Dueoksini is told in Korean folklore as the leader and most ferocious member of a band of dokkaebi. It marks the dark apex of the otherwise friendly, playful dokkaebi lineage, and unlike its kin is drawn as an outright threat.
What sets it apart is that harmlessness and cruelty run through a single body within one lineage. It is the shape of the violence that can lurk at the far edge of the familiar.