The race of Methuselah (commonly referred to as Vampires) first appeared in the pre-cataclysmic era (prior to the sinking of Atlantis), circa 14,500 B.C., when the Human race emigrated from the First City, Enoch. The result of an environmental mutation in the Methuselah Virus, the first Methuselah were the children of the Angelus themselves. Calling themselves the Primogen, each of the children recieved a slightly different mutation, resulting in six of the seven different Bloodlines seen today- the Akikage, Chimerae, Ekimmu, Lundrati, Nosferatu and Sekhmet. The seventh Bloodline, the Kizoku is the result of necromantic manipulation of the Nosferatu Methuselah Virus by the sorcerer Zhou Feng. Although condemned at the time for his actions, the Kizoku have since been accepted into the Methuselah community.
Prior to the exposure of the Methuselah to the general populace by the actions of Sector Prime, the Methuselah were intricately involved in most aspects of modern human society and most have become adept at manipulating the capitalistic nature of society to cover up and finance their activities.
Infection and Creating New Methuselah
Methuselah require the fresh blood of living beings, preferably the blood of Humans, in order to sustain their physical existence and, usually, obtained it by biting their victims and draining their blood. If a victim is drained of nearly all their blood it is possible for the Methuselah to feed that blood back to the victim infected with the Methuselah Virus. If this occurred the victim will turn into Methuselah of the same Bloodline as the parent (often referred to as the Sire or Dominus).
Because the Methuselah Virus is not particularly infectious it is necessary to drain victim's blood, thereby removing the victim's autonomic response to the infection. The exception to this is the Chimerae version of the Methuselah Virus which does not require the victim to be drained. Because of this most victims bitten by a Chimerae begin to turn almost immediately.
The actual mutagenic process performed by the virus on the host usually takes two to seven days to complete and can be quite painful. This process restructures the host body's digestive, neurological and circulatory systems almost in their entirety, resulting in a drastically different physiology compared to before the infection.
Biology
The Methuselah Virus radically alters the host's physiology and metabolism, somewhat like cancer - but cancer with purpose, structure instead of chaos, creating entirely new parasitic organs inside of the body. Outwardly, the Methuselah look like regular humans and can visibly blend into society without being noticed by people. Methuselah do grow fangs to aid in feeding, but they are retractable.
The Methuselah cannot produce sufficient amounts of hemoglobin as the virus burns away what is produced, which is why vampires must feed on blood (preferably human). Methuselah do also require traditional food in order to survive, however they are capable of surviving on a lower calorie count than a Human due to their variable metabolism. The need for Human blood (or blood in general) is known as the "Thirst" and is considered to be a weakness as well as the primal urge that drives all Methuselah and permeates every aspect of their existence.
Government
Methuselah society on the local or regional level is broken up into dozens of 'Houses'. These Houses often include Methuselah of many different Bloodlines, however several Houses exist that are made up of a single Bloodline. The Houses themselves are then governed by the Sovereign Council; the international governing hierarchy of the Methuselah race.
Historically, the Methuselah have developed an international power cabal in order to protect themselves; they controlled about half of the global financial institutions and had influence over the police and many federal governments, bribing off human officials throughout the world to ignore and/or aid their activities. The Methuselah's leadership decided that a full-scale war with humans is undesirable, so they maintained a secret truce with human governments; human politicians will ignore the Methuselah, and in return, the Methuselah will keep their numbers relatively low and not break the laws of the Human society in which they live.
Most of the Methuselah believed maintaining the truce was in their best interests. Occasionally renegade Methuselah popped up who disregard the treaty. These renegades were dealt with either by the leaders of their House, the local magistrate, or if the transgressions were severe enough, the sanctioned agency OMEGA was brought in to deal with the renegades.
After the United Nations officially recognized OMEGA as a government-backed agency, a United States-backed intelligence agency by the name of Sector Prime took exception to this and began working behind the scenes to expose not only OMEGA, but all Methuselah to the world. Partnering with the Last Crusade, Sector Prime began building a false trail of carnage and destruction supposedly committed by OMEGA in the service of the Methuselah Council. This subterfuge culminated with an attack on OMEGA in broad daylight, broadcast across the world. OMEGA's Irish headquarters was destroyed in the attacks, along with a good portion of downtown London as Sector Prime pursued the leader of OMEGA, Jonas Hunter across the city.