What makes a clan strong?

me and my brother were talking to each other
about what makes a clan a clan
is it or or the century you were born?
we just couldn't understand

Haze wrote:

me and my brother were talking to each other
about what makes a clan a clan
is it or or the century you were born?
we just couldn't understand

It is a concept from the roleplaying game. A clan is an "established" bloodline of vampires.

The vampire's bloodline establishes which disciplines he most easily learns and also gives him a specific curse. If a vampire creates another vampire, that childe vampire learns three disciplines easily and suffers from a curse, and these traits are "inherited" from the creator-vampire.

A bloodline becomes a clan when it has a lot of members and gains some political power for itself. In the Camarilla, all the clans have their
representative in the Inner Circle and in the Primogen of a city. Thus a clan is an organization of vampires who share the same bloodline, and the bloodline is usually ancient and well-established.

In VTES, all vampires except Caitiff have a clan, and the term clan is more focused more on the political or social organization as opposed to the bloodline itself. The antitribu versions of the Camarilla clans are usually of the exact same bloodline as their Camarilla counterparts, but they belong to a different organization. It's not always an exact match between bloodline and clan. The Gangrel antitribu are actually composed of two bloodlines of vampires, and that's one reason why their crypts work so poorly together. The Assamite clan in the RPG is also composed of three bloodlines (called castes), and that is also one reason why the Assamite crypt from Ancient Hearts has such strange discipline combos.

In the RPG, some bloodlines aren't called "clans" because there are too few of them. For instance, the Salubri used to be considered a clan until all but seven of them got destroyed. In VTES these "bloodlines" are still called clans (except for Caitiff) for mechanics reasons.

Caitiff and Pander are vampires who do not have a bloodline, because their creator's bloodline did not get transmitted properly to them for whatever reason. Panders are considered a clan even though they have no bloodline because of their political organization.

Aaron wrote:

In the RPG, some bloodlines aren't called "clans" because there are too few of them. For instance, the Salubri used to be considered a clan until all but seven of them got destroyed. In VTES these "bloodlines" are still called clans (except for Caitiff) for mechanics reasons.

Well, there is a (spoily) reason above and before political power for the difference between a clan and a bloodline.

(very mild spoiler)

our antediluvian didn't like our discplines
he said only sissies use combat
so me and my brother borrowed 3 blood from Lilith
we knew what we had to do
we went downstairs past the market square and hunting ground
and got our arms tattooed

Aaron wrote:

Caitiff and Pander are vampires who do not have a bloodline, because their creator's bloodline did not get transmitted properly to them for whatever reason. Panders are considered a clan even though they have no bloodline because of their political organization.

I've always thought that these were vampires that didn't know what clan they belonged to for various reasons ("love childs" that were created in secrecy without the permission to do so and abandoned etc etc)

Lönkka wrote:

I've always thought that these were vampires that didn't know what clan they belonged to for various reasons ("love childs" that were created in secrecy without the permission to do so and abandoned etc etc)

Well, they usually don't harbor the traditionnal weakness and don't pay less for their sire discipline, so it seem to be much more than abandonment. Except if you believe clan weakness and discipline being entirely due to education, but it don't sit well with some other abandoned vampires at embrace that still are from the clan.