Player Information:
Name: Froda
Age: Over 18.
Contact: frodabaggins @ plurk
Game Cast: N/A

Character Information:
Name: Arthur [no surname given]
Canon: Inception
Canon Point: The final kick, when he blows the elevator.
Age: Arthur has no canonical age, but the actor who portrayed him was 29 when the movie was shot, so I tend to go with that - it fits, given what we know of the character's background.
Reference: I recommend the Inception wiki as a good starting point, also the wikipedia page for the film, and a brief character wiki page for Arthur specifically. Also, if necessary, I can probably dig up a source or two in which Nolan discusses Arthur's military background - it's very vague, but I feel it's kind of important to mention that's where he comes from, despite the fact that it's never talked about in canon per se.

Setting: The world of Inception is, at least on the surface, the same as our current world. Only with one major exception - in this universe, technology exists which allows for people to enter a shared dream state. As explained in canon, this technology was originally developed as a military training tool - in a dream, pain is still experienced the same way ("pain is in the mind") but of course one cannot actually be physically injured in a dream - this allows soldiers to shoot, stab and torture each other to test their own mental limits and then wake up, completely unscathed. But of course, like most "super secret" technologies, the dream sharing drug (somnacin) and apparatus (PASIV) have since ended up used for more nefarious purposes, specifically: "extraction", a form of thievery which involves breaking into the subconscious of a victim in order to retrieve valuable information from them. On the flip side, "inception" is a much more difficult process which involves attempting to plant an idea in the subconscious of the victim, and this is exactly what our heroes (or anti-heroes?) are hired to do in the film.

In canon, extraction (and in theory inception) is primarily portrayed as a tool used in white collar crimes such as corporate espionage; indeed the primary caper of the film's plot involves the team attempting to convince a man to break up his father's giant multi-billion-dollar energy conglomerate. This appears to be the the kind of world in which Arthur and co. move - high-class businessmen, backstabbing and moneygrubbing. However, there are other uses for the dream sharing technology which are obliquely hinted at in the film - primarily the brief appearance of what appears to be some kind of underground dream sharing "den", run by the chemist, Yusuf. It aesthetically resembles opium dens of the 19th century and appears to be a haven for those "addicted" to the dream sharing. Which gives the whole film a sinister undertone, and adds another dimension of danger to what the characters attempt to do.

The dreams themselves are quite malleable - again, while in the "real world" of the present-day (2010), the characters are limited by all the constraints of regular physics and their very human limitations. By contrast, in dreams, they appear capable of a lot more - Ariadne can defy physics and turn a cityscape into origami with a simple thought; Cobb can unconsciously bring a train into a crowded city intersection; Arthur can perform gravity-defying acrobatics; Eames can become a one-man army. The list goes on. But there are a lot of dangers associated with it as well - time works differently in dreams, and the deeper you go, the more compounded the effect becomes. At the deepest level, "limbo", which Arthur calls raw, unconstructed subconscious, decades can pass for those trapped there while only a few minutes pass in the real world. And the more time one spends in dreams, the more likely it becomes that one will begin to question reality. Hence the need for totems - a small object, chosen by the dreamer to be carried on the person at all times. The item becomes a literal reality check - unique to each individual, only that person knows the feel, weight of their totem, and thus can use it to make sure they aren't in someone else's dream.

Personality: Cobb: He is good at what he does.
Eames: Oh, he's the best...

Probably the best place to start when talking about Arthur's personality is with his job. Obviously, what he does for a living doesn't constitute his entire character, but it is a significant aspect of his life and his personality seems rather uniquely suited to what he does.

Arthur is the point man of the team. This is an actual military term, and wikipedia has a good working definition of what it means primarily in military parlance. Essentially, Arthur is the one who goes before - he does most of the legwork, the research, the nuts-and-bolts of the job before the job actually takes place. On the job itself, in the dream, Arthur stays behind while the others go down to the next level, acting as security to keep the dreamers safe. Basically, it falls to him to make sure the job goes down without a hitch.

Put another way, as Joseph Gordon-Levitt characterized it, Arthur is the producer to Cobb's director - he takes Cobb's overarching vision, the wild ideas generated by the team, and figures out how to make them work in the most practical, efficient way possible.

So what does this mean for Arthur's personality? Well, running point requires a lot of things that can't necessarily be learned in a classroom - Arthur has to be very detail oriented and meticulous, he has to be able to cover his tracks well and be discreet. It's likely his job requires a certain amount of on-site surveillance, which requires patience as well. Thoughtfulness and thoroughness are also must-haves in this situation. If Arthur misses anything important, it could mean a flubbed job - even their lives. Thus he's also very reliable and trustworthy with the people he's working with. He could easily be seen as the most grounded member of the team, the one who keeps the others in check, questions everything to try and make sure the plan is as airtight as possible, to keep the risks at a minimum. Sometimes this can come across as Arthur being an asshole - and sometimes he actually is kind of an asshole, as when for instance he rakes Nash over the proverbial coals for getting a carpet wrong in a dream. Details are important and Arthur tends to have high expectations of those he works with - when people fail to meet those expectations, he can get kind of nasty about it.

