Dhiaran Forchanis

Dhiaran Forchanis is a resident of Plasma Temple who invaded during the White Ruin, along with many others. He is known for being a former ally of Instigator as well as attacking one of the channels twice between August 6, 2023 and August 10, 2023. He is a biological scientist who specializes in the creation and customization of various mutant creatures via DNA splicing and other such practices, many of whom serve as mindless drones in his personal army. He was once the nemesis of the Chronicler, the master of PosiDon, making Posi his enemy by extension. Dharian has since come to regret his old ways and is currently being rehabilitated on the path towards redemption.

## History

Not much is known of Dhiaran's early life, but it is implied he has traveled between various dimensions attempting to study living beings for the purposes of enhancing his mutants and bettering his experiments. All of these practices were in pursuit of an ultimate goal he envisioned - to become a "perfect being". He has taken many forms in order to blend in to the places he has been throughout his adventures, and it is stated by Dhiaran himself that the previous dimension he visited before entering the temple was themed around anime. This meant his form upon entering the temple was similarly anime themed, as he had customized himself to adjust to a wildly different place.

At some point in his life, Dhiaran met the Chronicler, and later, Posi. Due to a clash of ideals, Dhiaran subsequently became the enemy of both. The main dispute occurred between him and the Chronicler; his mission to become a perfect being and his failure to appreciate the beauty of life deeply upset the latter.

Dhiaran first arrived in the temple on August 6, 2023, with the intention of gaining a foothold from which he could study the strongest beings of the temple and potentially even incorporate them into his experiments. He encountered Posi, who had already been a resident for a while, and the two spoke briefly, with other temple dwellers chiming in. Dhiaran was not taken seriously by most of these residents largely due to the fact that his form was still anime-themed - he had not anticipated the need to change it despite leaving the anime-themed world - and the sharp contrast between this form and the more abstract aesthetics of the temple was all too apparent. While annoyed at the mockery he was receiving, Dhiaran ultimately decided to move on, and viewed those dishing it out as insignificant and a waste of time to dwell on.

Dhiaran proceeded to reach out to Instigator and propose an alliance of convenience. Dhiaran was aware his goal would not be achievable without support, and since Instigator was fundamentally opposed to the higher beings Dhiaran planned to have at his mercy for his experiments, he knew cooperation was necessary. Dhiaran offered to provide support to Instigator and help weaken the temple with additional attacks. In exchange, Instigator would continue damaging the temple's upper echelon and make them easier for Dhiaran to take advantage of.

Instigator agreed to this alliance, and promptly instructed Dhiaran to attack an area of the temple wrested back from him and temporarily annexed by Malignant. Dhiaran complied. Later that day, he deployed his mutant army to assault the area and cause as much damage as possible. Posi and A showed up to defend the territory and fought his armies with vicious counterattacks that likely drew from the abstracted power of the temple. Posi made use of the inherent memetic strength of Highland Cow Forms to increase his capabilities and A used his vast array of technology to counter the mutants. Dhiaran almost won when he unleashed his human-handed crabs - a particularly strong type of mutant - only for A to defeat him by disabling his army with another memetic agent, the cotton candy lobster. Malignant did not even need to intervene in the battle.

Dhiaran was forced to retreat having realized his attack had failed and understanding he needed to re-evaluate the cognitohazardous potential of his foes. Later, Dhiaran reconvened with Instigator and asked him for advice moving forward. With Instigator's help, he was able to immunize himself and his mutants against certain common cognitohazards (including Burmese Pythons) to prevent the outcome of the August 6 attack from repeating itself, and for the next four days, he prepared for his next operation. In the meantime, he finally changed his form to a more abstract design befitting of the temple.

On August 10, Instigator launched his final offensive, instructing Dhiaran to back him by attacking the same area he attacked last time. Dhiaran agreed to this plan, sensing that Malignant was currently occupied. Posi rushed to defend the area, although A was preoccupied with Instigator and could not assist his companion. Furthermore, Dhiaran had thought ahead for a solution on how to deal with Posi. He had one of his human-handed crabs steal Posi's Highland Cow Forms before he was able to react, depriving Posi of his tricks and leading to him being completely overwhelmed by his foe's mutant army. Dhiaran proceeded to wreak havoc on the temple and attack various other channels with his mutants, but was thankfully stopped when Malignant reawakened and destroyed his ability to interface with the temple, preventing him from being able to directly deploy any more of his mutants or even speak.

