Associate members of the Covenant of the Enlightened do not enjoy the respect or prestige that Covenant Peers do, but they are often the ones who do most of the leg work. In order to be officially recognised as an associate of a Peer, an individual will have to put in hours of thankless research and errand running for their sponsoring Peer. Of course like all who are drawn to the Enlightened, being in possession of a keen mind and a drive to push the boundaries of human understanding is a prerequisite. But associates often lack the opportunity or financial means to secure an actual Peerage in the Covenant.

Girauld Eres was one such associate, a Parisian naturalist who had developed into a minor celebrity as he toured Paris society with his collection of primates. Girauld's real passion lay in animal physiology and his personal menagerie was home to some impressive specimens. Showing a talent for specimen capture, he was approached by Warick Hudson and earned a sponsorship into the Covenant as an associate following his collaboration on the spectral containment technology with Hudson and Katherine Holst.

The night of his accident, Eres was working in his laboratory on a skin healing accelerant that went horribly wrong. When the beaker exploded, the chemicals that sprayed over him were not yet mixed correctly and began to eat away at his flesh. Fortunately Eres had been playing host the evening before to Xavier Bichat, an elderly Enlightened Peer. When Bichat was brought back to the house, it was already too late. Girauld’s skin had already been flensed from a large part of his body. Fortunately, Bichat was a keen study of the restricted galvanic arts, having reanimated a simian construct just the previous evening for Girauld’s entertainment. With a very little time remaining Xavier was forced to use that same construct to hold Eres’ brain.

The process was rushed and Xavier’s knowledge of the techniques involved were far from extensive. As a result Eres retained very little motor function in his new body and so, staggering like a victim of a massive stroke or palsy, Eres was conveyed by sea to Countess Augusta Byron in the Union of Federated States. The journey brought him close to death and his brain would not survive the trauma of a second transplant, so Girauld had little choice but to submit to a number of surgical procedures by the Countess that allowed him to regain greater control of the body, with the exception of his left arm. That was rectified by a prosthetic that gave Girauld significantly increased strength to further augment the exceptional size of his primate body..

Although Girauld was grateful to still be alive it would be impossible to return to Parisian society in his new form. He therefore spent some time in the Badlands of the Union, where open spaces away from others were plentiful. One advantage of having the body of a 700lb gorilla was a vastly increased strength. Girauld was a sickly child and life as an academic did nothing to increase his vitality so the change was significant. He realised that he could snap small trees, lift large rocks and even hurl a man bodily more than 30 feet through the air. He discovered that last fact when a group of American hunters mistook him for a trophy animal.

It was while in the Badlands during the Atlas Affair that the outlaw Jim Petersen gave him the nickname of Mr Ears. So extraordinary were the circumstances of their adventure together that the name was quickly adopted in the local press and a year later when President Johnson awarded them both the inaugural Presidential Medal of Freedom, it was presented in the name of Mr Ears.

With a new found sense of purpose, Mr Ears joined with Warwick Hudson and the rest of the ‘Soul Hunters’ on their expedition to Antarctica. Armed with the wrangling tools he developed during the Atlas Affair, Mr Ears is determined to study the reported megafauna discovered in the Lost World and create a new menagerie of wonders to show to the world.

The Mr Ears kit builds one multi-part resin miniature;

• 1x Mr Ears
• 1x Base

To the common man, the Covenant of the Enlightened are little more than an exclusive club of intellectuals and aristocrats who sit in grand drawing rooms talking much and doing little. While the Covenant are at great pains to show that the reality is far removed from this, it must be acknowledged that there are some groups within the Enlightened who more closely resemble this stereotype than they would like to admit.

One such group of these is the Hook and Ladder Club in New York City, so named due to their premises being located in a building that was originally destined for the nascent Fire Department. The club members specialise in the emergent field of parapsychology, a subject that the common man might call supernatural.

The club's current Auger, Warwick Hudson, leads all manner of discussions and theorising into matters ephemeral and improbable. Like the club's founders, Hudson believes that all things can be explained by applying the scientific method. He maintains that they are in an age of Industrial 'super-science' and that any reports of strange and mysterious happenings from the "Wild West" of America or the "Lost World" of Antarctica are simply exaggerated or misunderstood by unreliable witnesses.

Under the terms of his sponsorship by the British aristocrat, Lord Buckland, Auger Hudson is required to have his scientific merits officially recognised and that will require fieldwork. Hudson has been working for many months to assemble his team and to prepare them with such equipment as the most dangerous of environments and situations require. Armed with an array of esoteric and highly experimental weaponry, Hudson is set upon venturing forth and collecting enough data to present to the Hook and Ladder Club, therefore securing himself a position as a Peer of the Covenant in his own right. Hudson and his Soul Hunters (as the lurid press would daub them) follow up reports of 'spectral etherics' around the globe. Major expeditions are underway to both the Badlands of the Union as well as the Antarctic interior.

At Auger's right hand is Erin Meltzer, a scientist and researcher with a passion for uncovering the unknown that almost burns as bright as his own. She is particularly fascinated by reports in the Badlands of Montana of animals growing to an almost impossible size and imbued with some etheric properties. Ernesto Volk is similarly obsessed with the physical, though more often his thoughts are of his own impressive physique and he has a reputation in the club as a pugilist of some renown, a skill he developed while he studied at University in Greenwich Village.

Hans Spelmann is the quiet, contemplative member of the group and will often only contribute to a discussion when he deems it a necessity. The newly discovered flora and flora of the Lost World is of great interest and he believes that the energies that have brought about such fantastical evolution are linked to the spectral anomalies found elsewhere. Jocasta Tobin is the writer and archivist of the Hook and Ladder Club, she documents all of their research and theories and promises to one day publish them as a guide to future investigators into the unexplained. Finally, Katherine Holst is the engineering risk-taker and the most outgoing of them all. It was Holst who collaborated with the French scientist Girauld Eres (before his terrible accident) and made possible the spectral containment technology on which their research now relies so heavily upon.

The Soul Hunters Detachment kit builds six multi-part resin miniatures;

• 1x Auger Warwick Hudson
• 1x Erin Meltzer
• 1x Ernesto Volk
• 1x Hans Spelmann
• 1x Jocasta Tobin
• 1x Katherine Holst
• 6x Base

The Soul Hunters Detachment can be used in games of both Lost World Exodus and Wild West Exodus.

Please note: Miniatures are supplied unpainted and some assembly will be required. Character Unit Cards are not included and can be found on the Wild West Exodus website. Scenic base toppers are not included and are for display purposes only.