*The following text may contain spoilers.

Once upon a time, during the Middle Ages of Europe, there lived a wealthy landowner with his wife and family. Their lives went by peacefully until the plague spread throughout their village and they lost their son to it. It was then when they decided to abandon their homeland.

With the help of a powerful witch, Ayanna, they moved to America, where they settled in a beautiful hamlet and they had more children. But this wasn’t just an ordinary place. It was inhabited by werewolves. That didn’t scare the originals away. Once a month, they retreated to the caves beneath their village.

Not long after they made that village their home, Esther, the Original mother (played by Alice Evans), had an affair with one of the locals, a werewolf. Nine months later, that night gave them a child – Niklaus.
Despite that, they all lived in peace until one night. Klaus and Henrik, the youngest of their sons (played by Devon Allowitz), driven by curiosity, broke the only rule and went outside at a full moon to “watch the men turn into beasts”. The night ended with Henrik’s blood spilled.

The tragedy struck the family. Mikael, the Original father (played by Sebastian Roché) refused to let anything else happen to their children and decided to take matters into his own hands. He had heard of a way that could make them strong and keep them alive and turned to Ayanna for help. But a witch was not supposed to do magic that sets nature off its balance and she turned him down. His only hope was his wife, Esther, the Original witch. He convinced her to perform the ritual and so she did. As soon as it was done, the whole family, except for Esther, transformed into the first vampires ever existing.

They enjoyed their new abilities, super strength and speed, fast healing, compulsion, eternal life and youth. But for every strength, there was a weakness. The sun became their enemy until Esther found a way. The flowers at the base of the white oak tree, which was used to perform the ritual, burned them and prevented compulsion. And according to the spell, the tree that gave them life could take it away. So they burned it down.

But the darkest of all consequences was something else. The thirst took over and soon things got out of control. The newly born vampires started feeding on human blood, causing death. And after Klaus’ first kill, his werewolf side was awakened. Esther’s infidelity was revealed and driven by his pride, Mikael killed Klaus’ real father and his family and with that ignited a war between the two species.

Esther tried to make things right with her family. She put a curse on Klaus to suppress his werewolf side but that wasn’t enough. Elijah, Finn, Kol and Rebekah – the rest of the Original children, were led to believe that Mikael killed their mother in his rage until it was later revealed that Klaus was the one who “took the life” from her. Mikael ran away that night and so did Kol and Finn.

Klaus, Rebekah and Elijah stayed to bury their mother and decided to “stick together as one. Always and forever.”