The Ventrue are the movers and shakers of vampire society. In times past they were the nobility of the vampire world, but, recognizing that the world has changed, have modelled themselves after the current elite - businessmen. The Ventrue are perhaps the most conventionally powerful of the vampiric clans as a result of their wealth, social influence, and commanding powers. The clan as a whole is quite conservative, be it in actions or customs. The Ventrue have their own etiquette which is nigh-inviolable.
Unlike the Ventrue clan from Vampire: The Masquerade, the re-imagined Ventrue of Vampire: The Requiem are not restricted to a specific type of blood. Instead, their minds have been subtly unbalanced by the power of their blood, cursing them with a susceptibility to madness, represented mechanically by a penalty to derangement rolls. The Malkovian bloodline, based on the Malkavian clan in the older game, is a Ventrue offshoot in which this tendency to derangement is further strengthened (manifesting in-game as a mandatory minor derangement at character creation that can not be removed.)
Their tendency towards dominance is reflected in their clan Disciplines - Resilience to resist that which would wrest power from them, Animalism to command lesser species, and their unique Discipline of Dominate, which grants them the power to control a sentient's actions.