The West Grove Family

The members of the West Grove Family all reside in the western part of the Coconut Grove neighborhood in Miami. Settled in the 1880s by Bahamian migrants, the area fell into neglect during the 1960s and 1970s when attention turned to the nightclubs on the eastern waterfront. Historically black, gentrification has caused the Grove to change, something the Family tries to prevent. “Colonizers” are threatened, harassed, and sometimes eaten.
Franchise coffeehouses and bicycle repair shops are destroyed overnight. The pack views “cattle” with apathy or hostile contempt. Members share a belief in embracing their undead state. The Family are a powerful force in local Sabbat politics despite being comprised of mostly young vampires. This is due to the prominence of their leader, Luke Freeman who has become an outspoken spokesperson for Miami's Loyalist tendency. Freeman and the Family were major players in the Sabbat-Camarilla wars of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and like many other surviving veterans of that period, they view the Sabbat not so much as a sect but as a solemn crusade, a movement rather than an organization.

They openly scorn Miami's Sabbat elders, their effete hedonism, and the Cathari dominance of the city's political and social activities. The Family are more bellicose in their outlook, urging a return to the traditional libertarian values of the Sabbat and its earliest pursuit: bringing down the reviled Antediluvians and their agents. Given the typically unruly nature of the Miami Loyalists, Freeman and the Family are more de facto leaders than official ones, and this weakness means they are always reactive rather than dynamic in their opposition to Mendoza and the Status Quo. If Mendoza's legitimacy was truly endangered, it is certain the Family would try and fill any power vacuum created in the city.