[Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Recently, I was watching a video by Lindybiege about lighting fires - and more importantly, about how they generally didn't light fires: it's apparently very difficult in anything other than ideal circumstances (rather more-so than RPGs have lead me to believe), so what they did was never let their fires go completely out. Even if they did, you mostly had neighbors who you could bum a light from, on the assumption that if they ever needed it, you'd do the same for them.

I'm pretty sure GURPS has rules somewhere for 'carrying glowing embers with you all day so you can light a fire when you arrive at the next camp,' but that's not what I thought of for this thread. Suppose that one night, every fire in the village goes out all at once, and when they search for embers to relight their fires with, they find that all the hearths are stone cold. It's not winter, so this is not a complete disaster, but they still need to get someone to the next village in a bloody great hurry (if there's a castle nearer, of course, that's the first place they'd go, but let's say that the lord of the manor, if any, hasn't got any fires or embers, either). They also go and look to see if anyone is missing, or if any strangers are about, and send runners to outlying farms and such to see if they've got any fire.

Regardless, this is a bigger problem for them than it would seem to us, even if they do have someone who still knows how to get a fire lit without an ember. They know fire, and they know that hearths all going stone cold like that does not happen. They are very scared, and scared people are dangerous, especially if the PCs just got in last night (strangers in the village are likely to be blamed for things suddenly going wrong after they arrive, especially if they're very strange).

Let's say that they get the fires lit, things are normal for a few days, and then it happens again. The local priest (or priests, and/or priestesses) is likely thinking that some deviltry is afoot, everyone is looking for someone to blame, and the local lord wants answers. If it keeps happening, and especially if folk start dying or disappearing, you've got some serious problems.

You could get a pretty good ancient, medieval, or even renaissance horror game starting from here, but what are some other examples of spooky things that don't directly cause damage, but would be more threatening and frightening at lower tech levels - especially things that would actually be more inconvenient and/or scary than we would expect?

EDIT: Important thing I forgot to say about the scenario, the hearths stay stone cold unless actual fire (or a glowing ember, or a red hot piece of iron) is applied to them. Not red hot tin or something, has to be iron.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

One thing that witches were particularly noted for is souring milk in their vicinity. (also causing impotence, stillbirths and turning animals vicious)

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

While the base concept, all fire in an entire town goes out at once, is interesting enough. I find the basic premise a bit flabbergasting. Starting a fire from nothing, while not the most fun thing in the world, and far more miserable in poor conditions is not hard.

The stick and bow technique is very old, and somewhat reliable. If you can wait to morning glass exists, so sun focusing spheres cab exist. With that said 'borrow a light', or 'carry the embers' were probably great time savers, but the basic premise that most people in the midevil era could not light a fire seems suspect.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Certainly, the spookiness of the fires all going out at once is the key element here. If the PCs are cursed so that fires won't stay lit in the whole village so long as they're around, then that's annother matter entirely.

On a related note, rot. Wood rotting overnight and iron rusting away after a day in the shed would be a big problem.

Reliably competent people getting confused and lost on familiar roads could be a problem. "We sent Bill to the manor, but he came back hours later and said he got lost and never reached it... It should have taken him only some minutes!"

Metallic, clearly artificial cubes in the hen's eggs -- just small enough to fit in the shells. Not harmful, but how did they get in there? Are the eggs safe to eat? If not, are the chickens? Are the cows?

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I get lost very easily. And I have once when going in a straight line from home to school during daylight hours. I wasn't feeling well, but still, it doesn't take severe brain damage to lose one's way that easily. If a not insignificant minority suddenly became like me, that would start a riot.... that would get lost on the way to the local witch's house.

But lots of spooky stories involve chills and cold type aches that remain even when it should be warm. Imagine seeing your breath indoors when it's warm. 2spoopy.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

There is a tall tale about candle wax running in spirals when Death is coming close/to claim someone. Also, putting shoes n a table is a sign of Death - perhaps someone's boots keep ending up on a table?

An owl seen during the day is an ill omen in just about every Native American culture there is. Oh, moths flying upside down are a sign of demonic activity. Roses that wilt but for a single petal are said to be in the presence of a geist or similiar violent spirit.

There's a lot you could do. It depends on what you want to adapt and from what sources you want to borrow.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

No they don't.

Starting a fire with a fire bow takes at most an hour. Generally it only takes a few minutes. While not everyone in town in those days would have this skill, many would. Hunters would for sure.

