Florence After Dark

Brujah

The Brujah were not always so anarchic: in the past, they were warrior-philosophers, and they engineered the creation of Carthage, the fabled city where Kindred and kine walked freely amongst each other. However, the dream would not be realized, as the city was destroyed by forces within and without; the Brujah of the modern nights primarily blame the Ventrue, Toreador, And Malkacians for Carthage's fall, though they are also suspicious of the Lasombra for a suspected role in the fall of their city. Many, if not all Brujah dream of re-making their fabled Carthage, unfortunately most of the Brujah have a very different vision of what it should be. Of course the utopia that the Brujah aspire to may not be all that the clan elders describe, with rumors of links to the diabolic Baali and their infernal practices.
In modern times, the Brujah have split into two primary groups: the intelligent, politically active Brujah, many of which are fiery and outspoken among the vampires society, and the raging, angry counter-culture Brujah that most other vampires think of when they try to picture a member of the Clan. Strangely enough, Brujah Princes are relatively common among the Camarilla, ranking perhaps second for the number of Princes ruling over a city.

Like all vampires, Brujah have a clan flaw associated with them. Brujah are known for their fiery and often violent tempers, having more trouble than any clan does to keep their homicidal tendencies at bay. They fall to their Beast with disturbing frequency, and tend to get quite agitated if this flaw is ever mentioned in their presence.

Caitiff

Caitiff are Camarilla clanless. Lacking patrons or allies, holding no real power as a group, Caitiff are held in contempt by the Camarilla. Since they are clanless, they do not specialize in any particular discipline, but have the freedom to learn any discipline or develop their own. However, finding a mentor for such a pursuit can be difficult.

Clanlessness can stem from many circumstances - the sire rejected the individual, the embrace went wrong, their blood is too thin to develop the peculiar characteristics of the sire's clan, or the sire was also a caitiff.

Some take great pride in lacking a clan, claiming to be descended directly from Caine. Since Caine was the first vampire, he lacked the flaws of his descendants who founded various clans and bloodlines. Caitiff tend to be thin-blooded; far removed from Caine, 13th generation or worse, they can be viewed as omens of Gehenna. Most clans tolerate the Caitiff, as long as they maintain the Masquerade, honor the traditions, and stay out of politics. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; Muktar Bey, the Caitiff Prince of Cairo, has ruled for over 500 years.

Passages of the Book of Nod allude to the Time of Thin Blood, when the clanless will come to rule. The increasing number of Caitiff and their strange powers and insights into the Jyhad has many elders worried.

Malkavian

Malkavians suffer from a specific flaw: in this case, they are incurably insane. However, many Malkavians believe their insanity to be a strength rather than a weakness. Exactly why they all suffer from insanity is unknown, but according to the Book of Nod, all third-generation vampires were cursed by Caine after the second-generation vampires were destroyed. One of these third-generation vampires was Malkav, from whom Malkavians come. 
According to Malkavian legend, when Malkav was killed, all his childer came to his corpse and drank the blood of their father, thus collectively diablerizing Malkav. He is said to speak inside each and every Malkavian's soul and connects them into one collective consciousness. This "hive mind" is sometimes called "the Cobweb" or "the Malkavian Madness Network", which contains each thought and memory that any Malkavian in the world has ever had (and sometimes is about to have).

The Malkavians possess a rare ability (Discipline) called Dementation, which can alter the way a victim senses reality. It can be used to increase the Malkavian's own oracular ability or to induce insanity in others. Most Malkavians are willing to attempt to educate others of their rare power, but unfortunately, learning Dementation will often turn a non-Malkavian insane themselves; as a result, study of the Discipline is rare among other Clans and the Malkavians themselves are often viewed with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.

With the formation of the Camarilla, the Malkavian elders came to the conclusion for the clan to survive they would have to remove Dementation, instead taking up the commonly-known mental Discipline Dominate. According to the Malkavian Clanbook, Dementation was blocked by six of the oldest Malkavians who called for a gathering of the entire clan through the Malkavian Madness Network. This became known as The Great Prank, and strangely, no one else noticed that the Malkavians were gone. When almost all the Malkavians had been collected, they were changed.

