Thanks for this informations about the lore.
I know we discussed about these runes in many threads but to be honnest I didn't really knew how it worked.
If I try to focus on mechanics, I think we should be able to fast travel from nearly everywhere like we could.
A short exemple but I have to admit that I would be annoyed if I had to walk from the grove to the closest runes to fast travel. Let's be honnest it's just a waste of time and the only consequences is that you have to walk. It's not an interresting consequences whatever we're talking about the broken rest mechanic or anything else.
It's a bit less immersion breaking but it's still not really how it should work in the FR and from a QoL point of view, it's not good at all.
That's why I really think those runes shouldn't be THE thing to fast travel.
Of course we could find some runes arround the world that could work exactly like in your summary.
I.e to go from the hag's lair to the underdark or why not from a secret room in the druid grove to the swamp...
But "common" fast travel should work like (fast) travelling and the beautifull worldmap would do the job perfectly. It's 100% ok with the lore, it's 100% ok with the immersion, it's 100% ok for our quality of life.
There was more to the portals for 4e where the creator could adjust differences like only a certain race can enter and some other versions. I didn't want to get into full details.
I think they should be separated and portals should be used how I said while fast traveling you can click on the map for a certain town / location and time passes for how far it is. This would be my ideal setup but I really doubt it'll come.