Now, someone might just go to the next village to see if something is happening there, but it won't be for fire. Unless absolutely no one can start a new one.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Two points:

1. I think he's saying that fires simply won't ignite or go out due to some supernatural force.

2. At most an hour? LOL. No, dude. I've seen someone spend 3 hours using a pump drill in a swamp to get a fire going in 40F weather. Firebows are even worse when dealing with damp kindle or firewood. Granted, that may not be the case because you have the materials in a shelter out of the weather, but that seemed like a blanket statement about primitive firestarting.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Lots and lots. Pretty much anything that doesn't happen very often or usually isn't seen when it does is probably already an omen somewhere.

I've personally always liked the mirrors tarnish as an evil omen and things bloom or fruit out of season as a more neutral one - one side of a tree in summer fruit while the other goes winter bare is a fairly common one in stories about the fae.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I think Lindybeige's point was not so much that fires are next to impossibly difficult to start (though that can be hard), but that it's dead easy to go next door and borrow a light. Taking an hour with a firebow is still something you'd avoid if you could take a five-minute walk to get a light. It's relative difficulty that counts.

- the well dries up
- the cows dry up
- all the herb die (all the crops dying is much more serious and life-threatening)
- the roosters all crow in unison
- One night, the moon doesn't rise

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Ah yes, "The Devi's affection/Tarnishes God's perfection/In the hand's of man's reflection." That's a favorite.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Not that I'm aware of. In fact, I didn't think this was actually an option, but the method described in the video sounds at least plausible. I'd probably just simplify such a "firebox" as being roughly half the weight and cost of a covered lantern (which can be used for the same purpose, but also provides light) - that is, $20 and 1 lb. It's good for 24 hours and can be replenished with any decent fire. Base fire starting time is maybe 10 seconds, and you can use damp kindling (the ember is assumed to last long enough to dry it out and ignite it), but that takes at least a minute to get the fire going. The firebox either makes Survival unnecessary or gives a sizable bonus (+5, meaning you can use default Survival at Per). This bonus is lost if using damp kindling, however - you need some skill to properly dry it out without extinguishing the ember in the process.


As for the rest of your post, sounds like a good setup for a Horror (or LT monster hunting) campaign/scenario. I think you're overselling the difficulty of lighting a fire, however - you don't avoid doing so because it's incredibly difficult, you avoid doing so because it's annoying, and sometimes exhausting.

Any effect that is going to cause fires to suddenly die and go completely cold, despite having fuel available, is going to make lighting new fires impossible, however, so that can be the issue. It's a sure sign there's something spooky going on if you can't light a fire, then the torch you're carrying from the next village over suddenly dies out when you bring it into town. Alternatively, it could be a sort of really strange effect, where it acts on individual fires and needs time to adapt to new ones - you can't relight your hearth with traditional methods, but you can bring fire in from elsewhere to do so... shame it'll die in a week, though.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Yeah, there are rules for fire bundles in Pyramid #3/90: After the End (p. 32)

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I can accept that.

Sure, and I once struggled all day and failed. It happens.

I was just rather responding to the notion that it's faster to walk for half a day (or more) to the next town/manor lord's residence for fire than to try to start your own. I'd imagine that even in a medieval town/hamlet/farm area at least one residence would try to restart their own fire rather than admit to a neighbor they let their fire go out*.



* Which ranks right up there with losing your hat or not knowing where your towel is.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

That's actually fair. I think you could pull this off...but you need isolation to make it work.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Firestarters are Low Tech page 35. You can use any appropriate container (pp. 33-34?) to hold a few coals and avoid having to roll to start a fire ... I think a Pyramid article discussed it briefly. Anything from birch-bark to baked clay can work, with some ashes for insulation and to control the flow of air so that the coals don't go out or burn up.

Deformed births also tend to be omens, and a community with lots of stock and no scientific vets or synthetic medicines will have a lot of those.

Many cultures had hearth gods or goddesses like Vesta. If they are offended/driven away/killed by the squid-things from another dimension, problems with the fire should be an early sign.

Burning glasses famously show up in a joke by Aristophanes in the 5th century BCE.

On the other hand, in agrarian societies you can list everything that most people own on one side of a piece of paper, and changes to buy a broad range of goods are infrequent. So if you pawned your firesteel to pay for your wedding, and never learned to make a firebow and stocked some good tinder to dry in the rafters, you may be out of luck as far as tools go.

