
Smarts 4
This is a fun mix. Doreen Green is a Computer Science student, so I gave her 2 Ranks in Technology. She also has animal Instincts, so I gave her 2 Ranks in Survival. Rare to see a build with those two Skills.
Strength 1
I don’t like dump stats, but a Squirrel Girl build does not need Strength. I invested the 1 Strength Skill Point into Conditioning, and I see us doing that every time our Bronze Essence Score increases.
General Perks and Other Options
We get a General Perk at chargen and we’re using it to get Tippy Toe, thanks to Animal Pet (don’t let Squirrel Girl know I called Tippy Toe her pet). She’s a Small land Utility animal, with Acute Sense (Vision). Her Favorite Command is Alertness.
Future General Perks will alternate between taking Animal Pet again to improve Tippy Toe, taking Fortified Bond and Worthy Contact from Ferocious Fighters to improve our Friendly Animals Contact and summon them a second time, and Alterations and combat-oriented General Perk to make Squirrel Girl more combat capable.
Conclusion
She is a handful.
I believe I did Squirrel Girl justice. I’m especially happy that I got her Tippy Toe and a swarm at 1st level. Overall, I think this build really captures how this character approaches every problem like it can be solved with empathy, logic, or squirrels.
Oh, and shout out to Luis, who previously built Squirrel Girl as a Pathfinder 2e monster.
Resources
Field Guide to Action & Adventure
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt. Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack
