While there are more beliefs about the true nature of vampires than there are domains (or perhaps even vampires), the following reflect the beliefs that are held and social practices observed by most vampires in the areas in which the game takes place:
Vampires descend from a single being called Caine. Although vampires who do not follow an Abrahamic faith don’t believe the first vampire is actually the first murderer, cursed by God to walk the earth for eternity an outcast, they are still likely to use the name in public conversation as a convenient common label for whatever being they believe the first vampire to be.
Each Clan is descended from an Antediluvian, one of thirteen vampires of the third generation. There are some kindred who claim to be Antediluvians, to be direct descendants, or to have met them, and such kindred assert that they are still active in the world.
While humanity still lived as wandering tribes, Caine built the First City for his children and grandchildren, which fell. The Antediluvians sought to recreate this society by building the Second City, which also fell.
The last attempt to build a city of vampires, Carthage, was destroyed by Baali - a cult of demon-worshipping vampires.
Currently Vicissitude is viewed with disdain by many, if not outright shunned. However, some kindred of sufficient prowess are able to overcome the social stigma.
To the purely practical, the power to appear as anyone without easy detection undermines the basis of social trust in a way that the fleeting illusions of Obfuscate cannot.
To the more spiritual, Vicissitude stems not from the lineage of an Antediluvian but from some other, and thus un-vampiric, source.
Various theories circulate on where Vicissitude might have come from, some of the most common being that it is a stain that lingers from the deviancies of demon-worshipping vampires who infected Carthage, that it is some darkness bartered from wraiths, or that it is a disease that corrupts the permanence of the vampire state.
Depending on an individual character’s concept, they might start with a better idea of the truth behind what “everyone” knows.