Herd shrines were common throughout the Toymark, although they were highly variable in both form and iconography. There are fads in religion as in anything else, so ponies were more common in some regions, while in others the shrines involved almost exclusively model horses. Shrines involved stuffed animals were significantly rarer, and are known from only a handful of examples, mostly from the Cloth Quarter. Specific deities within the Herd were sometimes invoked, but shrines to the more abstract concept of the Herd were more commonly found in many areas of the Toymark.
Following the violent coup that installed the Tinker-thing in power, and the resulting establishment of monotheistic state religion under the aegis of St. Barbie, Herd shrines were defaced and vandalized, and many of the most elegant examples vanished forever.
….yeah, I have no idea. I was fooling around with stuff, verdigris paint an old pony and so forth, and the Toymark sort of wandered in. (It’s not a custom pony in the sense of the really cool ones people make, more of…err…thing.) The sign on the front of the base says “Herd Shrine — Donated by the Sculptress” because way back in the day, when I was wandering the wilds of Oregon with my mother, doing a government project to assess the condition and repair needs of outdoor sculpture, we found this statue of Abe Lincoln on a horse. It was not a good statue, largely because Abe had been done to heroic scale and the horse had not, with the end result that he looked like he was straddling a mutant Shetland pony. The base had the title and township and whatnot, but it also said, in large letters “DONATED BY THE SCULPTRESS.” Either that was very important to the sculptress, or the town didn’t want anybody to think they’d spent money on it. Your guess is as good as mine.
Original is for sale, drop a line if interested.
This Reminds me of a book you must read called The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. It is delightful and so totally you.