And remember that the FP cost of friction-based methods are calories in a world where most people don't have enough to eat and you have already lost FP to cold or hunger.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

So there are. Those are just rules on using them more than making/transporting them, however (unless I missed something). Maybe we could steal the fire building rules for building a transportable fire bundle. Making the container out of sticks, mud, etc (along with kindling inside) is probably comparable to gathering kindling and building a fire, so we can just use Step 1 as-is (you can skip this if you already have an appropriate container - it can be assumed you can use the fire to readily make kindling if you need any). Optionally, a Failure at this step with MoF 1 or 2 builds a container that counts as improvised equipment. As you must already have an active fire to make the transportable fire bundle, we can skip Step 2, going straight to Step 3. Success there gives you a ~1 lb transportable fire bundle you can use within 24 hours to light a proper fire (allowing you to later skip Steps 1 and 2 - the bundle is tender and flame all in one, just waiting for easy reignition).

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

The first four were pretty normal but #5 just maxed out my spoopometer. But then, I haven't been paying attention to the weather reports...

An even subtler change, such as dramatically different stars, or some new stars, or even simply rotating the entire star-field, could also work.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I remember an issue with someone struck by lightning waking up to all the household's shoes being lined up from the front door. It turned out that he'd developed a sleep disorder and was doing it himself.

Unusual bouts of sleepwalking would probably be spooky especially to those not experienced with such disorders.
Classic sleep paralysis and accompanying hallucinations/delusions are the most likely real reason for night hags, alien abductions, etc. Even without the visions, it's scary enough to make one a bit phobic about going to bed at night.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Yeah; just depends on how weird you're willing to get. Figured I'd at least offer some variety :)

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

That's in the intriguing field of things that are profoundly wrong but also entirely possible to not notice at all.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

In my Fantasy setting, a MistDay with clear skies would be deemed a horrible portent.
(MistDay is the first day of the week, and as the name implies there is always mist all day long).

For some options:
-Sheep trample the sheepdogs.
-Shepherd found mangled and eaten on. Sheep have blood on faces, but no visible wounds.
-Ice floating down the river in the middle of Summer, or an unfrozen section of the river during the dead of Winter.
-River found to be flowing the wrong way.
-Many (or worse, all) headstones in the local cemetery found upside down.
-All plantlife in the cemetery dies.
-Morning dew/frost tinged red.
-Morning dew/frost vanishes in sudden flash of flame; plants unaffected.
-Moon follows abnormal path.
-Moon rises in the west.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Yeah, pretty much. One thing I'll point out here is that the fuel source you're using for the bundle is will determine how long it lasts. Tinder fungus and ungulate (or elephant) dung work best.


Spooky.


As someone with night terrors I've experienced sleep paralysis before. It's extremely unpleasant. So yeah, I can see the fear there.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Basically, yes: the hearths stay stone cold unless actual fire (or a glowing ember, or a red hot piece of iron) is applied to them. Was tired, and so failed to clarify that.

EDIT: OK, went back and edited the OP. Thanks.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Meh. Everyone knows that the fae do that to people a lot - you should carry an iron nail in your pocket to protect yourself, or, on finding yourself inappropriately lost, turn all your clothes inside out to break the spell.

As noted, the sudden staling of bread, spoiling of ale, souring of milk or curdling of butter of cheese can all be symptoms of magic at work.

For more spookiness: general unexpected behaviour by animals, becoming unnaturally fearless or fearful ... or aggressive. All of the villages dogs bark at nothing, or hide indoors refusing to go out, rats and mice go abroad openly in daylight and attack those who interfere with them. Livestock in the fields tries to run away and goes wild, battering itself against fences if penned - sheep attack their shepherds. All the local songbirds vanish.

Plants blooming at the wrong time or season, dying off or growing with unnatural vigour (as per The Colour out of Space).

As already noted, deformed births were often seen as omens as well...

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

"The calf were born dead, an wi' two heads, milord! T'is witchcraft afoot!"

In winter, deformed babies were often exposed, left to die in the cold. In particularly harsh Scandinavian winters, unwanted infants, even if healthy, might be given this treatment as well, giving rise to stories of vengeful little ghosts called mylings or utburds.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

That is relatively unusual - most cultures with a tendency towards exposure of unwanted children don't stigmatise it with a class of undead AFAIK, so I would assume that this was something that only took place during extreme privation.

