The secret origin of Riverdale's Gargoyle King's alphabet. (2023)

The Gargoyle KingoneRiverdaleworks in mysterious ways. The central character in Season 3's most dangerous game, Gryphons & Gargoyles, could be a stick monster. He or shecan be imaginary. Or he/she may not even have appeared on screen! But there is one aspect of The Gargoyle Kinghe canFind out, and this is how you read the strange alphabet that's popping up all over town with Pep.

The script first appeared in the season 3 premiere, "Labour Day," when Dilton Doiley (Major Curda) passed a strange map on Jughead's (Cole Sprouse) path. Jughead followed the map and discovered Dilton dead next to Ben Button (Moses Thiessen), who is a real character name inRiverdaleand not something I accidentally entered. And then it started popping up everywhere, branded on plaques, at the bottom of goblets, and evenno Archie's marked(KJ Apa) belo corpo.

While Juggie is closer to figuring out the Gargoyle King's motivations, it looks like we'll delve deeper into this strange alphabet in the next episode. But don't worry, you can win.RiverdaleThe key investigative duo of Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead in their own game, as intrepid (and slightly curious) fans, may now help you decipher the source - and reveal some aspects of their surprising origins.

The whole thing was discovered very quickly on October 18th by ScreenRant writer Hannah Shaw-Williams, whoI looked at Jughead's mapand knew what was what:

As Williams points out, to crack a code, you look for repeating patterns and single words. In this case, it looks like you have a six-letter word, a three-letter word, an eight-letter word, and a four-letter word. There is a limited number of three letter words that can go in there and if you replace those letters with "the" you can quickly figure out that the message reads "Beware the Gargoyle King".

If that seems too logical to you, check out the tag found in the same episode where Archie's prison bus leaves town:

These letters could mean anything, but if they are initials - "TGK" for "The Gargoyle King" - then it further helps flesh out the code above and certainly supports Shaw-Williams' findings.

You can find the same three letters on Dilton and Ben's backs when Jughead spots them in the woods:

Later, after Alice Cooper (Girl Amick) tells Betty her flashback story in "The Midnight Club", young Cooper investigates Riverdale High and finds two goblets, each with the third letter on it:

This would be "K" for "King" if the code is true.

So Archie was branded, and according to what Joaquin (Rob Raco) tells us in the promo for the next episode, the letter is an "S" for "Sacrifice."

For those of you keeping track, that's 14 letters of the alphabet, which is awesome! But this is where it gets interesting and potentially confusing.

On November 4th, theRiverdaleThe Dial M for Maple podcast dug up a Lovecraft-inspired font that certainly looks just like the glyphs used in the show:

Author H. P. Lovecraft has already been referenced inRiverdale, particularly with his name appearing on a box during the second season of Tales From The Darkside. It also ties in well thematically with the Gargoyle King story, as Lovecraft's writing often focuses on beings outside of our reality and slowly drives us insane with obsession. Do you know what exactly is going on with Jughead?

So it makes sense to use a Lovecraft inspired font. The only problem is that there is no such thing as an "official". Lovecraft himself never included any part of this supernatural alphabet in his text - reading it would drive the characters insane, so it was left to the reader's imagination. But fans and pros have come up with multiple versions of a possible alphabet like the one in the tweet above. After looking at a dozen or more of them I can confirm that they are all different, no two alphabets are the same and the above is the only one (that I've found at least) that looks like the Gargoyle King's alphabet. at the fair.

"Dial M for Maple" spent some time wondering why the letters on the Riverdale town sign mean "TGH" according to this source's key. But a little research on our part unearthed some surprising additions.

First, the font mentioned above is called “Cthulhuian”, created by DeviantArt userMcTavish's vault. Real name Stacey Marshall, when we contacted him he emailed us the origin of the source.

"I'm a huge Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos fan and play the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu RPG," he said. "I originally designed the font so I could make some propsNecronomicon Page Handouts.“

The entire site (Vaults of McTavish) is said to revolve around an imaginary explorer named Stapleton McTavish, with the source and associated pages expanding on the descriptions available on the site.

And the font was originally offered for free until the creator decided to make a living from his art and startedCharging (currently) $2.59 for download. Marshall also offers a commercial license for the font upon request. And it is, in fact, a relatively commonly used Lovecraft font: Chaosium ended up using their own font in several releases, and Cyanide Studios licensed the font for the PS4 game.Call of Cthulu.

A few years ago, Marshall discovered that some of the glyphs he created were similar to those in another Lovecraft alphabet, so he updated the font to version two, which is now available online. However, the graphic captured by Dial M for Maple is the first version of the font, and if you compare it to the Jughead-supported map, it has extremely similar glyphs, with one exception:Riverdaleapparently changed the "H" to the "K". Therefore, the podcast reads it as "TGH" instead of "TGK," which is what those letters actually indicate.

Otherwise, the fonts are identical, right down to the "S" embossed on Archie's side. So if you are looking for a good key to use in the future, the table above will be your guide. however, with the caveat that some of the lyrics might change here and there.

By the way, there is a small asterisk here. When Decider reached out to Marshall for the source, not only was he not watchingRiverdale, he was unaware of the font's apparent use, and the production had not applied for a commercial license at the time.

But good news: While putting this story together, Warner Bros. was made aware of the issue and as a result, the Legal Department contacted Marshall and resolved the matter. Though the details weren't released, Marshall seemed happy with the solution. And this also seems to confirm that the Cthulhuian script is indeed the one used (or is a direct inspiration) in the show. So congratulations to Warner Bros. for doing the right thing here... TV production companies often seem to err on the side of "well, we're just giving the artist the attention", so it's nice to see them admitting a mistake and in this case do things right.

Oh, and good decoding.

Riverdaleairs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW

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