Cort Strasser
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Sex: Male
Age: Unknown
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 210
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Unknown
Distinguishing Features: Very Gaunt, like a living skeleton, black moustache, missing little finger on right hand, scarred lip.
First Appearance: Pilgrimage to hell.
Subsequent Appearances: Pony Soldiers
Final Appearance: Latitude Zero
Place of Birth: An outhouse behind a frontier gaudy
Known Relatives: Unknown
Preferred Weapons: 9mm Stechkin pistol, SVD PO1 Dragunova sniper rifle.
Commonly Carried Equipment: Ammunition for his weapons, riding crop, knives.
Clothing: Always wears black. Black tight leather pants, a loose leather jacket, a white shirt with ruffles around the neck, high black leather boots.
Alias: Skull Face, Yellow Hair
Strasser is a purely evil man of high intelligence but suffers from insanity and is totally depraved. He loves to kill, maim and torture, and has forgotten more about torture than most people will ever know. He believes that pain cleanses and purifies. To make matters worse, Strasser is also bi-sexual, preferring the company of young boys, but has been known to rape women when the opportunity presents itself.
Despite his physical appearance, Strasser is a powerful man, and nearly immune to pain. He can take devastating blows and still continue to fight. His Stamina is unbelievable.
Cort Strasser started out as the man responsible for the destruction of Trader's convoy in Pilgrimage to Hell. Here he had managed to capture both Ryan Cawdor and Krysty Wroth and tried his best to get Ryan to reveal the method of disarming the boobie traps on the War Wags by threatening Wroth with a mutie beetle. It didn't work. In the end, all but War Wag one blew up and Ryan escaped, leaving Strasser with a scarred lip where he hit the man with his pistol.
Before this even occurred, Strasser had found Doc Tanner and was treating him badly, forcing the poor old man to have sex with pigs and act as Strasser's personal court jester. Tanner is eternally grateful to Ryan for being rescued from the evil man. The several times Strasser and Doc Tanner met after this, Doc has been terrified.
Strasser was able to escape the ruins of Moscin and managed to make his way to New Mexico where he found a group of marauders. He took over leadership of this group and whipped them into a strong fighting force. This group became known as the Pony Soldiers and had been at war with the local Apaches for quite some time. They dressed in uniforms identical to that of the Seventh Calvary and even used the same weapons.
To his surprise he encounters Ryan once again, and even manages to take him captive. He tortures Ryan just a little and leaves behind a tape of his last session with local Indian, giving Ryan a taste of what he can expect.
Jak Lauren is not known by Strasser so is able to enter the camp under the pretences that he would like to join the band. Strasser takes an immediate liking to the boy and not only wants to bugger him, but wishes to include him on his torture session with Ryan. Jak attacks Strasser, breaking the little finger on his right hand and manages to knock him out. He helps Ryan escape. Strasser leads his forces in hot pursuit of Ryan and Jak all the way to the Drowned Squaw Canyon, where the remainder of his forces are wiped out by the Apaches. He barely manages to escape once again with his life by scaling a cliff.
A short time later Strasser is able to put together another band of killers and cut throats and he once again begins a campaign of terror and conquest in the South West. This time around he manages to get his hands on a refurbished locomotive. From his time raiding he has gained yet another nickname, this time as Skull face.
His band ambush and capture a wagon train in the ruined ville of Salvation, where much to his delight, he discovers Doc Tanner. He doesn't even have to resort to torture to find out that yes, indeed, Ryan and Jak are somewhere near by.
He really wants to get his hands on both Ryan and Jak. Ryan as he is Strasser's oldest enemy and has destroyed his plans twice in the past, and Jak because he broke the mans finger, causing it to become infected, forcing him to cut it off.
In order to bring them out, he orders that six people be killed for the deaths of six of his men. Mildred Wyeth, disgusted at this retrieves her weapon and starts a firefight which Ryan and the others are able to wipe out over half of Strasser's men. Cort and the survivors take to his train and retreat into the hills.
Ryan and the band pursue him, destroy his train and eventually corner him in the ruins of a redoubt in Texas. Here Ryan and Strasser have a knife fight on a bridge which collapses, dumping Strasser into the quicksand. He is unable to get Ryan to pull him free or kill him quick, so in his hatred and rage, he cuts his own throat and throws the blade at Ryan, nicking him as he sinks into his final resting place.
Created on 09/21/97