Unknown Armies NPC: Kurta the Androgyne

Everything Kurta knows about transvestism they learned at age 16, in the trenches at Passchendaele. Playing the male role under the bombs and shells of the Englanders, and the female role under their own lecherous unteroffizier - plus his friends when he owed them a favor.

Weimar Berlin has all the blood and sex of the trenches, plus bars and drugs and jazz and fast cars. You can throw a grenade into a crowd of protestors, walk two blocks and sit down for drinks in a bondage club, all without getting your shirt muddy or your shoes wet. The rest of the world calls it the most wicked city on earth. Kurta calls it paradise.

Personality: Unstable, driven by appetites and addictions. Transvestite communist when male, fascist lesbian when female. Bold schemer and accomplished career criminal in both sexes, despite their lack of patience for fine detail. Loves violence.
Rage: Long lines.
Noble: Kurt is protective of people they’ve slept with, even after kicking them to the curb.
Fear: Getting old (Helplessness)
Obsession: Live on borrowed time and never pay your debts.
Wound Threshold: 50

Libertine 60*%: Of course I can score anything illegal, crossdress flawlessly, handle myself in a street brawl (Subs Struggle, Subs Secrets, Protects Self)
Great War Veteran 60%: Of course I can endure physical punishment, spot danger at night, do anything for a scrap of food (Subs Fitness, Protects Violence, Provides Firearm Attacks)
Mystic Hermaphrodite 80% (Avatar)

Notches	Helplessness	Isolation	Self	Unnatural	Violence
Hardened	3	1	7	4	6
Failed	2	1	3	1	2

Appearance: When their body is male, Kurta dresses like a woman (in cloche hats, evening dresses and skirts), goes by the name Gerta. When their body is female, Kurta dresses like a man (in suits or in uniform), uses the name Kurt.

Possessions: Kurta loves weapons and the German underworld is flooded with WW1 surplus, in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and Weimar laws against personal firearm ownership. At bare minimum they carry a Mauser or Browning pocket pistol and the largest knife they can conceal.

They have a special fondness for the model 17 hand grenade, an egg shaped bomb that fits in a coat pocket or purse more easily than the standard German stick grenade.

For pitched battles and raids they prefer the MP 18, a goofy looking submachine gun popular with German criminals, paramilitaries and police.

Regardless of their sex and whether they’re spoiling for a fight, Kurta always carries cigarettes and usually carries drugs - morphine and cocaine depending on availability.

WHAT YOU HEAR

Kurta is a creature of the night, hustling and crawling bars from 1:00 AM to dawn and using drugs to regulate their sleep. As Kurt she likes Cafe Dorian Gray, a cheaply but elaborately decorated lesbian spot on the Bülowstraße. As Gerta he likes the Mikado, a transvestite bar and former heart of Berlin’s homosexual underground near Anhalter Station. Except when he feels like a little rough trade, then he hits up Sing-Sing on the north side, a prison-themed club filled with career criminals who don’t flinch at rough sex with girly men.

Kurta’s lowest level avatar channel lets them detect mages when they gain charges. They love harassing magick users they’ve never met until the wizard sleeps with them, fights back, or does something else exciting. The most promising ones get added to the rotating cast of lowlifes they do lucrative criminal work with.

• Blind gunsmith Alfred, whose powers grant him instinctive knowledge of any mechanical device he touches.
• The necromancer Lustmord, who baits her elaborate honey traps with hauntingly beautiful corpse brides.
• The Hunger Artist, a fleshworker and circus contortionist who charges by starving himself until he’s small enough to fit through any window or vent.
• Keeper of secrets Chochum Loschen, a mousy woman with a fearsome reputation as a blackmailer. Communicates in sign language and hastily scribbled notes.

When they aren’t earning income through crime, Kurta is politically active, mostly as an excuse to brawl. They march with the Freikorps and Nazis while female (passing as a man), and the Communists and Social Democrats while male (passing as a woman). Neither side knows Kurta plays for the other team, thanks to their sharp dress sense and the way their appearance changes completely along with their sex.

Kurta’s attachment to their exes and voracious sexual appetite mean that a small but significant portion of Berlin’s nightlife is under their personal protection. If they ever had to choose, Kurta would turn on their comrades in a heartbeat to save a former squeeze. Sure, Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps, but you don’t let people shit where you eat.