Portal

Portals were permanent teleporation effects that linked many places in and outside Toril, including other planes and planets.

The portal itself was completely intangible.

Description
A portal was a two-dimensional, often 15 feet (4,6 meters) circle, but not limited to it both in size and shape, area that was both intangible and invisible. Due to this, a freestanding archway of some kind usually was built to identify the location of a portal, so those who could not detect magical auras did not stumble into them accidentally. It was impossible to visually find out a portal's destination. For example, sticking the head into that field to find out the destination was impossible for touching a portal activated it.

One way to find out the location of a portal was to cast detect magic. The magical aura of a functional portal was much stronger than that whose uses were completely exhausted. Finding more about a portal required an analyze portal spell.

Powers
Portals were magical transportation devices. When somebody touched the two-dimensional field, That person was affected by a greater teleport effect towards a pre-set destination. This was the reason why the "sticking the head through"-method to find out the destination. Creatures could enter and be transported by a portal, as long as they could pass through them, and objects could not. For example, one could not shoot arrows through a portal, they would not just pass through, but bounce off. An exception to this no-object-rule were those objects carried by creatures passing through a portal. However, even this had limit of 850 pounds (386 kilograms) and the definition of "carried" was anything touched. This weight limit had the peculiarity that an object that was touched by several creatures dropped the amount of objects the creatures could carry by its weight for all and not just for one. The limit how many creatures could pass through a portal was the one that the builder created and the usual limit was as creatures as wanted to pass through.

Reputation
A lot of people created portals in Toril's history. Due to the durable nature of this magic, Toril had portals in the hundreds by 1372 DR. However, quite often, the purpose and usage instructions went lost over time alongside their creators. Therefore, portals were considered both mysterious and unpredictable.

Elfgates
The elfgates were portals that could teleport things to and from Evermeet.
 * Elion to Evereska: One side of this gate was on a hill about a mile above the palace of Seiveril Miritar near Elion in northern Evermeet. It was in a broad glade and consisted of three old stone markers. The other side was a plaza in Evereska.
 * Moonwood to Evereska: The Evereskan side of this gate lay high in the northern Shaeradim surrounding Evereska, and consisted of a stone marker covered in Espruar runes beside a waterfall beneath a stone cliff. The other side of the gate linked to a northerly outpost of Sharrven before it became a ruin.

Bakhara Spires
These were teleportation spires created by the Imaskari.

Elemental vortices
Elemental vortices were pathways connecting elemental planes with one another or the Prime Material Plane.

Time gates
Much rarer than normal portals, a few time gates existed throughout Faerûn. They were physically similar to other portals, but transported an individual not through space, but into a different time.