That's just it. You're just making up that a portal to St. Petersburg exists, when far more likely the closest you will be able to get is South Africa and then you have to walk or find another way. An airplane from The U.S. to Russia would be faster.
That's because I'm reducing "entirety of existence" to a globe. If it was Africa that would be like saying that to get to Faerun you have to take a portal to Athas. That doesn't work. You aren't taking a portal to Faerun then.
Doesn't mean that it is, either. But yeah, if you can just whip up a portal to close to your destination(unlike Sigil), then portals are probably better, assuming the cost to activate the portal isn't prohibitive.
Somewhere on the continent of Faerun is fairly close to your destination when you are starting in a different reality and your destination is somewhere in Faerun.
You do realize that prime material plane is huge, right? So you take a portal from Sigil to Mazteca. Then you're stuck. Or maybe the portal is to Waterdeep, but you're trying to get to the planet H'Catha. And that's if you even know the portal exists AND is still there and hasn't wandered off.
Are you stuck? Or can you take an airship that you built on the other side from Mazteca to wherever you were going. I mean, you are already talking about people (obviously not the adventurer, but someone has to do it first) building a spelljammer, so why not build a cheaper and less contained version, for taking you from this place you are stuck at?
And why are you going to Abeir-Toril if you want to get to H'Catha, seems like that would be a rather silly thing to do. And I don't see any reason that there are multiple known portals to Abeir-Toril, where the majority of the people with trade empires live, and none on H'Catha, whatever that is and whyever you want to go there. I mean, you know about it, so someone had to have gone there first, likely from Abeir-Toril, so they have a method of arriving there.
You've never heard of explorers? Or colonists? And D&D isn't the real world.
Explorers who looked for gold and raw resources for trade? Colonists who conquered and subjected land to turn the raw resources into avenues for trade? I would have accepted refugees, but they are far more likely to look for "anywhere but here" before seeking out the unknown. DnD might not be the real world, but people's motivations don't suddenly stop existing just because they are inconvenient. I doubt you'd find any famous explorer who didn't look for something that could make them rich.
The mountains of gems and gold that they brought with them? Unique skills? Whatever. Doesn't really matter. This is a game of the imagination. Use yours and you can come up with lots of ideas.
Like somehow imagining people building a generation ship would waste cargo space on gold and gems that are utterly worthless? Something built to travel for "until we hit something" isn't going to waste space on things they don't need.
That would be stupid. They're going down to the planet and at the same time they will be sending out scout ships to see what else is around.
Because splitting your forces and resources when claiming your new home isn't a terrible idea, or kicking the hornets nest of announcing yourselves while you still have no idea what is beneath you or have any sorts of defenses. And how do we know that they have functioning scout ships?
Yes MAx, I can make up and handwave things to make you right. But I can also say "no, that doesn't make any sense" and that isn't a failure of imagination on my part, that is looking at the challenges of making a vessel that can support life indefinetly and two thousand year old technology and putting myself in the shoes of the builders and the leaders of that ship and realizing that your ideas don't make sense. You know, playing the role.
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