Arelith

So a brand new character walked off the boat from Cordor to the Surface service, and immediately was told she had earned two portals.
Heading back to Cordor confirmed that one of these was in the bramble woods and the other was in... Brogenstine? Despite never having activated either of those and not gone anywhere near there.

Equally one of my existing characters is utterly unable to accept the bramble woods portal near Cordor. No matter how many times she touches it, it isn't on her list of destinations.

New character may have some existing portal entries if the player is recreating a character with the same name without waiting for a server reset. I wonder if that's the case?

Nope. Brand new character. Not remade, not reusing an old name.Also it was a pretty random pair of portals, too!