A deck of TotNT terms tvN released via their official Twitter account. Contains mild spoilers.
The Red Umbrella (붉은 우산)
Lee Yeon’s signature umbrella with flowers embroidered on one side. Imbued with Yeon’s strength, the umbrella itself is quite powerful and when used to hunt yogwe it transforms into a black saingeom. It also contains beautiful memories of his past with Ah Eum. While originally an oil paper umbrella, he’s now using it converted into a modern form.
Fox Ridge (여우고개)
Also known as Road 144. It’s long been the site of accidents. 21 years ago, in 1999, Ji Ah’s parents went missing here.
Yeou Nui (여우누이)
A yogwe that appeared in EP01. She’s wanted by the Afterlife Bureau for the crime of having eaten her adoptive parents’ and brothers’ livers. She can change her appearance and is skilled at hiding her identity. However, dreaming of a future with the one human man she sincerely loves, she’s executed on her wedding day by Lee Yeon. She could have fled, but she throws her life away for a single moment with the man she loves.
Compulsory Military Service (병역의 의무)
In exchange for the rebirth of Ah Eum, the woman he loved in the past, Lee Yeon signed a contract to punish those who throw the boundary between this world and the next into chaos. As yet unable to meet Ah Eum’s reincarnation, he’s currently on his 600th year of compulsory military service. However, upon discovering that Ji Ah is Ah Eum reborn, his contract was finally ended.
‘In Search of Urban Legends’ (도시 괴담을 찾아서)
A current affairs and culture programme for which Ji Ah is the main production director. It’s a programme that ferrets out modern-day mysterious urban legends, like that of ‘Gonjiam.’ Shin Joo also works as a veterinarian consultant for the show. Yeon is an avid fan of the programme and has previously posted a comment that the reaper’s attire was inaccurate.
n.b. Gonjiam is a former psychiatric hospital located in Gwanju, Gyeonggi-do, and is purportedly one of Korea’s most haunted locations. It featured in a horror movie released in 2018.
Mint Chocolate Chip (민트초코)
Lee Yeon’s favorite thing,* mint chocolate chip ice cream. With its sensuous hue and fresh taste, it has captured Lee Yeon’s taste buds. The food staple he enjoys more than rice.
*n.b. As a fun language aside, the word used here (최애템) is a mashup of the Korean word ‘favorite/most loved’ (최애) and the English loan word ‘item’ (아이템) – pronounced ‘choi-ae-tem’. So what it literally says is ‘Lee Yeon’s choiaetem ice cream.’
Eunhye (은혜)
Having to repay the eunhye they incur is a restriction imposed upon foxes as a species. Even the eunhye owed for a trifling extra bit of ice cream becomes a debt that Lee Yeon must one day repay. The bigger the eunhye, the larger the price the fox has to repay.
The Mokjangseung (목장승)
The old man, blind in one eye, who saved Ji Ah from the Bus 1002 Accident. In reality, he’s a mokjangseung (wooden totem) that stands beside the sacred tree in the vicinity of Fox Ridge. He goes around carrying the makgeolli that’s been offered to him as tribute.
Bus 1002 Accident (1002번 버스 사고)
The incident in which Lee Rang–transformed into the female high-school student Soo Young–killed everyone on the bus. The hiker couple Rang killed first are the parents of a man Rang had previously met at the Moze Department Store fountain. When the man told Rang that there was someone he wanted to marry but his parents opposed the match, Rang said he would grant the man’s wish, which he fulfilled by killing the disapproving parents.
The Leather Bag (가죽 가방)
Something Ji Ah tossed to Lee Yeon. She said it was so that he could get her business card, but actually, it was to lift Yeon’s fingerprints, which were left on the bag.
The Anesthetic (마취제)
Something Ji Ah used when she caught Lee Yeon. It came from Shin Joo’s vet clinic. When he learnt this, Shin Joo repented, promising Yeon to do a better job of keeping an eye on his things.
The Skull (머리해골)
The skull Ji Ah’s parents dropped in the dream the bulgasari showed her. It’s revealed to be the head of Eohwa Island resident Seo Gi Chang due to the skull’s gold front tooth. Since there is truth mixed into the dreams bulgasari show people, Ji Ah takes this as a clue connected to her parents’ whereabouts and heads to Eohwa Island.
The Bulgasari (불가살이)
A legendary creature said to appear when the world is in chaos. He likes iron and subsists on nightmares. In the past, he was apprehended by Lee Yeon while committing a crime and imprisoned by the Afterlife Bureau. (At the time of his arrest, he cried and pleaded with Yeon, saying he’d wash his hands [of feeding off humans].) After recently completing his sentence and being released, he fell for Lee Rang’s enticement. Told the people around the broadcast station had variety to their nightmares, he began working there as a private security guard while sending people nightmares mixed with truth. After reacting to the coins Ji Ah had thrown and revealing his true form, he’s caught by Lee Yeon. He’s as weak to cold as he is strong to heat, so Yeon kept him in the fridge.
Eohwa Island (어화도)
A small island in the Yellow Sea. The town is largely made up of elderly people, and there are hardly any youths. After the Korean War, a group of non-natives moved in; none of the villagers has any relatives or relations on the mainland. In truth, they’re followers of Imoogi led by the mudang and each house has a shamanistic painting of a legless Dragon King on display. In the end, they all throw themselves into the well for the sake of Imoogi’s rebirth.
