Vennis Hasting
| Vennis Hasting | |
|---|---|
| Family | House Hasting |
| Profession | Senator |
| Residence | Elendel |
| Homeworld | Scadrial |
| Universe | Cosmere |
Vennis Hasting is a powerful senator for House Hasting in the Elendel Senate on Scadrial.[1]
House Hasting and House Erikell were typically opposed to Waxillium Ladrian's political positions.[2] In 348 PC, Wax and Steris uncovered a scandal in which Vennis was bribing other senators for their votes. They used multiple handwriting analysts to confirm that incriminating letters were written in Vennis's own handwriting, which had distinctive loops.[3] Despite the scandal, Vennis retained his powerful position.
Shortly thereafter, Maraga showed Wax a letter from Vennis dated almost a year earlier that described a powerful bomb and implicated several other senators in a plot to dominate the Elendel Basin. Although this information seemed to confirm some of Wax's suspicions about the Set, the letter puzzled him since the Set could simply take power politically if they had so many senators on their side.[3] Wax later found some letters from Vennis to Gave Entrone when he and Wayne broke into the Silver House, but they had nothing incriminating in them.[4]
After additional investigation, Wax—partly relying on his previous experience with Vennis's handwriting—realized that Telsin and the Set had forged the letter about the bomb. Gave had retained the innocuous letters from Vennis to help with the forgery. Telsin's plan was to blow up Elendel and then falsely claim that the Elendel senators had developed the bomb themselves before accidentally detonating it. This would have left a power vacuum and deflected the blame from the Set, allowing them to take over the Basin.[3]