IMO, the ritual she performs on the Piri Reis map in Midnight and Darkest Hour, with proper introduction and description, is a much better way to tell the players why she's more than the average employer.

I also really feels bad for Georgly Abelev. Not only does he never get any recognition for setting up a trap that almost kill the PC, but his efforts actually were totally useless, since even after paying bribes, he still has enough fund to outbid Jane during the auction, and then is the only one among bidder not to have a plan to aggressively retrieve the map after.

To me, the weakest point in Darkest Hour is when Frosty "examines astrally the disc and determine it's not the real disc" and the PC are supposed to follow her to find another one.

The end of the adventure clearly suggests the real artefact has been hidden in an alchera for the last 12,000 years (more on that later). In that case, the disc the PC recovered in Germany is the one and only "real" Disc of Phaistos. That is, it is the Disc found in Phaistos in 1908 by Luigi Pernier's team. So, at that point, the contract is over: they recovered the item. Frosty never warned them that the Phaistos Disc may not be what she's actually looking for.

I think the Debugging entry should at least have addressed the possibility the runners would renegotiate their contract at this point.

She was obviously aware of that possibility, since she does check the disc, immediately get to the conclusion it is not the artefact she's seeking, and she was taught a very specific ritual to locate the artefact using one of its copy. The Phaistos Disc has been on display in the Heraklion Museum for 150 years. So you'd think at some point, for the cost of one airline ticket and one museum ticket, Ehran could have checked before hiring the first runner team.

Besides, it's quite misleading and confusing to have both discs called the Phaistos Disc. The real artefact should be the "Visoko Disc" ou "Visočica Disc". Unless Phaistos, where the copy was found in 1908, actually was the place where the artefact was created.

This based on the assumption that real artefact stayed in the alchera for several millennia. If it the Disc found in 1908 was the real artefact, then it would mean someone stole it and replaced it by a copy at some point, and somehow managed to hide it in an alchera. Since the entrance to the alchera was buried for all that time, it had to be either someone with the ability to open a temporary entrance to the alchera (if there was a permanent entrance, it would have shown up during Frosty's ritual, like the pyramids did) or the ability to move through earth (which would make Celedyr a prime suspect, more-so considering his interest for ancient writings).

Also, Darkest Hour states the Atlantis was destroyed in 10,000 BCE as gamemaster information. This is consistent with Plato's writings, but not with Ehran's exposé "Humans & the Cycle of Magic" (two different versions on SR website and Amurgsval). That would be rather significant, since, besides the fact that Ehran spread disinformation, this was, as far as I know, the one and only source for the length of the cycle of magic. Though in my opinion the 3100 BCE date was much more interesting to connect the late Fourth Age to Ancient Egypt, Newgrange site in Ireland, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in Ukraine, and the eruption of Mount Mazama/Crater Lake

Funnily enough, in the adventure background given to the Gamemaster, it is said that after the theft of the Sextant of Worlds from DIMR, Ehran "realized that someone else was beginning to collect the keys." As far as we're told, the Sextant was stolen by runners paid by Aztechnology, while the Disc is in the hands of Hermann Meyer of the Faustus Society. But the entire point of the runners going after Malcolm Carrela is that Ehran doesn't know who have the disc. Had Meyer be in league with the azzies, it should have been stated somewhere. It instead says that he died "for the cause" as it's put, which rather suggests he was only loyal to the Faustus Society. Meyer's assassin, was recruited in Bogota, and tasked with casting the blame on the azzies, but we never get to learn who hired him (and how did they know Meyer had the disc). So Ehran's conclusion that "someone" is collecting the artefacts based on those two theft is wrong: there's no connection at all.

As a side note, I wondered if the whole plot on copies of the Disc was based on the "Vladikavkaz Disc" story. In 1992 fragment of a disc similar to the Phaistos Disc was found in Vladivakavkaz, in North Ossetia. There are only a handful of pictures, since the disc itself disappeared in 2001.
For additional fun with an Indiana Jones cross-over, Vladikavkaz also happens to be the easternmost point reached by the German army during WW2. Among the units involved in the operation was the 22nd infantry division, which was scheduled to invade Crete but moved to southern Russia instead, and later finally went to Crete (where its infamous commanding officer general Müller became known as "the butcher"), and later in... Yugoslavia. Familiar places ?

