Fantasy cartographer Francesca Baerald has launched a Kickstarter for UNBOUND, a huge 320-page artbook collecting more than 250 maps from her work across video games, tabletop RPGs, board games, and graphic novels. The campaign has already passed its funding target several times over, with backing remaining open until October 9.
You may not immediately recognize Baerald’s name, but there is a decent chance you have already explored one of her maps.
Her portfolio includes work connected to Dragon Age, Warcraft, Diablo IV, Octopath Traveler, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Gloomhaven, Warhammer, and plenty of other fantasy worlds.
Now a large portion of that career is being collected in UNBOUND: The Cartography Art Book by Francesca Baerald, created with book designer Spiridon Giannakis and currently being crowdfunded through Kickstarter.
More than a collection of pretty maps
The finished book is planned as an oversized A3-format hardcover, measuring roughly 42 by 30 centimeters and spreading Baerald’s hand-painted cartography across 320 pages.
More than 250 maps are included, presented through full-page reproductions, close-ups, macro photography of the original artwork, and double-page spreads for particularly detailed pieces.
Baerald is also adding commentary and anecdotes about the work, along with behind-the-scenes material explaining how she approaches fantasy cartography.
That process is particularly interesting because much of her work is created physically rather than digitally. Baerald predominantly works with traditional materials including watercolors, inks, and acrylics, before the finished pieces are scanned for publication and use in games.
UNBOUND is not being organized as a straightforward chronological portfolio either. Baerald has said she wanted the book to feel more like a journey through different worlds, with chapters built around different moods rather than simply sorting maps by game or year.
The Kickstarter has already sailed past its goal
The crowdfunding campaign began on September 9 and runs through October 9, 2026.
Three main editions are being offered. The Standard Edition costs €150, while the more elaborate Premium Edition is €250. A €2,000 Limited Edition sits at the collector end of the scale, with copies hand-bound in Italy using traditional bookbinding techniques.
The Standard and Premium versions are also planned for wider preorder availability, while some campaign-specific options remain tied to the crowdfunding period. Shipping is currently scheduled for June 2027.
It is certainly not a small coffee-table book, either physically or financially, but that seems to be the point. UNBOUND is being presented less like a conventional game-art compilation and more like a showcase for fantasy cartography as an art form of its own.
Considering how often a map is the first thing that makes a fictional world feel like an actual place, putting more than a decade of them together in one enormous volume feels appropriately excessive.