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
((WIP))