Roughly one-tenth of Malkavians did not attend for whatever reason, and as a result the clan was split into two parts - the changed and the unchanged. Those who had their grasp of Dementation blocked remained part of the main clan, while those who refused to do so became known as the antitribu - most of whom later joined the Sabbat.  This division lasted for centuries until the Final Nights, when the "ban" was released and Dementation surged back into the minds of Malkavians everywhere, an event which became known as The Awakening. This roughly coincides with the death of Anatole,but there is no definite link between these two events.

Nosferatu

 Caine's childer are called "The Damned," and no vampires embody this more fully than the wretches of Clan Nosferatu. While other vampires still look human and may travel in mortal society, Nosferatu are twisted and deformed by the curse of vampirism. Other Kindred speak shudderingly of Caine placing a mark upon the entire clan for the monstrous deeds of its Antediluvian founder. As such, Nosferatu find themselves loathed and osrracized by the other Children of Caine, who consider them disgusting and interact with them only when they must.

Following the Embrace, Nosferatu childer suffer an agonizing transformation as, over the subsequent weeks,they warp from humans into hideous monsters. The horror of the physical devolution often produces an accompanying psychological trauma. Unable to walk among the kine, Nosferatu must dwell in subterranean sewers and catacombs forever after.
 
Nosferatu often choose physically or emotionally twisted mortals for the Embrace, seeing in the curse of vampirism a possible means of redemption for the mortals. Amazingly, there seems to be some merit to this belief. Many Nosferatu are surprisingly levelheaded and practical, avoiding the obsessions, fits and rages of their fairer brethren. Not that this makes the Sewer Rats particularly pleasant to be around; indeed, some Nosferatu come to delight in the shock and horror their grotesque appearances inspire in others.

Nosferatu are survivors par excellence. Few creatures, mortal or vampire, know a city's back alleys and dark corners like the Nosferatu do Additionally, Nosferatu have mastered the crafts of sneaking and eavesdropping; they make a point of keeping up with current gossip and affairs, not merely for pleasure, but for survival. Information brokers without peer, they can command high prices for their knowledge. Using their Obfuscate Discipline, Nosferatu make a point of listening to others' conversations from hiding, or sitting in on "secret" meetings. If a Kindred wishes to learn about the doings and denizens of the city, she would do well to consult the Nosferatu.

Finally, millennia of shared deformity and abuse have fostered strong bonds among the monsters. Nosferatu forego the squabbling and feuds ubiquitous to the other clans, preferring to work in unison. They treat each other with meticulous politeness and freely share information among themselves.

Toreador

The Toreador typically have an obsession with anything artistic, exquisite or (superficially) beautiful. As expectable, the Toreador find the Nosferatu to be especially revolting, and vice versa. Their attraction to beauty is so strong that they have to force themselves not to stop at the sight of an aesthetically appealing work. It is said that the Toreador are the closest of the Kindred to human sensibilities.

Their Antediluvian founder was believed to be an artist in the first city (Enoch) named Arikel, or possibly Ishtar. At Caine's request she created a beautiful mural which showed the vampires' eternal struggle with the beast and unveiled it before him and one of his childer. In his fury at the depiction, Caine and his childe never saw the final panel which showed how she believed that vampires could live at peace with their beast. Caine destroyed the mural and ordered his childe to drain Arikel dry. As he looked down at the dying artist he cursed her to forever be distracted by beauty and ordered his childe to embrace her. His power was such that his curse lingers in the blood of all Toreador.

Tremere

The Tremere were originally a group of human mages from House Tremere of the Order of Hermes. When they found their magical life-extending elixirs started failing due to the growing lack of belief in magic, they started looking elsewhere. They captured vampires of the Tzimisce clan and conducted experiments on their bodies and blood, and they found how to become immortal with the help of a fellow patron named the Comte de Saint Germain. The fact is, they became immortal as promised but in exchange, they turned into vampires.

