Shortly after I completed my Pony Tarot Nouveau I was challenged on Inkbunny to make a set of German-suited playing cards, with bells, hearts, leaves and acorns as suits. I made a start on the pips soon after reading the comment, but then put it off until late November 2024 when I submitted my application for PhD in computer science at the National University of Singapore. And then I pushed myself to complete and publish it before the new year.
With respect to the many "patterns" or regional varieties of the German-suited cards, this Equestrisches Doppelbild is closest to the Franconian pattern with its unadorned leaf and club stems and comparativelysimpler suit designs – though I put the Elements of Harmony as finials for the even pips and made the bells blue for colourblind players' benefit. The aces, however, are closer to the (somewhat more common) Bavarian pattern, including a Sau (wild boar; also synonym for the ace) and dog on the bell ace and a vase on the leaf ace. Meanwhile I took the central sixfold-symmetric motif on the back of my tarot cards as the logo for the fictitious Equestrian company producing the MLP playing card decks I designed, stamping it in the heart ace's centre as real-life manufacturers do (ASS Altenburger, Coeur, Piatnik and so on).
Obers (equivalent to queens in the international French-suited cards) and unters (jacks) feature the same famous background ponies as are on atouts 10/11 and Le Monde of my Pony Tarot Nouveau respectively. I also placed the three big alicorn princesses readily on three of the kings, but the acorn king proved a stumbling block; I even set up polls in Discord servers asking what character should go there before settling on the Great Seedling. An acorn is a seed after all.