EDIT - rearranged paragraphs order

EHRAN'S ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION
page 7-8 "By the time the container arrived and Ehran knew of the betrayal, the disc had already changed hands. [...] Ehran very quietly waited, believing he had time to recover the disc. With the theft of the Sextant of Worlds from the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, he realized that someone else was beginning to collect the keys."

I understood the last sentence as meaning that the theft of the disc (by someone else than him) and the theft of the sexton together made Ehran realize that someone was beginning to collect the key. Which would be seeing a pattern when there's none, since the only connection between those two items at this point were... Ehran's own attempts to get them.
However, if the sentence's actual meaning is that the sexton theft alone made Ehran realize someone else was beginning to collect the keys, it's a correct assumption (though then maybe a bit far-fetched to base it on a single theft).

WHAT DAY ARE WE?
page 7 "In August 2070, a former Prince of Tir Tairngire, Ehran the Scribe, contracted a thief (through proxies, naturally) to steal several items from the Heraklion Museum, including the copy of the Phaistos Disc."
page 9 "Are you familiar with the Phaistos Disc? It was stolen from the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete last summer along with several other valuable pieces of art."

Small one. Dawn of the Artifacts started in January 2072 after the Sexton was stolen (Dusk, page 7, Midnight, page 8 ), "last summer" would be Summer of 2071. Possibly just a typo and Ehran contracted a thief in August 2071, unless Malcolm Carella took a full year to set up his plan, or Ehran is losing his mind, or there actually were two different discs stolen from the museum one year apart ("Dammit, we found the disc stolen in 2070 while we were paid to find the one stolen in 2071!").

SORRY, BUT MY JOB HERE IS FINISHED-
page 9 "I would like you to track down some stolen property. [...] Are you familiar with the Phaistos Disc? It was stolen from the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete last summer along with several other valuable pieces of art. I would like you to recover it before the disc falls into the wrong hands."
page 33 "Once the runners meet back with Jane and have the disc, Frosty examines the disc astrally and determines it’s not the real disc. However, she can perform a ritual to use the disc to track the real one"

The disc the PC have retrieved at this point really is the disc found in Phaistos in 1908, put on display in the Heraklion Museum and stolen by Macolm Carrela. It is the disc called the "Phaistos Disc" by every archaeologists, books and Matrix nodes.

Ehran obviously knows there a copies of the disc that can be used to locate the real artefact. Otherwise Frosty wouldn't have been taught the ritual and prepared to use it. If he knows the 1908 disc is not the real artefact (and, as I said above, for the cost of an airline tickets and entrance to the museum, he could have), he ought to tell the runners that retrieving that disc is not the final objective.

So, is the GM supposed to play it straight and have Frosty basically lying to the runners by pretending it is not the "real disc" to keep them on the go? This could only delay contract renegotiations if the runners, as they face ancestral spirits inside an Alchera under burried atlantean pyramids in Bosnia, realize it's pretty unlikely the disc in front of them was on display in the Heraklion museum last summer (or was it two years ago?).

I mean, replace the disc by a R&D engineer. The employer hires runners to track down an engineer who was exfiltrated last summer from a lab in Greece. And when the runners catch him in Frankfurt, the employer just says "I talked with him. Happens he was only deputy head of the project I'm interested in and never mentioned to you before. I'm not paying you unless you grab the actual head of project. He's in a warzone in ex-Yugoslavia, defended by a battalion of ACS troops. Same pay."

HISTORY AS WE KNOW IT
page 6-7 "Modern historians trace the Phaistos Disc’s origins to the early Minoan period, making it quite clearly an object of value to Crete’s and by extension Greece’s history. [...] The truth is that the disc is much older than believed, and the markings belong to a civilization that died well before the earliest Minoans. The Phaistos Disc is one of four Eochair k’ailiu — a set of keys from the previous age of magic."
page 39 "Information on the system is unencrypted and shows carbon dating that confirms the temples were built around 10,000 B.C. There are comments connecting that date with events from that same period, including the destruction of Atlantis in 9,564 B.C. and the earliest use of pottery in Japan."

The date Aztechnology archaeologists mentions for the destruction of Atlantis, in 9564 BCE, differs greatly from the one given by Ehran, in 3113 BCE, or the date for the so-called Minoean eruption that destroyed Santorini/Thera in real life, currently estimated to have taken place between 1627 and 1540 BCE.

