Charles Marlow
Marlow's name may be inspired by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Conrad's father was a translator of William Shakespeare who doubtless would have known of Marlowe's work as well. Some intertextual interpretations of "Heart of Darkness" have suggested that Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" may have influenced Conrad. Charles Marlow describes a character as a "papier-mache Mephistopheles", a reference to the Faust legend. Marlow's and Kurtz's journey up the Congo River in "Heart of Darkness" also has similarities to another work by Marlowe, "Dido, Queen of Carthage", in which Aeneas is stranded on the shore of Libya and meets the African queen Dido.
List of Dragonlance characters
Dhamon Evran Grimwulf, human/shadow dragon, also known as Damon-dragon, was a Knight of Takhisis before he saw the vision of Goldmoon at the Tomb of the Last Heroes. Dhamon becomes the leader of the Heroes of the Heart until he nearly kills Goldmoon on Malystryx's orders, because he has one of her scales embedded in his leg. Luckily, a silver and a shadow dragon helps free him by breaking the spell on the scale, and twisting it to the shadow dragon's own ends. Soon after the transformation, the scale started to pain him harshly and frequently. Thus plagued by the scale he proceeds to engage in thievery and other such activities to pay for the magical sword of Tanis Half-Elven. His mission in life is that of personal gain and to relieve himself of the scale on his leg, rapidly spreading, enforced by the magic of the Shadow Dragon whose blood was used to undo the control that Malystryx had over Dhamon. Through deception Dhamon is tricked into working for the Shadow Dragon to destroy the Black overlord, Sable. However, Dhamon decides to try to kill the shadow dragon with the help of a wingless Sivak Draconian, Ragh, the mad Solamnic Knight, Fiona and the Ogre mage Maldred. Dhamon struggles with his conscience to undermine the Shadow Dragon and become once again a free soul. He tries to save his family while hunting for the shadow dragon, and by this time looks like a shadow spawn. Later, when a dragon attempts to use Dhamon to help the shadow dragon rebirth, the process goes awry and Dhamon becomes a shadow dragon. Years later, he yearns for manhood again, and attempts to do so. However he was stopped by Sable, and although he managed to kill her, he too perished in the process.