Ma is the ship’s cook. She is also the ship’s resident ghost. She is a poltergeist that apparently came from some aftereffect of the final battle at Hogan’s Limit. After the battle, Asiv and Stilgir returned to the “Cademan’s Call” to find themselves the only crew left. They set off for nowhere in particular, still numb from the loss and the surrender. For days they just kept the ship going in any direction but back to Hogan’s Limit.
In that time, before Asiv said the words that would become the new name of the ship, the two never seemed to question where the plates of food they ate came from. Each assumed the other had made the meal, and neither was ready to speak yet. It was nearly a week before they discovered they had a poltergeist aboard.
As poltergeists go, Ma is about as friendly as you get. She cooks meals, runs the meal trolley, and even tucks in crewmen who have let their blankets slip. She is the housemother of the crew. On occasion, she will actually speak, but it is exceedingly rare. She seems to ignore the crew for the most part and just does her job silently and without any sound save the squeak of the meal trolley.
Stilgir named her “Ma” Mordin after an old girlfriend of his who became a barmaid in the Dwarfhold of Cal’darin. Ma doesn’t seem to mind.
When she is seen, she looks to be a elderly, dwarven female dressed in heavy, dark robes with a black shroud over her that sways in an unfelt wind. Her eyes are empty black and do not seem to notice the crew and passengers around her.