Many in the Camarilla point at the Caitiff as a prime symptom of the approach of Gehenna. Many more try to ignore or cast out the disenfranchised 'Trash', citing the Caitiff's lack of known lineage as an excuse to treat her as a second-class citizen. Some even see the Caitiff as a threat to social order and the accepted status quo, treating the Caitiff as dogs to be hunted for sport. With the predominance of Caitiff occurring within the last forty to fifty years following the second World War, this is easy enough, since the Clanless are not powerful or old enough to truly defend themselves against this treatment. But not all Caitiff arise from this period, and not all are of the tenth to fourteenth generation.
Given the propensities and lack of restrictions on Caitiff, even if they do have a harder lot in life, one begins to realize that the concept of an elder among their ranks is a thing to be feared.

Unlike any other breed of Kindred, the Caitiff are not limited by the strengths, weaknesses, and proclivities of their parent clan - because they have none. A Caitiff may have any discipline they wish, and their weaknesses are far less pronounced - according to the popular writings on the subject. (V:tM Guide to the Camarilla)

It has been theorized that the powers of a vampire arise from what they believe those powers should be. In the average Kindred, this potentiality is taken care of by the presence of the sire. The fledgling's elder teaches the new vampire about what she is and what she will become - both through active education and passive example. By the time the fledgling begins to test her wings, those wings have been shaped and formed by the example of her vampiric 'parent'. The Ventrue childe gains the wings of an eagle, to fly with the Ventrue, while the Lasombra childe preens the plumage of a Raven, just as her sire does.

What then of the Caitiff, who have no such guidance? How do they develop Disciplines, Weaknesses, Merits or Flaws? What is there to guide them as they take their first flights in the midnight skies?
Belief.
The Caitiff fledgling's own belief in what a vampire should be, should be capable of, and is limited by, are the formative standards by which this new Kindred will mature. If she believes vampires have the strength of many mortals and are able to absorb bullets with a laugh, she will develop Potence and Fortitude as a matter of course. If she believes she should be able to assume a bat-like form, Protean will be added to her list of abilities, and if she believes in the romantic and alluring depiction of the eternally damned, then you can expect displays of Presence before long. The same is true of weaknesses obviously. Your average Caitiff will no doubt be repelled by crosses and even by garlic if they have predilection for European beliefs. Many will tend not to display reflections, despite their lack of kinship to the Lasombra, simply because this is what they believe should happen. Caitiff define themselves through the ingrained social and cultural myths that surround their new condition.

How then does a Caitiff advance her abilities as she ages? Other kindred tend to learn more diverse applications of their basic clan abilities as they grow older, either through direct instruction from an elder or through trial and error following witnessed displays of these diverse abilities. If a Caitiff is fortunate, she might find herself existing on the edge of Kindred society, and from time to time might make these same observations, and through said same trial and error she might learn to display more advanced applications of her own abilities. Even more fortunately she might find herself adopted by a clanned elder, her development taken in hand and directed along the path of her benefactor's clan. But what if she is not on the fringe of the mainstream Kindred culture or so fortunate as to become an adopted member of an existing clan? What if she is left to develop at her own pace, free of any more influence than her own belief? This is where the greatest weakness and greatest potential of the Caitiff are both felt. There are two possibilities that arise from this circumstance - either the Caitiff will never advance her abilities, never knowing she can be anything more than she was at the moment of creation, or she will advance in wholly new and unsuspected ways. It should be noted that in the instance of Disciplines such as Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence, the advancement is most likely to be similar to the mainstream, there are very few ways to go with these powers save down the path that virtually all clans that possess them have trod.

It is possible for a Caitiff to display abilities never before seen among Kindred, arising from her own belief in the abilities of vampires. She is capable of advancing in wholly new directions, even outstripping others of her generation or age, because she has no knowledge of the expected limitations of her blood. Few other members of Kindred society display as diverse abilities as the Caitiff, and fewer still are as capable of originating completely new and original Disciplines. Given that the process of the embrace has become a popular part of mainstream fiction, depicted accurately enough over the past century in works from Stoker to Rice, it is entirely likely that a Caitiff will be capable of creating progeny, even if she cannot remember the circumstances of her own embrace. Like any other vampire, the abilities of this new childe will most likely be formed through instruction from her sire, instantly forming a new bloodline with its own strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies.

While many tend to think that all pathways of Kindred power have been explored, the Caitiff stand in direct defiance of this belief. They are what they believe they are, and for this reason it would be wise for the elders of the Camarilla to beware the elder among the Caitiff ranks. She is and should be treated as a complete unknown quantity, to be feared by the insecure and learned from by the wise.