Good undead though - I can imagine one of those cropping up in "that RPG":
"Aagh! Get it off my back."
<successful attack>
"Oops, it's incorporeal. My bad."
"Never mind, I've still got 150hp left, try again" etc.

[/silly] Actually, something like that could be a good cause of trouble - hidden shame is always quite good for horror plots, especially in a small, rural community: during the winter a poor peasant family killed their newborn out of want, pretending that it died of natural causes. Denied burial on sacred ground it now haunts the village - finding out the truth will go a long way towards laying the ghost (if the parents can be persuaded to confess and do penance, a simple grave blessing by the village priest may end the haunting). A PC landlord might be tempted to some more practical action as well. If you could carry off a secret pregnancy in a medieval village (likely to be tricky) then the plot could be even thicker - perhaps involving adultery, incest or some other capital matter...

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I was thinking, there could be benificial effects that are really creepy, and seem to be indicative of a 'soft corruption'.

IE-

Hearth's in the town light with ease if blood is dripped into them (likely found by accident), if you actually soak the hearth with blood it will light on its own. Human blood works better. Blood of a person you dislike works best.

Labor (human or animal) can be brought on by willing it during the full moon, it is always painless and very rarely results in complications. Babies/animals born via such method are startlingly clever and tend to associate with one another without complaint (A moonborn goose can happily lay with a moonborn cat).

Every single household finds an exquisite set of dressing tools one morning (IE- for slaughtering animals)- they are all midnight black in colour and seem to absorb light. They slide effortlessly into flesh, and any animal butchered with them produces more useable cuts of meat then seems possible.

One morning all of the dogs and cats in the town are found slaughtered. They bear marks from some sort of large (lynx sized) beast with 6 claws on each paw and a triple row fanged maw. There jaws are cracked open, and there hearts are missing (not torn free, missing if anyone takes the time to cut one apart and see what happened). Despite the lack of service animals sheep still get herded in at the end of each day, rodents basically no longer exist, foxes, wolves, rampaging bulls, even a horsethief or two are found quickly dispatched in the same manner as as the dogs and cats soon as they were out of anyone's sight. The villagers can count on seeing a blue-glowing set of six eyes from rafters, lofts, and around corners wherever they go, watching over them, always too far into the dark or too far away to see more than the eyes.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

A pack of wolves walks into town and roll over before the startled townsfolk. They growl and snarl even as they lay on their backs and expose their necks.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Even in cultures that don't officially stigmatize infanticide, parents are fighting evolutionary imperative to kill their children.
I could easily imagine a Tell-Tale Heart mystery. Someone, usually a poor woman but perhaps a man instead or in addition, hear a soft baby cry in the distance. It's driving them crazy as they ask, then demand others to find the source.
Human nature being what it is, eventually those unaffiliated start to hear it too. And bam, you got yourself a full blown mass hysteria.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Actually, that's a really good idea - some sort of corruption that appears initially beneficial ... until it's too late.

Ideally, accepting the benefits will provide some dark power with a level of consent that will make it hard or even impossible to resist later.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

That or it originated as a caution against picking up abandoned babies.

Konaki-Jiji

In Japanese folklore, is formed from the soul of a child left to die of exposure in the mountains, the size and shape of an infant. Oddly, its face is that of an elderly man. It is always crying like a baby and lurks in secluded areas, like mountain paths, where babies shouldn't normally be. When a kind hearted traveler comes by and hears the crying, he will pick the yokai up in an effort to comfort it. When the traveler notices the odd face, the konaki-jiji attacks. It will increase its weight tremendously, crushing the foolhardy good Samaritan.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

The imperative for self-survival so you can raise all those other children to a breeding age exists for good reasons - it's better odds for your genes. There's a reason why young children were generally treated as property rather than people for most of history: you can always make another one.

I'm of course not saying that there isn't a big emotional block against killing your children - but if you think that just-birthed babe with a birth defect is a demon-spawned monster, you're not killing your child. You're killing a curse.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Rationalizations allow the behavior in the first place. But I find it hard to believe that guilt, however subconscious or repressed, wouldn't be common among those that did murder their own kids. Necessity and culture may say it's my duty to do something, but evolutionary biology tends to push back hard too.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Interesting then that the Romans - for whom infant exposure was very much a institution (although how commonly performed may be up for debate) didn't have a cultural artefact associated with it. Presumably, given that the children to be exposed were either deformed or otherwise rejected by the paterfamilias (e.g. because their legitimacy was in doubt) you could expect your lares and penates to deal with any spiritual fallout.

