Type Aberration | Image Wizards.com image | |
Stats Open Game License stats | ||
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, the choker is an aberration. It can be used by Dungeon Masters as an enemy or ally of the player characters.
Contents
Publication history
The choker was introduced to the D&D game in the basic edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1999)
The choker first appeared in the accessory The Dwarves of Rockhome (1988), and later in the Creature Catalog (1993).
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)
The choker appeared for the Mystara campaign setting in the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994).
Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 edition (2000-2002)
The choker appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2000).
Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition (2003-2007)
The choker appears in the revised Monster Manual for this edition (2003).
The choker was detailed in Dragon #323 (September 2004), in the "Ecology of Chokers".
The obah-blessed advanced choker appeared in Dungeon #136 (July 2006).
Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008-)
The choker appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2008), including the cavern choker and the feygrove choker.
Description
In the game, chokers usually lair underground. They resemble small (roughly 3 and a half or so feet tall) greyish-black humanoids. Their four limbs are tubular and very flexible, having a snake-like bone structure and a serrated spine. These ophidian limbs, instead of ending in hands or feet, break off into five short tentacles, each of which is toothed and padded. They are usually chaotic evil in alignment.
Society
In Dungeons & Dragons, chokers are solitary, elusive, vicious creatures shrouded in mystery. A choker's only desire in life seems to be to kill those it encounters and run off. Using its padded tentacles it can climb and crawl on almost any surface, and it catches prey by lurking above doorways, archways, staircases, or ceiling corners, or below the rims of wells, and ambushing those who pass within reach. It attacks by reaching or leaping from its hiding space and grappling in order to, as its name suggests, choke the victim. Chokers speak Undercommon.
Other publishers
The choker appeared in Paizo Publishing's book Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary (2009), on page 45.