Fallen Leaves

The Fallen Leaves are a cult, primarily composed of elves, who claim to venerate Viandra in her chaotic autumn aspect. Their philosophy is that existence is transient, death is inevitable, and endings are not to be fears but welcomed; this make them base heretics to the majority of elves, but they have attained limited acceptance among other races.

Philosophy
While most elves regard it as their sacred duty to protect the Spirit Wood and ensure the continuity of their race and culture, those who join the Fallen Leaves have rejected the very idea of permanence. Life and death, they say, are ultimately inextricable, and the elvish dream of immortality in the Spirit Wood was always folly. They embrace not just a physical but a spiritual transience, and some even profess that the souls of dead elves have been "freed" from the Spirit Wood by the hobgoblins--either to be reincarnated or to join some sort of homogenous pool of spiritual energy that suffuses the universe.

These ideas have made the Fallen Leaves anathema to most of the Elvish diaspora; few tolerate them and fewer join them. To the other races of the world, the Fallen Leaves are seen as eccentric but, in most cases, harmless. Those who join the Leaves often dispense with their worldly goods through charity, and their veneration of death and endings means they will often perform funeral rites and cremations for free. However, their taste for fire imagery means they sometimes run afoul of worshippers of Tyrael Hammerhand, who have little patience for what they percieved as the elves' fatalism. There are also unsubstantiated rumors of Fallen Leaves followers immolating their possessions, or even themselves, in ecstatic bonfires.

Symbols
The Fallen Leaves, as their name suggests, invoke many autumnal images in their literature and iconography. Their preferred symbol is a circle or wreath of red and gold leaves, or living vines intertwined with dead ones: these are often used to mark homes or buildings where their sympathizers practice. Torches, bonfires or circles of flame are also important symbols, as they often uphold fire as a metaphor for all existence: that which creates one thing consumes another.