Likewise, presumably, the Spartans who were famous for their exposure of "unfit" babies (but again, who knows how frequently this actually happened?) considered that the spirit of a weakling was no threat to them.

I suspect you also need a culture with a concept of personhood in infancy before the undead baby becomes truly established - if every birth means a person who needs to be baptised and ushered into the church (as in clericalist Christian tradition), leaving one out to die without benefit of clergy would seem a much worse act than if your culture holds that personhood is something that develops over time.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Areas or people that seem to attract fog.

As above but they actively repel fog.

Lightning out of a clear sky.

The village lunatic swears he heard voices in the town well.

Statues large and small, might or might not be limited to religious icons, are found in odd places or odd positions even if the statue itself is exactly the same.

Nightbirds or insects making noises exactly in time with a dying person's breath. Local legend says this means they are waiting to catch the soul as it leaves the body and torment it.

Areas where the ground is unnaturally fertile or sterile. Maybe anything that grows there comes out... wrong.

Animal tracks outside the window every night for a week. No animal is ever seen no matter how hard you try.

Bird flocks flying in unusual patterns.

Spiders are inherently creepy. Use your imagination.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

All the hearth fires go out at the same time... And no one feels even the slightest chill despite It being freezing rain outside.

All statuary moves and alters slightly when out of sight, progressively becoming more realistic, but also more lewd and blasphemous.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

There's a bridge up in Scotland from which dogs tend to jump to their deaths for no apparent reason... easily recycled. The bridge that is, but possibly the dogs as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtoun_Bridge

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Well, except for the naming and founding legend of Rome itself, and all those statues of Romulus and Remus sitting around, or appearing on their coins and such...

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

If you get to the age of Iron flint & steel are quite possible.

While iron is going to be expensive in any medieval setting someone in the village will have one, the blacksmith if no one else.

You do need dry tinder & patience but unless you're on a tight time schedule it will produce fire with some minutes' work.

Other options --
 

Livestock giving birth to perfectly normal livestock -- of another species. A sheep will deliver a goat. A cow delivers a litter of piglets.

And people think that these odd-borne have special powers. Don't give them any -- it will drive the PCs nuts to think about what's hidden.

Squirrels in the high branches with what appear to be human faces. [From HP Lovecraft.] But when they're shot with bow or hit with stone when they hit the ground they seem perfectly normal.

Faint sounds, such as groans, coming from beneath the earth. [A materialist would simply attribute this to freezing/thawing or minor earth tremors. An early Low Tech person might consider demons.] [Also Lovecraft.]

A peddler comes through the ville. He seems perfectly normal as do his products -- but some, which he offers only when one and no more of the villagers are . . . special. Magic beans that produce no avenue to giants but lots of oddly colored fruit -- very tasty. Perhaps . . . too tasty. A folding knife that never gets dull -- as long as you feed it with blood once a week. Animal blood . . . at least to start with. A hair ribbon that makes the owner irresistible to the opposite sex. At least the wearer thinks so.

Just a few coppers a purchase, and an X-signature on a piece of paper with some writing on it. "Nothing important . . . a mere formality. You'll never miss it -- excuse me, I meant to say something else."

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Those interesting items do sound like Needful Things. ;)

Re: Other options --
 

Which reminds me of stories from various east-Asian countries about the local weird non-human-primate being the ghosts of the dead villagers.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

I meant a taboo artefact, like the aforementioned undead children.

Re: Other options --
 

I'm pretty sure I've heard/read something about cicadas or other noisy insects being ghosts or evil spirits, but I'm not sure where or when.

Re: Other options --
 

From someone being driven slowly mad by the thunderous sound of an entire cohort of cicadas, perhaps.

Whippoorwills sing for the dead; when they gather outside a home and sing in unison, someone is sure to die before dawn. Having an enormous, passenger-pigeon-style flock of them appear and coat the landscape would be... alarming.

Re: [Horror] [Low-Tech] Hearthfires going cold and other Low-Tech spookiness
 

Being the only one whose estate isn't covered in seasonal loud creatures would probably be just as creepy and prone to angering neighbors.

Re: Other options --
 

Isn't there a Japanese horror film called "cicadas when they cry" (or the equivalent in translation)?

Re: Other options --
 

It's a horror game, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (the red is apparently important), which was made into various other media, including a couple of live action films. Rather scary and creepy, too. The version I'm familiar with involves a time-loop in June, 1983, as the characters kill each other over and over again.