A Traveling Trunk is a mobile chest, a variant of golems. It can hold your items like a chest, follow you like a pet (and then some!), and be picked up like a golem.
The traveling trunk takes minimal damage from fire and is immune to fall damage. It can be hurt by other attacks, but it can also heal itself slowly, or be healed more quickly by feeding it.
It can be left clicked with a golemancer's bell to pick it up.
Thaumonomicon Entry[]
"Mobile Luggage"
Creation[]
Infusion recipe
Infusion recipe:
Center Pedestal: Hungry Chest
Other Pedestals: Iron Ingot, 2 Greatwood Planks, Wooden Golem
Aspects Needed: Iter x 4, Motus x 4, Spiritus x 4, Vacuos x 16
Upgrades[]
Each Trunk can accept one of the elemental upgrades used for golems, with each element giving a different enhancement:
- Air: Moves faster.
- Earth: More item slots.
- Fire: Attacks hostile mobs, setting them on fire.
- Water: Nearly invulnerable. In SMP, can only be opened or picked up by the player who placed it.
- Entropy: Sucks in loose items nearby (if it has room for them).
- Order: Can be picked up with its contents. While the trunk's item form does not allow getting at the contents, it can be stored in any inventory, and such trunks can even be nested.
Behavior[]
A traveling trunk will hop after you until it's within a few blocks, then will stay put until you move away. While it does not "roam" like a dog or cat, it is even worse at getting through open doors or gates (unsurprisingly, it can't open them itself). If you enter a building, it is likely to hop blindly against a wall or window, trying for a straight-line path to you. If its following you around (or hopping against a wall) becomes inconvenient, its GUI includes a small button that orders it to stay where it is. Alternatively, it can be picked up with the Golemancer's Bell like other golems, but (with one exception, below) when picked up, it drops its contents.
If you get far enough away, the Traveling Trunk can teleport after you like a dog or cat, but with the same limitation: It will only teleport to solid ground or shallow water, and if you are flying or boating, it can get left behind and stranded in an unloaded chunk. Unlike the pets, the Trunk can even follow you between dimensions (but not from an already-unloaded chunk). It will not teleport if you have told it to stay where it is.
The trunks are quite sturdy, but they can be eventually damaged and even destroyed by repeated attacks or other hazards. Fortunately, they can heal slowly on their own, and can be healed more quickly by right-clicking them with any food, including rotten meat. Their usual hazards include:
- If placed in cramped quarters, they can suffocate in surrounding blocks. Fortunately, this is pretty obvious, and if you can move far enough away for them to start following, they will rapidly extricate themselves.
- They do not avoid lava. While they are quite resistant to fire and lava, they will take damage slowly, and eventually be killed. (However, they can and will swim in water.)
- Unlike golems, they are not immune to the "group attack" effect of the Sword of the Zephyr. If they get in front of you during a fight, their following behavior will put them and keep them in range of your attacks. Their hopping can also put them in the way of arrows or wand attacks, and they can be targeted by shock-focus bolts including "chain lightning".
- While mobs will not target them, they can likewise get in the way of skeleton arrows, creeper blasts, and so on.
Strategy[]
A Traveling Trunk is a major advantage, keeping lots of items handy and secure. Their major catch is that while they are pretty tough, they can get "killed", which dumps their items on the spot. (And they make no attempt at self-preservation.) As above, they can be stranded in an unloaded chunk, but they will teleport to you as soon as their chunk is loaded. They will also follow you between dimensions, and even return to your side when you die and respawn. Used properly, this can let you keep much of your equipment (and whatever you've been mining or gathering) even when you die.
The upgrades add a great deal of functionality to the Trunk. While most of them are basically conveniences (the water upgrade might be more useful in multiplayer or really hazardous environments), the entropy and order upgrades are most powerful:
- The entropy upgrade lets the Trunk sweep up items over a range comparable to your own pickup range. This can be annoying around the base (and especially when working with an Infernal Furnace), but is very handy in the field, for collecting mining and mob drops. If the Trunk is close enough when you die (and has empty space) it might even pickup some of your own dropped inventory before teleporting to your respawn point. (Waiting a few moments at the death screen before you respawn may help.)
- The order upgrade lets you pick up the whole trunk, inventory included. This lets you carry it along when flying or boating (where you might otherwise leave it behind). Alternatively, you can put an Order-enhanced trunk into a chest, another Travelling Trunk, or an Ender Chest. This effectively gives you "folders", for huge amounts of portable storage.
Research[]
- Arbor
- Spiritus
- Iter
| Golemancy | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Bodies | Animation Cores | Upgrades | Other |
Straw, Wood,  Flesh, Clay, Tallow, Stone, Iron, Thaumium
|
Gather, Fill, Empty, Harvest, Guard, Decanting, Butcher, Chop, Fishing, Use, Sorting, Alchemy | Air, Earth, Fire, Water, | Golemancer's Bell, Traveling Trunk, Golem Fetter |