On the job, Arthur also generally conveys an air of calm professionalism - for the most part, he's all business, and this may be why Eames is so quick to label him a "stick-in-the-mud" - he's a contrast to Eames' own laissez-faire attitude. Arthur often takes on the role of instructor, particularly with Ariadne, and he seems comfortable in that role. He calmly explains the military origins of dream sharing; in a later scene, when Ariadne wakes up suddenly after being killed in the dream by the shade of Cobb's dead wife, Arthur calms her quickly, then moves immediately into a lesson explaining totems to her - serving both to impart information and to take her mind off the trauma she just experienced. He's also clearly familiar with at least the basic precepts of dream architecture, as he shows Ariadne how to create paradoxes.

Nonetheless, "stick-in-the-mud" is a pretty serious oversimplification: Arthur is clearly able to enjoy himself, smile, laugh, even flirt occasionally while on a job. This is shown several times in the film - while showing Ariadne paradoxical architecture, she makes him smile relatively easily. He also falls into a comfortable sort of banter with Eames at times:

Eames: Security's going to ride you hard.
Arthur: And I will lead them on a merry chase.

Ariadne: What was she like, in real life?
Arthur: She was lovely.

Arthur's relationships with his coworkers are complicated, to say the least. He does his best to maintain his professionalism when on the job, but that clearly doesn't stop him from having personal feelings about some of them. When he describes Mal as "lovely" to Ariadne, that description is clearly borne of some kind of personal connection which he presumably had with her.

His relationship with Eames is somewhat different - there's a certain amount of animosity there, and the two clearly have some kind of history, but there's also a level of professional respect which is on display most prominently in the first level of the dream, when they come under fire and easily coordinate with each other as Arthur drives the cab to free them from the gridlock and Eames covers their rear as they make their escape. So Arthur is willing and able to set aside personal differences when on a job, even to the extent of trusting Eames with his physical safety in a firefight. Basically: he's willing and able to compartmentalize.

With Ariadne, Arthur is different yet again - he acts as a guide of sorts, a teacher on occasion, and he's seen distracting her from stressful situations a couple of times - first when she wakes up after being killed by Mal in a dream, and again on the second dream level when he tricks her into a kiss, ostensibly in an attempt to distract the projections. When Ariadne comments that everyone is still looking at them, he smirks and explains, "Yeah, it was worth a shot." An ambiguous, but clearly playful moment and hint of humor from a man who otherwise tends to be quite serious.

Arthur's relationship with Cobb is probably the most complicated, and possibly the most illustrative of his personality. He's very loyal to him, as Eames indicates early on in the film when he seems surprised to learn that Cobb is "still" working with Arthur, suggesting they work together frequently, if not exclusively. They may not be full-fledged partners (before they meet up with Saito and take the inception job, Arthur was more than willing to part ways with Cobb, at least temporarily, as he indicates plans to return to the US after their failed job for Cobol), but perhaps their shared personal past, Arthur's feelings for Mal and the fact that they seem to make a very good team keeps them working together. Arthur's pragmatism in a lot of ways makes a good foil to Cobb's more "big-picture" thinking, but Arthur is also unwilling or unable to dig into Cobb's issues the way Ariadne is, suggesting a certain amount of emotional distance between the two men. After the failed job for Cobol, he asks Cobb if everything is okay, and he clearly realizes that everything is not okay, but he accepts his answer anyway, and doesn't press the point. This suggests that Arthur is hesitant to get too far into emotional entanglements like that.

As far as morality is concerned, Arthur firmly fits into the gray scale - what he does for a living is not only illegal, it's also morally questionable (violating privacy, potentially messing with people's heads in pretty serious ways, etc.) And he doesn't do it for the money, as Joseph Gordon-Levitt pointed out in interviews - he has the kind of skill set that means he would do well in any number of lucrative and more legal professions. Arthur does what he does because he really enjoys it - maybe he's secretly a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but whatever it is, as Arthur says to Ariadne, for him, "there's nothing quite like it" and it doesn't seem to bother him much that he's a criminal messing about in people's minds.

Still, he definitely has some morals - he and Cobb refuse to do violence to Nash, the man who sold them out to Saito, despite his betrayal. Arthur likely justifies his criminal lifestyle to himself with the assurance that he's not actually causing harm to anyone (at least not physical harm), and his victims seem to be rich businessmen who are probably just as heartless and ruthless, if not moreso, than any dream criminal.

In the game setting, on arrival, Arthur is going to believe he's in some form of limbo. Whether he thinks the PCs and/or NPCs are real or projections is difficult to say - he probably won't know for sure, specifically the PCs. The NPCs look weird enough that he'll probably think they're not real.

Ultimately, Arthur is likely to try to kill himself, to wake up. This will probably happen pretty early on, and he'll do it as neatly and quietly as he can. When it doesn't work, though, he'll abandon that idea, so he won't be constantly trying to kill himself. It'll just be the once.