After Malignant's intervention, Dhiaran's quick thinking enabled him to come up with a backup plan. Using a particular mutant of his - the Hypnozebra - he took direct control of Posi's ability to interface with the temple, and used him as a proxy for further attacks. At first, he had complete control of Posi, and he used him to unleash an upgraded form of his human-handed crabs - which were now complemented with human-legs - causing even more damage. However, Dhiaran was not aware that he had failed to confiscate the strongest of Posi's Highland Cow Forms, which Posi remembered he had and proceeded to activate. Empowered by the Highland Cow energy, he was able to fight back against Dhiaran and oust him from the seat of control. Later, the two of them had an argument wherein Posi eventually convinced Dhiaran to cease his operations and repent for his wrongdoings. By then, Instigator had already been destroyed, leaving Dhiaran with no allies to rely on, no method of exploiting PT's upper echelons, and no way to get out of his current situation. Dhiaran, having reconsidered his perspective and his options, temporarily left the temple and returned Posi's Highland Cow Forms.

Two days later, on August 12, Dhiaran was pardoned by Phantom upon Posi's request and Malignant's effects were undone. Dhiaran returned to the temple and pledged to do what he could to make up for what he had done. Since then, he has become a good Samaritan and has directed his mutants to help undo the damage he caused in the past. Additionally, he now interacts with other residents of the temple on a friendly basis.

On December 25, 2023, Dhiaran assigned his mutants to deliver various gifts to the residents of the temple in celebration of Christmas and Festivus, a custom tradition the temple had come up with. With Posi helping, his efforts proved successful and all residents who asked for gifts were given what they requested.

## Personality

Dhiaran is a cordial individual who talks very eloquently - notably ending every sentence with a period - and possesses a dry sense of humour which makes it is hard to identify whether something he says is fully serious or a joke, especially without proper context. While generally appearing calm and collected, he has demonstrated time and time again that under certain circumstances, it is easy for him to lose his temper. Thankfully, now that he has settled down, he doesn't have much to be angry about, which means he maintains his calm demeanor much more frequently.

Prior to his redemption, Dhiaran was a cold, dismissive, and cunning egotist who saw other beings as his inferiors. His worldview caused him to see every being as inherently imperfect, but he put himself on a pedestal because he was actively searching for a way to achieve perfection, thus making him, in his mind, worthy of being considered greater than others. Dhiaran held very little regard for both his allies and his enemies; he considered the Chronicler and Posi to be pathetic and insignificant, and despite showing a minimal amount of curiosity toward Instigator's motives, he made it explicitly clear that their alliance was only for convenience and that he did not truly have any opinion on those motives one way or another. Dhiaran formerly had no respect for the beauty of life and nature, and was completely unable to live in the moment as he was always dead-set on advancing his goals and achieving bigger and better things. This stance only came to shift once Posi convinced him to look inward and reconsider his worldview following his defeat. Seemingly, Dhiaran no longer believes in the idea of perfection and has become far more content with the imperfect reality around him - perhaps recognizing that even in a place as twisted as PT, there exist forces of great power and potential.

Despite having negative qualities at first, Dhiaran was not necessarily pure evil, and he had his limits. For instance, he always developed his mutants without a soul or any true form of sentience to ensure they would never feel any pain and that his practices were (in his mind) ethical - a practice he continues to this day. Overall, Dhiaran was never irredeemable, and like many PT denizens, he has so far demonstrated a capacity to grow and change as an individual.

## Powers

Dhiaran has altered himself over the course of his experiments, unlocking the ability to manipulate and change his physical form, although it does take time for him to do this. He has done it twice so far during his time spent in the temple. Additionally, his vast arsenal of mutants are versatile tools with immense application, especially as they are easy to create using his techniques and form a decently effective army, albeit one he has not used for a while.

Dhiaran is also quite intelligent, which has allowed him to succeed where others would have failed. Obviously, him being an experienced biologist implies such on its own, but he also displayed a great deal of tactical prowess by choosing to ally with Instigator in order to improve his chances of securing a foothold in the temple, having known very well that he would be unable to stand on his own against the higher beings around him. Dhiaran was also quick to adapt to the problem of cognitohazards after his first attack and outsmarted Posi multiple times. He was even able to circumvent Malignant's curse, despite the sizeable power gap between the two beings. While Dhiaran did end up losing in the end, it was due to factors he wasn't able to react to - primarily because of a lack of knowledge. It's entirely possible he could have done more damage had he not been convinced to surrender and had Posi not been lucky enough to have had a particularly powerful Highland Cow Form unbeknownst to him.

## Trivia

* Dhiaran has been made fun of for having a "bishie anime boy" form, as well as for having an Irish-sounding name.
	+ Additionally, some have confused his surname, Forchanis, for being a reference to the website 4chan, although there is no intended correlation between the two.