The Tree Spirit (소녀 정령)
A spirit in the form of a young girl who has protected the forest and town on Eowha Island. Though she appears young, she’s lived long enough to have seen Yeon during his time as a mountain god. While she knew that a group with corrupted energy had come to the island just after the Korean War, by that time she was in a weakened state since the island’s natives who had attended her had disappeared, so there was nothing she could do. She had been bound by a rope imbued with people’s prayers and unable to leave, but Ji Ah cuts the rope, freeing her. In exchange for her freedom, she tells Ji Ah of the existence of Jangsan Cave, a clue to find her parents.
Jangsan Cave (장산 사굴)
A small cave located on Eohwa Island. In the past, Ji Ah’s mother repeatedly dreamt of this place while pregnant with her and sought out Jangsan Cave with Ji Ah’s father.
The Milky Way (은하호)
The boat Seo Gi Chang and the other three fishermen worked on. The boat capsized in a storm and, after 28 days, only three of the crewmen who had been on the lifeboat miraculously returned.
The Mudang (무당)
As the descendant of a family that has served Imoogi for generations, she has maintained the appearance of a middle-aged woman despite being very old. She hid a piece of Imoogi inside the well and conducted ancestral rites, sacrificing the blood of women born in the year of the sheep on Baek Joong Nal while awaiting his resurrection. Told that Ji Ah is a ‘special child,’ she tries to offer her up as a sacrifice but is struck down by a lightning bolt called down by an enraged Yeon and burns away to dust.
Evening Primrose (달맞이꽃)
Evening primrose that has grown feeding on the blood and flesh of corpses is the same as poison to gumiho; if they so much as touch its powder, their bodies catch flame.
Gold Eyes & Tails (금안과 꼬리)
Two characteristics that manifest when Lee Yeon uses his powers: the golden eyes and flame-like tails.
The Magistrate (사또)
A native Asiatic black bear and mountain god from Mt Guweol. Though his words and movements are lethargic, his strength is immense. He’s assumed responsibility for the Folk Village yogwe in order to ensure that yogwe who have found it increasingly difficult to live hidden in the human world as the ages pass can at least maintain their natural forms. His sensitivity about money is proportional to the large number of mouths he’s in charge of feeding, and he actively promotes all the various Folk Village events. As befitting an Asiatic black bear who hibernates in winter, he doesn’t drink iced drinks. He’s best friends with Lee Yeon, but every time they meet, they end up having a fight to determine whose strength is greater. He possesses the mountain god’s treasure, ‘the Mirror of the Moon,’ which can deflect all power in existence.
The Fortune Teller (점쟁이)
From the outside, he looks like your quintessential conman, using an app to tell people’s fortunes. But in truth, he’s a true fortune-teller who, with blind eyes, can see the fate of all of creation, even in pitch darkness. He carries a pouch that contains all the treasures that have disappeared from the world. The Dokkaebi‘s Hat, the Tiger’s Eyebrows, he carries many of the treasures of lore, but in order to strike a deal with the Fortune Teller, you must offer up that which is most precious to you. In order to regain Lee Yeon, Ji Ah hands over the Fox Bead, and her fate changes. Later, the Fortune Teller’s true identity is revealed..
The Fortune Teller’s Prophecy (점쟁이의 예언)
“Water and fire vie on par, earth is clouded, but metal will subdue it, so though darkness should surround you,* a moon rises in your sky.”
*Literally: ‘all four directions, heaven and earth.’
The Tiger’s Eyebrows (호랑이 눈썹)
Glasses that show you a person’s past life. If you put on the glasses and look in a mirror, you can see your own past life. Ji Ah, who had received the glasses from Lee Rang, goes into shock when she sees that her past life was Ah Eum and that Lee Yeon had been the one to kill her.
The Chinese Lantern Plant (꽈리)
The fruit of the Chinese lantern plant at the president’s house actually contains the bodies and souls of human beings. The reason the president has been able to stay alive since the Goryeo Era is because he’s been consuming these fruits to extend his lifespan. If you eat one, you not only absorb the person’s lifespan but are able to see their memories. In the past, Lee Rang had been cut down by Lee Yeon and, thinking he had been abandoned, had given up on living. But he consumed the Chinese lantern fruit the president had given him which forced him to incur a debt of eunhye.
Eodukshini (어둑시니)
A yogwe who, in the past, assumed the form of a peddler selling baubles and in the modern era has assumed the form of a green juice ajumma.* She goes about the human world asking people what they fear most and plunging them into an illusion of their worst trauma. Her name is Eodukshini. The things Eodukshini shows you are an illusion, but the wounds one sustains in her world of illusion are reflected in the real world. The Snail Bride’s husband was swept up in one of Eodukshini‘s illusions and, attacked by one of the tigers he so feared, was mauled to death. She despises the ‘named’ yogwe who are loved and talked about by humans and is working to make people once more aware of her existence, which is being forgotten.
*n.b. a middle-aged woman
Imoogi (이무기)
An evil god born long ago in a cave where plague victims were disposed of. He instinctively despises all that lives. In the past, he entered the body of the king who was Ah Eum’s father and brought devastation to both the land and the people. Targeting Lee Yeon, he entered Ah Eum’s body and met with death, but he’s resurrected on Eohwa Island and appears in the modern-day. Scales appear on the bodies of those Imoogi possesses, marking them. Currently, those scales are appearing on Ji Ah’s body, as well.
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