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

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

"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.

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...