As far as I can tell, the 9564 BCE date is compatible with Plato's quoting of Solon (circa 638 BC – 558 BC) about a war against the Atlanteans 9,000 years ago, and "at a later time" the destruction of their island. The 9564 BCE date itself was first mentioned by Augustus Le Plongeon (1825-1908) who studied the Mayan "Troano Codex". He said the continent of Mu was destroyed 8060 years before the codex was written, and the codex itself was written in 1504 BCE (more recent studies of the codex rather says circa 1250-1450 CE).

I can understand that archaeologists wouldn't use Ehran's date at face value, but there's no clue as to why they would settle on the (rather precise) 9564 BCE date instead.

The information on the disc itself is not more precise. Depending on the author you ask, the date for the "earliest minoans" can be as early as 3400-3200 BCE. But I don't know what "well before" means, if the civilization that crafted the disc was supposed to be Atlantean or not and for how long the temples had been built when the disc was hidden inside. On the other hand, the continued use of the "Phaistos disc" name for the actual artefact - even by immortal elves who were around at the time - is rather misleading as it keeps on suggesting a Minoan origin. The oldest settlement in Phaistos were established around 4000 BCE. IRL, the Phaistos Disc is dated between 1850 and 1400 BCE, which is also the period at which the oldest source for the name's place (actually transliterated as "PAITO" in Linear A).

Personally I think Ehran uses the name "Phaistos disc" because he knows that is the name the runners will swallow the easiest. Even though he "knows" it is not one of the Eochair k’ailiu. I don't think he or Jane would have been allowed by museum security to performed the ritual while it was on display.

The "Phaistos disc" might be an inferior copy of lesser power left as a bread crumb (clue) by the Theran/Atlantean authorities. One Ehran, and by extension Frosty, know the ritual which allows them to find the real Disc component of the Eochair k’ailiu.

As to Ehran's surmise about another party collecting the Eochair k’ailiu Artifacts Unbound says that some property of the Sextant keeps it on the move by manipulating chaotic factors in it's environment and the sentients therein. So it wasn't until the Disc went missing that he began to suspect another was collecting the set of four keys = Eochair k’ailiu.

Google Translate says Eochair is Irish for key, and kailiu is Lithuanian for fur.

While this is just a guess on my part, judging by previous editions' authors to mix Gaelic languages into Sperethiel, I'd be more inclined to think that the k' in k'ailiu is the possessive particle you see in other Sperethiel terms (such as Rinelle ke'Tesrae) but modified because ke'ailiu might sound weird when spoken. What it actually means, I don't know, as I'm not up-to-date on my Earthdawn/older Shadowrun references to the subject.

I wasn't saying they should have performed the ritual to locate the real artifact in the museum. I was suggesting one of them could have just astrally examined the 1908 disc in the museum (before hiring someone to steal it), which is enough for Frosty to determine it is not the real artifact. And deliver that piece of information to the runners when they hire them.

EHRAN'S ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION
Ehran knows that the items are supposed to be used for, having the disc stolen from him in transport was odd, but he'd have time to get it. Having the Sextant stolen, means that someone else might have two pieces and be coming to take the Map next... The short list of people who would know their value includes some of Ehran's enemies.

WHAT DAY ARE WE?
Editing error. Blame me.

SORRY, BUT MY JOB HERE IS FINISHED-
--I think part of the confusion is that it's not a special, super secret ritual that Frosty uses. It's plain old ritual tracking, with a symbolic link. Ehran may not have known about the other copies (in my mind he didn't). If people want to call it a day right here, there's a karma award for stopping at this point and not getting the real one.

I don't think that her assensing the item is unreasonable, and saying look this isn't it. If folks want to renegotiate at that point, because she hired them without all the information, go for it. It's not included because it didn't occur to me or come up in any of the playtesting that I recall.

To modify your example. The employer hires runners to track down a person, showing them a picture. This man is believed to have been exfiltrated last summer from a lab in Greece. And when the runners catch him in Frankfurt, the employer says "DNA's not a match, looks like its his twin brother. He says his brother's in a warzone in ex-Yugoslavia, defended by a battalion of ACS troops. Are you in?" If not, then I'd pay them out their base salary but they don't get the bonus. (Or the special Favor later...)

