Traps

Throughout the biomes you will sometimes find wands and (rarely) flasks on a trap pedestal. When the item is taken, the pedestal will emit a pulse of electricity that travels along a "wire" of steel material towards an emitter. If the emitter receives the electricity it will trigger one of a few effects. Note that emitters can be triggered by any source of electricity, such as the Electricity Perk and electrical spells.
 * Acid traps will appear as an empty room surrounded be brickwork with the wand pedestal in the center, and will send out a Circle of Acid spell when triggered.
 * Material traps will appear as a brickwork "tub" filled with certain materials and have two either fire or electric emitters somewhat buried in the ground on either side of the material, usually a liquid. The trap pedestal will be partially submerged in the respective material. Electric emitters will for example appear in a pool of water and will send out regular pulses of electricity once triggered, while fire emitters will ignite pools of oil or gunpowder.
 * Already active electric emitters may also spawn in the Snowy Depths as part of a "trap puzzle," where the player has to find a way to electrify a nearby metal capsule containing a wand, a rock blocking its opening, and a wood support under the rock. Connecting the electrical trap to the metal capsule with a conductive material will ignite the wood inside, allowing the rock to fall and opening access to the wand. Players can also either electrify the metal themselves or dig through the metal with the appropriate spell or acid.
 * They will also spawn randomly with no notable connection to another structure.
 * Potion traps looks very much like material traps, but instead of using emitters will simply be filled with various potions that have often undesirable effects, such as Teleportatium or Chaotic or Regular Polymorphine. Precise levitation may allow the player to take the wand without touching the liquid, otherwise the liquid should be drained first. Note that while players may potentially be fine with dealing with the consequences of teleportatium (such as having the biome sufficiently cleared), being polymorphed prevents item pickup.

Tips

 * You can disarm most traps by kicking the emitters or cutting the metal wire. Spells can also destroy them. However, traps will act in certain ways when destroyed, and not all are exposed enough to kick or shoot.
 * Acid trap emitters when destroyed will send out the Circle of Acid spell anyways, and will initially leak acid when damaged. This will happen even if the emitter was triggered previously. Fortunately acid trap emitters are almost always exposed enough to kick.
 * Lightning trap emitters will turn into a ball of electricity that explodes after a few seconds much like the Explosion of Thunder spell.
 * Fire trap emitters will leak Whiskey fumes when damaged and will explode when damaged enough.
 * Traps that emit Electric Arc into a pool of water can be easily avoided by hovering out immediately after closing the wand menu. Conversely, the player can simply drain the liquid first as the trap will not trigger until the item is taken, or if oil or gunpowder, ignite the material first..