A great, great many (at least 15 million) years ago, the Powers That Be decided to create Death. Living beings already died, but the PTB wanted the force of death to be embodied, to have a shepherd of sorts. Death functioned as a return of energy to the system, and sometimes that energy needed to be directed to a specific end. And They just thought it would be nice to have someone there when a living thing expired. Unfortunately, the PTB were still new to this whole "creation" thing.
Their first attempt at an embodiment of Death didn't quite work the way They'd wanted Him to. Rather than wait for a living creature to expire in the time/place/way it was supposed to, He would show up and kill them Himself, sometimes earlier than was required (they were simply "next on the list"). The PTB weren't happy with this and tried to fix the problem. Now He would wait to show up but would still kill the intended target Himself rather than wait for whatever was supposed to happen. Worse still, He seemed to enjoy it far too much; there's always something to be said for liking one's job, but the sheer manic glee in His eyes as He slaughtered His victims really, really made the PTB uncomfortable.
They spent millenia tinkering with Death, trying to fix Him to be what They'd wanted in the first place. Eventually, They just gave up and created a new Death (Death 2.0, if you will), learning from Their myriad mistakes. The new Death was (and is) androgynously beautiful, with a warm, soothing smile and presence. Its face is the last you will ever see before your energy is redistributed properly (or, as in various religious systems, before your soul goes to Heaven/the afterlife/etc.). This Death was everything the PTB wanted and They no longer had any need for Their screwed up original. However, They swiftly found out They couldn't just delete the original Death: He'd been around for so long that He was effectively part of the system now. He was a being of violent chaos, an unfortunately necessary evil to the way things were now. He simply could not be removed without tearing a rather large hole in the fabric of being. They marked His forehead with what looks like dried blood, and the marking causes a fight or flight response (usually flight) in humans and animals. The PTB hoped this would keep people out of His path and went about with the other necessary jobs of maintaining an entire world/solar system/galaxy/universe/etc.
He was never intended to have a name, yet He has many: the Christians mythologized Him as "Cain" (with humanity standing in for "Abel"), the first murderer. To the Muslims, He is Qabil. He is every god of Death in every religion, or else called out as some sort of demon. Most importantly, to the vampire race, He is The Master: their supreme progenitor, from which all vampires originate. Having been the original Death, He has no "expiration date", and though He can be killed, He will simply pull Himself back together again/regrow lost limbs (including His head) and organs (including His brain and heart)/rise from the ashes/etc. He will feel every moment of pain of these reconstitutions, and He will not be happy.
As He walked the Earth, void of purpose and direction, having only the driving thirst to kill, He was more than a little pissed off at His Creators. They'd created Him to murder, He believed, and then told Him to kindly stop all that killing, please. He came to believe that He had been made as a walking example to the PTB's precious pets (the rapidly evolving human race), and He was more than a little jealous. He came to hate the PTB, and focused that hate and rage over time into perfecting powers and abilities They had never intended Him to have. He also quickly found ways around His few limitations; most famously, moving about at night meant that mortals were less likely to see the mark on His forehead, and thus less likely to flee.
This was how the first vampires were created. The very First of the Firstborn was a bit of a hash job, given that "Cain" hadn't yet perfected the method; this first vampire would go on to eventually kill himself out of thwarted vanity. By the time He turned Abrihet (the Second), things were much finer-tuned. Cain turned 7 mortals into the Firstborn; no one is entirely sure why He stopped creating Firstborn, anymore than they're entirely sure why He started turning them in the first place. Some say it's because He was lonely; some say that the Firstborn were meant to be Generals in His Army against the Powers That Be; some say it was just to sow more chaos in the world. Probably there is some truth to each of these theories.
As Cain has continued on with His never-ending existence, His sanity has eroded horrifically. He has lucid periods - a few decades here and there - but, for the most part, He wanders the world as a mad, murderous hobo, not really thinking about what He's doing or why. This is probably why no more Firstborn have been created: because when sane, He realizes there are vampires aplenty in the world and, when insane, He doesn't have the focus necessary to do much more than see to His needs (which include killing).
Thus it is that vampires walk the night (as their Master does, though he is perfectly capable of moving about in the day) seeking and needing blood (again, like their Creator). Thus it is that they have powers greater than that of mere humanity, that they thwart Death (they will not see Death's beautiful face as they are turned; whether they catch a glimpse of It if they are destroyed as vampires is unknown), that they have some small ability to tamper with reality (their personal Gift).
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