A bit of background: I've got a CN vigilante who decided it would be a good idea to poke and prod at an effigy of Kabriri in a temple dedicated to the Demon Lords. Each of the statues in the area have consequences for irreverent contact, and contact with Kabriri gives the PC the Ghoul corruption.
In the description for the corruption, it states that you must consume a portion of flesh from a sentient creature (for purposes of the campaign, this is read as "any creature with an intelligence of 3 or higher"). The corruption progresses when you feed on the flesh of an innocent sentient creature. What the player and I are trying to figure out is, as the title states, "What constitutes an innocent?"
For now, we're starting with that the idea creature would need to be of Good alignment to be considered innocent, and children would also be considered as such.
My problem with this is that there can be plenty of people who are Good that aren't innocent. A benevolent king who has done things he regrets in the course of his reign might be good, but I don't think he'd be considered innocent. Even children aren't always innocent; street urchins will do plenty of awful things just to survive.
I'm inclined to play it as "innocent of the situation," meaning if the victim was not doing anything against the character, either actively or passively, but this would mean that anyone who hasn't attacked the character would be considered innocent. The player doesn't like this definition, because that might make the corruption progress too quickly if they don't make the Will saves.
How would you define an innocent?
