For the life of me I can't figure out how to display controllable entities on a map. I don't know whether to blit them to the screen, use showpage(), render, I don't know. I can't find anything in the FAQs, manual, or forum that makes it clear as to what the proper (normal?) way is of having a user player show up on the screen.

I've looked at the manual and I know the proper functions are in there to do this I just don't know in what order and what functions to use.

Thanks in advance.

Indeed. By default, you don't actually have to do much to put some entities on screen, though you do need to prep them as CHR files.

Demos that might assist you, off the top of my head:

Glambourine's Demon Lord Adventure
http://verge-rpg.com/files/detail.php?id=727

I think my piss poor pacman clone was fairly simple, too.
http://verge-rpg.com/files/detail.php?id=723

You don't actually have to mess around with most of the other commands unless you're stepping outside the bounds of the built-in map system.