Straff Venture

Straff Venture
House Venture Spouse Elend's mother Children Elend, Zane
Died	1023 FE
Abilities	Tineye
Residence	Urteau
Ethnicity	Noble
Homeworld	Scadrial
Universe	Cosmere

Straff Venture is a noble on Scadrial during the Final Empire. He is the head of the House Venture, the most powerful great house of the the high nobility. He is the father of Elend and Zane.

Appearance and Personality

Straff is a manipulative and sadistic monster. He is extremely fond of posturing and demonstrating his superiority, and is terrified of anyone having power over him. He enjoys going to brothels knowing that the skaa will be executed, as it gives him a sense of power.

Attributes and Abilities

He is openly known as a tineye.

History

During the Final Empire, Straff is the head of the most powerful of the nobility, House Venture, and controlled the atium mines at the Pits of Hathsin for the Lord Ruler.

After the fall of the Lord Ruler, he proclaims himself king of the Northern Dominance. After securing this area, he lays siege to Luthadel in order to gain possession of the Lord Ruler's fabled atium cache.

He invited Elend over to his warcamp for a meeting, and the situation escalates until Straff sends his guards to kill Elend. However, Elend uses Vin to threaten Straff and manipulate Straff's emotions. Straff succumbs to his fear and lets Elend and Vin leave unharmed. After this encounter, Straff becomes terrified of Vin, commanding Zane to kill her.

One of his spurned mistress, Amaranta, poisoned him with an addictive drug, Black Frayn. Working with Zane, she caused Straff to believe that Zane is poisoning him, while Amaranta "cures" him with the addictive drug. When Zane disappeared from Straff's camp, Amaranta attempted to kill Straff with a poison. Straff realizes her betrayal, and in a fit of rage, strangles Amaranta to death. Straff nearly died but survived with a random antidote he made himself.

He was killed by Vin after letting the koloss army attack Luthadel. Control of his army was given to Janarle who was forced to swear allegiance to Elend.

Relationships and Children

Elend is his only known legitimate child, but he has many mistresses and sires many illegitimate children in an attempt to acquire Mistborn. His attempts are successful, and he sires dozens of children, and though Zane is his only Mistborn, his misting children number around 18 . He is also 'very fond of skaa brothels' according to Elend.

Straff is constantly disappointed in Elend, who he belittles constantly, including forcing Elend to sleep with a skaa prostitute when he was just thirteen. He leaves Elend behind in Luthadel after the Lord Ruler's death, hoping that Elend's foolishness will result in his death. However Elend strikes a deal with the rioting skaa, and ends up as king. Straff amasses his own force in his home dominance, and marches them to Luthadel to attempt to take the city from Elend, who he sees as weak.

Straff's relationship with Zane is arguably even more strained, Straff attempts to bribe Zane with atium to keep him contained, but Zane maintains his own atium stash, and the two maintain an uneasy truce, while repeatedly trying to kill each other.

Straff's proclivities regarding his mistresses are depraved, even for a Luthadel nobleman, describing one of his mistresses (Amaranta), who is 'creeping up on her late twenties' as having been 'quite attractive a decade before' but is now 'too old to be attractive' and states that he has usually 'got rid of most women long before they reached her age'. He also parades a mistress who bares a resemblance to Vin, who is 'perhaps fifteen' before Elend and Vin, displaying casual cruelty in an effort to induce a reaction and intimidate them.

Trivia

• Straff is German for taut or strict and is Swedish for penalty.

Notes

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