Curious Chests

Curious Chests

Curious Chests is a storage-focused mod that gives the familiar Minecraft chest a few unusual ideas.

Instead of building one large storage network, the mod adds ten special chests, each designed around a different purpose. Some collect items, some sort them, some protect them, and some do things a normal chest probably should not be able to do at all.

No required dependencies and no complicated storage networks. Every chest works on its own and is built to fit naturally into normal Minecraft storage.

Note: Some interfaces, textures, and visual elements are still work in progress and may be improved or changed in future updates.

Currently available for Forge 1.21 and NeoForge 1.21.1.

Features

10 unique chests with their own storage mechanics
Automatic item collection, sorting, transport, and restocking
Specialized storage for books, potions, mobs, and large stockpiles
Remote item transport without cables or storage networks
Storage protection with intrusion tracking
Designed to stay close to Minecraft's vanilla storage style
No required external dependencies

About the Chests

Every chest is built around one clear idea.

Some are practical. Some are strange. A few are probably best left unsupervised.

Storage Chest

Built for the point where “just one more double chest” stops being a reasonable storage plan.

The Storage Chest has 63 slots, and most stackable items can reach 256 items per slot. Items that normally do not stack still behave normally.

You can also place an item on the front of the chest as a display, making large storage rooms a little easier to read.

Four stacks pretending to be one. Perfectly normal chest behavior.

Infernal Chest

There is something furnace-shaped inside this chest, although nobody seems to have installed a fuel slot.

Items placed into its input section are automatically smelted without fuel, with finished items stored separately inside the chest.

If the output fills up, finished items are pushed out through the front.

There is one important detail: items that cannot be smelted are not returned.

The Infernal Chest is not particularly interested in refunds.

Ender Dispatch Chest

A chest for people who enjoy storage rooms but do not enjoy putting things into them.

The Ender Dispatch Chest sends its contents into nearby storage within 8 blocks.

It prefers containers that already contain the same kind of item, allowing it to act as a simple automatic sorting point. If no matching storage is available, it looks for somewhere else with room.

It also recognizes some of the other Curious Chests: enchanted books are preferentially sent to an Archivist's Chest, while potions can be routed into a Witch's Chest.

Put things in. They become somebody else's organizational problem.

Builder's Chest

A good building session should not end every sixty-four blocks.

Keep building materials inside a Builder's Chest and, while you are within 24 blocks, it watches the item in your selected hotbar slot.

When that stack runs out, the chest can automatically refill the same slot with matching blocks from its storage.

No inventory opening. No running back to the supply pile. Just keep placing.

The foreman has noticed your hotbar is empty.

Collector's Chest

Dropped something?

The Collector's Chest probably noticed before you did.

Items dropped within 8 blocks are pulled toward the chest and collected automatically. The attraction follows the world rather than simply teleporting items through solid walls.

Place another compatible inventory directly underneath and the Collector can gradually feed collected items into it. A redstone signal can pause this downward output when needed.

If it is on the floor, it is apparently storage now.

Sculk Sentinel Chest

The Deep Dark has a fairly memorable approach to home security.

A Sculk Sentinel Chest belongs to its owner. Other players cannot simply open it, take it, or quietly break it while nobody is looking.

Unauthorized visitors are remembered in an Intrusion Log, including whether they tried to open or break the chest.

Trying the lid earns a warning. Trying to break the chest is taken considerably more seriously and may attract — or summon — a Warden to deal with the problem.

It saw everything.

Resonant Chest

Amethyst remembers where it learned to resonate.

Place a Resonance Crystal into a Resonant Chest to attune it. That crystal can then be used in another Resonant Chest, linking the two together.

Items placed into the sending chest are transferred to the chest stored in its crystal's resonance.

The connection is not limited by normal distance and can continue across dimensions. If the destination is temporarily unloaded, deliveries can wait for it rather than forcing the chunk to stay loaded.

Break and replace the destination, however, and its old resonance is gone.

Same note. Very different coordinates.

Archivist's Chest

For the inevitable chest full of enchanted books that nobody wants to organize manually.

The Archivist stores regular and enchanted books, and identical enchanted books can stack up to 64.

It also contains a special cataloguing slot. Place an enchanted book with several enchantments inside and the Archivist can separate it into individual books — one enchantment at a time — before filing them into storage.

Sneak and interact with the chest to open the Archivist's Index, showing which enchantments and levels are currently stored.

Everything has a shelf. Even Sharpness III.

Witch's Chest

Potions have never been especially cooperative with normal storage.

The Witch's Chest is made specifically for them. Drinkable, splash, and lingering potions can be stored inside, with identical potions stacking up to 16. Glass bottles and dragon's breath are welcome too.

There is also something brewing beneath the lid.

Leave the chest alone for a while — usually somewhere between 2 and 10 minutes — and its brew will become ready. Sneak and use an empty glass bottle on the chest to draw a random vanilla potion from it.

Then the brewing begins again.

Nobody remembers putting that potion in there.

Trapper's Chest

A copper cage that decided cages were taking up too much space.

The Trapper's Chest searches for nearby creatures within 5 blocks and can pull them inside, storing up to 9 creatures at once.

Captured creatures can be viewed and released individually from the chest interface.

Players and a few creatures that really should not fit inside a chest — such as Wardens, Withers, and the Ender Dragon — are ignored.

If you need to move the collection, sneak while breaking the chest and the creatures inside will remain packed with it.

Nine slots. Zero questions.

Storage Without the Storage Network

Curious Chests is not designed to replace Minecraft storage with a separate technology system.

Each chest is simply another tool you can place into an ordinary base and use where it makes sense.

Use one of them. Build a room around all ten. Or give the Trapper's Chest to a friend and refuse to explain what it does.

Development

Updates will be released as the mod continues to grow, and community feedback is highly appreciated.

If you find a bug, have an idea for another curious chest, or just want to follow development, join the Discord server.

Support

If you enjoy Curious Chests and want to support development, you can do so here:

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