[RPG] How to one create a permanent walk-through-portal to another location

dnd-5eteleportation

I'm looking for a way to create a permanent portal between two locations (on the same or on different planes, though the latter is more important), without using homebrew (UA is fine) or relying on DM adjudication.

The portal should be similar to the one created by the Gate spell, as in "one can simply walk through" – unlike permanent teleportation circles, which make it easy to travel to a specific place, but require you to cast the spell yourself first. I don't care if it looks like a portal from the Portal series, or if it's a magic tree. If it gets you from A to B, you can walk through, and don't have to cast a teleportation spell yourself first, it's fine.

Is there any spell, item, ability or other feature that allows regular player characters the creation of such a portal?

If there's nothing in 5e allowing this (maybe it's not possible for mortals since the Spellplague?), references to earlier versions are welcome.

Best Answer

There is a wondrous legendary magic item (described in the DMG) called the Well of Many Worlds which would probably fit your purposes. The text of this item is:

This fine black cloth, soft as silk, is folded up to the dimensions of a handkerchief. It unfolds into a circular sheet 6 feet in diameter.

You can use an action to unfold and place the well of many worlds on a solid surface, whereupon it creates a two-way portal to another world or plane of existence. Each time the item opens a portal, the GM decides where it leads. You can use an action to close an open portal by taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Once well of many worlds has opened a portal, it can''t do so again for 1d8 hours.

Importantly the portal it creates has no time limit. This means that, so long as it remains unfolded, the portal will stay open indefinitely.

The downside to this item is that you (as a player) don't have control of where it goes. If you are the DM you do have control over where it will open up, and you could modify the item to make it only open to a specific location (or be linked to another specific copy of that item).

The other primary issue is that the Well of Many Worlds connects different planes and different worlds, not necessarily two locations on the same world.