Ma Underberg

## Ma Underberg, head of the Underberg Family

* **Name:**Florence Elizabeth Underberg (née Gardiner)
* **Position:**Former President of Underberg Utilities (ret.), current recognized as Boss of the Underberg crime Family (equivalent to the rank of Capo within the Callahan Family ), Chair of the Philanthropy Committee of the Sons of Moria Lodge #25 (Fargo Local)
* **Metatype:**Dwarf  (*Homo sapiens pumilionis*)
* **Education:**GED
* **DOB:**7/3/2015, Thief River Falls MN, USA (later UCAS )
* **Family:**Royce Gardiner (father, deceased), Heidi Gardiner (mother, deceased), Floyd Gardiner (brother, deceased), Karen [Gardiner] Tharaldson (sister, Fargo  RRDMZ ), Calvin Tharaldson (brother-in-law, Fargo RRDMZ), Hunter Tharaldson (nephew, Grand Forks , Region 2 RRDMZ), Jessica [Tharaldson] Schafer (niece, Fargo RRDMZ), Kent Schafer (nephew by marriage, Fargo RRDMZ), Ryan 'Buddy' Underberg (husband, deceased), Charles 'Chuck' Underberg (father-in-law, Rollag MN, UCAS), Roberta [nee Schumacher] Underberg (mother-in-law, deceased) Everett Underberg (son, Fargo RRDMZ), Sienna Richards-Underberg (daughter-in-law, Fargo RRDMZ), Tyler Underberg (grandson, Fargo RRDMZ), Taylor Underberg (granddaughter, Fargo RRDMZ), MacKenzie [Underberg] Rasmussen (daughter, Fargo RRDMZ), Lance Rasmussen (son-in-law, Fargo RRDMZ), Angela Rasmussen (granddaughter, Fargo RRDMZ), Peyton Underberg (daughter, deceased), Brady Underberg (son, Moorhead  MN, UCAS ), Margaret [Perleberg] Anderson (niece, Hawley MN, UCAS), Todd Anderson (nephew by marriage, Hawley MN, UCAS), Tabitha Anderson (grandniece, Hawley MN, UCAS), Richard 'Ricky' Anderson (grandnephew, Hawley MN, UCAS)

Few figures are quite as feared in the Shadows of Fargo as "Ma" Underberg. Her fearsome reputation stands on par with such boogymen as Half Face Woman and King Filth, and for respect and power, her only equal is Whiskey Jack, her opposite number in the Misko-ziibi Tiospaye. Technically Ma is retired, but don't you believe it, as long as she draws breath, Ma is in charge.

The middle of three children, Florence ("Flo") was born in the first wave of Dwarves, back when UGE  was considered a 'syndrome'. The Gardiner household was a tough place to grow up, perpetually unemployed or underemployed as they suffered from the various economic and environmental crisis that rocked the first decades of this century, victims of the increasingly difficult economy as the Megacorps grew and the labor force suffered. Unlike her prettier (and Human ) sister Karen, who was sent to Concordia  to get her "MRS" (ie. marry well, which she did), Flo was all but kicked out of the house and was working as a waitress, and later as a construction worker, in Fargo by the time she was 17. It was on a job site, doing some renovation for Corwin Auto that she met the charming, ambitious and utterly unscrupulous fellow Dwarf Ryan 'Buddy' Underberg and a drink led to a lost weekend led to a whirlwind courtship.

Even before they got the rings they were already a Power Couple. They shared a burning ambition to prove themselves and take everything they could from a world that owed them. Her street smarts and occasional strong arm (rumor has it that she got into strong-arm work by crippling a rival salesman the day before a big sale, allowing Buddy to take the commission), combined with Buddy's relentless charm and financial acumen made them a potent combination and together they rose quickly in the world, first at Corwin Auto (later Underberg Motors) and then as members of the Callahan Family's Fargo operations as they branched out into organized crime. It was Buddy who made the deals (such as the end of the Whiskey-Callahan War that cemented the Family's position in the local underworld) but it was Ma that enforced them. She was the one who organized his first crew of legbreakers, guys like No-Nose Nussbaum and Sammy the Squat and led them personally for the first few years of the operation until family considerations got in the way. She also ran the successful Utilities side of the family business, and a lot of the Underberg enforcers working there still hold a deep personal loyalty to her.

When Buddy passed away back in '67, sole control naturally fell to Ma. In the last few years she has ostensibly 'stepped back' to give Everett control of the family, but between the personal loyalty the leg-breakers have for her (she personally hired muscle like Jenny Slicer, Hamm and Underdawg), Everett's distaste for the seedier side of Underberg operations and Ma's own total inability to stop running things, this is a pose of retirement that fools nobody.

The key to dealing with Ma is not to try and bullshit her. She doesn't have a lot of patience at the best of times and bullshit just drops that right through the floor. She got where she is the hard way and she means to keep it. People who earned their position are more likely to earn her respect. Or at least earn their way out of her contempt. It is one (of many) things at the root of her lifelong rivalry with her sister Karen, who married into real estate royalty and likes to lord that over people.

People keep expecting, with the death of her daughter Peyton, who it was revealed was the late Roadwork, leader of the former incarnation of the local shadowteam , that there's going to be a bloodbath, given Ma's known distaste for 'proportional' responses. But so far, she has been completely silent on the subject. Which for those who know her, is when you should get really worried...

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