Caitiff are a group of clanless vampires

Vampire (World of Darkness)

A vampires is a fictional creature in the role-playing games and books based on the World of Darkness setting by White Wolf Game Studio. The concept of a vampire in WoD takes many elements from the folklore surrounding traditional vampires in Western culture, and adds a number of specific features...

 in Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game. Created by Mark Rein·Hagen, it was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampires in a modern gothic-punk world....

, a role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

 by White Wolf, Inc.

White Wolf, Inc.

White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...

Lacking patrons or allies, holding no real power as a group, Caitiff are held in contempt by the Camarilla. The Sabbat's Caitiff are treated as a Clan; known as Pander, a title whose namesake is a politically powerful and clanless vampire Joseph Pander, they find direction through the Sabbat.

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

Gehenna (World of Darkness)

In the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade by White Wolf, Inc., Gehenna is the vampires' prophesied armageddon.Gehenna is the time when the Antediluvians will rise to consume the blood of all the younger vampires and construct a city in which they will rule for one thousand years...

. 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

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, has ruled for over 500 years.

Passages of the Book of Nod allude to the Time of Thin-Blood

Time of Thin Blood

In the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade by White Wolf, Inc., The Time of Thin Blood is the time immediately preceding Gehenna, the vampires' prophesied armageddon....

, 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.

Group	Founder	Parent Clan	Faction	Disciplines	Nicknames	Weakness
Caitiff	NA	Various	Camarilla	Any (Default to Fortitude, Potence, and Presence)	Trash	Caitiff can purchase any Discipline at character creation, but thereafter have to pay six times current rating for any and all powers purchased with experience points. On a more basic level Caitiff suffer a social stigma from not being a part of an accepted clan. As a result, more established Kindred feel free to snub or denigrate Caitiff freely.

Caitiff

Seduced and abandoned by their sires, the Caitiff are everywhere on the fringes of Camarilla society. Clanless and unwanted, the Caitiff are the results of one night stands, infatuations, frenzied Embraces and outright mistakes. Most have hazy recollections, at best, of sire and Embrace; some have none whatsoever. Stumbling along in the haze of a new existence, each eventually discovered the keys to survival—usually in the form of another Caitiff looking out for the newcomer—or die trying.

A Caitiff's only identifying mark is a lack of identifying marks. Some Kindred theorists posit that some sort of "imprinting" between sire and childe takes place over time, allowing the younger vampire to acquire the physical characteristics of her Sire as mandated by the blood. Caitiff, however, have no such distinguishing marks—Caitiff descended from Nosferatu, for example, may be ugly, but rarely do they show the full-blown monstrosity of their vampiric ancestors. Thus it goes for other Caitiff, ones embraced by Malkavians may be a little quirky but not necessarily prey to full blown derangements, ones embraced by Ventrue may have a feeding preference but not full blown prey exclusions, and so on. An informed observer can generally guess with reasonable accuracy what a Caitiff's lineage might be, but in the end, it's rarely worth even the attempt to do so.
Caitiff fill in the positions in Camarilla society that no one else really wants. While the Camarilla may take the clanless in on occasion out of a vague sense of paternalism, the clans take care of their own first and leave the scraps for the Caitiff. Some Caitiff scorn active participation in city politics as second-class citizens, while others gladly seize any opportunity as a toehold in the establishment. In the meantime, the majority of clanless skirt involvement out of self-preservation, preferring to have the putative benefits of membership in the Camarilla without being drawn into its politics.

Pander

Although not truly a clan in the strictest sense of the word (as they have no progenitor from the Third Generation), the Panders have made much of the Sabbat's egalitarian society, carving a niche of respectability for themselves in spite of their bastard pedigree. Like the Caitiff—which, for all practical purposes, they are—the Panders have no formal, recognized lineage. Any vampire who joins the Sabbat and doesn't know what clan she is becomes a Pander, as do those childer Embraced by established Panders. The group consists of a wide variety of Cainites, most of whom are young and untested. However, Panders are True Sabbat, not just a dumping ground for rejected or unproved vampires of other clans.

The Panders arose in the aftermath of the most recent Sabbat civil war, during the late 1950s. A clanless vampire known as Joseph Pander united the clanless Sabbat under his own banner and led them against the Moderate faction at the behest of several key Lasombra and Tzimisce. Impressed with his efforts, the elders of the Sabbat rewarded the sect-loyal Panders with a formal recognition, which immediately touched off a powder keg of ill response from more "legitimate" clans. In the end, though, the Panders won out, earning recognition time and again, through bloodshed and diplomacy. Joseph Pander still exists in the modern nights, but rumors of assassination attempts spurred by disapproving elders run rampant through the Mutts' circles.

Of course, the Panders are loose cannons and X-factors, the "rebels of a rebellious sect." Lasombra in the modern nights consider them threats to security, worrying that their lack of cohesion or millennia of tradition might make them unpredictable. The Panders understand their own position, though, and they accept their cannon-fodder role with resolve. Indeed, at any Sabbat Siege, the front line is most often composed of Panders out to prove themselves. As cunning as any Lasombra and as brutal as any Brujah antitribu, the Panders do what needs to be done for the good of the sect.

Panders lack the sophistication and the years of formalization held by other clans; they truly are a motley bunch of rogues and thugs. Unlike some of the other clans, however, they have the Sabbat at heart, and their terrible escapades are often fronts for conquest "For the good of the Sword of Caine!" With the sect's good-faith gesture in recognizing the Panders, it has earned an ally for the entirety of its existence, but the Panders are still the low Cainites on the totem pole. The Mutts almost invariably draw the worst duties, the most dangerous missions and the riskiest of ritae, all because they're still the newest and least established. Those Panders who are aware enough, accept this "honor" as a badge of courage, while the dimmer ones simply do what they're told in hopes of getting to feed first from the pack's kills. It is this reason—this devout and reckless drive to get the job done—that had paid off for the Panders, and they have grown in number and power because of it.

Group	Founder	Parent Clan	Faction	Disciplines	Nicknames	Weakness
Pander	Joseph Pander	Various	Sabbat	Any (Default to Fortitude, Potence, and Presence)	Mutts	Panders have no inherent, blood-bestowed weakness. Note, however, that the Panders are given only grudging respect, and they generally get stuck with the worst jobs in the Sabbat. Also, no Pander may begin the game at better than ninth generation (though they may increase this via diablerie or other means during the game).