How can I have my luggage do the laundry?

Question

We know how to have our luggage box follow us: we need True Polymorph on a chest of pearwood, in which we have fixed a portable hole to some kind of tongue appendage, so it has space to stow everything. But now our luggage lacks a few crucial parts still. Combat stats our newly formed intelligent pearwood box can learn on its own. However, we still need a solution for the most crucial part of our running Luggage:

items of laundry stuffed in will also come out cleaned, pressed, and smelling faintly of lavender.

Is there a way to give Luggage this iconic ability to do the laundry on the fly?

Answer 1

This seems more like a custom magic item.

Doing your laundry is basically the cleaning function of prestidigitation, which isn't autonomous, but...

Rather than trying to construct a Luggage out of a bunch of layered spells and items, this seems like a custom magic item that you'd want to craft. It's basically a walking Handy Haversack with a larger interior space, and once you're at that point, a few extra minor functions like doing your laundry shouldn't really add anything to the cost of crafting the item.

Very Rare seems about right for a Luggage that just carries your things, always has what you wanted right on top*, and does your laundry for you. If you want it to be able to attack as well, then you're probably well into Legendary territory, and the Luggage as seen in the books is clearly an artifact since it can warp space and time to follow its master absolutely anywhere. Sapient Pearwood is not to be underestimated.

*The Luggage in Discworld appears to have many extradimensional spaces, and presents whichever one is most appropriate at the moment, whether it's the one with folded clothes, or an empty box to throw a monster into. While it's not exactly the Handy Haversack's ability to always have what you want on top, it's close enough for me.

Answer 2

You need a living unseen servant.

The spell unseen servant allows you to conjure a servant capable of performing the desired task:

The servant can perform simple tasks that a human servant could do, such as fetching things, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine.

Now, the spell only lasts an hour, and ends if your command takes the servant more than 60 feet away from you. It is up to the DM how far away another plane is from your current position, and if going into the pocket dimension of a portable hole would end the spell. However, there is a permanent version of the spell that will be able to live inside a portable hole. The living unseen servant featured in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage performs tasks as described in the spell, is permanent, and has the Constructed Nature trait:

Areas of wild magic and sites that have been ravaged by powerful eldritch forces can give rise to spell effects that refuse to dissipate. These so-called living spells haunt the places where they were created, subsisting on ambient magical energy.

Constructed Nature. A living spell doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.

So it will survive just fine inside the portable hole. The challenge here is finding a player-facing method of obtaining a living unseen servant, but you should be able to work with the DM to obtain one or somehow make the spell permanent. Since you mention true polymorph, you may be able to just use it to create a living unseen servant out of some appropriately sized mundane object:

Object into Creature. You can turn an object into any kind of creature, as long as the creature’s size is no larger than the object’s size and the creature’s challenge rating is 9 or lower. The creature is friendly to you and your companions. It acts on each of your turns. You decide what action it takes and how it moves. The GM has the creature’s statistics and resolves all of its actions and movement.

If the spell becomes permanent, you no longer control the creature. It might remain friendly to you, depending on how you have treated it.

Finally, the servant will need soap (lavender preferred), a basin, a washboard, and fresh water. All you need to do is periodically change out the water and soap. Given the size of a portable hole, there should be plenty of room for all your other stuff.

Answer 3

Create Homonculus

The owner of the Luggage could provide a homunculus via create homunculus from Xanathar's Guide to Everything:

The statistics of the homunculus are in the Monster Manual. It is your faithful companion...

In this way, the Luggage would contain a faithful companion construct of the owner that could launder and lavender the clothing inside if provided with the necessary materials (clothes, cleaning supplies, lavender).

Wish the Luggage an internal friend.

Use wish to cast create homunculus with the added provision that the Luggage is considered the caster. It is mostly aligned with the standard wish uses in that it is producing the effect of a lower level spell. The added twist is the effective caster change.

Answer 4

An idea from Caverns and Creatures by Robert Bevan, fill the chest with water, throw all your dirty manky clothes in and let them get good and soaked, then cast some variant of a purify spell like purify food and drink

This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. This spell does not prevent subsequent natural decay or spoilage.

The water, maybe with a little soap, gets the dirt off of things. Then the spell magically removes all the dirt and mank and soap from the water and your clean clothes are sitting in clean water.