[@Thantos] Starting generation in VtDA is 12th and you can lower it during character generation by adding dots to the Generation background. At five dots (the maximum trait rating for backgrounds) your character becomes 7th Generation. 

[@Themerlinhawk] Well, keep in mind that you can make a vampire who's ancient but has been sleeping the long sleep of the damned (torpor) for years if not centuries). Technically we could stick to our original concepts but have them been staked by the agents of more powerful old Roman vampires only to be awakened together by agents of some mysterious patron beckoning them to come to Balgrad. I'm sure you necromancer would have been a neonate at some point. It could be that we all met as neonates, quickly became rising stars of our locale, and then were punished for our successes by the powers that be before we could gain the skill to threaten them...