Ben Drowned
"You do not deserve to be handed information..."
This page only covers elements from the Ben Drowned ARG that are relevant to Johnisdead.
For a more comprehensive documentation of the Ben Drowned ARG, please visit the Jadusable Wiki.
Ben Drowned, also known as the "Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge" or "Awakening", is an ARG that was created by Alex Hall "Jadusable" in 2010. The ARG follows the story of a college student named Jadusable, who discovered an old copy of the Nintendo 64 game Majora's Mask, which was haunted by a malicious spirit named BEN. As the ARG progressed, a deeper story involving a mysterious cult called the Moon Children was slowly unraveled, forcing players to solve cryptic Majora's Mask-based puzzles to progress. Johnisdead borrows and builds off of many story and gameplay elements from Ben Drowned, meaning players are recommended to have a basic understanding of Ben Drowned before playing Johnisdead.
Story
Reminder: The contents of the page only cover the parts of the Ben Drowned story that are relevant to Johnisdead. A more comprehensive coverage of the Ben Drowned story is available on the Jadusable Wiki. Below is a condensed summary of events simply for the use of better understanding the story of Johnisdead.
Arc 1. Haunted Cartridge Arc
In 2010, a college student named Alex came across an Old Man's yard sale. The Old Man was strange, owning many inkblot paintings and seemingly blinded in one eye. He gave Alex an old, damaged cartridge of the Nintendo 64 game, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask is a game that operates on a three-day cycle, as the player character, Link, is tasked with saving the land of Termina from a falling moon before the end of the final day. In order to achieve his goal, Link must awaken ancient guardians known as the Four Giants in order to stop the one who cursed the moon to fall - a child named the Skull Kid who is possessed by the evil Majora's Mask. Throughout the game, Link must play magical songs on his Ocarina to manipulate time and progress further into the land of Termina. For a full explanation of Majora's Mask and its relevancy to Ben Drowned and Johnisdead, click here.
When Alex began playing through the game, he began noticing many oddities. The game was unusually glitchy, and several NPC's would reference the game's previous owner, a young child named Ben. Eventually, Alex attempted to activate the "4th Day Glitch" - a bug that allows the player to enter into an unintended, glitchy day after the intended final day of the three-day cycle. This only resulted in the game becoming even more broken, as Alex soon found himself being followed by the "Elegy Statue" - an uncanny, creepily smiling statue that resembles Link. Around this time, Alex began recording his gameplay, later uploading it to a YouTube channel named Jadusable. He also began taking notes of his experiences in a file titled "TheTruth.rtf".
The next day, Alex and his friend Tyler went to visit the Old Man in search of answers. Unfortunately, the Old Man was nowhere to be found and his house had been completely abandoned. Alex's mental state worsened. It soon became clear that the Majora's Mask cartridge was haunted by a malicious entity calling itself BEN. Despite sharing the same name as the game's previous owner, Ben, it is believed that Ben and BEN are not the same - BEN simply stole Ben's name in an act of cruelty. Indeed, Alex later discovered that the game's previous owner was a young child named Ben who drowned on April 23rd, 2002. It seems that, throughout these events, Ben is an innocent child who simply had his identity stolen by this malicious "BEN" entity.
When Alex returned to his dorm room, he discovered that BEN had entered into his computer via his recording equipment connected to the Nintendo 64. BEN's influence begins to grow. Alex begins suffering from nightmares depicting strange, masked figures, and his video uploads are now being censored by BEN. A few days later, after several more video uploads, Alex disappears. Not long after, his notes, "TheTruth.rtf", were uploaded online by his supposed "roommate". Strangely, Alex previously mentioned that he had no roommate. Other oddities were discovered within the notes themselves, such as various contradictions and cryptic messages. Players soon discovered that BEN had tampered with the notes, and by downloading them, the players had inadvertently spread his influence across the entire internet.
Arc 2. Moon Children Arc
On September 17th, 2010, players were linked to a new website - Youshouldnthavedonethat.net. This site belonged to the Moon Children - an enigmatic cult that worshipped a moon god named Luna. The front page of this site acted as a blog of sorts, where various Moon Child moderators would post announcements. These moderators were Ifrit, whose real name was Matt, who welcomed users to the site. Another moderator named Nekko, whose real name was Chris, expressed his excitement for his upcoming Ascension - a Moon Child ceremony that involves the participant being ritualistically killed as their soul is separated from their body. However, it seems that Ascension is not as great as the Moon Children believe, as it is believed that Ascension can involve the participant's soul being trapped within electronic devices. Another moderator named Duskworld23, whose real name is Spencer, mentioned a mysterious figure named Mr. D, who he warns to not make upset. This seems to imply Mr. D holds some degree of power within the cult.
