Materials for crafting magical traps

[quiet riot]

So, I've read through the rules on making magical traps, and I think I understand it well enough; however, I'm still iffy on how one would go about explaining the materials used to create such a trap.

If I understand it right, I can create a fireball trap, the requirements of which are the fireball spell and the alarm spell. The Alarm spell acts as a proximity trigger, if anyone comes within range of it, a fireball goes off. Simple enough.

The question is; what is the physical form of this trap? Is it an enchanted item like a card covered in arcane text, imbued with a bit of magic, or a magic item, like the Stone of alarm? Is it like preparing a ritual, set to trigger under specific circumstances, or just an arcane mark set to unleash a spell if anyone should get too close to it? Does it take weeks like crafting other items, or is it just as long as it takes to cast each spell being used?

[Brf]

You craft the magical trap, just like any other Wonderous Item. Its physical appearance would be up to you.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Brf has the right of it. Just like any magic item you create you can use whatever base material you want. The difference between a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier and a Top Hat of the Fortunate Soldier is aesthetics. All that matters is the rules for identification and disarming don't change (without a feat or something that changes them). Personally, I'd go with dragon head for my fireball trap.

[quiet riot]

So... I pile a bunch of coins together, glued to each other with mud, say some magic gobble, and in a week I'll have a magic trap?

[Bob Bob Bob]

If your magic trap-maker decides his theme is "look how much money I burned to do this, money you'll never get MWUHAHAHAHAHAHA", then sure, a glued together pile of gold sounds hilariously on theme. I'm not sure but presumably you can sell traps just like any other item, provided you can remove them from their location (kind of hard to resell any trap that's merged with the walls/floor).

[daimaru]

And of course, if you glue together a bunch of coins to make your trap, some thief -will- try to grab them before their companions can get their hands on them.