Editing Innocence (section)

=== Limits ===
The effects of innocence are severely weakened certain realms, like in the [[Abyss]].<ref>“You can hear me?” Evan asked.<br><br>“Different rules,” I told Evan.  “Less layers separating you and them.  Besides, I don’t know how much innocence you hold onto, here.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/10/18 Excerpt] from [[Duress 12.5]]</ref>

Many Others, such as [[Dragons]], [[Giants]], and [[the Eye]], were quite capable of killing the unawakened through sheer destructiveness.<ref name=":4">“Oh, great,” Peter said.<br><br>“Innocents are protected, they say.  It’s good to have some innocents along.  Innocents are harder to affect with magic.  You aren’t entirely magical, but you should go along.  You’ll help the group just by being there, an extra set of skills.  What happens in the first half hour?  Dragon, giant, now falling trees.  Are we protected?  Noooo.”<br><br>“This is natural,” Tiff said.  “But it’s ''hers,'' in a way that very few things are ''anyone’s'' nowadays.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/12/13 Excerpt] from [[Sine Die 14.5]]</ref><ref>The Eye didn’t give me a chance for a sudden rescue.  He touched the car before I could grab the driver and pull her out of the window.<br><br>The gutted underbelly had leaked gas, against all odds, and the Eye had ignited it.<br><br>The rolling eruption of flame knocked me over.  I could hear the screams.  The driver and many of the bystanders who’d tried to help were caught, and onlookers experienced pain of another sort. Horror. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/05/13 Excerpt] from [[Subordination 6.7]]</ref>

Similarly, innocents are not protected from purely natural phenomena that had been shaped by Others or Practitioners, such as [[Crone Mara]]'s forest which had been pruned over centuries to form a death-trap.<ref name=":4" />

Exiled [[Faerie]] were forbidden from attacking innocents directly, but not from giving them [[magic item]]s as "gifts".<ref name=":5">She was pretty certain that presents and boons like the ones Keller was giving out were traps.  That they’d be wonderful and fantastic up until the point that things turned sour.  Maybe they became too much of a good thing, maybe there was a rule that had to be followed, with some horrific backlash if it wasn’t.  Maybe there was a catch.<br><br>Exiled Faerie weren’t allowed to go after innocents, not directly.  But, Maggie was fairly certain, they weren’t forbidden from doing something like giving a kid a flute that would summon a sprite to do their chores for them, with the caveat that the sprite would blind them if they ever tried to watch it while it worked.<br><br>End result?  The kid would be stupid, the sprite would eat the kid’s eyes.  People, the kid included, would rationalize it away as an accident, an infection, or just a freak occurrence.  Life would go on as normal, and the local Faeries-in-exile got their jollies without breaking the rules. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/07/12 Excerpt] from [[Signature 8.2]]</ref> [[Incarnation#Cursed Items|Incarnation]]s<ref>An Incarnation of Poverty might try to spread poverty.  Sometimes that would be with a cursed item; innocents handle it, they ignore the warnings printed on the item or shared by the seller, they lose their earthly belongings and fortunes, they die or suffer a dark fate, the item gets passed on, having strengthened Poverty, until someone figures out a way to deal with it.  Other times, it’s a ''ritual'' that finds its way to people’s hands. [...]  that’s the gamble, of sorts.  Will the ritual pull in enough to be worth the cost of inducting an innocent?  If the ritual brings in enough poverty, for example, or brings in enough other people who fail, it may be worth paying the penalty or assuming the karmic responsibility. [...] Often, the karmic cost of bringing in innocents is tempered.  If it’s just, if someone must opt in, and if there’s a possible way out, it’s less costly.  Remember what I said earlier about the warning given with full expectation that the warning would be ignored?  One such example. The Ritual Incarnate may be a game, or a pattern people willingly participate in, with enough traps or enough of an uphill climb that failing at the game is expected, and they may be difficult enough that by the time the participant is done, they are no longer capital-I Innocent, or even no longer human. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/05/19 Excerpt] from [[Lost for Words 1.4]]</ref> and [[Peddlar]]s often follow a similar pattern.<ref>Peddlers - A broad grouping of Others with a knack for making or finding objects that have some power to them, which they then distribute.  They may make, curse or tweak the items or manipulate the subjects so they destroy themselves in a way that is karmically just (often violating a warning given with the item), then sweep in to reclaim the item and the power it gathered.  Collectors may deal with or trade with Peddlers, who are often skilled at transubstantiation, or who can point them the right ways. - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Od3iu2TXe5r677wHEMCudG5hDUrlM6-E0kgiuvlkuuw/edit# Pact Dice: Collectors]</ref>

If an Innocent (especially an [[Aware]] one) tacitly or deliberately invites contact with the supernatural, ignoring warnings and so on, the karmic backlash may be lessened or absent entirely.<ref name=":7" />

Innocents, who are [[Karmic]]ally deserving of punishment can be more easily targeted by Others.<ref>“Innocents?” Verona asked.<br><br>“Sometimes.  More when there’s a quick opportunity, see?  It’s easier to do stuff when they deserve it, and for the little stuff, it’s a moment of carelessness, not watching a bag.  I specialize in the ''big'' stuff.  The ones who really deserve it.  Think heists, but the stealing is only a bonus.”<br>[...]<br>“So you’re doing something good?” Verona asked, a bit skeptical.<br><br>“No, kid,” Munch said.  “A lot of the bad lands on the bad people, that’s the way it works, and that’s an easy thing to facilitate.  But the police are left wondering if they had accomplices who took the data and recordings.  Wild goose chase, and the couple gets a harder time with the law because they can’t and won’t name their accomplices.  Victims are freaked.  Those who are low are brought a little lower, see?  A bad situation gets badder and messier.  And us, we reap profit.”<br>[...]<br>“I’ll get you a gift soon,” Munch said.  “Been thinking, but I don’t have much.  Got a thing with some goblins this summer.  Guy and his gun nut buddies are getting spare animals from shelters, using them as moving targets for practice.  It’s like the Bedsurf camera couple.  Universe doesn’t like it if you invite someone or something into your home and mess with them.  We were going to try to make some Dog Meat.”<br><br>“Dog Meat like…”<br><br>“Like we get enough of them together, they invite their friends in from the States, including some who can maybe make some fostering and adoption paperwork disappear for kids.  Then we see if we can’t kill enough of them in a messy enough way that there’s a Dog at the end.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/06/30 Excerpt] from [[Stolen Away 2.7]]</ref> An individual who accumulates enormous bad karma may be judged deserving of more blatant fates, such as being kidnapped and tortured by [[Goblins]] in the [[Warrens]], to the point where someone trying to defend them will suffer karmic backlash themselves.<ref>[[Poke 3]]</ref>