Further exploration of the site revealed a fourth moderator - Insidiae. Insidiae's real name was Kevin, though not much was revealed about them. Documentation on the Moon Children's "theories" page mentioned a former Moon Child named Kelbris, who was supposedly spoken to by Luna directly. The Moon Children claim that Kelbris was found dead in 1998 under mysterious circumstances. Players later found a depiction of Kelbris himself on Youshouldnthavedonethat.net, who appeared to be a large, bloated, green entity with no eyes. Players soon made another disturbing discovery - a foreboding timer counting down to "The Fourth Day". A page named "The Truth" was discovered, but players were unable to enter it as it required a username and password.
Through searching hidden pages on Youshouldnthavedonethat.net, players discovered Matt's email address. Players began chatting with Matt over email, who revealed several key points of information. First off, Ben was indeed a former Moon Child who was said to have been involved in a faulty Ascension, which is likely how his soul ended up trapped within the Majora's Mask cartridge. On top of this, Matt claims that Ben is his brother. Matt also mentions that he has a sister named Rosa, though she is not as directly involved in the cult as he is. Matt goes on to claim that Alex is actually a member of the Moon Children as well, though he has recently gone missing.
As the countdown neared its end, Matt began informing players that someone was knocking on his door. Just as time was about to run out, a video was uploaded to a new channel named "TheLinkMissing", showing gameplay footage of the game "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", featuring Link playing the Song of Time on his Ocarina. In Majora's Mask, the Song of Time would reset the three day cycle, giving the player a fresh start. The same thing happened here, as Youshouldnthavedonethat.net returned to how it was three days prior, giving the players more time to uncover its mysteries. Supposedly, this YouTube channel, "TheLinkMissing", belonged to the missing Moon Child Alex.
During this second "cycle" of the website, Matt was missing - presumably still gone after being assaulted by the entity that was knocking on his door, despite the players' time travel. Players quickly discovered that the one who came for Matt was actually Kelbris - the deceased Moon Child from many years prior. This time around, Matt's posts on the front page were replaced with posts from Kevin. Through some experimentation, players discovered that they, too, could submit videos of Majora's Mask gameplay footage to affect the world of the ARG. These songs behaved similarly to how they did in Majora's Mask.
The submission of the "New Wave Bossa Nova" resulted in Rosa, Matt's sister, contacting the players via email. As Rosa was sending one player, Ryukaki, the login information for the locked "The Truth" page, she began hearing knocking on her door and soon disappeared, just like her brother. Around the same time, Alex was shown being struck down by Dark Link in another video. Before the end of the final day, players submitted the Song of Time to reset Youshouldnthavedonethat.net once again.
The third cycle of Youshouldnthavedonethat.net was strange, as the site underwent cryptic changes in an event known as "The Glitch". This led to players discovering many secret files on the website, including the text file "mhftt.txt", which seemed to be a message from Matt warning the players about BEN. This message ended off with a warning directed at Kayd Hendricks specifically - the real name of the player Ryukaki. Shortly after this, Ryukaki began uploading vlogs on his own YouTube channel, detailing strange hauntings occurring around his home. Through these videos, the headquarters of the Moon Children is revealed - a location known as "The Orchard". In his final upload, Ryukaki attempted to relay the login information for "The Truth" to the players. Unfortunately, the information was incomplete, and Ryukaki disappeared shortly after.
Later on, players were directed to a new website - a message board titled "Within Hubris". Here, players could freely chat and work together to solve the remainder of the ARG. These forums were not completely normal, however. Players discovered that accounts for various characters within the ARG had been created - even obscure ones such as Tyler. In addition to this, players managed to access a locked board titled "Wayward Horizon", which seemed to be a prison of sorts for various souls of Ascended Moon Children being contained by Kelbris.
In 2011, ARG activity dwindled until it was officially placed on hiatus. It wasn't until 2020 when the ARG officially returned. However, the events that took place in this new arc are not necessary to understand the story of Johnisdead. However, f you are interested in reading them, click here.
((WIP))