Almost immediately after their transformation, the Tremere were beset with enemies on all sides: the Tzimisce wanted revenge, the Order outlawed them, and their awakened Avatars left them on the transition to death, taking their magic with them. Tremere crafted the art of blood magic, Thaumaturgy, and they defended themselves. Wanting more power for his bloodline, Tremere found the resting place of Saulot, the Antediluvian founder of clan Salubri, and diablerized him, consuming his very essence and gaining his power. Tremere declared his bloodline a full Clan, and started spreading rumours that the Salubri were soul-stealers, and managed to hunt them to near-extinction.

Originally from Eastern Europe, the Tremere were organized in chantries. These were almost completely destroyed in the war against the Tzimisce. Only the fortified Coeris, in the Southern Carpathians in Transylvania, survived, but the Tremere soon spread again and founded strongholds in Prague and Vienna (the latter was to become their main center of power), with smaller chantries elsewhere (such as the one in Perugia, in central Italy).

With the destruction of many Elder vampires during the Inquisition and the retreat into torpor of many other Elders, most surviving vampires had little knowledge of the Salubri and no source to counter the Tremere's allegations of the Salubri's soul-stealing. This, combined with the Thaumaturgical powers the young clan made available for the fledgeling Camarilla's defense, brought them greater esteem among the Kindred population in later centuries.

When the Camarilla was organized, the Tremere were one of the group's strongest defenders, although the Gangrel and Nosferatu clans harbour deep resentment toward the Tremere due to their use of Gangrel and Nosferatu blood to create their gargoyle servants.

The Tremere have a strict formal hierarchical structure called the Pyramid. The heads of the Pyramids insure the loyalty of their subjects by having each childe presented to the regent of the local chantry and forced to drink the blood of the Seven elders through a Thaumaturgical ritual, thus bringing them closer to a blood bond, as well as swear an oath. All Tremere are expected to respect and obey their superiors, or else risk being harshly punished.

During the formation of the Sabbat, a group of Tremere under the leadership of a powerful vampire named Goratrix defected to become the Tremere antitribu, which ultimately came to be based in Sabbat-dominated Mexico. They bore a supernatural mark that could be perceived only by the members of the clan that had remained loyal.

Ventrue

The Ventrue are the rulers, leaders and politicos of the Camarilla, sometimes known as the Patrician Clan or the Kingship Clan. In Ancient Rome, they were generals and warlords of the Empire, and in the Dark Ages, they were knights and barons, leading crusades and conquests. In modern times the Ventrue still have great ambition and see themselves as conquerors, but their ways have changed, using courts and companies instead of feifdoms and mighty armies. Targets for Embrace by the Ventrue have always been people in positions of power, whether these people were aristocracy or company CEOs. The Ventrue perceive themselves as the most powerful of the vampiric clans thanks to their wealth, social influence, and powers over the thoughts and feelings of mortals. The clan as a whole is typified as conservative, be it in actions or customs. The Ventrue have their own nigh-inviolable code of etiquette. The clan's Elders have been known to punish violations of these unwritten rules with greater ferocity and resolve than the Traditions of the Camarilla.
 
The Ventrue claim that ruling vampires is their duty, their burden, a task which is interlocked with their fate, given by Caine himself. The reality is that excessive pride and ambition seem a more convenient explanation as to why they strive to expand their already vast influence and assert themselves over other Kindred. They tend to be politicians, businessmen, military officers, crime lords, important members of powerful religions, sects and cults.

In comparison to the other vampiric clans, the Ventrue are considered to be especially particular about whose blood they drink. In fact, any given Ventrue can only drink blood from a specific kind of mortal, or from mortals under a specific sort of circumstance. Some may only prey upon a given ethnicity, while others can only feed from humans of a certain occupation or even religion. Some Ventrue can only find nourishment from blood that carries a more rarefied quality such as anger, fear or innocence. Regardless of the sort of blood the Ventrue requires, other blood is regurgitated or simply cannot be swallowed. They may feed from other Kindred with no such restriction. Ventrue prefer to view this flaw as a matter of refined tastes. Of course, with the power (both supernatural and temporal) most Ventrue possess, few go hungry.