I am pretty excited to be writing this blog post and sharing a little bit of my creative side through a special project called Altiriah.

What is Altiriah?

Altiriah began many years ago as a creative idea between my mother and me. It didn’t begin with lore scrolls, in-depth character development, or even the word “Altiriah” at all. It was simply a shared love of art and fantasy, and an excited hope to make something beautiful together.

Back then, my mom was writing poetry, beautiful and hopeful verses about angels and fairies, light and magic. I was running a fine art photography studio where I created portraits of children and families in a fantasy setting, giving the subject a moment to live out a fantastical dream.  We had this idea (maybe half-baked, but full of heart) to bring those poems and photographs to life in a book. Wings, forests, hidden light…it was going to be our special mother-daughter project.

But life doesn’t always go as planned. My mom passed away before we barely got a start on it. And when she passed, I gave up the idea of creating anything. For a long time, I couldn’t touch the idea. It felt too heavy. Like if I touched it, I might crush it, or worse, make it something that we never intended it to be. My mom was so full of light, but for many years after she passed, I was lacking that light, and anything creative I did in regards to our magical world would have reflected my own darkness had I continued during my grief.

But something strange has happened over the years. That seed we planted together? It grew despite my efforts to keep it tucked away with the memories of my mom. No, it didn’t grow into the poetry and photo series we imagined, but into something else entirely.

Altiriah is what bloomed in my heart.

A magical world built from the ache of loss and the thrill of creation. A place where fantasy isn’t just an escape, it’s an exhale of my soul. It’s a language for everything too big to say out loud. Over time, I started painting scenes from that world: twilight mountains, storm-churned oceans, mythic flora and fauna that I didn’t know I had inside me. I wrote about elvish empires, sentient mountains, and forest cities that whisper your name.

All of the written content I’ve created so far has stayed nicely organized in my ever-growing list of notebooks, but I am finally beginning to let it out. I’m working on a full-blown website to tell stories from Altiriah, yes, but also to share inspirations, creative processes, oil paintings, and more.

And while that is a great start, what I’m really eager to tell you about is how I’ve spent months putting all of my notebooks into a database just so that I, and anyone else who wishes, can talk to it. Literally.

Come on now, don’t be surprised. I’m soon to be a graduate with a BA in Artificial Intelligence…we all knew this was coming. I’ve started building an AI-powered chatbot using AWS DynamoDB, Bedrock, and Lambda….did I lose all the non-techies here? I’m feeding in all the data, every description, every bit of lore I’ve created for Altiriah over the years, and using AI to create a searchable, interactive experience. One where you (yes, you!) can ask questions about Altiriah and get real answers back from my “lorekeeper”.

Want to know why the elves of Silsori follow the phases of the moon? Ask the chatbot (who I’ve lovingly named Faylerin btw). Curious about the tale of a dragon whose sorrow caused the Jeweled Sea to overflow? Just ask. Need directions to the Mourning Mire from Mossgrove Keep (though I wouldn’t recommend going alone),  Faylerin will tell you all about it in the most fantastic way.

And before all you purists jump down my throat…while the content is mine, I haven’t yet imported my art (do you know how long an oil painting takes?), so yes, you will see AI-generated images used to illustrate lands, creatures, and other things, but rest assured my own art is coming over time.

This isn’t just technology for me. It’s healing and remembering the magic that my mom inspired me to always carry in my heart. It’s me organizing the chaos of years of imagination into something alive. Something sharable.

More importantly, it’s a way to carry the light that my mom had in her heart into every story, every line of code, every oil-painted dragon wing.

The chatbot lives at Altiriah.com, and I have a lot of work ahead of me to turn it into what I really want it to be. I want the chatbot to share the stories I’ve written, the art I’ve created (both AI imagery and my oil paintings and drawings), and most importantly, be interactive so every time you look into Altiriah, you discover something new.

So go ahead, ask it a few questions, and let me know what you think of Faylerin of Altiriah (don’t worry, I will share the code behind it in a future post).