The Ventrutae were at one point the dominant vampires in several locales. Their founder, Vedartas, came from the distant reaches known as India, the same area inhabited by the cryptic Rafanuti. However, long ago they came west, and virtually none of the Ventrutae have any recognizable characteristics of the dark-skinned natives of that area nowadays. For many years the Ventrutae left fingerprints on some of the most powerful governments. Babylon fell when the Ventrutae got mad about Nebuchadnezzar's incompetence (though some say the Ventrutae just let it slide while the Malcafii attempted to take over). Ventrutae gained power in the state of Israel (located in the modern provinces of Galilee and Samaria near Palestine), and handed it over to more powerful states when its rulers became too corrupt (though they never bothered with the neighboring states of Phoenicia (Brushah-controlled) and Judah (mysteriously vampire-hostile throughout its whole history). Ventrutae controlled the Slavic Macedonian state that spread Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean basin. Ventrutae built up the power of the Etruscan state in Italy. Ventrutae insinuated themselves among the tribes of Gaul and the land across the Rhine, and among the Britons across the channel... then it all came crashing down.The Rafanuti, in a rare display of organization, broke the little power the Ventrutae had in India, an event followed up by the mysterious disappearance of Vedartas one night in Egypt (there is a strong suspicion that Troile, the Senex of the Brushah, was the one responsible) six centuries ago. The Tarkhna family, the Tarquins of Roman legend, were said to have been Ventruta ghouls. Unfortunately for the Ventrutae, the residents of Latium, harbored the same Taureatores that had been spreading their influence to the south of Italy, and they had enough power to help the Latins break the backs of the Etruscan power structure. After several years of bloody battle, the Ventrutae fled Italy, finding their last refuge among the "uncivilized" tribesmen of the northern reaches, among the people that the Romans are now trying to conquer.
The Ventrutae are a leadership clan, and their current exile status has not changed that. They have brought civilization of a sort among peoples who had had such a thing and forgotten it, and have helped to maintain it among such as the Gauls who are considered barbarians only because of the fact that they are not Roman or Greek. Most of their neonates come from the local stock, and are virtually always tribal chieftains or village officials.