Beyond that, he'll try to integrate into the world as best he can, seeking out contacts, possibly getting involved in some shadier activities around the city (though he's unlikely to affiliate with organized criminal gangs; Arthur is a freelancer at heart). But generally, he'll try not to draw too much attention to himself while he tries to figure out how to "wake up" and get back to his own world. He still has a job to finish, after all.

Appearance:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur

Arthur is portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He's approximately 5'10", brown hair/eyes, rather lanky of build but very fit. He cuts a rather stylish, clean figure in his designer clothes, though he appears to have a somewhat limited wardrobe and while working often goes for a more casual look, i.e. loosened tie, top button of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, etc. In dreams, however, he's almost always very well put-together (unless the setting of a particular dream requires some other kind of outfit).

Abilities: Outside dream share, Arthur is a baseline human, albeit one with military training (for headcanon purposes I consider him former army) - so yeah that means he's got pretty extensive firearms and hand-to-hand training. He's a very smart man, detail-oriented and good at researching everything from a person's financial dealings to tabloid gossip. His primary role as the "point man" is this process of exhaustive research and compiling data on the mark, and he probably has access to a number of databases that aren't... necessarily public. Another large part of his job appears to be what I would call "risk management", a process by which Arthur does his best to poke holes in everyone's plans and ideas, find potential problem points in order to fill in those gaps and figure out ways to reduce the risks involved. He's also relatively good at thinking on his feet when something does go wrong, and proves himself very adaptable to altered circumstances.

Also, something rather unique to Arthur, he's a lucid dreamer and his subconscious is militarized, so any character with a power or ability related to dreaming or invading the subconscious of others would encounter some heavy resistance trying to invade Arthur's mind.

Still, Arthur definitely has his limits, and he's known to make mistakes - significantly, he fails to discover that Robert Fischer, their mark, has had his subconscious militarized to defend against exactly what they're trying to do to him. Furthermore, being a baseline human, while above-average in intelligence and fitness, definitely makes him vulnerable compared to people who may have super powers, supernatural abilities, etc.

Inventory: Arthur will arrive wearing the suit from the second level of the dream on the inception job, a black pinstriped three-piece suit, striped dress shirt, red paisley tie and cufflinks, the whole shebang. Further, he'll have a Glock 17 handgun, a black canvas utility bag, with a couple of small explosive charges and a handheld detonator, a silver case which is actually a PASIV device containing four vials of the drug somnacin, and a loaded red die, which serves as his totem.

Suite: Metal I feel like would be the best fit for Arthur. He's a pragmatic guy, and while he definitely has style, he's not as ostentatious as fire might imply. He tends to prefer clean lines and is an urban dweller at heart. I'd like his suite to be 2 floors, again, not out of any desire to be ostentatious, or any particular materialism on his part, but primarily so that he has sufficient work space should he require it, separate from his living space.

In-Character Samples:
Third Person: He’s in Singapore when he gets the call. A motel, not a hotel, a lot seedier than he usually goes for but the people he’s dealing with aren’t exactly what you’d call upright citizens. Eames’ fault, really. Calls him, tells him about a job that’s sure to be exciting, challenging, and - okay, so it’s also his own fault.

He’s been spending more and more time abroad, lately. Doing more and more extractions. Seeking the thrill, avoiding things back home. Avoiding the Cobbs.

So yeah, the motel is seedy, and he blames Eames (as usual), Eames seems to revel in the seedy, but Arthur tries to avoid it. He spent his childhood in seedy, he prefers clean and airy and up high, above the ground.

He’s had a bad day, looking forward to hopefully taking a hot shower and reviewing some files until he falls into the fitful sleep that comes when one uses somnacin regularly, and starts losing the ability to dream naturally. But then his phone buzzes in his pocket and it’s Cobb - he doesn’t have any contacts saved, but he knows the Cobbs’ number - and he picks it up because they wouldn’t call him like this unless there was some kind of emergency.

Dom’s voice is different. So different, from how it usually is. It’s hollow, the voice of a broken man. And Arthur almost can’t comprehend the words he’s saying - Mal is gone, Mal jumped, Mal killed herself.

Mal framed me, Arthur. I need your help.

“Jesus Christ,” he hears himself mutter, perched on the edge of the bed, half his buttons undone, only the light in the bathroom casting any illumination on the scene. It’s a kind of numbness that washes over him momentarily - he takes one breath, then another.

Then he stands up. Does up the buttons on his shirt again. “Where are you now? I’ll meet you. I’ll make some calls, we’ll figure this out, okay?”

“Yeah... yeah, okay. I just landed in...”

There’s no time to grieve, no time to be sad or angry. Arthur has a job to do.

Network: [He's been here a while, actually. Arthur isn't one to just put himself out there, not without doing a lot of research first, and in this case, most of his research has involved snooping around the public places of the city and lurking on this network. But now, now he has a serious question to pose, so he does so - as carefully as he can, of course.]

I'm sure gardening is great for some people, but I'm not exactly gifted with a green thumb. I need something else to do. Back home I worked in private security, but I'm open to ideas.

My name is Arthur, by the way.