This word is just plain fun to say. It even sounds mysterious, really. I think it is entirely underused. I know it is in my own work.
“The den was forfeited to the cabal of teenagers for their D&D afternoon.”
Cabal – noun
1: the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also : a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues.
2: club, group.
~per Merriam-Webster
The Coffee Writer 