HISTORY AS WE KNOW IT
The temples carbon dating was meant to make it very old. (There's plenty of bad science around the Bosnian Pyramids of the Sun, including whether there actually even are pyramids.) I'd say that the links to other events from the time--Atlantis, etc. were on an unencrypted field report which may or may not have been accurate, but it was a mistake referencing a date from the height of Atlantis instead of its destruction.

For those that have played through the first two, did anyone else find the weather tests for Chicago silly? I grew up in northern British Columbia and for me, -15 is not cold weather. If you have winter clothing you were fine. My understanding of the tests was 1 an hour with a -2 situation penalty. That might be correct without winter wear but that seemed easy enough to acquire (our characters had it) so what was the point? Also what kind of snow mobile only goes 30 km/hour? The sections on winter or at least cold weather in Chicago felt like they were written by someone who had never actually been in cold weather before or even experienced winter. Anyway, that part probably bugged me the most about the Chicago section. The fact you end the adventure in San Bernadino where it could easily get to +30 degrees and no hot weather tests are needed made the Chicago winter stuff feel really arbitrary.

If I had to guess, it's because of unintended experience bias - and please don't take this as a knock, McQ, it's not intended that way at all. I live in Calgary, and I'd call -15°C "annoying but tolerable" where many friends south of the border think it's unbelieveably cold. On the other hand, +30°C is somewhere around 86°F, which is "it's actually kinda hot out" in Southern California (I have family in Orange County) but feels like a furnace to a lot of Canadians. Don't get me wrong, I agree that it could've been applied more evenly, but I can understand it slipping someone's mind under the circumstances. (I have no idea about the snowmobile thing, though.)

My take on it when running the adventure in Playtest and other places was that the folks needed cold weather gear. Bring it and you're fine. And presuming they were coming from Seattle, where snow that sticks around for more than 12 hours is a bit rare, then I could understand it. Run around in the snow without a heavy coat and gloves and your hands get cold, you shiver, etc.

On the other hand, if you're coming from a cold area, I'd probably reverse the penalties. Normal clothes for the area in Chicago, and start applying penalties in LA to avoid Heat Stroke and the like.

For our situation our GM asked us what we were bringing along as far as armour. We did this adventure in April (game time) and being a pragmatist, I said everything, which meant our hot climate gear we had from our trip to Lagos, our cold weather gear we had from a job in the Cascade mountains from Missions, and our general, wear around Seattle gear. So weather shouldn't have been a factor but for whatever reason the wording of those tests led our GM to believe it didn't matter what kind of gear you had, you were going to make those tests.
I'll second you on the location bias Freya. That is what I figured the problem was when the weather in San Bernadino had no effect on us nor was the high altitude issues of Denver mentioned. I really don't care if these are applied or not in an adventure so long as it is consistent. If you have it one place, use it in all places or don't use it at all. For comparison, Dusk took place in the tropics and no mention of weather effects was made at all which was fine. Our players just decided that since it was a tropical place we would wear lighter armour to avoid heat stroke. We could have just as easily ignored it though.

Midnight was written to take place in February 2072, a period during which the average temperature in San Bernardino is between +7 and +21°C. The average temperature in Chicago at the same period is between -6 and +2°C. To have snowstorm hitting Chicago precisely when the PC are around, with temperature dropping to -15°C (-30°C with windchill) is indeed pretty arbitrary. But it's still well above Chicago February record low of -29°C. Should the adventure also involves an arbitrary and unusual heatwave in February in San Bernardino, the record high is "only" +34°C.

As one of the 95% of Humanity that chosen so far to not live in either Canada or Russia, to me, -15°C is cold. I'm not sure what exactly would be appropriate clothing for such temperature, or if I have them at hand, if I had to board a plane in five hours. The same would go for most runners who live in Seattle, where what they call "winter" keeps average temperatures between +2°C and +12°C (though I guess the occasional trip in the Cascade Range, above 3,000 meters, may involve much lower temperature).

It worth noting the periodic Survival Test is only called for in the section titled Pushing the Envelope, which usually only contains suggestions for gamemasters "to challenge more experiences players or more powerful player characters". Though in this case, the suggestion specifically says to make a single test for "inexperienced team".

However, I don't think the Survival Test was an appropriate suggestion in this context. As far as I can make sense of the rules and the modifiers, success or failure at a Survival Test relate to thing like finding or preparing food, rationing water, sleeping in the wild, etc. Driving around in a SUV, eating snacks and sleeping in a motel are not what I call "Survival", even if it's cold outside.