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November 11, 2026
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Stories Behind the Cards · Part 1 of 8
Original AI-generated editorial illustration. An imagined card-painting workshop, inspired by Renaissance craftsmanship; not a reconstruction of a documented workshop.
Tarot can look as though it belongs to a world outside history. A crowned figure sits between pillars; a traveller approaches an unfamiliar path; a tower catches the light. The pictures seem to arrive with a story already attached.
Their documented history is more human, and just as interesting. Tarot developed as a card game in Renaissance Italy. The associations with divination and esoteric systems that many readers recognise today developed centuries afterwards. Understanding that history gives us more ways to appreciate the images, including the freedom to recognise what a contemporary fantasy deck adds.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art places the earliest references to tarot in the 1440s and 1450s in northern and central Italian cities, including Milan, Venice, Florence and Urbino. Surviving luxury cards show how much artistry could be invested in objects used for play. Painted figures and gilded surfaces belonged to a culture of skilled workshops and wealthy patrons. The Met’s account of tarot’s early history provides a useful starting point.
These were games involving suits and trumps. Their figures drew on a visual world familiar to their makers and players: rulers, religious authority, virtues and changes in human fortune. A beautifully painted card could have a practical place in a game while also carrying cultural associations.
The Morgan Library’s discussion of Renaissance tarot and its later artistic influence makes the larger chronology clear: the courtly game came first; its occult reputation developed later. A picture’s ability to suggest meaning does not tell us when a particular interpretation began.
The Crossing of Realms, Veilbound’s contemporary tarot, follows the familiar 78-card arrangement: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. The latter are organised into four suits, each with ten numbered cards and four court cards. Here, those suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.
That structure gives a reader recurring points of comparison. A beginning can be explored through an Ace; a court figure can suggest a way of approaching a situation; a Major Arcana image can open a broader theme. The guidebook explains the interpretation used by this particular deck. Historical packs and different reading traditions also have variations, so a modern arrangement should not be projected unchanged onto every surviving old deck.
The V&A’s history of tarot describes the growth of fortune-telling interpretations in the late eighteenth century and the later meeting of Arthur Edward Waite and artist Pamela Colman Smith. Their influential Rider–Waite–Smith deck was first published in 1909.
Smith’s contribution deserves to be named. Scenes on the suit cards gave readers people, gestures and settings to examine. The visual story could hold attention before a printed definition was consulted. Her work remains an important reference point for many subsequent decks, although contemporary artists make their own choices about subjects, composition and emphasis.
In The Crossing of Realms, established tarot titles meet imagined forests, ancient-looking cities and mythical creatures. Those landscapes are contemporary inventions. They are an artistic setting for the reading, rather than evidence that tarot originated in an ancient fantasy tradition.
Consider The Fool. Veilbound’s version places a traveller at a threshold with a small white fox. You might notice the traveller’s footing, the direction of their gaze or the relationship between curiosity and preparation. The card can become a question about a first step because of the way this particular scene has been made.
Knowing a little history makes that encounter richer. You can enjoy the new world while recognising the older visual conversation it joins. You can also ask a useful question of any deck: which features are inherited, and which are this creator’s interpretation?
Choose one card image and give it a minute of attention. Write down three visible details, then one possible story connecting them. Next, read the supplied meaning and notice where it expands or changes your first impression.
Keep both observations. The difference between them may be the most interesting part. An image can offer more than one route into a subject without requiring every response to become a prediction.
If that way of exploring appeals, you can meet The Crossing of Realms and its illustrated world. The separate printable tarot edition and companion guidebook suit readers who like to return to a picture slowly, with a book beside them.
